Subject: Re: Mike Long = Cheating Bastard
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 20:09:39 GMT
From: edt@umich.edu (Eric Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy

Andrew C. Lannen (andrewc@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
:       The cards become unrandomized through play.   At the end of a
: game, you might end up with 10 lands and 20 spells in play and in the
: graveyard.  That leaves you with two large, very unrandom clumps.

When you shuffle correctly you it doesn't matter.  You could presort my
deck (i.e. from a deck check) put all the lands at the bottom and all
the spells in alphabetical order.  I don't care.  I shuffle the shit
out my cards each time (just in tournament play of course, in casual
play I don't care if we both mana weave).  If you don't shuffle very
well, of course mana weaving is very tempting method for arranging your
deck.

:       Is this just a pet peeve of yours, or is there an official DCI
: policy against mana-weaving?

The official DCI policy is not clear.  One of the reason I try to argue
my point so strongly is in the hope of the DCI coming out with a more
explicit policy.

By the way, the method of laying out your cards in order before you
scoop them up to shuffle is well known in poker.

This method of cheating is called "culling from discards."

What you do is while playing your cards out you note which cards you
want and in which order.  For example if you are playing sligh, during
the course of a game, you are able to play 2 fireblasts and 6 mountains
out of 20 cards.  When the game is over, you move your hand to grab
first a fireblast, then a jackal pup, then a mountain, next you pick
the 2nd fireblast, then an incinerate and then a mountain, giving
yourself a perfect draw, and then scoop the rest of the cards under
your hand, and then place it on top of your deck.  Shuffle but don't
disturb the top 7 cards, crimp the bottom or bottom, offer the cut and
then use the crimp to recut your stacked cards.

This method can also be used to unclump your lands.

In my opinion, only thing that separates unclumping from deliberate
stacking is a matter of degree.

I believe the official policy on mana weaving from the DCI and WOTC is
that you can stack your deck however you like as long as you do a
trifle of shuffling afterwards, but who can tell for sure?  Maybe the
DCI and WOTC winks at mana weaving because they like to do it
themselves.

It's hard to expect WOTC and the DCI to make reasonable rulings as to
the penalty in the Mike Long case at nationals, when the players can't
even tell for sure what a legal shuffle is.

--- edt