Subject: Cheating Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 00:46:49 -0700 From: "Christa Stenger" To: First of all, if there is anyone out there who doesn’t understand that Brian Hacker’s post was pure sarcasm, you just don’t get it. Just like the DCI. Second, the DCI really doesn’t much care what we think unless we yell and scream about it. If you’ve ever judged/run a tournament, do you care that little Billy is upset that by your rules the competitors can’t have sleeves? No, you don’t, you’re going to run it the way YOU think is the right way. It’s not a big stretch to see that the same goes for the WoTC crew. It is frustrating when players seem to get away with acts which almost everyone views as ban-worthy cheating. Let’s face it, once is circumstance, twice is ridiculous. The most telling thing about all of these incidents, however, is that these guys are PRO PLAYERS. You and I know that you can’t just go buy a card to replace a ‘lost’ card in a draft, so why the hell would anyone believe that someone who has years of Pro experience would “innocently” do so? Class B events should have a higher standard, not a lower one. Sure, most people understand that WoTC and the DCI have to take into consideration all of the negative ramifications of major rulings such as ejection or banning. However, it sometimes appears that WoTC is sacrificing the integrity of major events by being overcautious. I was at Origins, standing by the Nationals tournament when Long’s card showed up somewhere else besides in his hand, in his library, in his graveyard, or in the play area. Most of the 50 or so people milling around expressed the opinion that Long was cheating. Someone defended his actions with logic: “Why would Mike cheat now? No matter what, he has 1st place going into the Top 8. Why would he risk it?” Others replied that Long was too much in the habit of cheating and couldn’t get out of it or that Long was going for the bragging rights of being undefeated at Nationals. So everyone is thinking that this is another case of clear-cut cheating that isn’t being punished as it should be. However, no matter how I feel about Mike Long (and it isn’t warm and fuzzy) and no matter how often people I respect and trust tell me he cheats, I don’t think that this situation was handled incorrectly by the WoTC officials. When Bryce Currence, Long’s opponent in the questionable match, came up to David Goodnuff, Melissa Lang, and I, we asked him what he thought. Bryce replied that he didn’t think it was all that big a deal to find that a card had dropped out of Long’s deck. What it comes down to is this: the judge found the card on the floor, but didn’t see how it got there. There is absolutely no way the judge could rule that as cheating, no matter what the card was or who the player was. I have found cards on the floor, or under the tablecloth (and other interesting places) more than once, and then had to track down the owner, return their card, and give them a game loss. That is what the tournament rules suggest. So the proper penalty for having a 59 card deck is a game loss. The judge in Long’s case, however, ruled a match loss. This is obviously a harsher penalty, probably because just as obviously the situation was rather suspicious. I would hope that no judge disqualified a player from a major tournament because they had dropped a card and only MAYBE had intentionally put it somewhere that they could get to it when they needed it. Unfortunately, this was not the occasion that most players believe will eventually come to pass: that Mike will get caught cheating incontrovertably, and the DCI will finally have to take action. I can’t remember a Class B event in which I didn’t pass Mike Long or Justin Schneider or Jason Gordon in a less populated area arguing about a ruling made against them with Andrew Finch, Charlie Catino, Jeff Donais, Tom Wylie, or whoever else was the head judge. At Nationals, we were all amazed that Long argued on the tournament floor, then got together down the hall a little later with Andrew Finch, Jeff Donais (who was judging other events), and Peter Adkinson to argue about it some more. We were thinking that he should have appealed the ruling, and gotten the hell out of there being thankful that it wasn’t something worse (such as disqualification). But of course, we’re thinking logically. We see the length and vocality of the protest as suspicious in and of itself; WoTC is too busy trying to calm players down and explain the justness of the rulings that they often end up greasing the squeaky wheel. The lessons I want to learn from playing competitive Magic aren’t that cheating is lucrative or that you can cheat and yell a lot and get your way or that the “star” players can do whatever they want anyway. But I also don ’t want to see judges handing out disqualifications with no real proof of cheating. It really sucks that in the past, when WoTC judges have caught various Pro players in rather obvious acts of cheating, they have given little or no penalties. Now we have a bunch of spoiled players who throw tantrums and get their way and we’re all so sick of it that Brian Hacker can joke about taking up cheating and we all know that it probably would be more lucrative if he did. The up side is that everyone who knows Brian knows that his reputation has never been called into question and that he wouldn't cheat. As long as there are players like Brian and Randy Buehler and Chris Pikula, there’s still going to be a lot of respect for the integrity of the game. And hopefully, if players yell and scream as much as the accused do, WoTC officials will clue in and start handing out the penalties that match the cheating. Christa Stenger