Subject: Cheating Discussion Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 16:45:00 PDT From: "Matt Kirkland" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com {Frank – Please post this article with the other discussions on cheating} Let me begin by saying that I am not on the Pro Tour. I’ve opened piles and piles of crap (which were cleverly disguised as sealed decks) in every PTQ I’ve played in, and because of that I have never qualified for or gone to a Pro Tour. Because I am not a “professional player” or “name player” on the Pro Tour, less than two percent of the people who will read this will know who I am, but please continue reading, as what I have to say is important. I have never met Mike Long, or Justin Schneider, or any other famous player who has a reputation based on rumors of cheating to gain success. However, I have talked to people (in person and over the internet) who have been there every step of the way, so I think that I know enough to share my views and experiences on the subject of cheating. Last weekend I attended a local qualifier for PT Chicago. I opened my usual piece of crap, and dropped out when I got my second loss in the fifth round. I entered a Tempest-Exodus-Stronghold booster draft side tournament, which contained 8 players, with the winner receiving 9 (!) booster packs. My teammate (we draft TSE a LOT) also got his ass kicked in the fifth round, and was playing in the same draft. The seating arrangement was completely random, and my teammate and I were seated beside each other. The quality of players in this particular draft wasn’t too high, and most of the other people had minimal draft experience, so my teammate and I were both expecting to do well. A couple of the other drafters made a few remarks about how we should be watched, because we were sitting beside each other, but nobody really did anything serious, because we all are (hopefully) honest players. The draft begins, and the players beside me decide to pass me three consecutive Rootwallas, followed by an Elvish Fury and then another Rootwalla. I was quite content with drafting what my opponents were sending my way, and passed my teammate a lot of crap. I really couldn’t think of anything that my teammate (or anyone to my left) could put together with the garbage I was sending them. When the pack was finished, I had drafted 8 playable green creatures, 2 playable green spells, 2 Dark Banishings, a Vhati Il-Dhal, and 3 random cards at the end. I was very happy with the draft so far, but my teammate was visibly annoyed at the pile of crap he had (it was almost as good as my sealed deck…). The Stronghold and Exodus packs made my deck incredibly strong, and when the all the cards were drafted, I had a really wicked black/green deck. My teammate went from being incredibly pissed off to being incredibly happy with his cards, and made a mono-blue (!) beatdown deck. The first-round pairings were assigned, and my teammate and I both won without a problem. The second round had my teammate and I facing each other, but since we like competition, we actually glad that we could pound the crap out of each other. Right when we began to play, we were informed by the judge that the guy who lost to my teammate in the first round had been complaining. The guy basically said that it was “convenient” that my teammate had grabbed so many great blue cards that he could make a mono-color deck that was really good. The guy also thought that I had something to do with my teammate’s sweet deck, because I was “conveniently” sitting beside him. This guy was obviously a whiner as well as a cry-baby, as he was only bitching because he got crushed by my teammate. However, what made this even more funny to me was that he sat on the other side of my teammate, and fed him a whole bunch of sweet-ass Stronghold cards, such as 3 Cloud Spirits, 3 Spindrift Drakes, 2 Sifts, and a bunch of other blue stuff. The only thing that made my teammate’s deck broken from Tempest or Exodus was the 4 School of Piranhas, which I passed to my teammate because I was busy drafting my 4 Rabid Wolverines and numerous other fatties. However, the judge knew what she was talking about when she told the guy that there was no reason to believe that my teammate and/or I were cheating. My teammate and I continued playing, splitting the first two games of the match, and looking forward to bragging rights, which we each thought we were going to earn. The third game began by me beating my teammate down and removing any creatures he tried to block with. I beat my teammate down to 5 life fairly quickly, and had four creatures in play. My opponent had a Rootwater Hunter, a Legacy’s Allure with 3 counters on it, a Mind Over Matter, a Horned Turtle, and no hand. I declared my attack, my teammate didn’t do anything, and I attacked with everything I had. My teammate blocked one of my fatties with his Turtle (which died), poked a weenie to death with his Hunter, took my Vhati-Il-Dhal with the Allure, and took 4 damage, putting him at 1 life. I then played and bought-back a Disturbed Burial for another fattie, played it, and told my teammate I was done. He played a Walking Dream and ended his turn. I knew right then that I was screwed, but I knew that my teammate was too. From then on, our turns were always the same. My opponent had no library, due to a number of library manipulation and card-drawing cards such as Sift, Intuition, Merfolk Looter, and Theft of Dreams. On my discard phase, he would always put his Wayward Soul back on top of his deck, so he never drew anything new. My deck contained a bunch of land, a bunch of fattie creatures, one weenie creature, but no removal, no spells, nothing but land and creatures. On my turn, I would attack with the 3 creatures I would always have, which would get blocked by the stolen Vhati or Walking Dream, get poked by the Hunter, or get Vhatied and then poked if they were fat. I only had two weenies, so the best I could ever do would be to have two fatties and two weenies in play at once, and they could all get blocked or poked before any of them killed my opponent (who was still at only 1 life). Every turn would just have to attack and then play the creature or land I drew or Disturbed Burial a creature and play that one. My opponent could not do anything about this, but he could not do any more than one point of damage to me every so often with his Walking Dream. Theoretically, he could kill me by poking me to death with his Hunter by untapping it with Mind Over Matter, but he always was drawing and playing his Wayward Soul, and therefore would never have a hand. I was at 19 life, so he would have needed about 20 minutes to kill my or deck me, and I could have stalled my ass off (I probably would not have though) to make the time that my teammate would have needed even longer. There were less than 5 minutes left in the round, and we were the last game still going, so we just decided to quit, call it a draw, and get on with the next round. Ten minutes later we were ejected for heinous collusion. Heinous collusion is just another way of saying that we were cheating bastards. My teammate is not, nor am I, cheating bastards. We were bored to hell, we knew the game was going to end in a draw in about 3 minutes, and were disappointed that we did not get to laugh at the other guy for losing. Apparently, we were supposed to sit there, doing the same thing turn after turn, for 3 more minutes. Then the judge would come over and tell us that the game was a draw, instead of us just telling the judge that 3 minutes earlier, so that we could get on with the third round. I, my teammate, the other members of our team, and 98 percent of the other people we have talked to think that the whole situation is crap. That’s the DCI for you, I guess. Let me sum up the situation for all of you. When you decide to not sit through the last 3 crappy minutes of an 8-person side draft in Edmonton (all the hell way up here in Canada…), with 9 boosters on the line, you receive an ejection. When you cheat outright in a Pro Tour by top-decking a Cadaverous Bloom from under your leg, with thousands of dollars on the line affecting hundreds of other players, you receive a single game loss. I guess it just sucks to be me. Thanks for listening, Matt Kirkland (Proud member of “Team Wheel”) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com