Subject: Re: WotC's LAME TAKE ON LONG CHEATING! Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 10:13:03 -0400 From: Zach Heaven -----Original Message----- From: Chris Trembleton >conclusion that Mike Long made a mistake. Since it was a very serious >mistake, and since this mistake was very disruptive, we punished it very >severely for a mistake(double warning and match loss). Yeah, right. Severly is a relative term, apparently. In the mind of Wizards, Severely seems to be "slap on the hand for a notorious trouble-maker". >Yeah, like we really believe Long had, BY ACCIDENT, a magic card >[Cadaverous Bloom as confirmed by eye-witnesses, the card Catino fails >to mention] that happened to be the key card he needed. Sure! Like >anyone from Andon [read as WotC owned bought and paid for] or WotC's own >direct staff would ban someone from cheating. C'mon Finch and Carl the >puppet - time for your lousy disclaimers about now dontcha think? Maybe >if we get lucky we'll see another "We hate cheating" post on their >propaganda-rag Duelist? There was a question asked by a friend I was playing with at the local store on the situation (who by chance attended Nationals). He said basically: When shuffling your deck, at a tournament, have you ever dropped a card and NOT noticed? The typical answer is not usually. When at a major tournament, have you seen someone shuffle their deck and drop a card and not notice? The answer is probably not. When at a PTQ, Pro Tour, or on a Nationals level, would you expect someone to "accidentally" drop or misplace a KEY card in their deck and NOT notice? The answer is an overwhelming no. Think about it. When riffle shuffling, or fake shuffling (like I'm sure lots of people have perfected), You don't really pay attention to how many cards you have. But most people flat shuffle, which allows you to, in essence, count the number of cards in your deck. About 90% of the time, if I have a card missing, I will notice at this point, and begin my search for it. If it's a Cadaverous Bloom, by GOD I want to find the damn thing so I have a better chance at drawing one for the win. See the flaw in the logic of the obviously biased judges? A little common sense, deductive reasons, and knowledge (that the fact Shlong has been in trouble in every major tournament in the past year or two) of the past would lead you to a much more appropriate solution. Saying "oh yeah, well, I would have gotten mean had it been true" is a bunch of bullshit. That's like trying to justify yourself as an actual valid judge after you've gone and totally fucked up the situation and made a blatantly bad call. Hell this ain't baseball where you have to make split-second decisions regarding the player running towards first base (if he's safe or not). You have time to consider all options, weight the facts, and then conclude that on a PRO-TOUR level at the US NATIONALS someone would actually be headed for the Nationals team with "Cards missing from his deck that he accidentally dropped". YEAH RIGHT. I would be counting my cards, pile shuffling, riffle shuffling, letting my opponent shuffle, cutting, and trying to think out every single play if I were in that situation. Wouldn't you? The whole situation is pathetic. Every time I hear about Schong, I see people post all over STRAT-L, usenet, and the dojo bitching constantly about Long. Every single fucking time. Let's face it -- most of the situations he gets into something happened, and more than likely, he or someone else in the equation was cheating. Since this keeps happening, it is practically ruining Magic. Why would I want to play a game where the cheating isn't regulated, and it runs rampant through the cracks? UGH. -Z