Subject: Should Scouting be made legal? Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:57:52 +1100 From: Dylan Chan To: DCIA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Seeing as there is very little discussion at the moment, I thought I might raise an interesting situation. At worlds the judging staff had a problem with deck scouting and by their own admission found the scouting rule rather hard to enforce. The scouting rule seemed rather pointless. For instance, by the end of the first round almost everyone competitor knew what Team CMU was playing in Rath cycle and it was much the same case with Jon Finkel in the t2 portion. Perhaps Chris has a comment on this? As a result, such reputable judges such as Dan Gray (level 4) one of the 7 level 4's in the world? are lobbying to have the floor rules changed to make scouting legal because it is too hard to enforce as even word of mouth from the few who had seen the decks informed everyone else of who was playing what. This is from my efnet #mtg.log Pym is level 4 judge Dan Gray Poulidor is Manuel Bevand, French Worlds '98 competitor DuskOwl is Scott Johns, PT veteran and Worlds '98 top 8 finalist Degen X is some random mex <---- rhymes [8:59] Scouting is no longer cheating, so don't worry about it :) [9:00] since when pym? [9:00] sept 1 [9:00] At events I'm running, you can scout to your heart's content, so long as you don't get in the way of the staff and/or annoy players. [9:00] ick [9:00] pym.. The DCI god.. [9:01] The whole reason it got pulled isbecause it's impossible to enforce anyways, and because the organizers hate it (space concerns). [9:01] Pym: so, if I finish my match rather quickly, i can go and watch potential opponent's matches, possibly have a peak at their sideboards, etc. that's a tremendous advantage [9:01] so people can stay and watch rounds at pros? [9:01] :( [9:01] pym: are you the dude that jugdes top matches? :) [9:01] DuskOwl: Sure, but we're not about to let you wander on the floor and get in the way :) For those who are wondering, I have not taken the conversation out of context. The discussion continues on quite a ways with Pym justifying his stance and DuskOwl expressing complete incredulation. I should add that Dan Gray is not employed by Wizards of the Coast as such and his comments do not necessarily reflect DCI policy. Yet, the floor rules state that scouting IS unsportsmanlike conduct and punishable. I gathered from the general trend of the discussion that the judges such as Dan Gray, and later Andrea Kunstt (level 3) felt that the scouting rule was too hard to enforce and thus there was little point in trying to enforce it. Where as those opposed to the rules abolishment (Johns) felt that scouting had to be actively discouraged even if it was nearly impossible to do so. Personally I agree with Scott Johns. Anyway, have fun.... Dylan www.ozemail.com/~alexmack