Note: Cathy is being lazy this week. The following article was actually written many months ago for The Duelist at the request of Rob Hahn. What can I say? Rob's no longer there, and this article never saw print.

At the end of my match I stood up, expecting to shake my opponent's hand. He wasn't facing me any longer. With his back half-turned to me, he proclaimed to everyone nearby that my deck was the worst sealed deck he had ever seen. Then he moved quickly to the judge's table, where I met up with the judge's table, where I met up with him and he reluctantly confirmed my match win.

The only funny thing about that incident was that we weren't playing sealed deck. I'm not kidding. The tournament was Florida Regionals 1997. The tournament format was Standard. My opponent willfully compared my carefully constructed deck to a random assortment of cards from a starter deck. He didn't even bother to get out of earshot before insulting me.

Needless to say, I didn't feel great about that tournament experience. Such behavior has progressed from isolated incidents at high-level tournaments to every single DCI-sanctioned match I play. From Class D store events to the tip-top of the Pro Tour, players are being punished by an epidemic of unsportsmanlike behavior.

What causes this sort of behavior? Suggestions on the Internet range from poor breeding to the amount of money made available at the Pro Tour. While those ideas most likely explain a good bit of the unsportsmanlike conduct, I don't think the ultimate solution is to end the Pro Tour or require psychological profiles. It's really much, much simpler than that.

Before I dive into my suggestions, I want to take a minute to discuss unsportsmanlike conduct. Unsportsmanlike conduct is a definition of behaviors that are contained within a definite range, starting with minor offenses such as refusing ing a handshake or complaining after a loss and escalating upward to major offenses like drawing extra cards or physical assault. Some behavior is simply considered bad manners. The rest of it revolves around unethical play.

Bad Manners

Let's start simple. Well-established sports historically have some sort of written or unwritten code of conduct. It is too vague for the DCI simply to say, "Don't act in an unsportsmanlike manner, or you might get a warning". Yet this is how manners have been enforced since the beginning of sanctioned tournaments. When judges and players are given unspecific guidelines like these, it's not surprising that a vast majority of poor conduct goes unpunished.

Another catalyst for bad manners is the affection a growing number of players have for talking non-stop during a match. The players have dubbed this behavior trash talking. The purpose appears to be to distract your opponent so that they will make a mistake. Proponents of trash talking consider it a skill, giving validity to the idea that such behavior is required in order to attain a psychological advantage. Having never tried it, I can't proclaim this to be true or false. Having been on the receiving end of it, I can say that it is definitely one of the rudest behaviors to endure while playing Magic.

How doow do we solve bad manners? The answer is simple: provide all Magic players with a guideline for acceptable behavior during a match. In tournaments where the DCI has jurisdiction, judges should strictly enforce good behavior guidelines. In the fantasy world of polite Magic players, a well-mannered match would contain the following recommendations:

• Arrive to your match on time.
• Shake your opponent's hand and introduce yourself.
• Shuffle your deck thoroughly at the table, and offer it to your opponent. Make sure the deck is legal and unmarked in any way!
• Display your life totals and keep track of your life total and your opponent's. Use only pen and paper.
• Keep your permanents separate and visible at all times.
• Tap your cards a full 90 degrees.
• Keep your hand fanned out at all times.
• Declare each of your phases as it begins.
• Announce your life totals every time they change and confirm them with your opponent.
• Declare all cards you put into play and all uses of effects already in play. Give your opponent time to respond.
• Refrain from talking except to declare phases, spells, effects, life total changes, lands, etc. Play each game at a reasonable speed. The time you take should reflect the number of cards in your hand and total permanents in play.
• After a match, shake your opponent's hand again. Say something encouraging.
• Don't complain about the match!
• De-sideboard, so you won't forget later.

The point of these recommendations is to encourage an honest play environment. When players display such honesty and control, there are ultimately fewer disputes requiring a judge. A player who possesses this level of technical play is completely in control of the game. A player who requires multiple interventions gives control of the game to a judge.

Why enforce good manners and playing habits? Good manners are a sign of respect. Good playing habits indicate a player's willingness to compete in an honest and respectful way. The DCI floor rules mandate respect by calling it sportsmanlike conduct. Such conduct should be heavily enforced via guidelines like the sample I provided above. Strong technical play also helps reduce the threat of unethical play.

Unethical Play

The other half of unsportsmanlike behavior is covered under the concept of unethical play. Unethical play can range from accidents ccidents of careless play to deliberate cheating. Almost all unethical play alters the game reality by creating situations not allowed by the rules of Magic. Most unethical play in tournaments goes undocumented, because most incidents tend to go undetected.

To wit, typical unethical play involves a lapse of rules knowledge. Perhaps one player unknowingly uses a card in an illegal way, and is not caught by an opponent. This mistake compounds over several turns, sometimes allowing simple rules violations to win a game that would be otherwise lost. As rulings on a specific card change, sometimes players are left in the dark and break the rules of the game unintentionally.

Even more disturbing is the trend of "intentional accidental" unethical play. It describes a specific situation where one opponent willfully commits an undetected rules violation in order to gain a game advantage. Most commonly, players who use these unethical play tactics simply allow an opponent to make a disadvantageous play that is against the rules. Allowing your opponent to take 4 damage from an Incinerate is a good example of this.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is the fact that such ethical lapses cannot be proven to be intentional. If either player does not admit to witnessing an error, the judge often has no recourse but to consider it accidental. Since the penaltalties for accidental errors and intentional errors are kept separate, it is no surprise that very few players get caught cheating in this manner. An unethical player could use this to his advantage in every game of every match with virtually no penalty.

What can be done about this sort of cheating? The problem lies first in detecting these errors and second in determining whether they are accidental. The solution to this problem requires the cooperation of the players and the rules.

Players must first condition themselves to play in a strictly controlled way. They must ask their opponents to do the same. This will give an opponent less opportunity to create confusion. Good technical play will also maximize a judge's ability to intervene. Players must take it upon themselves to be well versed in the current rules, in order to detect errors during play.

The rules themselves must be altered to reflect the magnitude of this problem. In the absence of a witness, there can be no evidence of deliberate cheating. Often, the only available evidence is the state of the playing field. By allowing situations to be called "accidents", we have paved the way for zero enforcement against those who break the game reality. There should be consistent penalties applied to the each player in games where the integrity of the match has been compromiseised. The DCI floor rules should explicitly require all players to know the rules of the game. This will make the players, not the judges, responsible for maintining an accurate game reality.