Through no fault of Erik's, his article did not get to me in time for his Friday publishing. So here it is, a special Saturday article to discuss his input on cheating. -- Trick

Hopefully everyone has watched Trick and Lee’s episode this week. There is some good advice there and I think they did a great job in helping honest players while not helping the dishonest ones. If everyone would pay more attention to the game instead of their friends or iPods, there would be many less opportunities for the cheaters to ply their trade.

I would also like to thank them for hammering the one thing that everyone should do when there is a question about what’s happening. Call A Judge! Trust me; we don’t want cheaters in our game anymore than you do.

However, they are also going be responsible for my first example.

You and your opponent sit down for your match, introduce yourselves and get down to shuffling. You notice that your opponent is mana weaving, organizing their deck in a spell-spell-land configuration. He does some halfhearted shuffling-like maneuvers but you know that the deck is still stacked. He presents his deck and you take your DCI-given right to pile shuffle it and do so into three piles, neatly moving all of his land in a giant clump then give it back to him. He realizes what you have done and calls for a judge. Guess who gets DQ’d?

Both of you do.

This is a case of "Two wrongs don’t make a right." Manipulation of Game Materials is cheating no matter what the reason is. Please don’t try to "fix" cheaters or even honest mistakes on your own. There is very little tolerance for vigilantism as it were as you may make a bad situation worse.

Another thing that was touched on is lying. The new Communication policy has clarified a lot of what you can and can’t and don’t have to say during your match. But if you’re not careful, it can get you into big trouble. This includes not only lying to a judge about something that happened, but lying to your opponent even if it is by omission. I’m not talking about bluffing. That’s just part of the game. I’m talking about deliberate allowance of illegal actions and game states.

A player after losing game 1 counts his opponents sideboard during game 2 and finds out that there are only 13 cards in it. He is about to win game 2 since his sideboard is designed with his opponent’s deck in mind. He doesn’t say anything and wins game 2 easily. No one sideboards for game 3, and his hand is poor and he’s mana screwed to boot. He chooses this time to call a judge and inform the judge about his opponent’s illegal sideboard hoping for the game loss. This is a great example of Fraud. When you observe something wrong, you have the responsibility to point it out, regardless of whom the error benefits.

Like Trick said, no one wants to be “that guy”, but the rules are in place to protect everyone and the integrity of the tournament. We’re not going to yell at you for calling us over for a legitimate issue. State your case calmly and we’ll listen.

Until next PTQ!

-- Erik