A few weeks ago a friend of mine, Daniel Fournier, wrote an article about cheating. With the recent discussion about cheaters in our community I wanted to write a bit about it as well.

While I'm pretty happy that, every once in a while, someone picks up an article about cheating, Dan's article can really be boiled down to one important point:

Call. A. Judge.

You can read Dan's article here.

While this is great advice, and something I'll probably hammer home in this article, I felt it was important to revisit the different kinds of cheating that happen to you at an event and the ways you can try to protect yourself.

Before we get into the kinds of cheating and how to protect yourself, I think it's important to preface it. Calling for a judge or asking your opponent not to do something that COULD be sketchy shouldn't be an issue for you OR your opponent. It's important to protect yourself, and the kicker here is that you asking for a judge or asking your opponent isn't personal. It's important to remember that.

In general, it's important to not treat your opponent like they are cheating but to take preventative measures to protect yourself.

Shuffle Cheating

We'll start with shuffle cheating. This particular cheat ravaged the community awhile back in the hands of Trevor Humphries and, more notably, Jared Boettcher. The cheater will look at your deck or their deck while they are shuffling to change the order of cards drawn. For themselves, they might put a needed removal spell on the top, but for you they are going to try and place a bunch of lands in a row or a lot of spells to force several mulligans over the course of a match. Some of these cheaters may use small talk as a way to engage you and avert your awareness of their sleight of hand.

The simplest ways to beat this are to just watch your opponents face while they are shuffling your deck. There's no real reason for them to be looking down while shuffling a deck. I know a lot of players do this out of habit because they are scared they will drop their cards and show the deck to their opponent. This is something you can break at home just by shuffling. But don't look down. If your opponent does look down while shuffling, just ask them not to. As I said earlier, most players do this kind of thing unintentionally but it has the ability to give your opponent information. Mostly just asking your opponents to not look will solve this issue as in general your opponents will go "sorry" and stop.

Mana Weaving

Shuffle cheating also extends out a bit to something known as mana weaving. Mana weaving is stacking your deck (more or less) land /spell / land / spell in order to remove as much variance as possible and to ensure you draw a great mix of lands and spells. While this sounds amazing, it is clearly cheating. So the question here is how to beat someone who is stacking their deck? Fortunately it's as easy as ensuring a good shuffle when they present. Even if your opponent mana weaved before your match, shuffling it thoroughly will remove the stacking from your opponent. I understand, under time constraints, it's easier to do a simple half cut, but you're given time before the round starts to ensure a proper shuffle. If your opponent sits down right as the round starts you can call a judge and ask for a small extension for shuffling. This is usually granted a one minute extension.

Playing Extra Lands

This is one of the easiest mistakes to make for players all around the world. It could be as easy as getting caught up in your decision tree or just plain forgetting. Unfortunately, there's no real way to easily keep track of this information. One suggestion I've heard is playing your land upside down for the turn. This is a clear indicator that you played that land specifically this turn, but it can be hard to remember when you're trying to play the game. Unfortunately, it is a downside to playing paper and the only true option we have is just hope we're paying attention enough. This is a note where if a player DOES play an extra land just call a judge to sort it out.

I think a lot of players fall into this trap where they believe they can solve every issue on their own without calling a judge. This is bad for numerous reasons, like losing time that could be used for playing, but also because warnings are important. Here's the breakdown: warnings are used for tracking players. When that warning goes into the system, judges are able to see if this is something that player does a lot. It shows patterns for mistakes. For a very hefty portion of players this will amount to nothing. For some serial abusers, this could lead to catching cheaters who try to take advantage of the system or by avoiding judges. This is why it's important to get judges involved.

Drawing Extra Cards

This one is sometimes tricky and hard to keep an eye on. Players will sometimes wait until you're not looking to try and snag an extra card. I've even seen a player draw a card, go into the tank for a couple minutes, and then ask their opponent if they could draw their card for the turn. One of the easiest ways to figure out if your opponent drew an extra card is by counting the cards in hand. It's also in the same vein to ask your opponent to see how many cards they have in hand. If on your turn they have three cards and on their turn they have five with nothing in between that could draw them a card, you know something is up.

One of the ways players might get away with this is by using some amount of distraction techniques. Despite what most people think, cheaters are often very personable people. They are friendly; they are charming; and most importantly they make any mistakes seem like a big accident. I know this might seem odd, but I think it's important to NOT treat every opponent like they are trying to cheat you just because they are being friendly. My point here is that someone who is trying to cheat you isn't necessarily going to act scummy the entire time or even shifty. A cheater will try to cheat you sometimes in plain sight.

Harking back to an earlier paragraph, I'm going to stress the importance of calling a judge here as a way to track warnings.

Stalling/Slow Play

This will be one of the more controversial topics in this article but I believe is one of the more important ones. Matches can sometimes take awhile. And let's be clear that Magic is a tough game and some turns will be tougher than others. However, it's important to keep a reasonable pace during the matches. Slow play in itself isn't cheating. There is a clear distinction between slow play and stalling and it is certainly hard to clarify which is which. Stalling could be a tight situation where your opponent has no cards in hand or everything laid out on the field in a negative position and intentionally tanking and taking a long time in order to build toward a draw or, if they are up a game, toward a 1-0-1 victory. Stalling can also be to give a player more time than deserved for a turn. Chess clocks aren't reasonable without computers seeing how often priority gets changed between players. This would not be feasible without computers. Since we aren't at that stage yet in Magic, we will just have to try and keep an eye on the clock during turns or try and keep a reasonable pace. If you feel your opponent has taken too long, start by asking them to make a play. If they continue playing at the same pace you can get a judge involved to intervene. This is a tough one, all things considered, as it's hard to tell how much time you might actually be taking. Try to keep in mind how much time you're taking and your opponent as well.

At a PTQ several years ago, we were discussing slow play and a judge mentioned how he generally tries to keep track of slow play. Imagine a little t-rex that is slowly working his way from one side of the table to the other. If the dinosaur makes its way to the other side and your opponent still hasn't made an action it's slow play. How fast your little dino walks is important here, but the idea is that if after a slow moving object has crossed a vast expanse it might be time to make a move.

Slow play can also be used in our next item on the list:

Collusion/Bribery

Imagine, for a moment, it's the last swiss round of a tournament. While table one, two, and three are able to draw in; you at table four are in the not so lucky position of having a choice. You and your opponent can draw and if the pair down on table five concludes with the lower point player winning, you and your opponent are locked in. But if the higher point player wins one of you will miss. "Perhaps," your opponent suggests, "that if you both played slower it would be easier to figure out the correct outcome". This is suggesting that the outcome of your match should be determined by another match. This is against the rules. It's in your best interest to inform your opponent and make your decision to play or draw beforehand. No reason to skirt the rules here. If your opponent offers you money in exchange for the win, this is different, and it's important to get a judge involved. This is, of course, different for finals of tournaments where splits work differently. Ensure to use the judge as a resource of tournaments where splits are allowed to avoid bribery.

On this note, I do wish the last swiss rounds of tournaments offered a better solution for splitting. Too often discussing a split ends up in a DQ for a player.

Opportunistic

While some cheats are premeditated, you'll often see that most cheats are one of opportunistic nature. Perhaps you attack with a 3/2 and a 2/1 and your opponent blocks your 2/1. You say "take two" and your opponent takes the opportunity to agree and marks themselves down two. This is something that could easily be a mistake, but this is the kind of example of how an opportunistic cheater can take an advantage. Perhaps when you're not looking, they put a creature back into play or a card from their graveyard on top of their deck. Maybe they place a card from exile back in their graveyard again to make use out of with a Snapcaster Mage or Torrential Gearhulk.

Unfortunately, there's no real way to keep a good check for this kind of cheat. The best course of action here is to be vigilant and clear in what you're doing, life totals, and board states. If a player has a messy board state, ask them to clean it up so it's easier to manage. Even if your opponent is just a messy player this can lead to awkward situations where the board state becomes so cluttered it's not possible to keep up with everything. It's part of the reason the rules changed away from dice for Energy and toward keeping track on your paper.

Rules Lawyer

While I don't think this is necessarily cheating, too often I see players try to "get" their opponent on rules in order to gain an advantage. While it's important to follow the rules at all times, there are a ton of players who try and "get ya" with the rules. I know several players who know the rules inside and out and use that as leverage to push around judges into a ruling going their way even if it's not deserved. Learning the rules and card interactions is the only real way to protect yourself from this, as the line between someone just calling a judge and explaining the rules and someone bullying with the rules to get a favorable ruling is a thin line.

I hope some of this information has helped you and I hope you remain vigilant in the future.

If you're wondering my opinions on cheaters and their bannings, I feel pretty strongly that a serial cheater should remain banned for life. Magic is a privilege, not a right.