MTGO Fraud Results

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/vintage-league-2019-07-21

There’s a handful of guys on there clearly cheating the system somehow. To me, it’s kind of offensive because I check these results expecting them to actually mean something. It’s hard to go 5-0 in league.

I really want people to be aware of the issue.

ajfirecracker

Why wouldn't you do this with a deck that could plausibly 5-0 legitimately? Surely WotC can just look at this and see that something is screwy

fsecco

@ajfirecracker have you seen the lists?
DONJUANDEMARCO
4 Arlinn's Wolf
4 Corrosive Ooze
4 Elvish Rejuvenator
4 Giltgrove Stalker
4 Iron Bully
4 Ironshell Beetle
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Pollenbright Druid
4 Skyscanner
4 Tishana's Wayfinder
Land (20)
20 Forest

MAGNUSMTGO
Creature (40)
4 Artificer's Assistant
4 Erratic Visionary
4 Faerie Duelist
4 Kitesail Corsair
4 Mist-Cloaked Herald
4 Relic Runner
4 Sage's Row Savant
4 Sparring Construct
4 Vedalken Mesmerist
4 Wall of Runes
Land (20)
20 Island

No SBs on either. Yeah, this is sketchy.

John Cox

Have you ever logged on at 4:00 AM and been unable to find an opponent? Have you ever considered that you could log a friend's account in and play yourself.
If you are at a really dead time of day you could probably play your friend and concede 5 times in the dead time of day and win a league with only 61 mountains in your deck.
I think that's what is happening here.

fsecco

Could also just be a bug. But could be reported anyway so they check it out, no?

Brass Man

You don't play a plausible deck because you need several accounts to make it work (6 if you want to do it quickly), and you don't want to spend 100s of tickets on decks when you could spend 2.

It should be trivial for WotC to catch people doing this by looking at their match history, regardless of what decks they're running. Someone running this scam is going to be paired with a cyclical group of players over and over again, which would be impossible for a regular player.

If it makes people feel any better, this doesn't affect league results or prizes for any legitimate player. It's effectively like someone telling WotC they ran an FNM to keep the WotC-provided foils.

Vintage players should just keep it in mind when they make decisions based on published decklists

Brass Man

@john-cox that's the gist of it, but consider that you can be logged into MTGO with two different accounts on the same computer, and that the match doesn't start until both players see that a pair happened and click "join". It's trivially easy to do this by yourself with almost zero chance of being paired against a real human by accident.

For those curious, this thread is very informative: https://twitter.com/TheMaverickGal/status/1131335618418663427

Kendra Smith is also signal boosting the current issue in Vintage with Magic Online and many of the big venders tagged, so hopefully that helps with swift action.

brianpk80

Thank you to Andy, Matt, and Shawn for letting us know about this and providing further information.

albarkhane

I see only one solution : Llanowar Elves must be restricted (and Wall of Runes too for good measure). I knew that island should have been banned years ago.

Daniel Worobec

I don't understand why some of these decks can't win tournaments?

@brianpk80 plays odd-ball cards all the time and he wins often and he is legitimate.

@daniel-worobec All of Brian Kelly's choices are completely logical.

Stuart

Are they already getting more sophisticated at this and playing decks that look slightly more real? The MTGO player Buneca, who ran that Heartless Summoning deck, just placed twice in the 7/21 League with this Bolas's Citadel list and with this Mystic Forge list. It's possible these are legitimate finishes, though things like 16 Swamps and sideboards composed entirely of "search your opponent's library for cards and exile them" effects make me pretty skeptical.

vaughnbros

@stuart

Its not legitimate lol.