partial deck shuffling acceptable?

@JACO I find this conversation interesting and wish to clarify that I am not trying to insinuate anything. A concern I would have is if you are watching the opponent shuffle and you see the bottom card (or really any card) of their deck, your shuffle no longer serves to randomize the deck. Even if the card is in the shuffled portion of the deck, you are aware of this fact and therefore have some knowledge of the deck's order. How do you approach or have you approached such situations?

10drills

I just don't understand how you translate "your opponent's deck" to mean "however many cards from your opponent's deck you feel like picking up that day." But I guess we all interpret things differently.

GrandpaBelcher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzMZkT8WIJQ

JACO

@gkraigher apologies in advance if this seems combative, you are talking about two different things. Allowing an illegal game state and then trying to scum your opponent for advantage is still illegal, and trying to stretch this to that is unwise. Aside from a few fallacious claims you have done nothing to dispel the notion that randomly shuffling a randomized deck is illegal. There is nothing in the IPG, Tournament Rules, Judges Wiki, etc. on exactly how to shuffle your opponent's deck after they present (other than not to pile shuffle beyond once, because it's not sufficiently randomizing), intentionally. The onus is on the original player to sufficiently randomize their deck before presenting, every time, and the penalties and remedies presented are specifically on them as well. There are plenty of ways to get to a sufficiently randomized deck before presenting to your opponent, which is part of the reason why it is not more explicitly outlined. It is then a binary. Is it sufficiently randomized? Yes, or no. If yes, present to your opponent. If not, randomize further, and then repeat the question and proceed.

You then pick up the sufficiently randomized deck as presented, and whether you shuffle it 1 or 100 times, it is still sufficiently randomized. It is still a binary. Sufficiently randomized, or not. Judges are not going to sit at every table to legislate how many times you shuffle at this point, how many times you do an overhand shuffle to what percentage of the cards, how many times you do a perfect side shuffle to what percentage of the cards, and so on. It is still in a binary - sufficiently randomized, or not. The reason we do it again after being presented, in whatever method we do, is solely to prevent cheating, as I have already stated, and in line with the intent of the rules. Trust, but verify.

@ChubbyRain said:

@JACO I find this conversation interesting and wish to clarify that I am not trying to insinuate anything. A concern I would have is if you are watching the opponent shuffle and you see the bottom card (or really any card) of their deck, your shuffle no longer serves to randomize the deck. Even if the card is in the shuffled portion of the deck, you are aware of this fact and therefore have some knowledge of the deck's order. How do you approach or have you approached such situations?

That's a good question for anybody, and one which is not addressed by anybody else here (because you can manipulate the deck with dozens of shuffles and still keep X cards toward the bottom, reducing the chance they will be drawn). At any point, if you or your opponent become aware of the location of contents of a single or more card that is supposed to be randomized in the deck while they present, it is no longer sufficiently randomized, and they need to randomize further. You should immediately ask your opponent to shuffle with their cards face down and away so as to not reveal this. I doubt a majority of people do that, because they think they can use the information, but that is neither legal nor sporting. I have definitely told my opponent I have seen their Tinker or Ancestral on the bottom of the deck because of their shuffling, and told them to shuffle more face down before presenting. I have also watched plenty of opponents look at their own decks while side shuffling, and asked them to stop, because it is not even close to random. Frankly, I just don't think a lot of Magic players (or people in this thread) understand what "sufficiently randomized" means.

10drills

@JACO I mentioned potentially seeing their cards already, yesterday. You speak as though you would tell your opponent to shuffle in a different manner, but you fail to realize that if you don't tell them that, how are they to know whether or not you saw something once you've chosen to randomize their deck in a suspicious manner? If you did not say anything to me, I'm going to assume you're doing it that way for a reason, and probably one I should be calling a judge for. None of your arguments make sense to me. You continue to defend this method based on the deck already being sufficiently randomized, but there are a lot of factors involved outside of the mathematical ones that make this seem EXTREMELY shady. I don't think there's any world where you're going to convince me this is perfectly okay.

Khahan

@SeanOhh said:

@JACO I mentioned potentially seeing their cards already, yesterday. You speak as though you would tell your opponent to shuffle in a different manner, but you fail to realize that if you don't tell them that, how are they to know whether or not you saw something once you've chosen to randomize their deck in a suspicious manner? If you did not say anything to me, I'm going to assume you're doing it that way for a reason, and probably one I should be calling a judge for. None of your arguments make sense to me. You continue to defend this method based on the deck already being sufficiently randomized, but there are a lot of factors involved outside of the mathematical ones that make this seem EXTREMELY shady. I don't think there's any world where you're going to convince me this is perfectly okay.

Its only shady if you are a shady person who thinks this way. Sorry, but that's the way I see it. If you are honest and don't look for ways to cheat the system to begin with - none of the arguments being made against JACO hold any water at all. JACO flat out stated if he sees a card or something happens that the deck is not sufficiently randomized he'll ask his opponent shuffle in a different way.

I'm going to be blunt here - the arguments being made against his method are simply ridiculousness from over-thinking or over-analyzing the situation. I applaud JACO for taking the time to have a discussion about and explain it - but nothing he can say will suffice, ever. Because the arguments he is trying to counter are so hypothetical and situational that the people making them can just make them over and over with little tweaks, little things added, come from a different angle or just ignore what JACO or anybody else has said.

You get a deck from an opponent, it is randomized. If you don't feel its randomized, you either call a judge if think there is something underhanded going on or you ask your opponent to shuffle a bit more. Once that is done and you are satisfied it is truly random, you could pile shuffle, riffle shuffle, cut in half, play 52 (or 60) card pick up, shuffle 1/3, 1/2 or 1/10 of the deck or take the top card and put it on the bottom - as long you do nothing to try and gain knowledge of any particular card position its still random. There is no facilitating a cheater. There is no side stepping the rules. Can we please stop making stuff up for the sake of having a discussion? There is absolutely nothing in JACO's post to justify a few people piling on insinuating he's a cheater.

10drills

@Khahan this is extremely naive. I'm not targeting him specifically, I don't know him personally but I do know of him. But to just flat out trust everyone is ridiculous. My position on the matter comes from having seen cheaters cheat. You never know who it's going to be. I've had a person I would consider a friend attempt to cheat. I just won't let it happen to me if at all possible. Nobody should be doing anything that could be conceived as cheating, even if it's completely on the up and up. I'm just making the argument that this could EASILY be seen as cheating, so it shouldn't be done, nor should it be allowed.

@Khahan

I don't think Jaco is a cheater. I'd never say that because he is not, my argument is rather different:

Jaco is lazily not shuffling his opponents decks in every situation where he should.
this creates an environment where cheaters could take advantage of the situation.
if someone was able to cheat Jaco, the integrity of the entire tournament is compromised.
therefore, lazily shuffling creates an environment where cheaters could flourish, so knowingly allowing this in competitive play is unethical.

JACO

@SeanOhh said:

@JACO I mentioned potentially seeing their cards already, yesterday. You speak as though you would tell your opponent to shuffle in a different manner, but you fail to realize that if you don't tell them that, how are they to know whether or not you saw something once you've chosen to randomize their deck in a suspicious manner? If you did not say anything to me, I'm going to assume you're doing it that way for a reason, and probably one I should be calling a judge for. None of your arguments make sense to me. You continue to defend this method based on the deck already being sufficiently randomized, but there are a lot of factors involved outside of the mathematical ones that make this seem EXTREMELY shady. I don't think there's any world where you're going to convince me this is perfectly okay.

You have the right attitude, and should always remain vigilant, as I said above. But the scenarios you are concerned about are the same no matter how your opponent shuffles after you have presented, whether you realize it or not, so this is kind of irrelevant (it's a matter of honesty if cards are accidentally revealed and one player does not realize it, because there is no way for a judge to know/enforce what you may have seen or not seen). If they see your Ancestral Recall on the bottom as you shuffle or present your deck, and they say nothing, and then side shuffle and overhand shuffle the "full deck" 100 times, it is still quite easy to keep that Ancestral Recall on the bottom of the deck, without you knowing whether or not they saw anything. I'd be happy to demonstrate that for anybody who wishes to see in person. Either the deck is sufficiently randomized, or it is not. If either player knows the location of one or more cards after shuffling it is not sufficiently randomized. End of story. The onus is on the player shuffling their deck to sufficiently randomize it, and then whoever is presented the deck basically does whatever anti-cheat shuffling measures are appropriate. Best practice in any case is to shuffle with card face down and away from both players, whether you are talking about your own deck or your opponent's deck. Owen Turtenwald does a pretty good job of this if anybody is seeking video of what I mean (which I've tried to get better at myself over the years). This is not hard.

10drills

@JACO Believe it or not, I do understand what you're saying. But to me, the way you do it is just a more blatant version of the same thing. Not a "if you did it right, this is fine" situation. It's almost like you just want to show off some randomization knowledge at any chance you get (which by all means, go for it, I'll still call a judge).

FirstLevelMagic

@diophan said:

Cutting your opponent's deck at a random location would, although the convergence is incredibly slow.

You nerd sniped me with this and I went off to calculate how many cuts it would take - and it turns out you will never approach randomization, at least, not with a single-point cut, as successively cutting a deck of N cards at a single point can only result in N possible permutations of the deck, independent of the number of cuts, not N! permutations. You're basically just moving which card is the top without changing the card order at all (or, alternatively, it's like you're pointing at a wheel of cards, in some order, and the random cut just changes what card in the wheel you're pointing at).

@Evoclipse For mind's desire resolution in paper I've always asked my opponent what they want to do while I'm shuffling. I've never had an opponent want a full shuffle between each flip, it's always been either 'flip them until it matters' or 'cut between each flip'.

@JACO if OP asked you to just shuffle the whole deck when paired, would you? That seems like a sane solution to me. Edit: I met you at champs last year, although I doubt you'd remember me as it was pretty quick, but the impression I got then made me wonder if OP even reasonably asked.

rikter

I honest to god cant believe that this is STILL going on, or that @JACO hasnt thrown his hands in the air and just stopped.

I dont know what the hell Jaco did to OP, but my experiences with him, and Im sure many others, are overwhelmingly positive. If he wants to scoop to him, let him.

Have we beaten this dead horse to a pulp yet?

Serracollector

From now on Im cutting my opponents decks by moving the top card under the 2nd most top card. Crazy? Genious? Doesnt fucking matter? Yea...
.

I have no idea what's the fuss about since 99% of the players I ever encountered in Magic matches and tournaments simply cut the opponents decks in half, or 3 times, and that's it. You mean to say that's illegal? Pff.

nedleeds

I have been repeatedly chided for riffle and power bridging my Vintage deck in events.

brianpk80

I feel JACO here. It's an idiosyncratic laid back style that varies enough on each instance to be unpredictable, underscored by a confident nonchalance that suggests a healthy attitude towards competitive Vintage.

There's much to be said about taking Magic seriously but not too seriously. Trying too hard to make sense of the senseless (competitive rules and MTGO failings being great examples) is futile. I've been told by judges both that my matches take too long on one hand and then in another instance that I don't spend enough time shuffling. I was actually given a verbal warning once for not shuffling "thoroughly" enough following a Polluted Delta fetch as my opponent was conceding. That was both embarrassing and absurd. The irony is that since it takes me forever to shuffle to a sufficiently random degree, my matches would take even longer if every Misty Rainforest became a 45 second time out, and since I have been known to play very complex "durdle" decks, that would make matches go to time longer and frustrate the other objective. The best response to that kind of double-bind is simply "whatever." No one is forcing me to play Magic and if it ever became something so twisted and unfriendly that I had to approach it with unhealthy or exhausting rigor, the solution would be self-evident.

The overarching lessons I glean are that competitive event rules are sprawling, inscrutable, and often contradictory, hence it's best to simply follow good instinct and common sense. At 36, I have too much draining life experience being in situations where every i must be dotted as pristinely as each t is crossed and that mentality is not something I want to employ when enjoying myself on a weekend. So I still take a more casual/friendly approach to competitive Vintage. While in theory, this should hurt performance by making one "[easy to take advantage of]," in practice, there doesn't seem to be a discernible negative effect. The more amicable approach suits my personality type better (this may not be true for all types) and being a hardass or rules lawyer would divert limited mental energy from areas that are more primary, assessing the game state, mulligan decisions, play decisions, and sideboarding. (Maybe I would have the energy and drive to both at 22,, but that's neither here nor there. ) There's a likely case to be made that being more accommodating and trusting (though not naive) leads to better results. And even if there weren't, I'd rather sacrifice a 0.000003% win rating than become someone I'd be embarrassed to become.

@nedleeds You can do whatever you want to YOUR deck, but if someone even thinks of riffle shuffling my decks, that simply won't be allowed to happen.

PS: You guys realize JACO does that to his opponents decks, AFTER they shuffled the deck, right? I mean, he's not doing that to his own deck (that would be considered not enough randomization and cheating). You know that, right? And if you do, what's the issue? I fail to understand the complaining.

nedleeds

@fsecco said:

@nedleeds You can do whatever you want to YOUR deck, but if someone even thinks of riffle shuffling my decks, that simply won't be allowed to happen.

That could be an issue at a competitive REL event. I'm unsure if anyone has ever been truly obstinate about it at a high level sanctioned modern vintage event. Riffle shuffling is an accepted method by most judges. There have been some quasi-scientific studies about how many shuffles it takes to randomize decks of cards

Shuffling Math

It takes ~7 riffle shuffles to randomize a 52 card deck, and about 2,500 overhand shuffles. So from an expediency perspective riffle shuffling (or an analogous technique) is the quickest way to randomize a deck. Everything else is just wasting time, which with all the searching in modern Magic has gotten totally absurd.

I guess we have the 'push shuffle' which is a hybrid. I'm not a fan because it gives an opponent a chance to look at cards. A riffle shuffle can be done with the deck pretty much facing down the entire time. Over the past few years we've seen many examples of people cheating using this style of shuffling, many have been banned for Vamping either themselves or Vamping their opponents.

If somebody picked up your deck and riffled it what would be your recourse? You could ask them to not do it again and return you your deck, but the act of riffling takes a second so you'd be unlikely to prevent it without asking before your opponent begins to shuffle.

I think I'd prefer that Wizards be prescriptive about exactly what shuffling should be, and then making exceptions for folks who may be physically unable to do it.

Topical_Island

The longer this thread goes on, the more it turns into evidence for - just shuffle the deck the normal way so we can move on and play magic and not get into a protracted semantic debate about what constitutes shuffling.

nedleeds

@brianpk80 I was your opponent in that case. It was pretty absurd, but I thought it was absurd not necessarily because I was scooping, not even really because that particular instance of shuffling and presenting was a little hasty but because you and I had established a pace of play, that the judge had been watching like a hawk for a good 5 minutes. The judge saw a pattern of you shuffling 4-5 times, and me doing 4-5 shuffles then blind cutting your deck and handing it back. We had an established rhythm of shuffling sufficiently. He seemed to just want to jump in for a previous grievance and realized that was his last shot since I was scooping, it was a bizarre scene. The mechanics of shuffling is important, but I think understanding and determining intent is what really matters. No sane person could question your intent given our play pattern.

Also you're a sack for having like, turn 2 Dack Fayden through spheres.

It's also important to keep a little perspective on where we are no with respect to transparency and general awareness of cheating. I count cards, I watch my opponents shuffle, I watch for vamping, and pattern shuffles during pile, I watch for wandering eyes, I watch for midflip cutting. I've literally seen it all. From marked cards, to marked sleeves, drawing cards, hiding cards, sideboard cards under playmats ... the whole gambit. I've played against fucking Mike Long, Ryan Fuller, Justin Schneider, Jason Gordon, David Yo, Pete Leiher and Josh Bradford. These guys were the most savage cheaters that have ever walked the Earth. It's most of the reason I quit Magic, the cheating was so so so grotesque and the penalties were non-existent. As a rule of thumb I feel like there is way less cheating at most levels of Magic than there was. Let's keep heading that direction by talking about it openly.