Documentation of rules violations/questionable behavior by the Eternal Weekend Winner
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There has been some discussion on The Mana Drain and other places about some of the on and off camera behavior of the winner of Eternal Weekend, Joseph Bogaard. I have cataloged the evidence in what I hope is an objective way, although I suspect that my conclusion is evident. Where possible, I have provided a timestamped link to Twitch VODs with a short explanation of what I am documenting.
From the Swiss:
Kurt Crane versus Jospeh Bogaard in Round 7:Playing 2 lands in one turn and not announcing mana drain trigger:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/97586005?t=08h05m59sPlaying 2 lands in one turn:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/97586005?t=08h15m35s9 cards in hand after forgetting to discard (this one requires a couple minutes of watching):
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/97586005?t=08h18m24sI am not 100% sure what is going on in the last link, but that is 3-4 GRVs in a single game.
One of Joseph's opponents during the Swiss called a judge. The complaint was that Joseph's sleeves were marked in a manner not consistent with normal play wear. The judge did not notice anything, but Joseph's opponent was not confident that the judge knew what he/she was looking for when inspecting the sleeves. An appeal was not made (presumably because his opponent was not aware of the pattern of behavior).
From the Top 8:
I was a firsthand witness to the events which I am documenting from the top 8.Randy and Bob talking about the "sketchy guy" on live mic:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98002914?t=10m45s
(I will delete this link if Randy, Bob, or Nick Coss think it is inappropriate.)As Randy and Bob mention, Andy and Joseph were deck checked after presenting. Most of the way through Joseph's shuffling procedure, he performed a very strange looking 5 card pile shuffle, in which he did not place cards in a loop, but each time around put cards into piles in a different order.
Confirmation of 25 minute deck check:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98002914?t=55m25sAfter an extensive conversion with the judges, Joseph received a warning for insufficient randomization.
Appearance of warped foil sol ring, crucible of worlds:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98002914?t=58m01sAfter game one I noticed while they were sideboarding that Bogaard appeared to have only 4 foils in his deck: FTV Strip Mine, Judge Sol Ring, Non-Judge Foil Crucible of Worlds, and Snapcaster Mage. The first 3 foils are notable for being the versions with the most foiling which causes them to warp. They are also notable for being the 3 cards available as a foil that you want against shops.
Moreover, from what I could tell he was playing a single sleeved deck, which would make foil bending more apparent. A fellow spectator relayed this to the head judge. From what I could tell, the judging staff made Joseph take out his foil sol ring and crucible of worlds, but they waited until after he won against Andy.
If this is true, there is a dangerous lack of logical consistency. If the cards were marked, Joseph should habe received a game loss/DQ (much like people who had marked delvers in Champs two years ago). If they were not marked, he should not have been required to switch out his cards.
Evidence of Sol Ring being switched out in his semifinal match:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98002914?t=2h27m35sJoseph's method of pile shuffling here is roughly what I was talking about from his quarterfinals match. If I recall during the quarterfinals presentation he changed his method of deciding which stack to put cards in more:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98002914?t=2h39m25sWhen Joseph stops riffle shuffling his deck, he is receiving verbal instructions from the judge to adjust his shuffle technique. As pointed out below, the same few cards may be floating at the bottom of the deck after several shuffles because he is not riffling cards into the bottom:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98002914?t=2h42m35sShortly after this game started I stopped watching due to frustration.
Taken in isolation, no single one of these incidents would lead me to conclude someone cheated at Eternal Weekend. Taken together, one might be lead to a different conclusion.
Note: I have omitted naming anyone other than as necessary.
Final Note: It was difficult for me to post this. I have the utmost appreciation for Nick Coss because of the time and care he puts in running these tournaments. I do not wish to harm his future Eternal Weekends with this thread.
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This gonna be good.
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There are other foils in the Landstill deck: fetchlands.
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@Koby As I said, "it appeared". I cannot say with 100% confidence that he only had those 4 cards as foils. I looked as well as I could through his deck while he was sideboarding. I also tried to look at the top8 vods, but it is hard to see foils vs. non-foils unless they are FTV/Judge foils. I did mention the snapcaster in the interest of being entirely truthful because I did notice that it was foil on Sunday.
As I mentioned I do not think any single one of these instances is incontrovertable proof of cheating. It is their sum which is so troubling.
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Can we get someone to do the math/practice on the unusual pile shuffle? I've done out-of-order pile shuffles in the past thinking it was doing a better job randomizing my deck. I understand now that pile shuffles don't really randomize at all, but a player who hasn't had it explained in mathematical terms may not realize that.
Obviously if it converts a weave into a perfect pattern or anything like that the issue becomes much more important
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I was part of the conversation with the opponent regarding the sleeves (unless he did this to someone else), whose name I will omit as I follow your lead.
The opponent told me about how he had the judge check the sleeves. The judge ruled that while they were noticeably worn, they didn't think it was marked, and they didn't force a resleeve.
I'm pretty sure that even normal wear is reason enough to resleeve a deck, because they won't all wear the same. In practice, most people are not gonna bust balls about this late in the event, because after 7 or 8 rounds, you're gonna pick up some marks. But in this situation my buddy was definitely making an issue about it because this guy was on everyones radar by that point. Sleeves had a graphic on the back as well, which I am generally not a fan of as I think it is easier to subtly mark them.
Edit to add that I, and quite a few others, believe that this guy and the lack of action is a huge part of the reason that Zach Dobbin got hammered as hard as he did. I think that this guy should have been, if not DQ'd, game or even match lossed at the rate he was picking up GRV's, but wasn't. People noticed and got pissed, and so they overcompensated by utterly wrecking Zachs day and tournament.
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I like the way Joe goes about cutting his deck for him. Shuffle, cut, random set of cards from top get mixed in, restack the cut cards and hand it back.
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@diophan said:
Moreover, from what I could tell he was playing a single sleeved deck, which would make foil bending more apparent. A fellow spectator relayed this to the head judge. From what I could tell, the judging staff made Joseph take out his foil sol ring and crucible of worlds, but they waited until after he won against Andy.
If this is true, there is a dangerous lack of logical consistency. If the cards were marked, Joseph should habe received a game loss/DQ (much like people who had marked delvers in Champs two years ago). If they were not marked, he should not have been required to switch out his cards.
This is wrong. It's a warning by default with an upgrade path. See relevant IPG:
IPG 3.8 Tournament Error — Marked Cards Penalty: Warning
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The Head Judge has the option to upgrade this penalty to a Game Loss if he or she believes that a player noticing the pattern of markings would clearly compromise the integrity of the gameThis is typically only done where you could cut to the desired card consistently. Say, if you had 4 foil Snapcaster Mages that were all Pringles, cutting to a Snapcaster would be trivial. In this case, there was enough variance in the marked cards to make an upgrade questionable.
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If there was so much suspicion around him, why were these video's not reviewed in the day between round 7 and top 8? Marked cards, mulitple infractions for improper shuffling, and he even got 2 game rule violations during the play of the finals.
And its not like Judge's were being lenient for all players since someone got DQ'ed for drawing 1 extra cards on stream.
@ajfirecracker Any form of pile shuffle can have its "randomization" predicted perfectly with enough practice, and assuming the cards are in a certain order at the start. There is no need to calculate anything mathematically.
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I honestly think this guy was just a lucky doofus. But maybe thats just me. I usually find that cheaters are usually better players.
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I played against Joe for our win and in to top 8 in round 8. Three items of note from our match:
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I commented on his marked sleeves, he shrugged it off. I have never been cheated in magic (still unsure if I have been), so I trusted he was not that type of guy.
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In game three he had the best hand possible against a shop opponent including lotus and kitake.
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There was a judge call from a bystander regarding a TKS, StP interaction where he would have hidden the drawn card from me prior to my enter play trigger.
After our match several judges pulled him aside for a 5 minute conversation. Each item by itself felt just sloppy and harmless, but together and with the additional mounting evidence, I am starting to feel like I got cheated out of my first top 8. I sure hope not, he seemed nice enough to my face.
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@vaughnbros This is kind of at the heart of all of this, why it wasn't done. I mean, I believe the review was done, but I don't think anything came of it besides the extra scrutiny. The working theory regarding the brainstorm DQ is that it was an overcompensation as a result of the issues with the enforcement on this guy.
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@vaughnbros said:
Any form of pile shuffle can have its "randomization" predicted perfectly with enough practice, and assuming the cards are in a certain order at the start. There is no need to calculate anything mathematically.
True enough, but there's still a distinction to be made between "this turns a weave into a beneficial pattern" as compared to "this turns an incredibly weird, specific pattern into a beneficial pattern"
We can be relatively sure the first is cheating and relatively sure the second is not (intentionally) cheating
"Pitch Dredge is the worst thing to happen to Vintage this decade." - 2015 Vintage Champion Brian Kelly
youtube.com/user/ajfirecracker/videos
twitch.tv/ajfirecracker -
@Solomoxen said:
- There was a judge call from a bystander regarding a TKS, StP interaction where he would have hidden the drawn card from me prior to my enter play trigger.
Quick side note about this one: it's a legal play for him to hope you miss your detrimental leaves-play TKS trigger, resolve the ETB one, then call a judge to get you a warning for missing a detrimental trigger and to have that trigger put on the stack. It's your responsibility to remember your own triggers, especially the detrimental ones.
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Also to comment on the Brainstorm guy, there is no 'theory' to be had about "compensating for vintage" with him.
A simple interview with the parties involved gave the HJ sufficient suspicion to pull the trigger on a cheating DQ.
The action he took was incredibly difficult to explain as anything remotely resembling a mistake.Edit: I don't necessarily believe what he did was really malicious, but could easily fit the guidelines for a DQ.
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@EmoPizza right on, and I did remember the trigger. But apparently he needed to draw the card first from TKS leaving the game, then I pick a card. Small issue, that by itself didnt seem cheaty at all.
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I'm obviously not a moderator, but for the sake of this thread not being deleted I would appreciate if we did not discuss things that border on conspiracy theories and get sidetracked with what happened in Legacy.
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@diophan Fair enough, I pmd the guy
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I've often pile shuffle in a random order - I did not know anyone would think this is cheaty...
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@themonadnomad said:
I've often pile shuffle in a random order - I did not know anyone would think this is cheaty...
The only function of pile shuffling is to count your deck. If you are doing it for randomization, you need to stop. At best, you are wasting time. At worst...
