Tournament rules regarding different backs on cards.

But that's true that without intending to cheat I have from time to time used information gotten by card back.

I'm curious: Did those known cheaters in France sleeve their decks?

Maybe I'm wrong but how can the possible information about the coming card be so decisive? Okay, yes, I can predict the nature of my next card if I really do the work and take the same card from just one set. I never made up my mind on this, but is that a crucial problem? Let the cheaters cheat, I don't think the different card backds will be a big problem (maybe I'm naive).

I harly see how. In the first case, you're using cards as you got them.
In the second case, you're deliberately using different sleeves.

How the cards were marked is irrelevant. I'm allowed -by the rules- to deliberately "mark" cards as long as I don't use sleeves. Yet doing exactly the same *with* sleeves is cheating. Double standards much?

Maybe I'm wrong but how can the possible information about the coming card be so decisive? Okay, yes, I can predict the nature of my next card if I really do the work and take the same card from just one set.

I would be pretty trivial to build a deck where like, all your Deflections are from Jyhad, all your stealth cards from Third and the rest from other sets. Watch my topdecking skills now.

One could easily take it one step further and use only master cards that are slighty worn on the top and whatnot. There is a VERY good reason why competitive CCG's like Magic and Pokemon *require* sleeved decks.

Izaak wrote:

I would be pretty trivial to build a deck where like, all your Deflections are from Jyhad, all your stealth cards from Third and the rest from other sets.

Watch my topdecking skills now.

Yes, but such a deck construction is explicitly forbidden by the tournament rules.

Joscha's point is the basic reasoning behind the rule: in general the advantage to be gained by different card backs (assuming they are mixed as dictated by the tournament rules) is minimal.

The minimal advantage that can be gained must be balanced by the penalty that players as consumers face because of the failure of the publisher(s) to provide cards with consistent card backs. Forcing players to buy sleeves and use them is punishing them for the publisher's(s') errors.

That's why the current rule is reasonable, even though I agree ideally it would be better if all backs were the same, which can only be accomplished by sleeving.

henrik wrote:

For me it's not so much that I believe people are cheating a lot, but more that the tournament rules allows a kind of marked cards. I find this very strange, and I think it makes calling the real cheaters on cheating harder.

This is entirely possible, but since we can never collect any data on cheaters that get away with it, it seems less than useful to attempt such a thing. Instead, we as players remain vigilant to the best of our ability, so that with or without sleeves, the other players are not cheating.

henrik wrote:

I would love to see a decklist (with sets included) that doesn't give any extra information to the player when (for example) their library is down to 10 cards and only 1 of them have a Jyhad back.

I described such a player previously. The deck list isn't relevant, it's the player's intent that is questioned.