Monocle of Clarity (& questions about the deck contents)

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Lönkka wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

You can also use it if you just want an excuse to shuffle your deck (e.g. you've been recycling cards onto the bottom with Waste Management Operation).

If the judge does it, like Pascal suggested, without showing teh cards to players there is no need to shuffle.

Errrr....

In what way does a judge get involved with me searching my library with Magic of the Smith for a Bowl of Convergence (which isn't there) and then me shuffling the library afterwards?

No, what I meant was when using Monocle, just have the Judge come over and go through the library of the player who is having a memory lapse.

The Judge goes through the deck without showing the cards to the players. Since players haven't seen any of the cards in the deck there is no need to shuffle it.


You can get pretty anal with Monocle asking all sorts of trick questions, but I really don't think that asking if a player has a copy of certain card in his deck is a one. Apparently YMMW

Aaron wrote:

The card doesn't say that you can only ask questions that fall under the category of "verifiable" as you've described here. Nor do any rulings, and there are no rulings that describe what is verifiable AFAIK.

All of this is true. But as a lot of things that you *could* ask about aren't verifiable ("Do you like sandwiches?"), if one is using the Monocle in a game, one's best plan is to only ask about things that are verifiable. As such, these are self correcting problems.

Since it doesn't preclude it you can legally ask those kinds of questions, mainly about the contents of another player's library.

Sure. But those answers aren't particularly verifiable, any more than me wondering if you like sandwiches. So if I'm using the Monocle, I'll ask about things that can be easily verified. As that way, I know I'm getting an actual answer.

The Monocle also requires that the player answer truthfully. Since as of a few hours ago, judges cannot check players' libraries, players can answer untruthfully and explain it by saying "I forgot" (or my favorite from government hearings: "I do not recall".) However, answering untruthfully is cheating, because it goes against the card text.

Sure. I realize that this is a wonky corner of the game. But really, the best plan is to self-correct. Only ask questions that can be easily verified. Not by virtue of rulings, but by virtue of it really being the only reasonable way to use the card.

Like I said, I don't like these kind of formulations, but I may be in the minority. I think that players shouldn't have a legal way to cheat like this. I think the ruling could be cleaned up by explicitly limiting truthful answers to questions about "verifiable" cards.

You could do that. Or you could simply let the card fix itself, which, generally speaking, it tends to do.

Sorry but this "i dont have to know what is in my librery" defense and willfuly forgetting just seems wrong.

I understand from a practical point of view that the judge don't want to look through the library. But what if i lay down my hand when it's not my turn and claim i've forgotten what is in it, am I then required to look at it?

Yes this is juvenile and cheeky, but none the less...

We can't assume players have an exact memory.

You can try this during your games: When you play with Heart of Nizchetus, try remembering which cards you put under your library and in which order. And that's a question that is more valid than "Are there at least 16 cards that give you +1 stealth or more in your deck ?" .

Lönkka wrote:

No, what I meant was when using Monocle, just have the Judge come over and go through the library of the player who is having a memory lapse.

The Judge goes through the deck without showing the cards to the players. Since players haven't seen any of the cards in the deck there is no need to shuffle it.

If this happens every turn, either the table is going to time out, or the game will get extended (causing everyone at the tournament to have to wait for this one delinquent table).

Pascal wrote:

We can't assume players have an exact memory.

You can try this during your games: When you play with Heart of Nizchetus, try remembering which cards you put under your library and in which order. And that's a question that is more valid than "Are there at least 16 cards that give you +1 stealth or more in your deck ?" .

There is a difference between "do you have at least 16 cards that give you +1 stealth or more in your deck ?" and "Do you have any Archon Investigations in your deck?"