Monocle of Clarity (& questions about the deck contents)

echiang wrote:

Also, the multiplayer nature of the game, allows players to cheat. Although there are technically rules against collusion, it's really hard to prove.

These two players are from the same playgroup and they've come up with an odd alliance. Is that unfair collusion? Or maybe they just trust each other more? Or maybe they know each other's decks already, and their alliance is a logical choice, given that information?

The tournament rules on collusion are actually very narrow. It is perfectly legal to make alliances outside a game as long as the players involved to do not agree to work for a specific game outcome, such as Player A 3VP, Player B 2VP. Jay Kristoff, the winner of the 2010 US National tournament, told in his blog about how he made an alliance with another member of his playgroup, James Messer, before both of them entered the finals of that tournament. He suffered no penalties for this once it was brought to the judge's attention. This was proper, because James and he did not agree to a particular outcome to the game, which is how the tournament rules define collusion.

I do not agree with this - I think it should be against the rules to discuss a game when other players of the game are not present. But it's not, even though many people think it is.

echiang wrote:

Or, that guy replaced his Wake. Is that cheating or an honest mistake? Will the knowledge of his next card be a significant advantage?

This situation is covered in the (usually ignored) Judge's Guideline. Replacing a card that should not be replaced is an infraction, and the remedy demanded by the guideline is that the card drawn must be returned to the library, and then the library must be shuffled.

echiang wrote:

Also, in regards to lying, there is a difference between honesty and truthfulness (though people sometimes disagree on which is which). There are also complicated metaphysical arguments about the nature of "truth." Is there an actual or universal truth? Or is everything subjective? How much is based on perception?

If someone believes something is true that person isn't lying (even if it actually isn't true). If you honestly believe that there is an Archon Investigation, you could still be wrong (maybe you forgot about a last minute deck change, maybe your friend/family member made a change without telling you, maybe it ended up in someone else's deck due to Erciyes Fragment). Even if everyone (including the judge) believes something is true, that doesn't necessarily make it true (unless you want to go with the subjective reality paradigm).

I completely agree with you. True=real. Answering incorrectly when you believe you're telling a true statement doesn't make the answer truthful. If the answer is not truthful (in other words, not correct), then you have committed an infraction, even if unwittingly. That's just my take.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Shard wrote:

Is it legal to remove card(s) at random from your deck before the game or tournament?

In a standard tournament with decklists, your deck must match the decklist at all times. Once the judge has your decklist, no removals are possible. If you remove anything before handing the decklist in, you must make the decklist match it.

In this case couldn't you give the judge your decklist, a pen and ask him or her "to pick a card any card". The judge would have to be willing to make the change and not tell you, but I don't see a problem. "Bonus" points if you can tell what card was removed after the tournament.

Of course I am assuming the player in question is not a cheater, but I guess that is not necessarily true.

Shard wrote:

In this case couldn't you give the judge your decklist, a pen and ask him or her "to pick a card any card". The judge would have to be willing to make the change and not tell you, but I don't see a problem.

Sure, you could get a friend to do that for you, if you wanted. You could use a psychic dog to construct your deck for you and never look at it.

All such questions boil down to "Can I play a deck where I don't know the contents?" The answer is: yes. Enumerating ever more bizarre ways in which you can hide the contents from yourself is... weird.

Aaron wrote:

echiang wrote:

Or, that guy replaced his Wake. Is that cheating or an honest mistake? Will the knowledge of his next card be a significant advantage?

This situation is covered in the (usually ignored) Judge's Guideline. Replacing a card that should not be replaced is an infraction, and the remedy demanded by the guideline is that the card drawn must be returned to the library, and then the library must be shuffled.

Well, then you have the issue of what happens if the player already knows what the top card is (saw it with Tusk, put it there with Marrakesh Codex). In this case, it doesn't give him any more information than he already had (unless he forgot in the meantime). In fact, requiring a shuffle in these cases could be advantageous to him if he *doesn't* want the top card of his library!

I completely agree with you. True=real. Answering incorrectly when you believe you're telling a true statement doesn't make the answer truthful. If the answer is not truthful (in other words, not correct), then you have committed an infraction, even if unwittingly. That's just my take.

True and real get complicated when it comes to questions like whether "God" exists, or whether evolution is real. Even with less controversial science, you end up with changing models (from a Newtonian framework to Einstein's relativity to string theory). So things might not work the way we think it does.

It might even be possible for something to be both true and false at the same time. Quantum theory (specifically for quantum computing) seems to indicate this might be possible.

Also, a lot of what we hold to be true is probably very false. Most people are pretty confident about their family lineage, even though statistics on parental discrepancy suggest that a lot of people are probably mistaken.

History is often said to be written by the victors. Even now, if you look at the history that different countries teach, there can be lots of significant differences. How do you know what happened in 1492? Or 1945? Because some book said so? Because everyone told you so? In fact, how do you know you were actually born on your birthdate? Because you have a scrap of paper and your mother told you so? There are plenty of cases where people don't realize they're adopted or don't realize their illegal immigrants, even though they believed otherwise all their lives.

You could even go further with the line of thinking - is this a dream? Is the real world real or maybe this is all some sort of hallucination, or virtual reality thingy, or this is just like the Matrix?

So I would assert that when it comes to "true" and "real," things can often get complicated, if you really stop to think about it.

Okay, I can't pretend I really get into such abstract philosophical discussions, but that post is so deep, it just earned you a karma point.