quote:

---

Originally posted by Bugger:
He storms off, doesn't talk to me for the rest of the night. People grumble about how my cards "shouldn't work that way" so I change decks shortly after to quit their bitching. Sigh.

---

I understand that was very annoying for you, but I would never change my deck if some semi-informed judge didn't know the rules. I would contact Wizards asking the rulings, then take the e-mail to them offering to forward the e-mail or something to them.
I would keep playing it, at least the next tournament, just to annoy them.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dimh:
Define unfair advantage.

Unfair that the opponent doesn't know all the cards?

---

No.

quote:

---

Unfair the opponent doesn't call a judge for oracle wordings or access to a smart phone?

---

To an extent, yes. Not everyone has a smart phone. That aside, I played a Legacy tournament last Sunday (see the report on here somewhere). It was my first in 2 years. A lot of the decks have upgraded since, for instance, Griselbrand has made its way into Reanimator. I know it's good, but don't know exactly what it did. If a guy has a foil foreign deck to be pimpy, I can't take my phone out for every card the guy pulls. People should have English versions available so I can read the card right there.
You can't expect the judge to sit by your table all the time, too, and I don't trust friends of my opponent (depending on the opponent/friend)

And there are people who will take advantage of you if you don't know the card, or at least they will try. Sadly.
Fortunately I've met only one so far.

__________________
/Thunder in the wind/No rain/Peace mourns its passing/

Shrugs...

I think that's an awesome way to win!

edit:
It was a 1-1-1 draw instead of a 1-0-1 win.
__________________
****Attention****

quote:

---

Originally posted by AEther Storm:
To an extent, yes. Not everyone has a smart phone. That aside, I played a Legacy tournament last Sunday (see the report on here somewhere). It was my first in 2 years. A lot of the decks have upgraded since, for instance, Griselbrand has made its way into Reanimator. I know it's good, but don't know exactly what it did. If a guy has a foil foreign deck to be pimpy, I can't take my phone out for every card the guy pulls. People should have English versions available so I can read the card right there.
You can't expect the judge to sit by your table all the time, too, and I don't trust friends of my opponent (depending on the opponent/friend)

And there are people who will take advantage of you if you don't know the card, or at least they will try. Sadly.
Fortunately I've met only one so far.

---

This is (one of the reasons) *why* there are judges at events. If you are not familiar with a card, you owe it to yourself to get the oracle wording of the card.

Don't have a smartphone? Not a problem, ask a judge!

This is what *everyone* had to do until they updated the comprehensive rules to allow smartphones, tablets, etc for oracle wordings.

quote:

---

Originally posted by junichi:
With less than 10 minutes to go in the final round and up 1-0 in games, I took 40 extra turns (not infinite loop) without a win condition in my deck (due to opponent's Sadistic Sacrament) to stall out a 1-0-1 victory. To top it off, I was facing against my buddy's gf. Everyone in the store was watching (including 3 judges), and a few individuals commented on how this is the worst and lowest way to win, especially against a lady.

Shrugs...

I think that's an awesome way to win!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Volcanon:
Stalling is cheating. This is why tournaments need chess timers.

---

I think you are mixing up slow play and stalling.

__________________
****Attention****

If someone's clearly stalling because I'm playing foreign cards I'm just going to call a judge on them for stalling. At some point it will become pretty clear to a judge (assuming they're semi-competent) what my opponent is trying to do.

Thankfully, I've never had to deal with that kind of asshattery before. Because everyone I've played against either know what the cards do or trust me on it. Even at SCG Opens and other bigger events, people will just ask me what the card does, usually because they have an idea of what it does already but just don't know with 100% certainty. I've never had a judge called or people looking up stuff on smartphones.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dimh:
This is (one of the reasons) *why* there are judges at events. If you are not familiar with a card, you owe it to yourself to get the oracle wording of the card.

Don't have a smartphone? Not a problem, ask a judge!

This is what *everyone* had to do until they updated the comprehensive rules to allow smartphones, tablets, etc for oracle wordings.

Conversely, if you didn't want to take up a judge's time, you could just research what the cards do beforehand.

---

I am one of those players that keeps up from time to time with what's played and look around, but I have friends that don't. They play their usual good deck that they are familiar with playing (like Elf combo) and don't look at any decks beforehand. How could you, you don't know what you're gonna play against? You could take an educated guess but hey, I didn't play against Jace TMS last Sunday, but I expected to.
So if Mr. Pimpy comes along with his all-foil Asian/Russian deck, there's an issue for my friend. Either he's gotta take their word for it or call the judge on every opponents turn. Now I understand that is the thing to do, of course, but still, you want to focus on playing right? It's about playing the game, not deciphering each card in someones deck.

That's besides using a smartphone, but you don't want to do that every time he plays a card? My battery would be out halfway through the game, but that aside.

On a side note, I don't see the extra on having Asian/Russian/Other languages of cards in your deck if you're a resident in an English speaking nation, or one that uses English cards (like us). It's the same card. But that's just me.

quote:

---

Originally posted by junichi:
With less than 10 minutes to go in the final round and up 1-0 in games, I took 40 extra turns (not infinite loop) without a win condition in my deck (due to opponent's Sadistic Sacrament) to stall out a 1-0-1 victory. To top it off, I was facing against my buddy's gf. Everyone in the store was watching (including 3 judges), and a few individuals commented on how this is the worst and lowest way to win, especially against a lady.

Shrugs...

I think that's an awesome way to win!

---

I suppose, but you could've perhaps told her: "Hey, I'm taking 40 turns now, taking up a lot of time. Either you can concede now, or we'll sit here a while".

quote:

---

Originally posted by Volcanon:
Stalling is cheating. This is why tournaments need chess timers.

---

I agree on the timers. I make enough mistakes as it is right now, a timer would only benefit me.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bagbokk:
On foreign cards, not my problem if opponent doesn't know what my cards do; it's their job to know or call a judge if they don't trust what I tell them it does. Wizards had the option of banning foreign cards because of the problems that it can create: they deliberately chose not to by sticking in the rules a sentence about foreign cards being legal.

If someone's clearly stalling because I'm playing foreign cards I'm just going to call a judge on them for stalling. At some point it will become pretty clear to a judge (assuming they're semi-competent) what my opponent is trying to do.

Thankfully, I've never had to deal with that kind of asshattery before. Because everyone I've played against either know what the cards do or trust me on it. Even at SCG Opens and other bigger events, people will just ask me what the card does, usually because they have an idea of what it does already but just don't know with 100% certainty. I've never had a judge called or people looking up stuff on smartphones.

It's different if my opponent deliberately misrepresents what his cards do, though. If someone draws 4 cards off a foreign Ponder and it's somewhat clear that he's doing it on purpose I'm going to call a judge over and get him at least a warning or whatever on the violation of looking at extra cards. Or I'll wait for them to DEC and get them a game loss on that. I can be as nice or as much of a dick to you as you are to me, basically.

---

I agree with most of what you're saying (especially on your last line), but you can't expect every opponent you're playing to know what a foreign card does? I've played newbs a few times in the 1st or 2nd rounds having to explain even English cards I was playing, for instance.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Volcanon:
Stalling is cheating. This is why tournaments need chess timers.

---

simply making a game take longer is in no way cheating/ Intentionally playing slowly is cheating. There is certainly a difference. For example.... I was playing on MTGO and my naya agr opponent was 8min behind on the clock vs my bant control. I run a single copy of Garruk primal hunter in the deck. I had Garruk up to counters; enough for his ultimate. My opponent attacked him with a beast, I blocked with a thragtusk, then my opponent gave him beast +2/+2 and trample w/ selesnya charm. At this point I could have used the azorious charm in my hand to save garruk from any damage, untap, and ultimate, but instead I decided to let him take the 2 damage. I continued to keep garruk alive a little but just make trades and let my opponent continue to attack him. In the end, my opponent wasted at least another 5 minutes off his clock before conceding game 1. He had no way to win 2 games in the time he left himself on his clock, and mine was far ahead. Had this been a paper tournament I would have just been able to take a 1-0-1 match win just the same. I never played slowly, in fact I played much faster then my opponent, but I took a line of play that made the game progress slower. That happens to be perfectly legal.

quote:

---

Originally posted by AEther Storm:

I suppose, but you could've perhaps told her: "Hey, I'm taking 40 turns now, taking up a lot of time. Either you can concede now, or we'll sit here a while".

---

It makes no sense for her to concede, since she can't lose the game. She was hoping that I would deck out before time runs out. I was playing pretty fast to avoid any chance of getting a slow play warning, and took roughly less than 30 seconds per turn to perform multiple triggers (I was playing 4 color Pyromancer Ascension). My library was emptying fast, but had just enough to beat out the timer.

edit:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/18309_The_Justice_League_Five_Controversial_Calls.html

I am Mr. Infinite Turns in the last story of that article. (Technically, it's not infinite.)

__________________
****Attention****

quote:

---

Originally posted by caquaa:
simply making a game take longer is in no way cheating/ Intentionally playing slowly is cheating. There is certainly a difference. For example.... I was playing on MTGO and my naya agr opponent was 8min behind on the clock vs my bant control. I run a single copy of Garruk primal hunter in the deck. I had Garruk up to counters; enough for his ultimate. My opponent attacked him with a beast, I blocked with a thragtusk, then my opponent gave him beast +2/+2 and trample w/ selesnya charm. At this point I could have used the azorious charm in my hand to save garruk from any damage, untap, and ultimate, but instead I decided to let him take the 2 damage. I continued to keep garruk alive a little but just make trades and let my opponent continue to attack him. In the end, my opponent wasted at least another 5 minutes off his clock before conceding game 1. He had no way to win 2 games in the time he left himself on his clock, and mine was far ahead. Had this been a paper tournament I would have just been able to take a 1-0-1 match win just the same. I never played slowly, in fact I played much faster then my opponent, but I took a line of play that made the game progress slower. That happens to be perfectly legal.

If you think winning is all about getting your opponents life total to 0, you're missing plenty of elements of competitive play.

---

This is called following the letter of the law, as opposed to the spirit of the law. Understand why there are stalling rules in the first place - to prevent abuses of game mechanics. This includes game mechanics that cover the maximum time allowed for a match. In a perfect world, matches would never reach time, because the entire purpose of magic is to reach a victory condition. Matches won/lost/drawn due to a lack of time goes against the purpose of a magic match, and the only reason they exist is because tournament logistics necessitate such things.

Junichi's story is a perfect example of why even a legal stall tactic is frowned upon - no one wakes up before a tournament and tell themselves "man I really hope I get to win a match by taking 45 minutes to win a single game". It doesn't promote competition, it doesn't promote interaction. It fits every definition of a griefer tactic, and if it was a more common occurrence, you bet your ass that the WotC rules committee would take further steps to address the issue.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zeckk:
This is called following the letter of the law, as opposed to the spirit of the law. Understand why there are stalling rules in the first place - to prevent abuses of game mechanics. This includes game mechanics that cover the maximum time allowed for a match. In a perfect world, matches would never reach time, because the entire purpose of magic is to reach a victory condition. Matches won/lost/drawn due to a lack of time goes against the purpose of a magic match, and the only reason they exist is because tournament logistics necessitate such things.

Junichi's story is a perfect example of why even a legal stall tactic is frowned upon - no one wakes up before a tournament and tell themselves "man I really hope I get to win a match by taking 45 minutes to win a single game". It doesn't promote competition, it doesn't promote interaction. It fits every definition of a griefer tactic, and if it was a more common occurrence, you bet your ass that the WotC rules committee would take further steps to address the issue.

Bottom line - sure, there are legal ways to salvage a win or draw based on slow play. But it should never be celebrated as a viable game tactic. At best, it's a desperation move that usually has social consequences, regardless of the justifications.

---

I do agree with this, hence I really like MTGO's timer. If that same game was done on MTGO, I would've lost due to wasting my own portion of the 25mins, instead of a shared 50mins.

__________________
****Attention****

quote:

---

I agree with most of what you're saying (especially on your last line), but you can't expect every opponent you're playing to know what a foreign card does? I've played newbs a few times in the 1st or 2nd rounds having to explain even English cards I was playing, for instance.

(The example I posted above with a friend of mine actually happened by the way.)

---

The thing is, it's only really a problem if you don't know a large number of cards. I expect that at a larger and more competitive tournament, 99.9% players will know what 99% of the popular cards in Standard do, and still have sufficient knowledge of the remaining cards that it wouldn't be an issue at such an event. I can see a problem happening right when a new set is released or whatever--I held off on playing any foreign Charms for a little while just because I wouldn't be able to remember what all three choices did on all of them--but still, you should have a good idea...

Newbs aren't really a problem, they usually trust you to know what the cards do, and they aren't going to be asshats about it. Hell, I've played games where I attack with a bunch of stuff and people are just like "AM I DEAD?"

His face just completely drained. I felt so bad.

Another time, I was playing a mono black deck against GB in M10 draft. He flipped his Doom Blade up and said "how useless!" out loud. I took game 1, and he boarded out the blade. I played Platinum Angel game 2 (which was in my hand all of game 1) and he had no outs.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zeckk:
I find it interesting that you imply asking a judge for oracle text or using a smart phone is being an "asshat", while not questioning the logic of trusting a stranger that has a monetary incentive to lie to explain what a foreign card does. I mean, sure you can be super judgmental about it, or simply not get bent out of shape when someone wants information because you are playing foreign cards.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bagbokk:
Not what I said or implied. I imply that doing it for every single card in my deck for the purpose of stalling like a certain person suggested earlier in this thread is being an "asshat." I have no problem with someone not trusting me and looking up a card (or asking me if I have an English one to show them, or something similar). I have a problem with someone doing it to waste time, or trying to pull some bull**** move like asking me to recite word-for-word what the oracle text says (rather than just basically summarizing what the card would do), etc. Like I said, there are a lot of ways to handle this issue, some are perfectly okay, some really aren't.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by theqissilent:
Since when is using a phone during a game legal? I was under the impression that is cheating. What is to stop them from recieving texts from someone that can see their opponents hand?

---

Phone has to be visible by both players in center of table.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bagbokk:
The thing is, it's only really a problem if you don't know a large number of cards. I expect that at a larger and more competitive tournament, 99.9% players will know what 99% of the popular cards in Standard do, and still have sufficient knowledge of the remaining cards that it wouldn't be an issue at such an event. I can see a problem happening right when a new set is released or whatever--I held off on playing any foreign Charms for a little while just because I wouldn't be able to remember what all three choices did on all of them--but still, you should have a good idea...

Newbs aren't really a problem, they usually trust you to know what the cards do, and they aren't going to be asshats about it. Hell, I've played games where I attack with a bunch of stuff and people are just like "AM I DEAD?"

More importantly, there are different ways to deal with this kind of issue. Some are better than others. marlo213's way of dealing with this issue is not one that people should be adopting, IMO.

---

I know that, and people will hardly ever have issues with it. But at that point my friend was at a loss, (what do you SB against cards you don't 100% sure know what they do? Let alone get the interaction between them). It goes to a lesser extent for me as I try and keep up but until Sunday had no idea what Griselbrand did, until my opponent played a German version. I do understand quite a lot of the German language, but I didn't know what Lebensverknüpfung meant for instance.

quote:

---

Originally posted by rockondon:
A friend of mine used to play a stasis deck which was completely unenjoyable to play against. Winning against that deck was no more satisfying than losing.

---

I think it's very satisfying to win against a Stasis deck. Although annoying in a lock down, it's a viable strategy. Unlike Shahrazad anymore. Imagine getting 4 Shahrazad to built a deck with JUST before they banned it!

LOL!

haha..

ha..

hmm..

__________________
/Thunder in the wind/No rain/Peace mourns its passing/

quote:

---

Originally posted by theqissilent:
I have never had a game that I didnt enjoy winning just because it was tedious, so I don't get what you mean

---