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Judges have been asked to go around without their unis on to check for this stuff. We had this discussion the other night about collusion at FMN with our judges since we usually split the prize pool for finalists, and basically they told us that its better safe than sorry.
Edit:
Players should realize that larger events (anything bigger/more important than a FMN at this point) is more stressful than just playing the game. You have to worry about dbags stealing your shit when you aren't looking, making sure you aren't breaking any rules at that level, finding food (bigger deal than you think), and other stuff. There's a lot of upside for sure, but things to consider when you do attend larger events.
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So most of MODO's events (DEs, PEs, PTQs and MOCS) will be removed until further notice after the previous weekend's fiasco with a saturday MOCS and sunday PTQ both had irrecoverable crashes deep into the tournament.
Source
It should also be noted that Hasbro (the company that owns WotC and by proxy, MTG) has put out a couple of jobs for hire for the following: Software Developer Job - Renton, WA, US, and Sr. Software Tester Job - Renton, WA, US
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On November 13 2013 01:18 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 01:07 Cel.erity wrote: If your opponent offers you money to concede, even jokingly, and you then go on to play the match without saying anything, you will be DQed from the tournament because they can't prove that your result was genuine. It's just a necessity to call a judge in that situation. You don't know whether or not someone overheard your conversation and might report it. I would agree with this if an actual offer was made (and I agree with it in principle; even if you are hoping the judge will decide to let the players continue, covering yourself can be a necessity). On the other hand, I can see how the OPs joke inadvertently could put pressure on the opponent to report it, even if I don't think it's the right thing to do (once again, assuming the account is accurate). Its not a matter of interpretation or there being two sides to it. There are countless examples to learn from, this rule above all others has absolutely no leeway for judges to cut a player slack. There are magic-legal reasons, and real-world-legal reasons for this. Even hinting at exchanging anything for an certain outcome is grounds for a DQ.
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The recent bribery discussion sort of overshadowed my question, so I figured I'd ask it again. Don't worry, I won't spam the thread; if it goes unanswered again I'll take the hint and won't post it a third time.
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I'm thinking of playing some Magic for fun on MWS. That said, I prefer to play with netdecks, so what are the current top deck(s) in the Standard format? I checked the GP results and Mono-Blue Devotion seems to have done extremely well, but I'm not sure if that makes it the current best deck or if it was just an anomaly.
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United States24502 Posts
On November 13 2013 15:30 iGrok wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 01:18 micronesia wrote:On November 13 2013 01:07 Cel.erity wrote: If your opponent offers you money to concede, even jokingly, and you then go on to play the match without saying anything, you will be DQed from the tournament because they can't prove that your result was genuine. It's just a necessity to call a judge in that situation. You don't know whether or not someone overheard your conversation and might report it. I would agree with this if an actual offer was made (and I agree with it in principle; even if you are hoping the judge will decide to let the players continue, covering yourself can be a necessity). On the other hand, I can see how the OPs joke inadvertently could put pressure on the opponent to report it, even if I don't think it's the right thing to do (once again, assuming the account is accurate). Its not a matter of interpretation or there being two sides to it. There are countless examples to learn from, this rule above all others has absolutely no leeway for judges to cut a player slack. There are magic-legal reasons, and real-world-legal reasons for this. Even hinting at exchanging anything for an certain outcome is grounds for a DQ. Assuming I'm looking in the right place, I see this rules text:
The decision to drop, concede, or agree to an intentional draw cannot be made in exchange for or influenced by the offer of any reward or incentive. Making such an offer is prohibited. Unless the player receiving such an offer calls for a judge immediately, both players will be penalized in the same manner. An offer was not made in the OP's example. Therefore, any necessity to penalize either player in that case would be based on precedent rather than a strict rules interpretation.
I haven't played in the more serious tournaments, so clearly I haven't been exposed to the type of behavior as much that the judges are trying to avoid. Apparently it is worse than I thought if they have to be so incredibly strict that accidentally dropping a quarter on to the table while putting your phone in your other pocket can be interpreted as an attempt to influence an opponent's decision.
Basically, from what I'm seeing, there is or has in the past been a great deal of cheating of this nature between players, and so it became necessary to become strict to the point of absurdity. Kind of sad.
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"depends how much money you have", if not a joke, is clearly an offer. OP is saying (again, if taken seriously) that if his opponent hands over a large enough sum of money, he will scoop.
Apparently it is worse than I thought if they have to be so incredibly strict that accidentally dropping a quarter on to the table while putting your phone in your other pocket can be interpreted as an attempt to influence an opponent's decision. Come on, I expect strawman arguments from random jackasses on reddit, but you?
Its not just about player-interactions. Its about US gambling laws, which magic and all competitive card games have to be very careful around.
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On November 13 2013 15:33 Salivanth wrote: The recent bribery discussion sort of overshadowed my question, so I figured I'd ask it again. Don't worry, I won't spam the thread; if it goes unanswered again I'll take the hint and won't post it a third time.
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I'm thinking of playing some Magic for fun on MWS. That said, I prefer to play with netdecks, so what are the current top deck(s) in the Standard format? I checked the GP results and Mono-Blue Devotion seems to have done extremely well, but I'm not sure if that makes it the current best deck or if it was just an anomaly. http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=ST
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So I know that it is not allowed to sell your MTGO account for real money, but what about cards and tickets?
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On November 13 2013 15:59 caelym wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 15:33 Salivanth wrote: The recent bribery discussion sort of overshadowed my question, so I figured I'd ask it again. Don't worry, I won't spam the thread; if it goes unanswered again I'll take the hint and won't post it a third time.
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I'm thinking of playing some Magic for fun on MWS. That said, I prefer to play with netdecks, so what are the current top deck(s) in the Standard format? I checked the GP results and Mono-Blue Devotion seems to have done extremely well, but I'm not sure if that makes it the current best deck or if it was just an anomaly. http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=ST
Ah, cool thanks. That breakdown of the entire Theros metagame (As well as the last 2 weeks) was fantastic!
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On November 13 2013 15:33 Salivanth wrote: The recent bribery discussion sort of overshadowed my question, so I figured I'd ask it again. Don't worry, I won't spam the thread; if it goes unanswered again I'll take the hint and won't post it a third time.
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I'm thinking of playing some Magic for fun on MWS. That said, I prefer to play with netdecks, so what are the current top deck(s) in the Standard format? I checked the GP results and Mono-Blue Devotion seems to have done extremely well, but I'm not sure if that makes it the current best deck or if it was just an anomaly. I would suggest using cockatrice there is great support for it here: here. It's kinda like MWS but the UI is much better and there is a very large community to support it.
You can find the recent meta game here. It lists the decks by popularity and not by how 'good' something is. But if you stick with one of the deck you should be fine, usually there isn't a best deck in the format but many good ones.
On November 13 2013 15:37 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +The decision to drop, concede, or agree to an intentional draw cannot be made in exchange for or influenced by the offer of any reward or incentive. Making such an offer is prohibited. Unless the player receiving such an offer calls for a judge immediately, both players will be penalized in the same manner. An offer was not made in the OP's example. Therefore, any necessity to penalize either player in that case would be based on precedent rather than a strict rules interpretation. I haven't played in the more serious tournaments, so clearly I haven't been exposed to the type of behavior as much that the judges are trying to avoid. Apparently it is worse than I thought if they have to be so incredibly strict that accidentally dropping a quarter on to the table while putting your phone in your other pocket can be interpreted as an attempt to influence an opponent's decision. Basically, from what I'm seeing, there is or has in the past been a great deal of cheating of this nature between players, and so it became necessary to become strict to the point of absurdity. Kind of sad.
Of course there was an offer, even if it was sarcastic. "WIll you scoop to me?" "Well how much money do you have?" is a pretty clear offer when you take it literally, and the judges have very little leyway for interpretation, baring the obvious "I cannot offer you $20 to scoop to me." kind of stuff. And that sort of thing does happen (albeit rarely) which is why the judges have to be so strict, they are not allowed to be partial to a party. Some people will do almost anything to get a seat on the pro-tour.
Taking your example literally: "Judge my oppenent dropped a quarter on the table while getting ready. He is trying to bribe the outcome of the game." "Did he say anything or do anything else to indicate that he was offering you that for the game?" "No." "Well then he isn't. But if does do something like that call me." There is no reasonable way that dropping a quarter on the table yould be misconstrued as bribery.
The reason they are so incredibly strict on this is twofold: they (Wizards, and the TO) have to be very careful about gambling laws, especially because they operate tournaments in so many countries and they wish to prevent any notion that it is possible to buy your way to the pro-tour because that would de-legitimise the entire competitive magic circuit. It is kind of sad that these strict rules have to be in place but the reasons are there. As for past collusion yes, it has happened, and it continues to happen but these strict rules have pushed out much of the collusion that exists in high level tournaments. While at the same time once you know about it it's pretty simple to not be hit by these rules.
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On November 13 2013 16:11 Mowr wrote: So I know that it is not allowed to sell your MTGO account for real money, but what about cards and tickets?
I don't know about the legality of it, but I'm pretty sure Wizards takes a "Do what you want, but we can't protect you" type of stance. Cards/tickets are eBayed all the time, and there are also a lot of people who will gift money on Paypal for tickets.
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On November 13 2013 14:55 Kinie wrote:So most of MODO's events (DEs, PEs, PTQs and MOCS) will be removed until further notice after the previous weekend's fiasco with a saturday MOCS and sunday PTQ both had irrecoverable crashes deep into the tournament. SourceIt should also be noted that Hasbro (the company that owns WotC and by proxy, MTG) has put out a couple of jobs for hire for the following: Software Developer Job - Renton, WA, US, and Sr. Software Tester Job - Renton, WA, US
I think it's a drastic/intense step, but maybe Magic Online will recover and be better than ever because of all of this. Haven't been playing lately so haven't been experiencing the instability, but heard that it's been pretty bad.
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The biggest problem with Wizards reaction tho is that with the disabling of Daily Events that there are no good value events left. A lot of players use Daily's to win packs to spend on drafts. Wouldn't be surprised if the amount of players on MODO takes a nosedive with this.
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On November 13 2013 20:51 Gorsameth wrote: The biggest problem with Wizards reaction tho is that with the disabling of Daily Events that there are no good value events left. A lot of players use Daily's to win packs to spend on drafts. Wouldn't be surprised if the amount of players on MODO takes a nosedive with this.
Yah If i was playing Magic Online right now you could be sure I wouldn't be with the discontinuation of daily events.
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I still play for the phantom sealed events (because they're almost free) but without the momir dailies there is no real way to keep going positive with my account. They do have what looks like some solid ques to make up for it (the momir 5-3-2-2 looks stupid easy to go positive on) but I'm not sure if I want to go for it. I am really looking froward to the next two ticket tuesday and will likely be tripple queing (or more if I can get another monitor.) especially considering they are ques instead of scheduled.
It's pretty big news that they've taken down the dailies though.
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at least they're fixing it, i assume they are only temporarily down
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On November 13 2013 22:13 red_hq wrote: I still play for the phantom sealed events (because they're almost free) but without the momir dailies there is no real way to keep going positive with my account. They do have what looks like some solid ques to make up for it (the momir 5-3-2-2 looks stupid easy to go positive on) but I'm not sure if I want to go for it. I am really looking froward to the next two ticket tuesday and will likely be tripple queing (or more if I can get another monitor.) especially considering they are ques instead of scheduled.
It's pretty big news that they've taken down the dailies though. meh the 5-3-2-2 still doesnt look appealing to me. 3/4th profit is less then 1 ticket. so only top 2 really matters and its the same cost as the daily's while having less then half the payout. Plus its single elim instead of swiss which further lowers return values.
On November 13 2013 22:57 Lyter wrote: at least they're fixing it, i assume they are only temporarily down
Considering the post says they would update us on progress before the end of the year im not hopeful that the events come back this year. One can hope that a massive drop in games will atleast let them open up daily's again.
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Is Wizards finally fixing their Fisher Price program?
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United States24502 Posts
On November 13 2013 15:51 iGrok wrote: "depends how much money you have", if not a joke, is clearly an offer. OP is saying (again, if taken seriously) that if his opponent hands over a large enough sum of money, he will scoop. But putting aside the fact that it is obviously a joke (and the guy expressed very clearly that he realized he should not have said it) it does not seem to be an offer to me. There is the strong possibility, if it is not a joke (unlikely), that it could lead to an offer. Of course I recognize that there doesn't need to be a written agreement, a notary, and a handshake in order for a true offer to be rendered. If it turned out it was not a joke, and this actually went to the next step, then yes, this is the type of situation the rules are referring to for sure, and the way the opponent and judges handled it is perfectly acceptable.
Show nested quote +Apparently it is worse than I thought if they have to be so incredibly strict that accidentally dropping a quarter on to the table while putting your phone in your other pocket can be interpreted as an attempt to influence an opponent's decision. Come on, I expect strawman arguments from random jackasses on reddit, but you? I figured this line might need more explanation than I originally gave, but I didn't expect the criticism of it to be that it is a strawman. My point here is that, as I was told (and not what was written in the rules) in the thread, the judges interpret any and all possible offers of matchfixing/bribery as violations and immediately DQ both sides unless the other party immediately reports it. That would mean my seemingly ridiculous example would have the same result. You could claim "ok they aren't that ridiculous so as to DQ someone because he dropped his quarter even though it's possible that could intentionally be sending a message of an offer of money to his opponent, but I was told, once again in this thread, that there is no room for interpretation here. If it can be interpreted as matchfixing attempts, it must be.
If there really is a line that's drawn, and it's not in as ridiculous of a place as I'm implying, I'd love to know where in the rules this is.
Its not just about player-interactions. Its about US gambling laws, which magic and all competitive card games have to be very careful around. And this is why they have to craft their rules very carefully. It doesn't explain the apparent disconnect between the rules and the common practice you guys have explained to me of judges DQing people.
I hate the type of behavior they are trying to prevent as much as the rest of you certainly do. I don't think a blanket policy which punishes people people who obviously are not guilty of it is going to reduce it from happening (although I do believe other aspects of their approach such as plainclothed judges roaming might be very helpful).
Getting back to my original point, the fact that someone is required to report that their opponent made an obvious joke which didn't even constitute an offer, lest they also be DQ'd seems too overkill to me. I've played other competitive games and I didn't get this horrible vibe. Even if I actually get good at this game I will probably just steer clear of the competitive scene.
On November 13 2013 19:25 red_hq wrote: There is no reasonable way that dropping a quarter on the table yould be misconstrued as bribery.
In a strict environment where you can't discuss anything having to do with money or match-fixing, it could be the perfect way to make an offer (offers don't need to be obvious to an observer to be made, especially if opponents know each other ahead of time). People won't stop wanting to cheat because there are strict rules preventing it, of course.
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It's mostly up to their discretion, as in their view on the sequence of events. It's just that their views are very conservative in nature as if there's any reasonable belief that quarter is being dropped on the table is because you are dying of thirst and is sitting at 1.25 which puts you short for 1.50 for a drink so you decide to throw a game or match then you will be DQ-ed.
It's not as terrifying as people have made it sound, but if a judge just walking by overhears something like collusion and didn't take as a joke, then you could be very much be in trouble.
I understand where you are coming from micronesia, but people suck, people suck worse when there's stakes of any sort on the table, so judges kind of have to do this. It's not black/white, but the shade of gray doesn't go too far.
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