Bluffing/cheating?

[Mr. Nightmare]

On the play here is what I do.  Start out by confidantly laying your Force of Will on the table and declaring you play Chalice@0.  Then say oops and play Chalice.

Then play wasteland.

What this does is it makes IT play as though you can actually use your Force of Will.
IT will be reluctant to fetch out an Underground Sea if it is looking at a Wasteland.

Should IT play cabal therapy he might  name Force of Will since he knows you have one.

From the "Oath opening hand" thread, I figure it would be better to discuss here than there.  How legal is this play?  It seems pretty shady to me.

[LordHomerCat]

I don't think there are any rules about accidentally or intentionally revealing your hand.

[49 Cents]

I don't think so either. You can't get a gameloss for accidentally revealing a card from your hand (I don't even think you get one from revealing one because you want to). I think it's rather clever, actually.

[parallax]

You are allowed to reveal cards from your hand. However, this situation is: intentionally misplayed a card and/or misrepresenting the game state. It might slide because (a) it's obvious to the opponent that you're not actually playing Force of Will and (b) you declared "Chalice of the Void", further clarifying that you are not playing the Force. If the card you were bluffing with were Duress, and your opponent revealed his hand, you could be in a lot of trouble.

Revealing cards is not illegal, but if your opponent believes you're actually playing them, then you're misrepresenting the game state.

[ashiXIII]

You are allowed to reveal cards from your hand. However, this situation is: intentionally misplayed a card and/or misrepresenting the game state. It might slide because (a) it's obvious to the opponent that you're not actually playing Force of Will and (b) you declared "Chalice of the Void", further clarifying that you are not playing the Force. If the card you were bluffing with were Duress, and your opponent revealed his hand, you could be in a lot of trouble.

Revealing cards is not illegal, but if your opponent believes you're actually playing them, then you're misrepresenting the game state.

That's not necessarily true. If you reveal  a card from your hand, and your opponent thinks you're playing it, he's misreading the game state. It's not necessarily that you're misrepresenting it. There have been many times I've made a mistake because I misconstrued one of my opponent's permanents for a different permanent, and this is a fairly similiar situation.

[parallax]

Moving a card from your hand to the table is an accepted shortcut for playing it. If I put a Duress from my hand on the table and my opponent reveals his hand, I can't decide, 'oh, I was just revealing this Duress. I didn't say I was playing it.' I think the current case is acceptable because it is clear you are not attempting to play the Force of Will, but other, similar situations (involving non-reactive spells) could cause significant trouble.

[ashiXIII]

Moving a card from your hand to the table is an accepted shortcut for playing it. If I put a Duress from my hand on the table and my opponent reveals his hand, I can't decide, 'oh, I was just revealing this Duress. I didn't say I was playing it.' I think the current case is acceptable because it is clear you are not attempting to play the Force of Will, but other, similar situations (involving non-reactive spells) could cause significant trouble.

This isn't true though if you're announcing "Chalice of the Void" as you put down the Duress, and you haven't even played your land yet.

[parallax]

Moving a card from your hand to the table is an accepted shortcut for playing it. If I put a Duress from my hand on the table and my opponent reveals his hand, I can't decide, 'oh, I was just revealing this Duress. I didn't say I was playing it.' I think the current case is acceptable because it is clear you are not attempting to play the Force of Will, but other, similar situations (involving non-reactive spells) could cause significant trouble.

This isn't true though if you're announcing "Chalice of the Void" as you put down the Duress, and you haven't even played your land yet.

That's why I made exceptions (a) and (b) in my original post. You might be able to get away with this if it is absolutely clear that you are attempting to cast Chalice of the Void and not the card you revealed.

From the judge-L mailing list:

Intentionally committing an error is cheating, not bluffing.

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A1=ind0604B&L=DCIJUDGE-L&D=0&I=-3&m=22401%2310#10

[49 Cents]

Only they have no way to tell that it is intentional, since these things just.. happen.

[ashiXIII]

Whoa! The situation used there is ENTIRELY different. The player is actually cheating. He's paying 3 for a spell that costs 4 and he's doing it on purpose. The situation here is announcing an entire legal spell, and just revealing the wrong card from your hand. In our example, you're not attempting to play the revealed card at all. That's really a terrible comparison and the quote from Andy is taken very much out of context.

[ashiXIII]

Only they have no way to tell that it is intentional, since these things just.. happen.

This is only something a judge can determine through investigation, which is, of course, not foolproof. For the sake of our discussion, I think we're going to assume that the judge knows beyond any shadow of a doubt whether it was intentional or not.

[Khahan]

Moving a card from your hand to the table is an accepted shortcut for playing it. If I put a Duress from my hand on the table and my opponent reveals his hand, I can't decide, 'oh, I was just revealing this Duress. I didn't say I was playing it.' I think the current case is acceptable because it is clear you are not attempting to play the Force of Will, but other, similar situations (involving non-reactive spells) could cause significant trouble.

A) You don't reveal for duress until the spell resolves. So until you pass priority, I'm not going to show you my hand.

B)  You also have to tap mana for those non-reactive spells.

Especially due to B) above, I would not think that my opponent is playing a spell just because he laid it down. 

However, depending on my opponents actions, I may call a judge if the wrong card is dropped. I think in *most* circumstances I would not. But if my opponent did something that made it very obvious he was intentionally laying the wrong card, I would call the judge for misrepresentation. If there was nothing obvious or if it was a grey area, I would probably just note the card he has and go on with the game.

[Scoops666]

I'll be honest, as a judge, it would be really hard to determine the intent of the player on this. You'd really have to dig deep into investigating his prior actions to determine if this was a mistake or intentional. However, I do want to say that if it is intentional, it is cheating and would be penalized.

[ashiXIII]

I'll be honest, as a judge, it would be really hard to determine the intent of the player on this. You'd really have to dig deep into investigating his prior actions to determine if this was a mistake or intentional. However, I do want to say that if it is intentional, it is cheating and would be penalized.

I agree that you have to investigate here. However, as a judge, I still don't see it as cheating.

[Jaapmans]

I'll be honest, as a judge, it would be really hard to determine the intent of the player on this.

Determining intent, determining if a player is lying or not, is not that hard if you know what to look for. Body language *never* lies.

Jaap Brouwer

[ashiXIII]

Apparently a post from Jaap can shut everyone up. Anyway, I just wanted to state that this has been quite a lively topic on the Judge List over the past few days. The consensus seems to be boiling down to "This isn't cheating, but is it unsporting?"

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I have another question similar to this.  It's first turn of a game, player A goes first and cracks a fetchland.  His opponent has no response.  While he is searching through his deck, he says to player B "I'm gonna duress you."  Player B then says "Ok." and reveals his hand to player A, however player A does not actually tap the land he fetches to cast a duress at all; he just gets a free look at player B's hand and passes the turn (Maybe he says, "Oops sorry, I thought I had a duress but I don't.  Go ahead".  Obviously player B wasn't very smart in this situation, but what player A did seems pretty shady to me.  What do you think would be the ruling on something like this?

[Jacob Orlove]

That's misrepresenting the game state at best, and actively cheating at worst.

[Gabethebabe]

I have another question similar to this.  It's first turn of a game, player A goes first and cracks a fetchland.  His opponent has no response.  While he is searching through his deck, he says to player B "I'm gonna duress you."  Player B then says "Ok." and reveals his hand to player A, however player A does not actually tap the land he fetches to cast a duress at all; he just gets a free look at player B's hand and passes the turn (Maybe he says, "Oops sorry, I thought I had a duress but I don't.  Go ahead".  Obviously player B wasn't very smart in this situation, but what player A did seems pretty shady to me.  What do you think would be the ruling on something like this?

I would DQ this dude on the spot. The ONLY exception would be if he´s made a mistake and thought he had a Duress in hand, but didn´t. Not very like, since everybody knows its art, but similar things can happen with cards that are less common. But in that case it would be a games loss, since his error gave him so much advantage that the game is unplayable.

These kind of shortcuts I do somethimes, but more like: "I´m going to fetch a volcanic, play a welder and pass the turn". My opponents usually wait until I have done all that leading to no acceleration of the game at all. So I find these practices of trying to accelarate the game rather useless.

[LordHomerCat]

In the duress example, where you are fetching and declare you are going to play a spell after, I will do that too sometimes, but I will often pause in my search for a second and flip the duress out of my hand, then continue to find my land.  I would also wait for my opponent to do the same, to actually show me the duress.  If they say they are just going to be done, then I will take my turn without waiting for them to finish (altho I always ask what they are getting out first).  Seriously, there is no reason to reveal your hand in that case unless he shows you the duress first, as it may even affect his search (you have wasteland in hand so he gets a swamp instead of a Sea).  If the player doesn't have duress, and made an honest mistake, well, you made a mistake as well in revealing your hand too early.  If he knew he didn't have it, he's cheating, but you still made a mistake.

[nietzsche]

I have another question similar to this. It's first turn of a game, player A goes first and cracks a fetchland. His opponent has no response. While he is searching through his deck, he says to player B "I'm gonna duress you." Player B then says "Ok." and reveals his hand to player A, however player A does not actually tap the land he fetches to cast a duress at all; he just gets a free look at player B's hand and passes the turn (Maybe he says, "Oops sorry, I thought I had a duress but I don't. Go ahead". Obviously player B wasn't very smart in this situation, but what player A did seems pretty shady to me. What do you think would be the ruling on something like this?

This is a DQ for the player who announced the duress, no ifs ands or buts.  Even if the player did have a duress in hand (or a card that looked similar) he is cheating by misrepresenting the game state.  It also begs the question, "how many times has player A done the trick this tournament alone?"  Its very possible that this brand of cheating (which is very popular as its so easy to play off) has been going on the whole tourney, if not longer, and a DQ is the best way to teach that player a lesson.
A verbal warning would be issued to player B for skipping ahead of the current game state - Player B was foolish enough to reveal the hand before the land was even chosen which, had he waited to see the duress, wouldn't require the DQ in the first place.

[Shmn]

A verbal warning would be issued to player B for skipping ahead of the current game state - Player B was foolish enough to reveal the hand before the land was even chosen which, had he waited to see the duress, wouldn't require the DQ in the first place.

However, does this not encourage player B to reveal his hand prematurely in a similar situation in an attempt to have his opponent disqualified? Perhaps not under the eyes of the judge who issued the verbal warning, but in another tournament nonetheless. In fact, many who read this discussion could choose to take advantage of this knowledge.

[Gabethebabe]

However, does this not encourage player B to reveal his hand prematurely in a similar situation in an attempt to have his opponent disqualified? Perhaps not under the eyes of the judge who issued the verbal warning, but in another tournament nonetheless. In fact, many who read this discussion could choose to take advantage of this knowledge.

If my opponent tries to cheat I sure as hell will try to take advantage of that and I would encourage everybody to do so.

[Toad]

Doing mistakes on purpose in order to take advantage of an opponent trying to cheat is also cheating.

[Harlequin]

Same situation -- opponent declares a fetch for Sea and then says "after that I duress."  -- Now I Wait -- they complete the fetch and say... "Well, actually I don't duress, I take it back" (I have not shown my hand yet) Now I say "Sorry, I can't let you take that back" to which they reply [2] "Actually I don't even have a duress."

#1) Can I not allow them to take back something that hasn't happened yet (as in, it is ok for me to say "I can't let you take that back"). 

#2)If I call a judge, What penalty would be given to my opponent, if any, both if he
      a) has a duress, and lied on [2]
      b) does not have a duress in hand

[Norm4eva]

Isn't the bigger question, "why are people announcing spells/abilities while another is resolving"?
I get that it's a shortcut, but you realize that saying "fetch, go" is a lot of different from "fetch, imunna Therapy you naming Gifts with Force backup then I'll play Lotus, Blistering Firecat and attack you for 7, go"
If I'm fetching and people ask me if that's the high point of my turn I say "No, I'm going to do stuff" or something to that effect.  That way I don't fuck up and the state of the game is easier for both players to be aware of and agree on.  The 'solution' here, I think, is to encourage people to play correctly.

[Harlequin]

In a control mirror, sometimes people need to think. And in a tournement you only have 50 mins rounds.  because there is so much shuffling and thinking in a control mirror, players usually take shortcuts.  It makes sense to let your opponent think about what thier play while your shuffling your library.  But all in all I agree with you to an extent, both slow play and fast/shot-cut play are problems.  If It were me, I would fetch for my sea, put it into play tapped and reveal the duress and annouce it.  Then shuffle while my opponent thinks.  This means we can overlap the time it takes me to get quality randomizaion and the time it takes my opponent to figure out if they want to force my duress or brainstorm.

So I don't really mind shortcuts, but I rarely let people get "free takebacks"  If you want to make a shortcut, then I'm going to hold you to the decission you make (or that you said you were going to make). 

[Purple Hat]

Another common use of shortcuts like this is when you're gonna play another shuffle effect immeadiately following your fetch like demonic tutor or intuition.  In these cases not having to shuffle 2 or 3 times as the chain goes on is a pretty big deal time wise.

[nietzsche]

Another common use of shortcuts like this is when you're gonna play another shuffle effect immeadiately following your fetch like demonic tutor or intuition. In these cases not having to shuffle 2 or 3 times as the chain goes on is a pretty big deal time wise.

Just handle that like you do when playing survival - tell your opponent you are going to attempt to play another spell/ability that requires you to shuffle, and will shuffle entirely when your turn/ shuffle effects are over.  This way if you do have another go or 2 into the deck, you don't waste all your time shuffling, and if your opponent counters your abilities or you simply decide not to shuffle, no harm has been done.  I see this type of thing all the time during legacy in survival mirrors or even just fetch heavy decks.  Its completely legal to not do a full shuffle in between search effects (although a "quick shuffle" is a nice ting to do anyway) as Long as your opponent doesn't ask you to.

[Metman]

Same situation -- opponent declares a fetch for Sea and then says "after that I duress."  -- Now I Wait -- they complete the fetch and say... "Well, actually I don't duress, I take it back" (I have not shown my hand yet) Now I say "Sorry, I can't let you take that back" to which they reply [2] "Actually I don't even have a duress."

#1) Can I not allow them to take back something that hasn't happened yet (as in, it is ok for me to say "I can't let you take that back"). 

#2)If I call a judge, What penalty would be given to my opponent, if any, both if he
      a) has a duress, and lied on [2]
      b) does not have a duress in hand

So, you play the situation the best you can.  In your case you don't reveal anything and you put yourself in the best position possible and leave the results to the judge.  I would assume, from my experience, that the judge would give him/her a warning and you're left with a grudge and pissed.  If this happens the oppenent wins, even if he doesn't gain knowledge of what's in your hand directly he has gained some indirectly.  Many of you probably play poker and pick up on body language.  I know that I do after I announce a spell whether it resolves or not.  It's a cheap shot and I would hope that a judge would see it as that and deal with it appropriately, more than just a warning.