What exactly qualifies as stalling

[dicemanx]

First,the link:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/worlds06/dq2

The pertinent text:

Max Bracht (German National Team)
Infraction: Cheating - Stalling
During Max's final match of Day One, he was found guilty of intentionally playing in such a way as to ensure that the game could not finish by abusing the time limit. The key for this one was intent. Among several other things, Bracht clearly made decisions like taking several mulligans strictly for the purpose of running out the clock. This one caused some confusion initially, as players were mixing up the infraction with slow play, which is different. To be clear, a "slow play" infraction is when a player is inappropriately causing the match to go too slowly, but unintentionally. Stalling, on the other hand, is when a player is found to be intentionally abusing the clock. Over the course of the final game of this match, the judges observed many instances of intentional abuse of the clock, which is why the infraction was Cheating - Stalling as opposed to just Slow Play.

I want to know how one comes to the determination that a mulligan is a form of stalling. If I, for instance, mull to 1 and take the maximum time allowed between each mull to randomize my deck to run out the clock, how could that ever be determined short of me fessing up to the stalling? Is the judge scrutinizing my hands and coming to some sort of conclusion that I've made a "mistake" if I mulliganed and thus I must have attempted to stall?

Also, the details are lacking here, but how would one play to "stall" in an illegal manner? Does that mean that ANY play, if its not making progress towards winning the game, stalling? What are some examples? how do we differentiate between lousy play or cunning stalling to run out the clock?

[LotusHead]

If there is five minutes (or 10) on the clock, and you Shuffle (a few minutes), analyze hand (30 seconds maybe), mulligan (shiffle 1 minute), analyze hand, rinse wash repeat until you have say 3 cards in hand...

maybe 2-3 minutes are left on the clock.

In Paris, this is a high stakes game.

The DQ article on MTG.com mentioned several times that DCI investigations happen.

I myself have had to wrestle with the option of scoop and go to game three or play out a hopeless game 2 (I won game one) and hope that I can end up in a draw instead of a loss.  (my opponent played HELLA slow! Intuition for what? Search Search, decide decide, Search Search, think, ponder. Eventually, 3 AK's were presented.)

It is possible that in the investigation, using the floor rules (allowable time for shuffling, mulliganing, etc) came up as a reason for the repeated mulligans, as a tactic, to get a draw (or a win if this was still game 2 going to time).

Said player might not have known how serious this intent was, but the intent seemed not to play magic, but to twiddle thumbs for Point Gain.

I like that MTG.com/DCI.Corp would publish these articles, even though I have played in exactly 1 sactioned Magic tourney that was not local Friday Night Magic.

[Godder]

When would going all the way down to one card ever be good? I can see going down to four cards, but below that just seems very unlikely, in which case it shouldn't take long to determine whether or not you have what you're looking for.

[Apollyon]

Stalling is doing stuff with the intent of taking up time in order to run out the clock.

It doesn't matter that you are allowed to take up to 3 minutes. You aren't allowed to take up to 3 minutes for the reason of taking up 3 minutes.

I myself have had to wrestle with the option of scoop and go to game three or play out a hopeless game 2 (I won game one) and hope that I can end up in a draw instead of a loss.  (my opponent played HELLA slow! Intuition for what? Search Search, decide decide, Search Search, think, ponder. Eventually, 3 AK's were presented.)

You aren't required to scoop.

[Nazdakka]

So the DQ was not because he took certain game actions (mulling to 1) with the intention of wasting time, but because he took a long time about doing so?

Example: I'm 1-0 and in a long game 2 which I'm very probably going to lose. I make play decisions with the goal of delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, rather than actually winning the game. I'm not actually playing slowly, everything is done at a sensible rate, it's just that I'm trying to not lose as opposed to playing for an unlikely win.

Is this legal?

[RaleighNCTourneys]

Would boarding out all win conditions be considered stalling? You have no intent of winning the game and the only reason you would do that is to force a draw in game 2. This has happened a lot in magic history and I've never seen it called stalling- which is clearly the objective. 

[Shock Wave]

Would boarding out all win conditions be considered stalling? You have no intent of winning the game and the only reason you would do that is to force a draw in game 2. This has happened a lot in magic history and I've never seen it called stalling- which is clearly the objective. 

I was going to ask the exact same question. There doesn't seem to be clear, determinable criteria for a player's action to be considered stalling. This seems to be a very grey area in the rules, simply because it is at the discretion of the judge to determine what the "intent" of the player is.

In regards to mulling, what if I take the maximum amount of time before considering to mull to 6, then doing the same and mulling to 5, then doing the same and mulling to 4? Is this acceptable? At what point in the mulligan process does taking the maximum amount of time between mulligans become a rules infraction?

[Apollyon]

So the DQ was not because he took certain game actions (mulling to 1) with the intention of wasting time, but because he took a long time about doing so?

Example: I'm 1-0 and in a long game 2 which I'm very probably going to lose. I make play decisions with the goal of delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, rather than actually winning the game. I'm not actually playing slowly, everything is done at a sensible rate, it's just that I'm trying to not lose as opposed to playing for an unlikely win.

Is this legal?

Actually, the DQ was because he took the game actions with the intention of wasting time. I'm sorry if that confused you. I'll change it.

Would boarding out all win conditions be considered stalling? You have no intent of winning the game and the only reason you would do that is to force a draw in game 2. This has happened a lot in magic history and I've never seen it called stalling- which is clearly the objective. 

By playing Magic, you are playing Magic. Stalling is not playing Magic in order to win the match. Stalling doesn't care about your playing to win. It cares that you are playing.

I was going to ask the exact same question. There doesn't seem to be clear, determinable criteria for a player's action to be considered stalling. This seems to be a very grey area in the rules, simply because it is at the discretion of the judge to determine what the "intent" of the player is.

In regards to mulling, what if I take the maximum amount of time before considering to mull to 6, then doing the same and mulling to 5, then doing the same and mulling to 4? Is this acceptable? At what point in the mulligan process does taking the maximum amount of time between mulligans become a rules infraction?

It's intentionally both very vague and specific. A player needs to eat up the clock by not playing the game for the sole purpose of teating up the clock in order to be stalling.

If you read Richard Garfield's article this week, he talks about busywork. That's what shuffling and mulliganning are: busywork. They aren't playing the game of Magic. They are just tools by which you randomize.

It doesn't matter how long it takes for you to mulligan (within reason), if you are faced with a tough choice. Repeatedly taking up the maximum amount of time for every step with the intent to eat up the clock isn't.

I hope that clarifies things.

[Sporkcore]

Would boarding out all win conditions be considered stalling? You have no intent of winning the game and the only reason you would do that is to force a draw in game 2. This has happened a lot in magic history and I've never seen it called stalling- which is clearly the objective. 

In Tempest Block, there was a deck that had no real win condition. It was all bounce and draw. It "won" by making the opponent concede by Capsizing all of an opponenets board while there were Saphire Medallions out so it would be hella cheap to cast and by casting Whispers of the Muse for insane card advantage. All you had to do to win against it was not scoop and it would deck out.

I'm not sure about the board for the deck, it could have an alternate win condition there.

[dicemanx]

It doesn't clarify things for me, because I cannot see how a judge can possibly determine intent short of the player actually telling him that he's purposefully wasting time. It's easy enough to state that an actual intent to stall is cheating (that part was obvious from the outset), but what's of interest is whether that intent can realistically be assessed.

If I mull at a tourney down to 3 with the intention of eating time on the clock, how will you ever determine my intent to stall?

If I play "poorly" by doing what turns out to be "busy work", but I'm secretly trying to eat time on the clock, how will you ever determine my intent to stall?

Players often enough can pursue lines of play that aren't working towards victory because of the lack of skill, knowledge, or awareness, or because they are subtly working towards getting a concession and not actually winning legitimately (via damage, decking etc). Some do things without forethought, or without having some sort of plan. Are they cheating? Of course not. So then, how are you supposed to discern between the player who is trying to stall, and the player that performs actions without being aware that he's doing mere "busy work"?

I posted in this thread to get some examples of what needs to be observed to DQ someone for stalling, assuming the player isn't incriminating himself by admitting his intent. I also find this idea of equating stalling to cheating almost laughable. Stalling is a valid tactic in many games or sports - you can run time off the clock in football or hockey by not playing to score, or you can go into defensive shells in boxing or MMA if you're already ahead in points towards the ends of bouts to stall. In chess you can be doing busy work so that your opponent who has less time than you might be more prone to commit an error. Sure, you can get a judge to come in an stop an action because no progress is being made in some sports/games (such as in boxing or MMA, and in Magic too), but this hardly constitutes cheating. For whatever reason someone arbitrarily decided that in magic it IS cheating, but it seems to me to be a rule you cannot possibly enforce consistently.

[Apollyon]

That's not true. You aren't allowed to just stand around in American football waiting to snap the ball while the clock is running. You get a yardage penalty and the clock stops.

An example of stalling is "I'm going to use Seeker of Skybreak to untap itself every now and then for no reason other than to untap him."

You need to be advancing the gamestate and getting it closer to a conclusion. By doing actions that don't do that (Untapping Seeker, burning time by mulliganning for the purpose of burning time), you are stalling.

Actions are indications of stalling. It follows from this logic:
1) You perform actions.
2) By definition, you intend to do them, as you wouldn't do them if you didn't intend to do them.
3) Since you are doing those actions, they are indications of your intentions.

The judge will investigate and make a conclusion based on the results of the investigation.

Side note:
Several of the DQs mentioned involve the phrase "lying to a judge during an investigation", including a player who lied to the judge that he owned a foil Disenchant that was his opponent's. Don't do it.

[Harlequin]

Firstly, I don't think judges Lay and wait for oppertunites to Slap down DQ's out of no where.  I'm sure the Judge will at least give you a little "Please pick up the pace, what your doing now could be considered stalling..."

I think there are 2 major deturminants to differentiating Mistakes from Stalling.
#1) Does the person have something to gain if the round goes to time?  The major problem is that this is totally circumstantial.  If I'm a dumb player, then my mistakes/ponderings will be viewed in a different light if I have something dirrectly to gain by doing so.  This means that lets say I'm a really cautious player who takes care to make sure my deck is shuffled properly etc... when It comes down to the last round of swiss and I'm 1 game up with 10 mins left in the round.  It's likely in my best intrest to play 'faster' then I normally do because loosing a round and missing top 8 this one time is better than risking being labled a cheater (that could stick to me for a long time).
#2) Are they using Game Mechanics to delay the game, or Floor Rules?  There is a difference between casting Gifts for 3 counterspells and a bounce spell, and taking 2 mins to shuffle after a fetch only to cast DT afterwords.  The gifts for countermagic instead of Tinker/walk/will/recoup is decission within the game itself.  It has risks and benefits within the context of the game.  Deciding to Pile Shuffle instead of shuffling normally has no context in the game... its part of the floor rules.

Heres two examples:
- I play Ichorids with Serum Powders.  I am of the philosophy "Mulligan until you hit bazaar."  Another problem is that the deck inharently needs to have a good even distribution of cards.  Its a deck founded on cumulative probabilty.  So I usually do a quick 20 sec pile shuffle inbetween each 2 mulligans.  I have had games where we were 6-7 mins into the round before I found a keepable hand.  And I end up at say.. 3 cards.  Now I'm playing a deck that wins big and looses bigger.  Games are fast, and I have never gone to time with the deck.  I don't think anyone would consider even my pileshuffling stalling.  The deck needs to played a certian way.

- If we put numbers on it, lets say the sum of: Pile Shuffling + Presenting your deck to be cut + carefully counting the number of cards your drawing + analysing the keepability of a given opening hand... takes 2 mins and 30 secs.  Also lets say that between games 1 and 2, there is 4 mins to Sideboard.  Lets say that we set that in stone, there is no consiquence for anyone as long as they stay in those limits.  That means, If game 1 goes to 26 mins in a 50min round, then who ever won game 1... wins the match.  If there was no consiquence then in game 2, you could mull to 1 card by the time the round was over.  Would you want to go to a 1 game per round tournement?  I know I wouldn't.

So that means there has to be some line between, Ichorid Mulling to Bazaar ... and 26 min game 1 = GG.  That line IS the definition of "JUDGING." 

[dicemanx]

That's not true. You aren't allowed to just stand around in American football waiting to snap the ball while the clock is running. You get a yardage penalty and the clock stops.

You pick an irrelevant example here - this "stalling" serves absolutely no purpose; the stalling I'm referring to has the purpose of winning a game. How about these more relevant examples:

In football (soccer for you US people) a team hangs onto the ball, having no intention of scoring, and tries to run down the clock.

In boxing, a fighter turtles in the final round because he's ahead on points having won the majority of the previous rounds.

In chess, you shuffle your pieces around without following any plan to win the game, because you want your opponent to commit an error via some act of aggression or run him out of time.

An example of stalling is "I'm going to use Seeker of Skybreak to untap itself every now and then for no reason other than to untap him."

A trivial example. If a player is going to try and stall, this isn't going to be how he does it as it is clearly ineffective and shaves maybe 5 seconds off the clock (which you can do by not tapping the Seeker and just ponder the meaning of life instead).

You need to be advancing the gamestate and getting it closer to a conclusion. By doing actions that don't do that (Untapping Seeker, burning time by mulliganning for the purpose of burning time), you are stalling.

Again, you're not answering my question here. How are you determining stalling in non trivial cases? How would you ever equate mulliganing to stalling? Under what circumstances is a mulligan stalling? How are you going to determine if the game state is being advanced in non-trivial cases? How will you determine if the player is even aware that he's not actually making progress and thereby "cheating", again assuming that he pleads ignorance during questioning?

Actions are indications of stalling. It follows from this logic:
1) You perform actions.
2) By definition, you intend to do them, as you wouldn't do them if you didn't intend to do them.
3) Since you are doing those actions, they are indications of your intentions.

You're not saying anything of relevance here.

The relevant issue is determining the motivation for completing that action. I'm challenging how you can establish motive in non trivial cases?

Using Seeker of Skybreak is trivial.

Mulliganing isn't trivial.

Using Ambassador Laquatus in WGD as a kill card against a Gaea's Blessing is non-trivial.

Looping via some convoluted plan of Timetwister, Regrowth, Zuran Orb, Fastbond, and Horn of Greed without actually killing is non-trivial.

Casting a spell whose impact is not clear is non-trivial.

[Anusien]

162.   Cheating—Stalling

Definition
A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit. Refer to section 161 for unintentional slow play.

Example
(A) A player has two lands in his hand, no options available to significantly affect the game, and spends several minutes "thinking" about what to do.

Philosophy
If it is clear that a player is stalling, he or she should face a serious penalty.

Penalty
Cheating—Stalling
All Levels
Disqualification without prize

This is in contrast to slow play, because stalling has the intent of running out the clock.  Now let me deal with your examples first Peter.
In soccer, a team passing the ball around trying to run down the clock is analogous to repeatedly using Astral Slide to blink Loxodon Hierarch.  Even if you could win that game by attacking aggressively and bringing him back to block, you're not under any obligation to.  You're continuing to move the gameforward.
In boxing, a player turtling is much the same example.  The Magic analogy is probably something like commiting redundant lock components to the board with Stax even when you are locking already (like playing out a Stax and keeping it at 0/1 even when you have one going already).

Apollyon's example is pertinent.  You can't sit around forever picking your play, but once you have the play called, you're allowed to audible on the line of scrimmage.  By contrast, you're allowed to do whatever you want when the play is going.  The QB is allowed to run all the way back to his end zone before trying to pass the ball (but you're not allowed to throw the ball away before you get sacced).


The relevant rules point here is that your actions aren't for game significance, but to run out the clock.  If I look at my hand, decide, fetch a land, put it into play, look at the clock, then look at my hand and decide whether to fetch again, that's Stalling.  The important significance is whether you're doing it to run out the clock or not.  The investigation in Max Bracht's case determined that he was actively trying to run the clock down (the dead giveaway is he repeatedly looked at the clock).

Establishing motive is tricky.  You hit the nail on the head.  That's why we put judges in charge of this who know what's going on and do this a lot.  The answer is, you investigate.  Sometimes it's clear cut (like in the fetchland case), like Max Bracht repeatedly looking at the clock.  In this case, the judge might take Max aside and ask him why he was mulliganing.  Considering most people are of the opinion that you keep at 4-5 regardless of anything, so if he goes "Uhh, my hands weren't good enough" you're allowed to ask him his analysis on those hands.  It's important to note that you don't have to be 100% sure to DQ.  You don't need evidence that would hold up in an international court.  This sounds bad, I know, but it's the way it works, and it seems to work well.

So in short, to determine your intent, the judge is going to ask you about it.  He's going to keep track of how long it took you to resolve actions, whether they were done ina  reasonable amount of time, whether you were checking the clock, your stated intentions behind the actions, whether they advanced the game state.  If you take 30 seconds to shuffle in game one and 1.5 minutes to shuffle in game two, that's a giveaway.  In your first example, if you take much longer to mulligan than you used to, or if you spend a full minute or more deciding whether to mulligan a 2 card hand, I'm going to be very skeptical.

But there are no hard and fast rules.  That's why we have judges.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

I really hate this example because it leaves little room for bluffing, which is a huge part of my magic game.

Example
(A) A player has two lands in his hand, no options available to significantly affect the game, and spends several minutes "thinking" about what to do.

I can see how several minutes is excessive, but if you are basically forced to pass the turn and not bluff an insane play... then your oppoent pretty much knows you don't have anything to do on your turn and you give away valuable information about your hand.

Does anyone know how the DCI handles bluffing? Is this considered cheating-stalling if you are trying to lure your opponent into thinking you have a lot of plays to make when in reality you don't have any?

[Apollyon]

You are right. Seeker untaps and wastes 5 seconds. But if a player does that once every phase or in reponse to anything, you very quickly start to add up. 5 from upkeep/draw + 5 from first main phase + 5 from combat + 5 from second main + 5 from EOT = 25 seconds. And that's the turn would be a draw/go turn that takes 5 seconds. So, all of a sudden, you spent 30 seconds to say "draw-go". While you say that it might be trivial, it really isn't. It's a good example of "Doing stuff that serves no purpose, other than to take off time".

The other factor that isn't present in all of your examples is:
Your eating of the clock affects my ability to play.

In football, you can pass it a lot. And then, I run up, take the ball, and blast it into the net.

In chess, your taking your time is mitigated by us not having a shared time limit (AFAIK). Your doing that only decreases your effectiveness because you are eating your clock.

In boxing, your turtling doesn't allow me to not throw a punch.

In Magic, your going "Let's eat up 5 minutes for no good reason" means that I'm at a time disadvantage. Were I to have access to that 5 minutes, I could play. But since I don't have access to those 5 minutes, I lose my ability to play the game.

That's the difference. Because of how the game is innately structured, one player doing nothing significantly affects the other's ability to play the game.

Again, you're not answering my question here. How are you determining stalling in non trivial cases? How would you ever equate mulliganing to stalling? Under what circumstances is a mulligan stalling? How are you going to determine if the game state is being advanced in non-trivial cases? How will you determine if the player is even aware that he's not actually making progress and thereby "cheating", again assuming that he pleads ignorance during questioning?

Investigation. That's how. You look at their actions, their response to your questions, and make a judgement (you'll notice that the first 5 letters in that word are quite similar to something, but I can't quite put my finger on it...).

Mulliganning is stalling if you aren't advancing the gamestate. You aren't mulliganning to get the game going. You are mulliganning to eat the clock up.

You look at what they are doing. If their actions don't do anything, then they aren't advancing the gamestate. Untapping Seeker of Skybreak with itself is a prime example. If it isn't doing something (ie, the gamestate doesn't change), then it's not advancing the gamestate.

Board before:
You: Mountain.
Me: 2 Forests. Untapped Seeker of Skybreak without summoning sickness.

I activate Seeker on itself.

Board after:
You: Mountain
Me: 2 Forests. Untapped Seeker of Skybreak without summoning sickness.

You'll notice that they are quite similar. As a matter of fact, one could argue that the gamestate hasn't changed. The only difference is that the amount of time on the clock has.

Again, the actions of the player are consistent with their intent. Max Bracht kept looking at the clock and determining to mulligan. Why did he look at the clock repeatedly if he wanted to play the game?

[Apollyon]

I really hate this example because it leaves little room for bluffing, which is a huge part of my magic game.

Example
(A) A player has two lands in his hand, no options available to significantly affect the game, and spends several minutes "thinking" about what to do.

I can see how several minutes is excessive, but if you are basically forced to pass the turn and not bluff an insane play... then your oppoent pretty much knows you don't have anything to do on your turn and you give away valuable information about your hand.

Does anyone know how the DCI handles bluffing? Is this considered cheating-stalling if you are trying to lure your opponent into thinking you have a lot of plays to make when in reality you don't have any?

If you take your time to look over the gamestate and do a bluff, that's fine. If I look at your graveyard to make you think that I have a Tormod's Crypt, that's legal. But if I look at your graveyard a lot for no reason other than to look at it, that's not.

Again, it's all about intent. Are you doing actions to eat up the clock?

[Jacob Orlove]

Again, the actions of the player are consistent with their intent. Max Bracht kept looking at the clock and determining to mulligan. Why did he look at the clock repeatedly if he wanted to play the game?

Well, I can't speak for him, but I know that the only times I ever look at the clock with any frequency are when there is not much time left in the round. Typically, I'm trying to figure out what the game state will be if/when we hit extra turns, because that's pretty important.

[Apollyon]

That's perfectly fine. You have a legitimate reason for looking at the clock. "Being prepared for extra turns to come up" is much different than "Eat up the clock".

[Jacob Orlove]

Right, but you're saying that looking at the clock indicated an intent to stall. My example was just to show that that's not true.

That, I think, is the crux of the issue here. Players want to know what actions are legal, and what you're basically saying is "any given action can be illegal, if the judge says so". That's not a fair answer for players.

[Komatteru]

That's not true. You aren't allowed to just stand around in American football waiting to snap the ball while the clock is running. You get a yardage penalty and the clock stops.

Actually, you are.  You get 25 seconds, and it is perfectly acceptable for you to stand around until that time is nearing completion to snap the ball for the sole purpose of running down the clock.  In basketball, you get 24 seconds in the pros to take a shot, and 35 in college, and it is also a vital piece of strategy to both games.  You don't get forever, but you get to use all of the time you are alloted without suspicion.

However, the Magic rules almost contradict each other when it comes to this.  You get 3 minutes, but you can't take that 3 minutes just to take it.  Then why is there a time limit?  It's like saying "You get an hour to take this test if you don't complete it by then, but if you have written an answer to all the questions in 45 minutes, you don't get the remaining 15 to check your answers."  I understand what the rules try to do, but it creates a huge gap for players--if they say I get 3 minutes, but then say that sometimes I can't use that, do I really get 3 minutes?  Who gets to decide when I get to use that time?  If I don't always get 3 minutes, why is that in the rules?  It's like saying "3 minutes is always too long, but sometimes less time might be too long too," which is completely ambiguous and detremental to players.  If they want the time to be arbitrary to begin with, then the 3 minute rule should be eliminated and replaced with what they actually mean, which is "3 minutes or whatever a judge arbitrarily decides, whichever is less."

That would clearly be a disaster.

To further take a shot at the football analogy, when teams are winning by a good margin late in the game, they run the ball more, because the clock does not stop after each run play like it does after an incomplete pass.  The point is not to score more points or gain more yards, since passing scores more quickly, but only to waste time and win the game.  In football, only one team can have the ball at a time.  Because of how the game is innately structured, one team essentially doing nothing with their possession significantly affects the other team's ability to score points and come back to win the game.  Waiting till 1 second remains on the play clock to snap the ball every down does nothing but take time away from the other team.  They can't really do anything about the clock winding down except call time out, which they only have a small finite number of, and might need in the effort to move the ball down the field to score once if they actually do get the ball back.

I know what the rule means to do.  It means to prevent one player from sitting there and twiddling his thumbs, which is good.  But the DCI often seems to mean to eliminate time as a factor from all tournament play.  This is ridiculous.  The only way to do that is to untime all rounds, and we all know what a disaster that would be.  Time IS a factor.  If you play a fast (or at least one faster than your opponent's) deck, and win a lengthy game 1, and then I fail to see how playing game 2 merely not to lose so your opponent cannot win the match is not an acceptable strategy.  Your opponent chose to play a deck that takes forever to win, and then lost game 1.  It is one thing to legitimately waste time by taking 5 minutes to do nothing, but something different to spend 30 seconds to a minute on a turn where you actually won't do anything that will win the game for you, but have some minor things you might do, or can orchestrate a bluff.  That is turning your opponent's deck against him, which is legitimate to me, since he picked it, not me.

You are right. Seeker untaps and wastes 5 seconds. But if a player does that once every phase or in reponse to anything, you very quickly start to add up. 5 from upkeep/draw + 5 from first main phase + 5 from combat + 5 from second main + 5 from EOT = 25 seconds. And that's the turn would be a draw/go turn that takes 5 seconds. So, all of a sudden, you spent 30 seconds to say "draw-go". While you say that it might be trivial, it really isn't. It's a good example of "Doing stuff that serves no purpose, other than to take off time".

We've been over this before as well.  If I play quickly in most circumstances, and then something much more complicated happens and I wish to take 30 seconds to make decision instead of my usual 10 seconds, some judges interpret this as stalling.  Basically, you have to be really careful about what message this presents.  Basically, it punishes those players who ordinarily play quite fast.  It says that you should always take 30 seconds to establish a pattern of taking that much time, so when you actually do need that much time, then you won't be considered cheating/stalling.

If you take your time to look over the gamestate and do a bluff, that's fine. If I look at your graveyard to make you think that I have a Tormod's Crypt, that's legal. But if I look at your graveyard a lot for no reason other than to look at it, that's not.

Again, who gets to decide what "for no reason is"?  I have a hand of two lands, and look at a graveyard.  Why does the judge get to say that I was trying to waste time because I had nothing?  He just told my opponent I have nothing, so how is that fair?  My goal might have been to make my opponent think I had something, despite knowing I had nothing because my only out was to bluff something.  This is the heart of the problem: there's no consistency.  If I have to explain what I was doing, then my opponent knows I don't have whatever I was trying to make him think I did, so my game has been destroyed because of a suspicion.

[Apollyon]

Ok, American football might be a bad example. I know that in basketball, if you stand there from 25-35 seconds doing nothing, the other team should more than easily have enough time to rip the ball out of your hands.

Doing a running play also has other advantages over passing plays:
1) You are less likely to see a turnover. Interceptions tend to be far easier to get.
2) You are far less likely to drop the ball and lose a down.
3) The defense gets tired from lots of running plays. I'm not going to lie, stopping a 300 pound guy that's running at you full-tilt gets kinda tiring after a while.

The reason as to why mulliganning can be stalling is because you are doing busywork (see Richard Garfield's article that I previously mentioned), rather than playing the game. And, no, the judge isn't randomly deciding a limit. They'll notice you going "Well, I have 3 seconds left, one last push, aaaand I'm done" and they'll say "Why did you look at the clock?"

The key to this is that isn't not a judge going "Hey, I feel like giving you 30 seconds to shuffle and SB", it's a judge going "So why did you look at the clock before you looked at your hand, and then after you decided to mulligan? Oh, and while you were looking at your hand as well?"

I keep hearing "Well, game 1 went long, so why shouldn't trying to not lose game 2 be a viable strategy?"

The answer: IT IS!

The caveat, you can't go "Well, I won game 1, so let's mulligan to 0, making sure to waste the most time possible for each shuffle, just because I don't want to play game 2." You need to have an actual reason for doing stuff. Going "Let's untap Seeker of Skybreak repeatedly because it's fun to do nothing and I won game 1!" is bad.

We've been over this before as well.  If I play quickly in most circumstances, and then something much more complicated happens and I wish to take 30 seconds to make decision instead of my usual 10 seconds, some judges interpret this as stalling.  Basically, you have to be really careful about what message this presents.  Basically, it punishes those players who ordinarily play quite fast.  It says that you should always take 30 seconds to establish a pattern of taking that much time, so when you actually do need that much time, then you won't be considered cheating/stalling.

Wrong. You are taking your time to make a legitimate decision. That's much different than going "I'm going to make a turn 6 times longer that won't get anywhere."

Stalling is INTENTIONALLY doing actions that DON'T ADVANCE THE GAMESTATE for the sole purpose of RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK. I hope that I don't need to also underline, bold, and italicise as well.

Again, who gets to decide what "for no reason is"?  I have a hand of two lands, and look at a graveyard.  Why does the judge get to say that I was trying to waste time because I had nothing?  He just told my opponent I have nothing, so how is that fair?  My goal might have been to make my opponent think I had something, despite knowing I had nothing because my only out was to bluff something.  This is the heart of the problem: there's no consistency.  If I have to explain what I was doing, then my opponent knows I don't have whatever I was trying to make him think I did, so my game has been destroyed because of a suspicion.

Again, judges are called judges because they make judgement calls. A judge won't go "Hey, why did you do that?" if you looked at their graveyard once, because there are legitimate reasons for doing so. But they will go "Why do you keep doing that? It hasn't changed much since the last 2 times that you've done that." if you keep doing it when there have been no changes. The key here is that you look for what they are trying to do.

You are trying to equate "Hey, I notice that a player is looking at his opponent's graveyard repeatedly with few changes." with "Hey, a player looked at his opponent's graveyard! OMG, CHEATZ!" The judge shouldn't be able to look at your actions and say "What is this guy doing? There doesn't seem to be any reason as to why he's doing that.", as is the "look at graveyard repeatedly with few changes" case.

If the cards that you are looking for are important enough for you to look for them, you should be remembering the existence of those cards.

[Mr. Nightmare]

Ok, American football might be a bad example. I know that in basketball, if you stand there from 25-35 seconds doing nothing, the other team should more than easily have enough time to rip the ball out of your hands.
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The reason as to why mulliganning can be stalling is because you are doing busywork (see Richard Garfield's article that I previously mentioned), rather than playing the game. And, no, the judge isn't randomly deciding a limit. They'll notice you going "Well, I have 3 seconds left, one last push, aaaand I'm done" and they'll say "Why did you look at the clock?"

That's exactly why American Football IS a good example.  The running game has no correlation to the mulligan.  The HUDDLE does.  A football team most definately takes the whole play clock to stall, often taking a knee to do it four times in a row at the end of a game.  This is EXACTLY the same as shuffling as much as you are allowed within the rules to kill clock time against a slow opponent.

[Jacob Orlove]

If the cards that you are looking for are important enough for you to look for them, you should be remembering the existence of those cards.

I strongly disagree with this. I can't even count how many times I or my opponent have had to ask "how many cards are in your hand" two or more times in the same turn, without any actual changes. Magic games are honestly really complicated, especially if you're trying calculate the odds of drawing your various outs while juggling what cards your opponent might or might not have. I can easily see having to recount the sorceries for the Magnivore you're going to play in several turns as you consider whether to Wildfire or double Stone Rain. Maybe you remembered that one way, it'll be a 6/6, but forgot how many of those are in each graveyard, and are worried about how small Crypt can make the guy. Whatever. The point is, the judge does not know what is going on in the player's head, and, particularly at high-pressure events like tournaments, people can and will forget things that to the judge seem incredibly obvious, because the judge doesn't have seven lines of play running through his head. Expecting players to keep track of the entire game state in their heads is outrageous--that's why we have a game state in the first place!

Basically, the problem here is that you keep making example of things that judges would recognize as stalling, but that we show could equally be a legitimate play, and we're stuck trying to figure out what we're allowed to do without the judge concluding that our "intent" is to waste time.

[Komatteru]

Wrong. You are taking your time to make a legitimate decision. That's much different than going "I'm going to make a turn 6 times longer that won't get anywhere."

Actually, this was specifically mentioned as arousing suspicion in one of the stalling threads some time ago.  I specifically remember Diceman asking the exact same question I did (that's where I got it from, actually).  I believe it was Sheldon who suggested that pattern could be used to determine stalling, and multiple players objecting, saying "So if I ever want 30 seconds to make a decision I should always take that much time so that I establish a pattern?"

A judge won't go "Hey, why did you do that?" if you looked at their graveyard once, because there are legitimate reasons for doing so. But they will go "Why do you keep doing that? It hasn't changed much since the last 2 times that you've done that.

I'm trying to really impress a bluff that I'm trying to make some really tough decision based on the cards in my opponent's yard.  The decision is so tough that I needed to reconsider it before "making" my play.  There's so many possible interpretations of a situation, and having done investigation before, you always find evidence of what you're looking for (you think he's stalling from the get-go, so you find stuff to support your presumption).  What I worry about is being misunderstood because some judge decided that I should be doing something else (like maybe giving up on a game instead of trying to put on a facade that I might be able to win, regardless of how false that may be--my opponent doesn't know what I have), and penalized me because of his assumption.  Maybe that judge is a bad player and had never won a game because of a good bluff, so he had no idea of what I was doing.  He assumed it was stalling, when it was really an attempt to convince my opponent I could do something to buy a turn or two to draw a relevant card that might actually save me.

In terms of remembering stuff, if you are trying to figure something out, and then have a judge and other people standing over you, you start to remember even less as the pressure gets to you.  Happens to me all the time in Japanese.  I'll be speaking to my partner just fine, and then Sensei will walk up to hear what's going on, and I'll instantly forget half the words and stumble over my conjugations because the pressure of having Sensei listen can be a major distraction that greatly impairs my ability to speak Japanese.

Essentially, the Magic rules call for all these subjective interpretations, and that varies so wildly from judge to judge that no one knows what is allowed and what isn't.  The rules say "3 minutes," and that seems pretty objective to everyone, until you find out that you don't really get that much time, for instance.  How much time do I really get?  Why do the rules say 3 minutes when that's not the case?  How am I supposed to know?  Why was it ok for me to take 2 minutes to choose my Necro hand last week, but this week I was given a game loss for taking 45 seconds?  How on earth am I supposed to know what's acceptable when the standards are completely subjective?  Those are the big questions.

[Godder]

I'm not sure if it's more useful to attempt to treat the symptoms or the cause, or indeed if there is a major problem at all. If one believes that slow play and stalling are problems (and attempting to complete 2+ games of a complex game in a relatively short period of time, while also having motivation to not lose in the form of prizes, is a likely cause or two of not going to time), then some options for treating the cause(s):

Use chess clocks;
Have fewer, longer rounds;
Run tournaments over two days instead of one, thus allowing substantially longer rounds;
Remove decking as a win condition;
Other options I've not considered or thought of.

If none of those floats your boat, well, it's called judging for a reason.

[andrewpate]

To me, the important thing is consistency, especially internal consistency in the Floor Rules and Penalty Guidelines.  It's important that new tournament players be able to read the rules and, by doing so, actually know the rules.  They shouldn't get slapped with a fat penalty because they thought 3 minutes meant every time, but it really doesn't.

My suggestion would be to keep the elastic Stalling rules in place but change the decision and shuffling times from inconsistently-enforced maximums to consistently-enforced minimums.  Let players always mulligan to 0, so long as they take no more than 1 minute for each shuffle, etc.  Judges would not be allowed to call any action taken within these constraints stalling.  This would allow the rules to be consistent while still preventing unsportsmanlike stalling actions.  And judges would, of course, usually allow much more time than this, just like they do now, when you can, for example, take several minutes to resolve a clutch Brainstorm when it could decide the game, but not when you're holding a land and Brainstorm into 3 more.

[Titanium Dragon]

I think the real issue is that a lot of people are missing the point. The point is that time isn't inherently a part of Magic like it is sports games; the only reason Magic rounds are timed is because of time constraints. This is why T8s are untimed - to allow people all the time they need. T8 games often stretch hours long.

If you're trying to make things as consistant as possible, the simplest method is chess clocks. Give each player 30 minutes per round; if you run out of time, you cannot take any more non-required game actions (or you forfeit). This means you can't be nailed for stalling, as stalling is meaningless; you're just shooting yourself in the foot.

[Fall-Titan]

I think the real issue is that a lot of people are missing the point. The point is that time isn't inherently a part of Magic like it is sports games; the only reason Magic rounds are timed is because of time constraints. This is why T8s are untimed - to allow people all the time they need. T8 games often stretch hours long.

If you're trying to make things as consistant as possible, the simplest method is chess clocks. Give each player 30 minutes per round; if you run out of time, you cannot take any more non-required game actions (or you forfeit). This means you can't be nailed for stalling, as stalling is meaningless; you're just shooting yourself in the foot.

This would be the worst possible solution of all in my opinion. Reason being is that, plain and simple, some decks are just inherently harder to play and require more time to make larger decisions. You cannot give the guy playing zoo with nothing but creatures, and the guy playing gifts the same value of time here.

I realize it seems like you should, but deciding whether to play river boa or kird ape, versus searching what you want for gifts are 2 completely different monsters. Also how would you deal with counter based decks? If they play a spell and you decide to counter it, who had time run off their side of the clock? We already have some difficulties in priority with split second and clocks would screw with it even more.

Personally, I think we just need to leave this to the judges, they are after all, in that position for a reason. Fouls in basketball for instance change from agme to game, and players learn to adapt, we as players, must learn to do the same. And lets remember, if a judge makes a call it is not as if that call is the end of the road and your screwed, you have the chance to appeal and talk with that judge letting him know why you were in the situation you were in.

Of course, avoiding these situations if possible is the first step to resolving the issue. Although i realize sometimes you get backed into a corner

[Nazdakka]

I think the real issue is that a lot of people are missing the point. The point is that time isn't inherently a part of Magic like it is sports games; the only reason Magic rounds are timed is because of time constraints. This is why T8s are untimed - to allow people all the time they need. T8 games often stretch hours long.

If you're trying to make things as consistant as possible, the simplest method is chess clocks. Give each player 30 minutes per round; if you run out of time, you cannot take any more non-required game actions (or you forfeit). This means you can't be nailed for stalling, as stalling is meaningless; you're just shooting yourself in the foot.

This would be the worst possible solution of all in my opinion. Reason being is that, plain and simple, some decks are just inherently harder to play and require more time to make larger decisions. You cannot give the guy playing zoo with nothing but creatures, and the guy playing gifts the same value of time here.

That's exactly the solution which works on MTGO. Each player gets the same amount of time, regardless of what deck they are playing. If you feel you can't play a Gifts deck in a timely manner... don't play a Gifts deck. The fact they are complicated to play is a drawback of complicated decks, and there are no concessions in the rules for that.

The reasons why we don't use chess clocks do not include saying that each player should not get the same amount of time. As I understand it, it's a combination of the expense of buying 50+ Chess clocks for any tournament site and the issues you get where it's not clear who has priority - whose clock runs down when someone is shuffling? If their opponent has to shuffle at the same time, what then?