Scumbag or Genius: When Tokens Get You In Trouble
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- Опубликовано: 9 ноя 2023
- Tokens, innocent little tokens. Nothing can go wrong, right?
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#mtg #magicthegathering #yugioh 
Игры
One of my favorite stories like this is some guy played a pithing needle and their opponent had 3 polluted deltas in play and the guy with the needle called for a judge and asked if he could name griselbrand with the needle, judge said yes, he plays the Needle and after his opponent lets it resolve he names polluted delta.
What a Chad
Slight correction. He asked if he could name Dark confidant with needle, but the rest is gold.
One of my favorite pithing needle moments was back when gitaxian probe was legal in modern. It was an MTGO screenshot with probe in the opponent’s graveyard on T1, the player’s hand with 3 misty rainforests with no other lands, and a pithing needle on the other side naming misty rainforest.
Haha! That Probe & Needle story is brutal 😁
To build upon what was said about naming dark confidant, he specifically asked if he could name the card that pithing needle was useless against so that his opponent thought he didnt knew what he was doing
I feel like one of the problems with calling what LSV and this yugioh player did cheating or even unsporting is that it only works because your opponent is actively trying to gain information outside of what is available based on the rules of the game which is arguably the same thing.
Konami doesn't like outside-gams bluffs at all, it's weird. You're explicitly not allowed to do a verbal bluff.
So are you saying the ideal way to play is Arena where we can’t see the opponents reaction to things?
@RBGolbat I think what he's trying to say is that both players should be paying attention to this type of stuff because it IS in person and does not exist in a vacuum like arena. So if you're a purely technical player with no poker skills, then arena may be best for you, but part of the charm of card games is sitting across foem your opponent and playing rhe mind games. You can still play mind games on arena (think of a blue player having 2 mana open and you don't know what's in their hand).
If I have a way to make a token on board I'm going to let my opponent think that I'm going to do that until he attacks I can play my deflecting palm
Metagaming at the table essentially. Not really "cheating" so much as breaking the spirit of the competition (to some).
Every time I play legacy, I use a notepad that says "Manaless Dredge Chronicles" at the top. At an event once, my opponent sat down and their Deckbox had "Manaless Dredge" written on it. He saw my paper and said "oh I see we are doing the same thing?" And I said "Lying about our decks and hoping the opponent puts us on the play?" Yep. Respect the hustle.😊
Yikes
I love this, just holding up a burn spell or removal and just waiting for maximum value is one of the best feeling ever. Knowing that you opponent has no idea what’s up.
I'm sorry you feel like you can't win without your cute trick.
@@doylerudolph7965it's not that he can't win without his trick, it's that the game is inherently a thinking game. Getting advantage from your opponent misreading your cards is on them, not you. Why would you not want extra points when money is on the line and it's allowed by the rules? Do you think you should play man lands up front easily legible by the opponent at all times?
@doylerudolph7965 - It's super ironic for people who play a game where it's common for games to end without one player actually getting a turn to talk crap about anyone else's tactics.
Reminds me of the guy who kept calling a judge over bc he said he didn’t have any tokens and the judge would give him a handful of coins to use. Whenever the judge would leave he’d look at his opponent, pull like a fistful of quarters out of his pocket and say “I don’t actually need the tokens, I’ve made $14 so far today.”
Based
Totally remember that! 😂
Protip: If you're getting information for free, be careful that it's not misinformation. This applies to card games but it also applies to life.
As a former Ygo judge Konami cracks down on all forms of misdirection. There was a big issue pre covid when a player would point at on of his card and say this is Mirror Force (same as saying i have doom blade in hand to your opponent). It was just bluffing but Konami views it as misrepresenting the board state as well as making games go longer as it makes your opponent rethink what they are doing. Konami is so bad about streamlining time of the game do to the amount of shuffling and search that we cant even write down what in opponent hand if u use an effect to look at it nor are you allowed to confirm your opponents hand if use a name jammer effect that destroys all copies of a card on field and hand, because they just want the game to keep going without pause. The other issue was Konami got some bad press after a format pro players were making gentlemen's agreements not to use a certain card because it made matches 1 sided only for a pro to agree and not follow through after all there was no rule that could enforce it.
That isn't quite what happened with the Djinn lock. What happened is that they would agree to side it out, show it to each other, and then some people _would have a copy in their side deck_ and side it back in.
That's bonkers, we absolutely should be able to lie about private information in game.
It's wild that Konami thinks bluffing slows the game down too much, but combos which require dozens of shuffles to play a single turn is totally fine.
it se ems like konami doesn't want people to play the game at all and only buy more packs.@@lostalone9320
This actually reminds me of a similar story from a different era of yugioh. There was a deck called Monarchs that played zero cards in the extra deck, and got a benefit from having it empty. So to misdirect people into not realizing they were playing Monarchs, players would sleeve 15 tokens and leave them in their deckbox to be visible as if they were an extra deck. A couple of people got Disqualified for that one at a large event.
i dont really know the rules to modern yugioh, but could they not just bring 15 unrelated fusions/syncros ETC for the extra deck?
@@grammarpacifist2944 The deck has cards that specifically rely on there being 0 cards in the Extra Deck.
Youre not allowed to keep shit in your deck box that doesn't go into the deck? 😬
I literally have random shit in like, every deck box I own.
The vampire token was NOT outside of the game. He absolutely could have made that token if the opponent didn't attack. If the opponent only attacked with the flyer..
@@wickidgamesnot in big events, you're only allowed to have exactly your registered deck and tokens
To explain the switch off to the side: Due to Yugioh not having cash prizing winners of major tournaments like a YCS are given physical goods in the form of a prize card that represents the events season, a playmat with the cards art, a deck box, and a Nintendo Switch… for some reason.
cheaper than ps5?
Some people think Konami has a deal with Nintendo, but now their giving away PS5s and gaming PCs, so IDK.
@@alicepbg2042you say like Konami never given ps5.
@@r3zaful that is a lot rarer.
It's a random stores tournament not a ycs or a regional lmfao youre dumb
There was a guy who did this in Pokemon. When Megas were popular in the video game, he bought a plushie for the wrong Mega Charizard, making opponents think he was bringing the plushed one, leading to normally bad decisions for the one actually brought.
But you see what mons your opponent has when you select your 4 mons?
@@danveerkalirai6855 you will see charizard but since it tranforms mid-battle the pr4e view won't show what will transform into
@@danveerkalirai6855And back then, they didn't have the sheet previews showing what items were held or EV spreads, so they couldn't know in advance which Charizard it was beyond looking at the surrounding mons.
But it still gave information, if I saw any mon that had chlorophyll I knew I was going against Y, if not X was more likely@@nharviala
To add insult to injury, they showed off the mega zard plush, seemingly emphasizing which one is being used
I really thought you were going to bring up that legacy tournament where LSV won by doing some lines of play that had their opponents concede thinking he had a tendrils of agony in the sideboard. He was supposed to have it but messed up and forgot it, so he had to buff the whole tournament.
I could make a whole different video on that one.
there's nothing anyone could really say in regards to that though, in each of the games LSV demonstrated that he had the deterministic combo set so upon confirming that opponents conceded to not waste time, as a lot of professionals would do. While it's amusing that he didn't have the card in his sideboard to Wish for in game, he didn't deceive his opponents. Also he didn't forget to bring the card, you have to submit your decklist in advance, he made an error with the decklist and they wouldn't allow him to correct it so he couldn't legally put the right card in his sideboard after that
I remember LSV saying that at that moment, regardless of Settle being a possibility, the best play is to attack with the crew. Of course what he did made the moment exciting and memorable but it didn't really change anything.
He was playing to his outs like he should have. The luck just wasn't in his favor that day and LSV took it home.
Yes, I remember LSV saying this in the aftermath of the game too, as well as that the whole token thing was because they were on camera and he wanted to play a bit to the audience. IIRC Jeremy calculated for the settle from start and the token and counting did not change his decision.
Right - Dezani isn't some scrub. He knows the format. Either LSV has the answer or he doesn't, and at some point he has to just choose to go for it, or not.
LSV played up to it, that's all.
I’d be interested in a video about Chalice Checking (when you cast into a chalice of the void, knowing your spell should get countered by it, but not mentioning that trigger to see if your opponent forgets it), and how that practice compares to normal bluffs.
He actually already has one.
ruclips.net/video/cu5glCZvRNU/видео.htmlsi=uHWoVqtsvCBUEioq
Already did one, with some added StoryTime about one of my worst MTG opponents ever.
@@PleasantKenobi As an asthmatic that story especially pissed me off
I like the idea of bluffs, but I consider Chalice checking straight cheating and it should always result in some sort of penalty, or an official warning. To me there is a difference between a bluff and sharking, and make the game both way less fun to play but also to watch. I have similar views about diving in soccer and its probably the only reason Im not a huge fan of the sport, its so fun and then a stupid dive and im no longer interested
@russellhumphrey5209 but casting something into a chalice and wanting it to be countered is a legal play. Chalice doesn't say 'you can't cast spells with cmc x' and if someone wanted to cast a bunch of 1 drops into chalice and have them countered that's up to them and I don't see how you could prove it otherwise
I have a gameplay habit that my opponents always misread: whenever I draw a cantrip, I have a tendency to get overly excited. (nothing better than drawing even more cards) but my opponents usually mistake this for drawing a bomb. ive gotten comments from other players like "great draw, eh" and then i realize they have no clue and say "uh, yeah"
I 100% thought this was gonna be about him casting "Burning Wish" [for tendrils] when he forgot to put Tendrils of Agony in his sideboard.
Protip: If you're getting information for free, be careful that it's not misinformation. This applies to card games but it also applies to life.
I used to do a lot of the misdirection stuff when I was grinding tournaments. I'd sleeve up in elspeth sleeves with a matching playmat and deck box. And then be playing burn or gruul aggro. Or the reverse. I'd sleeve up my control deck in red sleeves and wear a Metallica shirt with a fireball on it. I got known for running elves in green sleeves when I first got into playing legacy, because I was burrowing someone's deck. So when I bought my own Omnitell deck I also bought the same sleeves.
I always felt these types of bluffs were a part of magic.
I mean this is just basic level 1 stuff. When I play monored on Arena, you can bet I have a Jace avatar and Cryptic Command sleeves
What you are describing is basic level 1, because you are a basic bitch.
lol
Gottem
@@PleasantKenobi Level 2 is now when all the people run into someone with Jace + Cryptic are expecting monored, I'm actually on a green ramp deck
@@SigmaWhytbh nobody expect monoblue tempo in blue box, blue sleeves with snapcaster playmath exactly because of how common such "missleading"
Yugioh has such strange rules when it comes to competitive.
One that always makes me laugh is that whenever your opponent searches their deck for a card and adds it to their hand; you as the opponent are not allowed to write down what card they added because it is only considered public information the turn its been added to hand. It goes back to being private in the end phase.
Surprisingly, the card Infinite Impermanence (a trap that negates a monster effect, but also any backrow activated in the same column that turn), a card which has become strangely competitive in Yugioh because as you're going through your turn and going through more plays, people forget to "dodge the Imperm column" as a seemingly minor thing both players have in the back of their minds, but can't track for the reasons you stated... on the official Master Duel simulator now lights that column up for the rest of the turn. Wild stuff.
I love ygo but it's restrictions on note taking are baffling the only more confusing is how much of the ygo community think they're a good thing
@@snowconesyrup2698 I think part of it has to do with how hated hand knowledge is in the game. Most of the cards that have effects that let you see the other player's hand have been banned, or just aren't playable in the current game. A trap was banned within the last year, that has been around for like 10 because it was finally found a place in the game.
Also don't help that Yugioh is basically combo vintage/legacy at this point for the ever growing powercreep.
@snowconesyrup2698 The YGO community just kind of accepts everything that happens, especially when it's something thats pointed out by an outsider. There's no hope for them and the game will never improve lok
there's also that one very dumb rule of "you cannot use a dice to denote counters", funnily enough the rule itself was introduced during a format where a Spell Counter deck (Endymion Pendulum) are one of the top decks
This has to be one of my favorite videos you’ve done. A walk through history with great storytelling and anecdotes to talk about events in a different game, and a well thought out discussion on its implications in card games and what card games are about in general. Well done
Thank you. Absolutely means the world to me when people take the time to express stuff like this. Thank you. :)
It used to be allowed, but they kinda cracked down on it after Monarchs, when people would be playing "Extra deck monarch" but misrepresent the gamestate by not putting their extra deck on the board, which mattered for some of the monarch floodgates that were only active if you had no extra deck. So that's kinda the first instance of konami giving warnings for it back in 2015
Tbf that is different because the extra deck has to be on the field at every moment. So, it is public information. Meanwhile, tokens don’t, so it is private information.
@@definitelynotmany4972 You see that would make sense if A), multiple people actively tried this and the ruling was clarified because of the situation, and B), you also can't play with your extra deck face up anymore for similar no bluffing reasons. They just use private knowledge as the framing for why you can't do it. But yes you do now have to have your extra deck on the table *because* of the monarch situation
The real ygo bluff is seting a monster in infernity, and then scooping after they mst the set
I think a big part of the anti bluffing stuff is to prevent that kind of thing from happening again. The fact that some of the most successful pro players into the 2010s were blatantly ignoring the rules and stacking the deck isn’t something a company wants their game associated with.
I was just thinking about how that was somehow accepted behavior when the Infernity cards came out. It really was the biggest example of the "it's only cheating if you get caught" mindset and how widespread it was at the time.
My hot take having played infernity for the entire of 2014 onwards and going back to 2014 and 2010 as retro formats is that anyone who had to do that regularly didn't know how to play/build their deck properly.
@@DuncanHarbison still a funny pice of trvia/history
Hi YGO player here.
1. The Switch was there because it's one of the prizes you get for winning the event.
2. The reason this bluff was deemed suspension worthy is because his intention was to reveal private information, which in YGO is against the rules. That includes any private information, including what you are or aren't playing. Lying about it included as well.
Telling your opponent what deck you play, showing your cards, etc. while you're paired up with someone for a match is deemed illegal.
What he did was not illegal in the sense of "Oh he used a token of an archetype" because a lot of players use tokens from different archetypes because not everything that can make a token, has an official token release (wild from a MTG perspective).
If he didn't publicly state "I did this make my opponent think I was playing a specific strategy so they would optimize their plays around it" is what got him in trouble, because he publicly admitted to cheating.
Also there is no official swordsoul token which means he had to get a proxy made for this trick.
Yeah I don't think this makes the Yu-Gi-Oh! attitude towards bluffing legitimate. Having played a lot of both, making your opponent think "he's on swordsoul" is not something which ought to generate a ban. Just removes an aspect of card games which ought to enhance them. It just does not make sense to rule this as cheating.
Something I didn't even notice until the clip came up again, Dezani put his Boros aggro deck in Golgari sleeves, which I think is a closer analogy to the Andres token issue than a Settle misdirection
Good catch
Maybe he justs like the Golgari symbol.
As a.. well former competitive Yugioh player, the Infect comparison was spot on. In Yugioh, if Andres was going first, he'd either automatically reveal what deck he was playing, or if he's going 2nd, the deck he's bluffing (Swordsoul) is infamously "fair" and does everything pretty well and nothing overwhelming, so youre unlikely to steer too far from your regular combo line.
UNIRONICALLY, some of the most interesting Yugioh games are when the first turn player sets up an unbreakable board and the turn 2 player scoops before getting a turn, so then the turn 1 player has no idea what he's siding against. But that's not allowed in feature matches :/ and gives you WAY more concealment than the stupid token did
The format this was In was branded, floo, swoso format. Being matched Vs swoso going second would mean your opponent makes quixing longyaun anticipating the mirror which in the mirror is optimally better but against branded despia is way worse than the the normal chixiao board go for that against the other two decks that aren't the mirror are way more impactful.
Wait that's not allowed? What? In Magic scooping before you play a spell or even in response to opponent casting a "look at your hand" spell are totally valid and legitimate tactics to deny information for G2
@@brofst Haha, it isn't allowed in feature matches on stream
Oh god, really? It's considered cheating to concede a game you are losing?
@@lostalone9320 Just on feature matches on stream :)
One of the main differences being that Yu-Gi-Oh has very elaborate turn 1 setups that can be customized to beat what your opponent is doing exactly. If you know your opponent is on Tearlaments before your match starts, you can focus on making Abyss Dweller turn 1, a card that essentially says "you win the game" in the matchup. We also have arguably more turn 1 card selection and tutoring than Legacy in smaller decks, so while the decision making doesn't impact mulligan decisions, it very much impacts Pot of Prosperity decisions.
In the context of the format that happened in, there were three major decks around (Branded Despia, Floowandereeze and Swordsoul). He was on Branded Despia.
On the Floowandereeze matchup the token stuff doesn't matter because they're the Moon Stompy of the format and Chalice on 1 is effective against everything but Chalice on 1 decks (the mirror)
But in the Swordsoul matchup, there is one decision that was important. Against the mirror, if you got wyrm-locked early, you want to end on Qixing Longyuan, while against Despia you wanted to end on Chengying because they can play through Qixing way easier.
So by feigning he was on Swordsoul, he was getting a definite advantage when he lost the die roll against Swordsoul.
Obviously this is very arguable, but not completely negligible.
Slightly unrelated, but how is it ok to have such matchup dependent plays that completely obliterate certain strategies? In this situation, if you just walk around the tournament room and see what the others are playing, do you just gain a massive advantage?
@@bostycraiovayes, its relevant in top cuts where everyone knows what everyone is playing you can choose if you go second Vs certain matchups or leave different cards up its a thing.
I think the only reason he was "gaining an advantage" is simply because his opponents were easily fooled. If you assume that your opponent is telegraphing their deck beforehand, and make a bad play because of it, that's your own fault. Why would you trust your opponent to give you information that they don't need to, especially when it makes such a major difference? I have to imagine all the real swordsoul players take basic precautions so that their opponents don't see their tokens before the match begins.
@@bostycraiova Generally its fine because it's a trade-off that powerful strategies have to deal with. You can play a really powerful deck but in game 2 and 3 your opponent's hate card is basically their companion so you guaranteed have to deal with it, and in game 1 if you don't know what your opponent is playing you would make the board based on what's best against the largest percentage of the field. And sometimes decks will capitalise off of that, if my opponent's are all making boards that can negate lots of monster effects I can just play a deck full of spells.
If your opponent knows what you're playing then it's a bit of a problem but the situations that happens are either locals or at top cut, and there aren't many players who realistically deck build with making it from top 32 to the finals in mind, most people just have enough to worry about getting through swiss to top 32.
@@bennettpalmer1741 I would also assume the custom swordsoul tokens would be used at locals and not actual events.
This is sooooo goofy. If I'm playing a mono-red deck, and I put all my cards in art sleeves featuring [insert basic Island here], that's not cheating, that's meta-gaming. I whole heartedly think LYING to your opponent is cheating, but letting your opponent make false assumptions about you is THEIR fault, not yours. :)
Lying to your opponent is not inherently cheating. You can lie about hidden information as much as you want, it is totally legal.
@@Zaalbarjedi not in yugioh
My favorite way to bluff in arena is to use manual tapping sometimes to bluff holding up something, or mouse over cards they play as if I’m unfamiliar or concerned by their cards.
Pro tip: On desktop if you want to see how many cards are in their library/graveyard/exile without them seeing you poke around in it, highlight your own library. It’ll pop up their info as well without tipping them off. I do this all the time when I have Sheoldred out, in case they forgot what she can do when there’s 20 cards in their graveyard… can’t have them being reminded by me highlighting it!
As someone that has both played and been a judge for both games, I feel the distinction isn't even about the games themselves, but the culture around them. While both player bases will do some really sweaty, toxic crap, the community and culture that the makers themselves try to foster aren't the same at all.
Yu-Gi-Oh markets itself as a game for children that adults happen to play. At the end of the day, it's a "family" game, and this can be seen in a number of rules and guidelines that they enforce. This is the same company that will say, "You're playing Unity and Yu-Jo Friendship? Okay, while the card technically says you have to shake their hand, you can just acknowledge it instead." because of both COVID and some players literally licking, spitting, sneezing or otherwise doing something to make the experience as unpleasant and off-putting as possible.
They literally had to make a rule that says, "If we feel you haven't bathed adequately, you can be removed from the venue and/or tournament". Konami treats the player base like children because that is who they expect to play.
The approach for MTG is far different. It's generally marketed as a more broadly open, even somewhat mature, game by comparison. It also means that they handle the community differently. People are expected to be mature adults... doesn't mean they always are, of course, but the expectations aren't the same. I've been to FNMs and PTQs where people are stanky as fuck, where the entire venue was musty as hell, and nobody said a thing. Nobody was getting kicked out because they didn't wear enough deodorant or whatever... because the people aren't children and WotC isn't treating them like they are.
Konami also realizes that cheating just isn't cool and the game is more fun if you aren't constantly accused of cheating or having to suspect the opponent of cheating.
I did this on Arena, to great succes a few years ago, hovering my mouse over my Castle Ardenvale as if I was planning to create a token, and then blowing them out with Settle once they attacked. The opponent can see the cards you hover your mouse over highlighted on their end, making it the Arena equivalent of this bluff.
Meanwhile I’m on my end making their transformers card sleeves make noise for fun.
I always threw an infect token in my deck box in the old days of modern, if for nothing else it covered up my faerie tokens to hide that I was playing a weird Tier 2 deck.
I know for a fact it won me at least one game.
A key aspect for this in LSV's case is that attacking, even if the percentage chance for Settle was high (and it really wasn't), was 100% the correct play with the information given. Not attacking meant having 1/1 Vanguard and the 2/5 Aurelia (plus two 1/1s if he wanted to get absolutely no attacking value from Reinforcements, an on its face bad play) facing down two 4/3 vigilant knights in Luis' next turn, plus giving him a free turn of vampire production. Dezani just thought about it a lot because of the pressure of it being a pro tour semifinal and the open decklist, but I'm sure that he's making the exact same choice even if LSV doesn't do any shennanigans. His position was also almost completely lost at that point even if Settle wasn't on Luis' hand.
One of my favorite paper magic moments was in a cardmarket video where Frank Karston bluffs being sad with his hand when in reality he drew his one of Orvar against creativity. It was a massive blow out and im not stull not sure if Mengu has recovered
As a Yugioh Player, I would like to give a little bit more context for the Andres case, as I find it fascinating.
In Yugioh, we have an "Extra Deck" which is the Magic Equivalent to having 15 Campanions that you can bring out if your meet the certain summoning condition, almost like a side deck of monsters. Basically, in Yugioh, every deck runs an extra deck, because its a toolbox we can go into to summon monsters for a variety of scenarios. A few years ago, a deck called Monarchs came out, and one of their cards basically said, "negate all extra deck monsters if you don't control an extra deck." This was a varriant of the deck, some played with the extra deck, others did not, but players were faking an extra deck by sleeving tokens, placing them on the table, then when they activate the card, they reveal that the stacks of cards were tokens, not an actual extra deck. Konami then made it policy to not use tokens to decieve your opponent/misrepresent what you are playing.
When Andres says, "to the top," what he means is when he is preseting his deck and extra deck, he is revealing the token to his opponent, deliberatly placing it where his opponent is going to look and draw their eye to it. Its almost like a reverse angleshoot in poker. Its sorta like showing your opponent a sleeved card from your deckbox, thats not in your side, misrepresenting your color in magic before the game starts. Like if you pull out a Duress thats not in your side, showing it to your opponent, and then not even being on black.
Is it scummy, yes. Is it genius, also yes. I think the fact that he deliberatly puts it on top of his extra deck, is what makes it more unnaceptable in this case, because it is occuring before the game even begins with a card that isn't in play. Granted, tokens can represent anything, the choice of this specific token is meant to decieve.
LSV's I find totally acceptable, maybe bordering on a slow roll, but making that token is a line of play he can go down. I think the difference in the two examples is that LSV's chance to bluff was created by the gamestate itself, he had the ability to make tokens. Andres' bluff occurs before the game, he didnt try to decieve you within the confines of the game, but by blatently showing you something you probably shouldn't even have seen.
What makes it unacceptable is him stating his intent to mislead. Also the Token is custom made so its not just a spur of the moment idea.
Konami doesn't want angleshoots in their game and is very strict on players intentionally trying to do shady stuff for advantage.
We can't accuse people of cheating without good evidence for a reason but in reverse when someone practically confesses to cheating thats also very clear and met with strict punishment.
People regularly get themselves banned in yugioh for saying stupid stuff that goes against the spirit of fair play which they couldve easily gotten away with had they not talked about it online/in public.
LSVs bluff is fine in yugioh as he isn't revealing or pretending to reveal private info. If he had instead acted like he had settle the wreckage when he didnt to discourage the attack it wouldve been clear cheating.
The token/extra deck reveal is almost as old as yugioh is, people were playing a gyzarus in tele-dad and "accidentally" flashing it as they take their deck out the box. If the opponent makes a different board based on that and loses because of it, that's their fault.
I think what makes it not scummy is had LSVs opponent not attacked he would have made the token.
It was a play line that had a legitimate likelygood to be correct
I disagree. Just because it was a valid option doesn't mean he wasn't coaxing his opponent into overextending into his board wipe. Making the token was a threat, "if you don't, I'll just chump or build up value". As is stated in a different clip, the only reason Settle was in his deck was because of how Team United Constructed deck building works, that single copy of Settle is supposed to be in the back of the opponents' minds when playing anyone on the team, even though it'll "never" get played, since it's just one copy among several sets of 75. Now LSV is trying to put that ghost out of the mind of his opponent, so he can get him with it.
If it isn't scummy, it's not because his feint was an actual threat if the opponent ignores it to look for the knockout. That makes it *worse* not better. To my sensibilities, it's not scummy because 1: hand bluffs (combat tricks, etc) are a core part of the game, and 2: he didn't fail to maintain or clearly communicate the actual state of free or derived information on the game, only softly suggesting hidden/private information is probably in the opponent's favor.
I like to set out my storm count token when i play. They never know if im about to start counting.
Always keep em guessing.
A friend of mine at the time was playing in a locals and got matched up in a mirror match. I don't remember the exact deck he was playing (I wanna say Masterpiece), but the first game goes to him and in his sideboard is Cranial Extraction. In the other guys sideboard, he assumed, also had Cranial Extraction.
So my friend makes a show of going through his sideboard, moving cards in and out, making sure the counts are good. They play, the other guy goes first. Goes to turn four, the guy slams down his Cranial and names my friend's Cranial.
My friend had the widest smile, "I don't have any. Check for yourself."
He made all of us think he had side boarded it in on the sheer bluff of trying to get this man to waste his turn four. It was wild.
Theres an additonal piece of information here that is missing: the swordsoul token isnt an official token. Its a custom-made game piece used to represent the token that is made specifically by swordsoul of mo ye. In addition to this, yugioh tokens are encouraged to be used to represent any token that can be made in the game. Because there is no official token card for the swordsoul token, and this token was hand-crafted to represent the swordsoul token, this constitutes an intentional, pre-game signal to the opponent that the player is running swordsoul, which falters at specific combo chokepoints that other decks don't.
at that point its the opponents fault. if a player makes assumptions from out of game information and they were wrong about it, its there fault due to the fact that them having a token does not confirm the deck as it could be for anouther deck or specific card, looking too much into info that says little deserves the lost.
@@randomprotag9329 I don't see it that way. To me, it's like giving someone a leading question, where the intent is to direct someone towards an answer that you expect, like a self-determining prophecy. The opponent wasn't looking for a specific piece of information out of game, but it's conveniently sitting right in the middle of the table where the field centre is, or just off to the side of the game mat, clearly in view. And if we spin the argument around the other way: is it one player's fault for *not* trying to mislead the other before entering a game state?
@@Damn_Cat It's still on the person who got blindsided, they were the one who decided to act on metagamed information by assuming that it was anything more than a token the guy liked the art of.
@@randomprotag9329 "its there fault due to the fact that them having a token does not confirm the deck as it could be for anouther deck or specific card"
Swordsoul tokens are _mechanically unique_ in yugioh. They're the only tokens that have the specific creature type "tuner". This creature type is specifically used for one of yugioh's summoning mechanics. Any other token requires you to have a non-token tuner to use this summoning method.
The person had a _custom made game piece for a deck that behaved in a mechanically unique way_ and then used it just as a normal token. Is this enough to disqualify him? I dunno, probably not. But it's not like someone here is just reading into things too much. It's reasonable to interpret mechanically unique things in a certain way, especially if they have to be custom made.
@@Damn_Cat they were using outside infomation, they shouldn't have factored in said outside information to begin with. actively trying to use the pregame for extra infomation should be able to have consequences.
There's a friend I have who always holds up 7 mana whenever he's in blue to threaten to rift your board if you attack into him. Funny thing there is, though, I ALWAYS attack into him when he does specifically to bait it out, especially if I have my own wrath effect in hand. Everyone else gets their stuff bounced when that works, and he gets his board destroyed.
Stealing this trick because I love it.
I'm in the boat of this being one of the best plays on coverage. Absolutely phenomenal, more players should play the player to win, best wins.
there's a card in yugioh called Nibiru, the primal being. basically to convert it to mtg language it says if your opponent has cast 5 spells this turn you can wipe their board. I've heard of yugioh players getting warned or banned for visibly counting the amount of summons their opponent has done in a turn to bluff nibiru if they don't have it
This is like saying storm count 1 as you play your first card that turn despite having no storm cards in deck.
Note taking should 100% be allowed if you can't verbally count. Konami makes their game so ass to play seriously.
Counting summons is 100% legal to do since the number of summons performed in a turn is public knowledge. You're just not allowed to use anything to take notes on it that isn't a pen/paper. If you're using a die to keep track, you're setting yourself up for a penalty. And if you're doing it specifically to bluff a nibiru you do not have, you're opening yourself up to penalties because lying to your opponent about cards you might have or not have is cheating. To be clear though, bluffing is not illegal if you are following all the rules of the game. Just counting the summons verbally is legal (unless you have been asked to keep it to yourself). Writing down the number of summons and stopping at 5 is legal. Saying you have a Nibiru when you do not is however, illegal.
So, I can count summons, right? But if my opponent interprets my counting to be a claim that I have Nibiru, that's only legal if I do have Niburu, but my opponent has no way to know that. Are you sure that this is helping the game?
@@lostalone9320 "Are you sure that this is helping the game?"
Who said anything about helping? Obviously this kind of stuff is done in order to eke out any advantage you can. It's not about helping the game, it's about helping the individual. As a judge, my opinion about the practice is irrelevant, I'm just trying to help you avoid getting penalized and to make whatever event you play in fairer. Play by the rules with the intent of fair play and you should never have to worry about this stuff.
"So, I can count summons, right?"
Yes. The number of summons performed in a turn is considered public knowledge that both players can/should take notes on.
"But if my opponent interprets my counting to be a claim that I have Nibiru..."
Assumptions made by your opponent don't matter if you are following the rules. That's their issue, not yours or the event's. Counting summons by itself does not constitute a statement all on its own.
"...that's only legal if I do have Niburu..."
Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter if you have a nibiru, what matters is your intent to mislead your opponent. That is down to the judges' interpretation of events, something you really don't want to test since it usually results in a DQ.
"...but my opponent has no way to know that."
It really doesn't matter. If you have it, you have it. Your opponent is going to see it when it comes into play.
The point of all this is to say that what you are intending to do by noting (and how you are doing it) this normally innocuous information is what matters. In every single scenario short of lying about what you have, if your intent is to mislead the opponent, you are in violation of the rules.
Stuff like this is already complex. So instead of outright banning certain things, Konami's solution is to let the judges perform a sniff test an penalize accordingly.
I don't even consider what LSV did here to be a bluff. Settle and Adanto were both valid plays for him to think through and making a token might have been better than Settle depending on the attacks. You can also see Jeremy moving potential blockers before declaring attackers to plan what he wanted to do. Both of them were working with hypothetical game states.
Literally the only reason Settle was in his list was because it was an open decklist tournament, so having a single copy forced opponents to have to think about it. This is a bluff, he's trying to get the opponent to not think about the odds that single copy of Settle amongst several decks happens to be in his hand, and instead focus on the ability he can see on board.
Yes, Adanto is a valid option if he plays cautiously, and a motivator for him to swing extra aggressively. But actively reinforcing "this is what I want to do" when you're not committed to it is a feint or a bluff.
I think bluffing is a part of in person play and is a big distinguishing element from Arena. Also I'd say what LSV did is akin (in terms of fairness) to any blue player leaving up two blue mana whether they have a counterspell or not. Sign posting you have mana to pay a very specific cost
especially when you consider that LSV did not reach for the token until after Dezani had played Rally. Leaving mana open to represent spells you don't necessarily have is not a "pro" play, its more like you graduated from just learning how to play the game, to playing it well.
Hell, even feinting the land tap to keep your opponent wary of casting anything else that turn is a valid play
0:50 The nintendo switch is part of the prizing.
For those who don't know, YUGIOH doesn't give cash prices, so if you win you get a PS5 or something
@@sirhades92 a switch no PS5's
I used to play a single mountain in my monoblack aggro deck and everytime that came out, my opponents were always scared of lightning bolt which led them making misplays and boarding Hydroblasts LOL
By the same logic, would taking unsummonable monsters in your extra deck (unsummonable using your deck) be cheating using konamis ruling?
It may surprise you, but no. This is because unless it’s a specific mechanic in the game, cards in the extra deck are usually face down and not allowed to be seen by an opponent outside of resolving an effect that allows you to. There are also decks that do not care about using the extra deck for the actual monsters and will instead use it as banish (exile) fodder for some really powerful cards.
@@bingo9499 And, of course, there are theoretically ways to use your _opponents_ cards to summon your own extra deck monsters. Often it would be wildly unlikely to happen, but you're not misrepresenting every _possible_ gamestate, even if your opponent knew.
You're allowed to bluff within the confines of the game. There is a deck now that can look at the opponent's ED and some decks that don't care about the ED just used another deck's monsters. That's legal
Its legal until you start to "accidentally" drop a card from your extra deck turn 1 to lead the opponent into believing you are playing a certain deck.
You cannot give your opponent true or false information about your cards in your deck, hand and or extra deck without a card effect specifically allowing it.
An anecdote about your Warhammer example - in earlier days Warhammer Fantasy had hidden information in the form of the magic items your army contained. Playing around the possibility that your opponent still had a spare "counterspell" scroll was kind of a similar experience to the same possibility in MtG.
I remember losing to that.
Great deep dive on this. I've always likened Magic to a mix of poker and chess so I love the bluffs and the mental games for competitive 1v1.
It's more akin to poker than chess imo. Magic is incredibly luck driven, whereas chess is not whatsoever (the only luck being the decision in who plays first). My biggest frustration with the game is how you can be completely dead in the water with poor draws. I've lost MANY locals games to drawing inproper amounts of mana, and same for my opponents. It's not a good way to win and it's not a good way to lose. I'm happy Wizards introduced the London Mulligan (this wasn't a thing when I played) -- it probably helps the issue a lot. I have grown to prefer games like Legends of Runeterra that have a fixed resource system so it's more about how and when you play the cards instead of hoping you draw the proper resources by the proper time.
@@Frozendude19 All good points. A few games have tried to fix the problems of mana flood/screw, I played the WoW TCG decades ago which let you play any card in your hand face down as a resource. Our Magic play group tried a house rule doing the same thing, it never felt quite right with Magic though.
@@DevStarkiller I'm not familiar with the mechanics of the WoW TCG, but that sounds like a familiar system -- I think I've played others with similar resource systems. I think your idea to adapt it to magic sounds great, and I'm surprised it did not work for you. The most probable issue I see is that tempo will be fairly evenly matched between players, since they can always use off curve cards as resources. This makes "card draw" probably too valuable, since the drawn cards are almost always useful. An interesting concept for sure -- could be a viable format with perhaps a few other rules tweaks required.
@@Frozendude19 It ends up changing the game so fundamentally. We were more willing to run the 'ragged edge' for minimum lands since anything could be a land. Mana sink cards become a lot less useful since you plan on curving out every game. Then there was the issue of "How do face down resources function?". We tried, "All face down resources are City of Bass" which was way too good. We tried, "All face down resources are Grand Coliseum" which gave more of a penalty since it had to ETB tapped. We also tried, "All face down resources are whatever you want, just use a counter to keep track." which rewarded crazy 3 and 4 color brews. We tacked on, "Okay, but your deck has to produce the color on its own." which curbed that a bit.
@@DevStarkiller what about declaring the color upon flipping? It's essentially a basic land of the color you declare.
I love hearing about these moments in gaming and talking about them. ty for the video! xD
Yu-Gi-Oh player here, to explain Torres’ controversial banning and my thoughts on it. Torres wasn’t banned because he bluffed, because you can bluff to an extent in Yu-Gi-Oh!, but because he attempted to purposely mislead his opponent with knowledge that should not be shared, is not within the confines of the game, in the attempt at creating a misrepresented gamestate that creates an unfair advantage.
For some context, Yu-Gi-Oh! Does not operate the same as Magic. What PleasantKenobi describes as “opening play patterns of his deck” is actually the bulk of the game itself. Yu-Gi-Oh!, with its lack of a mana system and diversity defined by naming conventions to xenolock what cards can be efficiently played in a deck plays at a much faster speed and variety than magic. There isn’t “Rakdos Midrange” or “Red Aggro”, there is “Swordsoul who does X unique things” and “Rescue Ace who does Y unique things”, most of which occurs all in just one turn. Most games end within the first…3ish turns and that largely in part due to the fact that there is no resource limiting the number of game actions you can use outside of the ones uniquely defined by the archetype the deck falls under. I’m not saying magic doesn’t have similar things but the buildup within the first few turns usually gives players time to figure out what they’re up against and play accordingly to the progressive development of the game. With Yu-Gi-Oh!, that begins the minute a player plays any card and has both players attempting to map out the entirety of a deck’s full functionality in the scope of the current turn. Combine that with the amount of silver bullet cards included in every deck to answer the most general of game actions(we call them hand traps, think of them as a variety of Force of Wills that answer a variety of actions) and you have a game of “gotta have it when it happens”.
With that being explained, you can understand why having foresight knowledge is so impactful in a game of Yu-Gi-Oh!. In a game where everything happens immediately, using the limited amount of interactions a deck gives you when you have to deal with the entirety of a deck’s strategy means it's incredibly hard to pivot from incorrect plays and suboptimal setup. And if you incorrectly play your cards, it very likely means you lose the game right then and there(or to put into perspective, you’re insanely off tempo). So to be incorrectly informed about what you are up against is a fatal error in Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Now that’s not to say that this can’t happen naturally. Yu-Gi-Oh! Has a history of decks built to smokescreen players into making incorrect assessments. Decks like Tearlaments plays very much like Magic decks with branching techs that can very much change how the entire deck plays. And hybridized decks exist purely to bait out an opposing player’s interactions via one aspect to then win with the other aspect. But those are all examples of misdirection via the game play itself.
What Torres did was mislead his opponent PRIOR to the game. According to Konami rules, players cannot misrepresent the gamestate which includes knowledge of private area zones like the deck, the hand, and face down cards. A player cannot tell an opponent what he has in hand, what he has in deck, or what he has set. Doing so is actually a penalty on both ends. And they certainly cannot do so before the game has even started. Usually this is just a penalty, but it becomes cheating when intent is then proven that the goal was the purposely do this, which Torres unfortunately directly admits in his deck profile (kinda hard to refute this with that kind of admission).
The issue with PleasentKenobi’s comparison of what Torres did versus with LSV did is that two are not equivocal. LSV attempts to present his decisions which are perfectly legal within the confines of the game whereas Torres is attempted to present his deck outside the confines of the actual game being played.
A better comparison to what Torres did in Magic is attempting to reveal a card prior to the start of the game that isn’t in your deck to trick your opponent into using a Pithing needle on that card name. With what happened with Borbarygmos, I understand that doing stuff like that is a bit controversial from Magic.
A better comparison of what LSV did in Yugioh is if I opt to use the Torrential my opponent does not know I have while telegraphing that I could always use the Bottomless Trap hole that my opponent knew I had.
One has me outplaying my opponent within the confines of the game utilizing the private knowledge the game allows me to have while the other is about setting a trap with factors that neither player should know. Now, one may argue that you should use every advantage provided, but Yu-Gi-Oh! Simply does not want to foster that kind of mentality (I think it may have something to do with how the creator of the game wanted thins to go or something, hell if I know the full reason).
Now it's hard to say how many people actually fell for Torres’ trick and fault does fall on his opponent for acting on that knowledge but it ultimately comes down to the fact that Torres admits he did this to maliciously create an advantage which is often seen as a violation of the rules by Konami.
To be fair, as LSV notes, while it was a bit of showmanship, Dezani was basically priced in to attacking anyway.
Yeah attacking was the play regardless I think
The Settle is a one of, IIRC, so its unlikely that LSV has it. And if he does there is no real way to play around it, Dezani will get blown out at some point.
always remeber to bring your poison counter, dungeons AND sticker sheets to every game
In duel commander I had a moment a little like this with my Octavia against a jeskai superfriend (Octavia is basically a mono blue tempo self mill deck that wants to hit you with a ward 8 8/8), had a bit of a slow start with card selection but no real mill nor counters but had a stifle. Oppo played around spellpierce the whole game and managed to drop a teferi master of time. He got it to 10 loyalty after a bit of a counter war that I lost on a proliferate because I wanted to keep mana for brainfreeze and stifle. When he was going to end step I brain freezed myself, making me able to cast Octavia and in response he cashed in his teferi for the extra turns, that stifle was glorious, especially with a counterspell backup on Octavia lol.
While your examples are similar, there is one big distinction between yugioh and magic in terms of tokens. And that is magic is a game designed to use tokens for everything. Pretty much everything makes a token, so honestly the specific tokens are somewhat irrelevant. You're trained to just treat them and interchangeable purely for conveniences sake. Yugioh however, rarely uses tokens. And when they do, they rarely have any defining elements put on them on purpose, beyond art. An exception to that however, is the swordsoul tokens. They are completely unique in yugioh mechanically, because they are considered tuner cards, and have that printed onto the token itself, along with their level. Swordsoul tokens can't be used for generic tokens because of this, and there is no card in the game that can create them outside of swordsoul cards. The only reason you would ever have swordsoul tokens, and you're not playing mind games, is if you are playing swordsoul.
Now, do I think he should have been banned for this? No, I don't. A warning? Maybe, but an outright ban, absolutely not. But I think it is worth noting that particularly unique element to it, because it is something that does significantly delineate between magic and yugioh for this example.
I wouldn't say yugioh _rarely_ uses tokens. It's less common now than in prior years. But it's still relevant to a fair number of decks. Synchron, Adventurer engines, anything with Nibiru. But yeah, SS is the odd man out.
@@najawin8348 They exist, sure, but they really are rare, especially when compared to magic. You are expected to see a token in magic. You are not in yugioh outside of specific engines that purposefully do use them. Nib, gorz, and then scapegoats before it being the outliers where a generic card used tokens. And even then, all of them could just be represented with any interchangeable token. It really is the swordsoul tokens that were mechanically unique
@@Crawver You're going to see tokens in tournaments. Almost every deck has at least one token, the primal being token. Are they less common? Sure. But I wouldn't call them rare. And you're not _supposed_ to use them interchangeably. But yeah, you can. I agree that SS tokens are the ones that are weirder than any others.
Magic has a lot of unique tokens too though. Including legendary tokens, usually made by one card in the game.
For example: Marit Lage is a 20/20 legendary creature token with flying and indestructible and it is only created by the card dark depths. A very strong deck combo'd Dark Depths with cards that could force it to generate the token ridiculously early so you'd get a 20/20 out as soon as turn 2. You could put a Marit Lage token in your deck box to try to trick people into thinking you're on Dark Depths and that would be a perfectly legal thing to do.
(Other more common examples include planeswalker emblems which are unique to a particular copy of a planeswalker and could trick your opponent into thinking you're running it.)
@@RedOphiuchus Technically speaking Marit Lage isn't unique to Dark Depths, that's just the only one that creates her and sees competitive play. The much fairer Marit Lage's Slumber can also make the token.
Konami banning people for weird stuff isn't that uncommon. They ban people if they openly say they're adding cards to their deck purely because it can make them win if they stall for time in the round - what would make sense if it wasn't so poorly enforced that stalling for time is still a viable strategy. Also reminder that during remote duels we had literal recordings of people cheating, moving cards, or straight up running 14/15 cards on their side deck as a tech to have the last card be anything still go unpunished, while the person who recorded the cheat get punished.
Yes they ban people for declaring intent to slow play. Maybe people should stop declaring that they do that.
My problem isn't that they aren't banning people who declare they'll slow play - my problem is that even still slow play is still a present and valid strategy in the game. It is almost like an open secret at that point. (as in, Konami's stance on it is contradictory, you either allow slow play as a strategy or seek to eliminate it from the setting)@@luminous3558
The issue with time is one konami made worse too, like if they hadn't changed the time rules to be so unbelievably awful then people would have less incentive to do nothing for 5 minutes then make a cowboy. And there would be no grey areas of a judge, who might be good at rulings but not good at current plays, trying to decide if a combo was a real combo or a stall for time combo.
Correct, I remember when time rules changed rolles pretty much no one was happy with it@@DuncanHarbison
Thing is - In MtG, no-one gets banned for slow play. You get warned for slow play, and then get prompted to make a play (and speed up generally) or take a game loss. You can theoretically get a match loss, or a full DQ, for slow play. But even then you won't get banned from competitive play for it.
I remember a story that I think i read in the Duelist about a high level match during Tempest standard days. A player, one turn removed from winning, at 5 life, opponent an empty hand but with a Cursed Scroll in play. He passed the turn, the opponent draws his card, smiles, taps his Cursed Scroll, names Lightning Bolt. The player extends his hand and scoops. The opponent then drops the Mountain they drew on to the table. Fantastic bluff.
Oh, and the scummiest "bluff" win I've heard of from a fellow judge was a legacy game against Sneak/Show where the guy was being attack by an Emrakul, he scooped up his permanents in a scoopy motion, and defeatingly dumped them in a pile next to his library. The Sneak/Show player, thinking he'd scooped gathered his deck, and started sideboarding. The opponent called the judge, explained he hadn't scooped but had just sacced his permanents for the Annihilator, and the judged ruled the Sneak player had scooped because he was already sideboarding, and the opponents board state was still correct.
I personally have a pretty clear line between scummy and genius, and it's something you touched on, known information.
I think LSVs bluff was genius.
As an example of scummy, I specifically asked and opponent a while back for a reminder of what buffs they had on board before combat. They purposely omitted an item and it cost me my commander. Lying is what I consider scummy.
Lying about known information is actively cheating. That's not how the game works.
“Derived information” moment.
lying is literally cheating.
Yugioh doesn't have cash prizing. The switch was what he won at the tournament.
In eternal formats you can also bring a stickers extra deck even tho you don't play any stickers making cards, perfectly legal bluff as to what you're playing !
The copy of Dualist #5 I have sitting on the shelf right here-released between Fourth Edition and Ice Age-has an article on bluffing in Magic. It's mainly talking about the sort of buffing you can do in play, but it's still clear that everything from "accidentally" dropping cards to verbal fake-outs and the like were not only allowed but encouraged by official publications.
That being said, it did warn that if you tried some of the tactics at a tournament in front of "the people who run the Duelists' Convocation," they will kill you. So not everyone was on board. . . .
I dont like that people bring up the Settle the Wreckage play as a great bluff. It was great showmanship and a great showing of "the pen trick" but there was no other play for Dezani than to attack and hope LSV doesnt have it.
Yeah, but it was a really entertaining bluff, which I think enough to make it a great moment in Pro Tour coverage even if it wasn't all that strategically important.
It's less of it being a "great bluff" and more of people just dickriding LSV as usual.
its definitely not cheating, but it for sure feels like slow rolling in poker
As a judge for yugioh, stuff like this is clearly outlined in the policy as a UC-Cheating infraction. In this game, intentional misrepresentation of the game state is not allowed. It is not considered cheating to walk around an event and spectate on going matches even to gain information. This is just for clarification for the comment section who may not be familiar with the actual policy documents.
Magic also has a rule about misrepresenting a game state but it can only apply when there is a game in progress to have a state, and it can only apply to active pieces in the game. (Hiding cards that are in play, lying about cards left in deck, hand, graveyard, lying about life, lying about abilities, etc)
So I'm magic this wouldn't count because tokens that aren't actively in play are not a part of the game state.
@@RedOphiuchus He isn't misrepresenting the token but is misrepresenting his deck. A more sneaky version of outright saying "I play swordsoul" before game start but the intention is there.
One of the most common pre-game bluffs on the Pokémon online client is to use sleeves with art for a Pokémon that's central to a totally different deck or archetype. It's the same kind of pre-game mindgame that isn't actually affecting the game state but might have a player going first question their setup and turn 1 plays, especially if the other player's setup hasn't explicity broadcast what deck they're on
Similar example happened to me but in yugioh, except it backfired for my opponent. Ritual cards are blue and this ritual deck was water type for context. My opponent brought out a nekroz playmat, brought out a blue deck box with "nekroz" written on the top, brought out a blue sleeved deck and I thought "he's trying waaaay too hard here, he's playing qliphort", played accordingly and won the match.
This is such a low level bluff, no mtg player would ever fall for
In Yugioh event prizing ranges from a bunch of packs, trophies, and if you reached first place a switch. Great video!!
Most yugioh players think Andres Shouldnt have been banned, i among them. He def shouldnt have said why he had the Taia Token but regardless he wasnt doing anything that gave him a measurable advantage. Playing that format, it isnt even that big of an advantage unless he scoops game 1 without playing and the opponent sides for that matchup thats completely on the opponent. I also dont think LSVs is cheating considering he never tapped for mana.
LSV's bluff was fantastic, and while I get why people think it was scummy I think it was perfectly fine. If you choose to act on a hint/tell your opponent is showing you in any competitive game, you always do so knowing that they might be bluffing. Especially when didn't have to give you any information in that situation.
In my view it's no different from saying "that resolves" after your opponent casts a spell to bluff a having a counterspell, or checking your sideboard between games even when you know you don't have anything for the matchup.
Where is the line though? If your opponent makes a play, and you say ‘I think I’ll let that resolve’ then you wait to see their next play and say ‘hey wait I didn’t say I was letting it resolve I said I think I will. I was actually going to negate that previous play is that just genius trickery?
@Relisoc - That is expressly cheating. When I announce a spell, it goes on the stack, and I then pass priority to the opponent. The opponent can either respond, or not, but they have to pass priority again before anything else can happen. Once they've passed, their choice is locked in.
The trick with counter spells is that when someone puts a spell on the stack, you don't instantly pass it back, you take two seconds to think, and give an answer that implies that "not resolving" is a possibity.
I can kinda understand Konami saying the deckbox trick "Misrepresented the Game State" even though the game hadn't started since everyone knows that the first turn of a Yugi-Oh game is the dice roll for player one, lol.
I'm not sure how this would have been enforced by Konami, but the thing that always stuck with me about this is "technically" LSV isn't misrepresenting the game state. Making the token is always an option, so even if it isn't the option he's going to take, it is still something his opponent should consider. Yeah he made it look like more of a real thing than it was but it was still a real option. Saying flat out in a video that "I do this to mislead my opponents on what deck I'm playing" Is a different thing than "Visibly considering a valid option during the game that I'm not going to take." Konami treating this more like the Dryad Arbor controversy in MTG than the LSV one (which i agree shouldn't even be a controversy, it is was just smart play).
As someone who's been playing YuGiOh for most of my life, I can confirm that bluffing is basically non-existent at higher tiers of play. Essentially the games go too quickly for me to worry about if my opponent has a battle trap (something like settle the wreckage). The mentality you go in with is generally "I will kill them now because if I don't they'll kill me next turn." If it turns out my opponent has something like settle the wreckage and I can't negate (counter) it, oh well, gg, go next. Could I set a card face down and hope it scares my opponent into not attacking? Sure. But if they're any good, they'll attack anyway.
Which really just underlines why the rules are so weird. It's a game where getting bluffed would cost you a game anyway, so you make them show you. And yet apparently if your pupils dilate too much when you look at your own hand, that's cheating.
@@lostalone9320 Actually, you can't make them show you. Game rules explicitly state that unless you're using an effect that grants you access to private knowledge you aren't allowed to check or have a judge check for you. You can activate something like Mind Crush (name a card, if it's in the opponent's hand they have to discard it) and they can just say they don't have it. And you're not allowed to check. Which means my opponent could just lie and if they use it next turn, they could just say they topdecked it.
i think most magic players consider what LSV did one of the greatest bluffs of all time.
It would have worked on me.
I do think there's some very clear differences between Torres's and LSV's situations. One thing that is not mentioned in this video which I think is relevant is the token in question that Torres showed off in his video. Unlike WotC, Konami very rarely prints actual physical representations of specific tokens. When they do sometimes make tokens, they usually have very generic designs and no listed relevant stats/effects. Rare exceptions do exist (like the Sky Striker Ace token that Hornet Drone makes) but the Swordsoul token in the video was not one of them. (Also for transparency, the one Vince pulled up and the one in the deck profile video are different, but neither of them are actual printed tokens made by Konami.) This means that Torres went out of his way to purchase/obtain a custom token designed for Swordsoul players and put that in a visible spot. Comparatively, nothing LSV did went that far; he had the resources to activate Adanto, it was a legal play at the time, the token he reached for was the appropriate one, and he didn't put it onto the battlefield or anything. In fact, it was his opponent who snatched it off the side of the table and brought it over to calculate with as if it were already in play. Torres was "misrepresenting the game state" by intentionally showing off a token his deck had no way of generating, and not one that can be easily and normally obtained through normal means like cracking open packs, but one that he had to purchase custom-made from a third party. While I disagree with Konami's wording that the game state can be misrepresented before the game even happens, I do think that the intended boundaries of the rule in question were violated in Torres's case.
Another thing about Yugioh that Magic players may not be totally familiar with, games of Yugioh are decided much quicker than games of Magic. As Vince mentioned, there's no mulligans in Yugioh, meaning opening hand variance is much greater, but also the speed and methods of interaction that a game of Yugioh has usually mean that whichever player pulls ahead in the first two turns will generally take the round. There's also no resource system like Magic's lands and mana; card advantage is the only indication of how much a player can do at any given time. Turns tend to be explosive on both ends, and there's not much leeway to "wait and see" what your opponent is playing before deciding what to interact with. The interactive cards in question (such as Infinite Impermanence or Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring) generally need to be fired off at very specific times to have the necessary impact to warrant using them, and "playing safe" and holding onto them can easily cause that opportune moment to pass by in the blink of an eye. What I mean here is, if you have any indication your opponent is playing Swordsoul (such as seeing them with a custom-designed Swordsoul Token that you have to go out of your way to obtain), you need to mentally prepare yourself to identify the moments where using those interactive cards will have the most devastating effects against a Swordsoul deck, and if you're wrong, the ideal time has probably passed by the time you've realized it.
That being said, I think if Konami were in charge of Magic and had those rules in place, they probably would have hit LSV with the same penalty over the Adanto incident. As much as I think Torres's conduct leans less into the "mindgames" side of things and more on the "scummy" side of things while LSV's conduct doesn't, the specific reasoning that Konami listed in the explanation for Torres's suspension equally fits LSV's situation and therefore he likely would've been punished in a similar way.
Gotta add to this, since I hopped over from MBT's response video and am conflating some points that weren't made on both his video and Vince's video: Yugioh's tournament rules do consider "intent" for some infractions. Two games could have the exact same rules infraction and be punished in different ways based on the judge's perceived intent behind the infraction. One game could have a player making an honest mistake and taking an illegal game action as a result, and just get a warning or maybe even just rewind with no penalty depending on what impact the game action had. Another game with the exact same illegal action could warrant a loss, DQ, or suspension if the player clearly did it knowing it was illegal and with the intent of getting away with it.
So if a player brings a whole stack of tokens and just happens have the Swordsoul token on top, that probably wouldn't have garnered a response. But when that player makes a video and literally records themselves saying in it "I am putting this token in a visible spot to deceive my opponent", that's precisely why the Yugioh rules give judges leeway to consider intent, so the latter situation can be punished while the former can be ignored.
My biggest bluff was on a pauper tournament. My opponent cast a spell and I thought for a second, picked up an Island back to my hand, said "maybe not" and put it back. My opponent played around daze for the rest of the match.
Great bluffs are what make paper magic playable. I had a lands player Ghost Quartering me for multiple turns. I had 7 basics in the deck (very rare in Legacy) but every time I fetched past all the others to the very last one to make it look like I was on the last one each time so I kept ramping while he spun his wheels with Life from the Loam.
I guess no bluffing does fit the game style of Yugioh a bit more than it would in Magic, with trap cards being a hint as well compared to instants coming out of nowhere (the only hint you get in mtg is open mana)
In Vanguard’s standard format, only a couple of decks can utilize a mechanic that requires an extra deck. However, you can theoretically use that extra deck in other decks, even if you can’t access it. I’ve been doing that but it isn’t that bad since this is a game where you can’t do much on turn 1 and the jig is up the moment your turn 1 starts. Even so, this little quirk got banned. I feel maybe Japanese companies frown upon what would be seen as poker tactics in their games?
sleeve colors of different colors, pull out an infect count card, accidently drop an emblem card of a Planeswalker not in your deck. these are just some of the ways you mess with opponent that just feels satisfying when they ask tf are you playing
There's another similar event in yugioh as well, someone whos actions literally forced konami to change the rules of the game. There's a player named Patrick hoban, one of the best players of his era and during an event there was a very commonly played card that most players considered so annoying a lot of people would offer to side them out for games two and three as long as the other player did as well. It was standard to max it out in their deck but Patrick didn't, he only played 2 in his main and the rest in his side so when his opponent made this offer he said "of course!" And proceeded to side them out... Then sided the other one that was in his side back to his deck. When Patrick drew the card his opponent accused him of cheating, they had a deal, Patrick explained to him that he didn't lie or cheat, he followed their deal exactly to the Tee. When judges were called they couldn't do anything, Patrick technically didn't cheat. Many players accused him of poor sportsmanship, many players applauded him, but ultimately konami let everyone know what they thought by changing the rules. Players are no longer allowed to make any sort of deals with your opponent, you're not even allowed to make a deal to give your opponent the win. If you surrender you better not discuss it with your opponent before hand, judges will give you a game loss lol
This is a bit of a misrepresentation of what happened, since Hoban never actually managed to pull this trick off in the tournament where he intended to do this because he never played any mirror matches. So there was never any judge call or anything. The only reason we know that he ever intended to do it was because someone else topped playing his decklist and another player talked their list on the live stream.
(Also, it wasn't in an official Konami event anyway.)
Djinn was also never maxed out, it was played as a single copy because it was so easily searchable and so people just assumed he and Ben only played one. Ben Leverett did the side deck thing on the day and Hoban didn't.
Yeah Yugioh's bluffing rules are kinda strict, for example there's a card called Nibiru that has an effect that can only be used if your opponent summons a monster 5 times in one turn, such a common occurrence that many decks try to have a plan to play without getting hit by it, either by only summoning 4 times or getting a card that can counter Nibiru's effect within 5 summons, and even the act of asking to confirm that 5 summons have taken place can get you a warning if you don't have it (and just to be clear there is a reason to ask, because against some decks they can manage to summon 5 times before actually commiting to a play and can still pivot if you drop it immediately)
Thats so idiotic, in that case you basically have to give away that you have it in your hand. I feel like bluffing to keep your opponent off guard is an important aspect of any competitive game.
I dont think thats right, as far as i know since how many summons is public information and a part of the current game state, its fair question. However you cant ask "is my nibiru live" or similar questions of the same vein, bc you are misrepresenting what cards you have, its a similar situation to asking how many cards in hand, versus asking " is my bubble crash live". You cant pretend you have something you dont, but you can ask any public knowledge questions you want, even if it insinuates you might have a card.
This is just wrong. You CAN ask how many times your opponent has summoned as some cards OTHER THEN NIB limit it/work with it
THe problem comes when you count out loud
Didn't LSV also top 8 in a vintage tournament playing storm but he forgot to put his wincon in the deck?
He accidentally took tendrils out of his side board. But everyone conceded win he cast burning wish.
The top 8 match he did go for his alternative win con win and then did a top4 split.
Yes. Might cover that one day.
I had a friend of mine when I started playing modern who had deck boxes labeled “Merfolk” and “Infect.” They were Death and Taxes and 8 Whack.
Another difference between the games that I'm still not used to is how different the questions that you can ask judges are and how you do it. People can ask a judge a question away from a table? And about how something will work before they've done it? In yugioh if you ask a judge something both players have to hear all of it, if there's a language barrier it gets translated for both players, if one players sees a translation of a foreign card the other player is shown too. And you're not allowed to ask about any card interactions unless they're cards that you have already activated.
This is has been an interesting conversation point in Magic: the Gathering over the years. Generally the idea of misleading an opponent has traditionally been thought of as almost morally justified because the opponent shouldn't have been angling for a win with information from outside the game anyway. If that information lead them to a wrong conclusion, well that's what a person gets by trying for an edge by focusing on something besides playing cards. Perhaps the popular viewpoint will change here as time passes: I can see both approaches having advantages.
As a side note, it was nice to see Brian David-Marshall on coverage, as well as Andrew Elenbogen (who is a local that sometimes played around me at Friday Night Magic events or Prereleases).
Fully agree. I made the same analogy in my comment but its the same in D&D with keeping player information separate from character information. If you angle for a win with outside information on my monster then your character will die because its not what you think. Maybe i have an illusion on it. Maybe its been altered by a mage or something else along those lines.
Absolutely insane to ban a player for one year over that. There weren't any judges to say "hey. You can't do that, remove those tokens from your deck box"? They just go straight to a ONE YEAR BAN? Man, no one hates Yugioh players like Konami does.
It could only happen after the fact because he had to admit this intent. If he'd never said anything, especially online, then it would've been impossible to determine intent.
Or you could just not ban people for dumb shit. Grow up, and take the loss like an adult
It wasn’t about the action itself. Had he kept his trap shut no one could have proved anything because as mentioned in the video the swordsoul token itself was legal. It was him admitting to using it maliciously that got him banned, because in yugioh the entire game hinges on decisions made in the first turn so the leeway for mind games is (and should be imo) fundamentally smaller than magic
@@christianfender4734 okay, but, why? If his opp acts on meta information like a token in the box, that's their fault and their fault alone. They try to get a meta advantage by knowing what his deck is before the game begins, and that's okay? If they try to use meta info for an advantage and fuck it up, they have no one to blame but themselves.
@@andrewsheiman8574 doesn't matter. the guy admitted to trying to manipulate their opponents.
doesn't matter if all or none of the opponents played into it.
I've heard whisperings about bringing a sticker deck to a legacy tournament as you don't need any cards that use it to take one, but you can then bluff "_____ goblin" and that you are playing turbo goblins
Don't remember when or what tournament, but I remember someone tapping four mana but then change his mind in a deck where the only card that could be played for four mana was chalice on 2. The other one Cabal Therapy him naming chalice, hitting two of them. It was awesome.
I like mind games.. I don't really see it as cheating ; however, it would be cheating if you were misleading on what your cards do. Guess it's a gray line konami doesn't want to even approach
No clue about yugioh, so I can't comment on that.
About the Magic part: Great, something you can only do with paper magic. It just adds another layer of complexity to watch your opponent(s) and try to read what they got. It gets a lot more like other card games, Poker being a famous example, which is entertaining to watch - and play as well.
I think the oldest bluff for mtg that I can recall is anytime I see two blue mana set to the side I just always asume they have a counter spell.
The thing with banning over this kind of thing in Yugioh is weird because it largely only works if the player admits that was their intent -- people do this kind of "silent bluff" in Yugioh too but how they go about talking about doing it is the difference between whether they get away with it -- the only known examples of people getting banned over this kind of bluff are when the players admits to it themselves. Obviously it would create a huge problem if you're not allowed to have elements from outside the game suggesting something about your deck that isn't true(i.e. using a themed deck box/sleeves that doesn't actually match any cards in your deck, using a certain playmat, discussing your matchups, etc)
It's not, since the only way it works is if your opponent is looking at your deck trying to guess what it is giving them an advantage. It's more like an anti cheat tbh.
As a new player, I had never heard of the LSV story. Thanks for sharing it and providing your perspective! I’m a big fan of bluffing in games like MTG
Welcome aboard! Hope the video did a good job of showing it off.
“Of course I lied, it’s poker, Phil”
I’m not gonna lie, I used to do this years ago in Yu Gi Oh. I was playing any variation of Dinos imaginable and ran a Sky Stryker Token (which they would use for Hornet Drones) as a placeholder for what my deck would make (Jurraegg Tokens from Lost World). Opponents would see my Sky Striker token and play around Sky Striker lines, only to be slapped around by an Ultimate Conductor Tyranno next turn. I would even go one step further at times - Dinos tended to be a Turn Two Deck, where you let your opponent build a board and you dismantle it. Knowing this, setting up for round two I would look through my side deck and swap 6-9 cards but swap them back in before time was up, making them think I was swapping in Turn One cards and they would try to counter my counter and make me take Turn Two again thinking I swapped in cards only useful for Turn One.
Surely the "can i name dark confidant with my pithing needle" bluff is more emblematic of the kind of shit we magic players do
I would like to mention that you are allowed to analyze possible board states. You are not allowed to misrepresent the current board state. What lsv did was fine because it is a possible board state. In a world where Jeremy chooses not to attack with everything, LSV now needs to do his analysis on whether or not to make the token. What the Yugioh player did was closer to a different problem that magic had, the Dryad Arbor problem in which people would mislead how many creatures you had because dryad arbor was also a land.
Except not really because it's outside of the game. If they made it look like they had a token on the board that they didn't have that would be a huge problem but having a token sitting outside of the game doesn't affect the board state at all.
@@RedOphiuchusIt's more that the Yugioh player literally said he did it to mislead people about his deck, which is officially an infraction. You're not allowed to reveal "private information" in Yugioh without an effect that requires you to. So you can't talk about the contents of your deck, hand, etc, either honestly or dishonestly. Because he did it after the tournament was over and already received prizing, Konami decided to escalate it to the next level higher-had he been infracted during the tournament, he would have at most been disqualified.
Wait, what? So, you can't even tell the truth about what deck you are playing?
I mean isn't this number one rule you learn as a player. Whenever they cast something, attack or do anything impactful you tell them to hold on for a sec make sure you want to let it happen. You do that a few times having the counter ,removal or protection spell and people will start to perk up and question their actions. Giving you an edge
"Tricked you? Oh come on now! It's called strategy."
Specter from ape escape -
I feel like bluffing in card games is an important part of the game. I'm absolutely shit at it, but the whole reason we have private information is so that your opponent doesn't know what you have or can do. I think it's a fully reasonable thing to do. If you want to have a card game without bluffing, you'd need to have open information, like deck lists and hands revealed, which could work as a game, but it would be really different.
An open deck list format for competitive would work great. Pokemon went with open team sheets for the current gen due to the idea of playing around every single tera type being a bit ridiculous. Never been better. Having to play around cards that simply exist is a bit insane when your opponent may not even be siding it.
@@AoyagiMei interesting, I haven't been keeping up with pokemon tcg like I should so I didn't even consider how tera could impact a game.
@@LadyBernkastel92 Sorry, I left out that the open sheet format was specifically for the video game. But the core idea is there, in that knowing your opponent's team or deck before the game begins leads to the game being much more skill based without the blindsiding, bluffs, or metagaming.
This kind of format would be a huge shakeup for deck building because not seeing a Nibiru being run means it is safe to go full combo, but IMO it would be much healthier for the competitive scene and can be used just for big tournaments/events.
I love these plays in Flesh and Blood. You over pay and bluff an attack reaction, or you keep your hand on the arsenal card in front of you and just wait, while giving a hard stare.
This wasn't a play inside the game the guy had a token of a different meta deck face up to misslead his opponents
Explain the Arsenal bluff to me? This sounds like cheating.
@@PleasantKenobi It’s not considered cheating, but it is sometimes considered unsportsmanlike. Defense Reactions, Attack Reactions, and Instants can be played from the arsenal during their respective activation timings (Attack Step, Defense Step, and any time with priority for Instants), so during a crucial turn, some players will constantly thumb up their arsenal card, or even just keep their hand over it to bluff a defense reaction or attack reaction, when it’s just an Action card that has no bearing.
Personally, I think it’s scummy. It would be like pulling a card out of your hand in Magic, in a Blue/White control deck, and placing your hand on two blue mana as through to tap it, waiting for your opponent to play a spell. Whether or not it’s legal doesn’t really matter, because it’s a great way to get your local scene to hate you.
@PleasantKenobi it's like putting your hand on a face down trap card in yugioh
I remember when I was like 10 and went to my first local with my kitchen table deck. My opponent played Lightning Helix so I went "Wow what a great card, hope you don't have 4 of those", he smugly told me he did, and next turn I cast Mindblaze calling 3 Helixes and hit him for 8. Still went 0-2 but I felt like the smartest guy on the planet.
Before I watched this video, my answer was easily "scumbag", but you actually changed my mind, and I'm kind of mad that you had the power to change my mind lol
gottem
The only thing I thing I think was a little scummy was the whole grabbing a token. Other than that I think it was fine. Imo you shouldn't be able to prematurely go to grab something like a token or if you do you should have to commit to that line of play.