When I was like 9 my friend and I were learning with some store bought championship decks and he decided he was allowed to play 2 energy per turn because it was his house. I wasn't pleased about it but I was young a shrugged it off because it WAS his house
My brother used to try to draw extra cards, or so we think. The sleeves sometimes would stick together and he wouldn’t notice. We’ve gotten more professional sleeves since then.
Played against Benjamin branch in Oceania, and he pulled a double colorless energy off stellar wish. To your point, always be aware of the actions your opponent is taking, and never be afraid to cal a judge. I should have, but I was a newish player and waited until after the round to do so.
The biggest problem I run into is people that play slow until they see a window for time to help them, then they start playing lightning fast and trying to rush me.
I remember seeing a video about Magic players who cheated and really wanted examples of it for Pokemon TCG, this didn't disapoint! Keep up the good work! also didnt really know that that last type of shuffle could be so beneficial, that's how I've shuffled my deck at the beginning of a match everytime since I've started, although I didn't have it broken down into pokemon, trainers, energy, I normally just do it with whatever order the deck was in when I picked it up...
Thankfully, I believe cheating is overall on the decline! It is best to watch closely at locals - that's where I've seen most of these techniques performed.
If you think about it, cards are a random game in terms of shuffling, so when a player is at the top constantly, he manipulates his shuffle somehow. Zach for example is a good player but if he bricks then he can't play the game (draw 4 energy 3 pokemon let's say and another useless tool card), the reason that these players rarely brick and always come on top should be a sign that cheating is involved. Everywhere in the world and I really believe it EVERYWHERE when money and prizes are involved cheating and manipulation of the result is involved as well.
@@mariosplaysszz6261 yes, anytime there is money to be had people will cheat, my comment was more of just the forgiveness of cheaters is a little strange to me, like lesage or rahul both being caught cheaters who are somehow accepted community members
@@mariosplaysszz6261 you’re spot on. I have a long history playing card tournaments of all sorts and there is always cheaters at the top tables. I remember being a teen and competing for scholarships where the older guys in the playgroup encouraged and taught the junior players how to cheat, my teammate took home the big prize by dropping a lightning bolt from his graveyard into his lap and casting it soon after for lethal damage. This was the last year or so of the JSS in mtg, way back when. There is no doubt in my mind that these players you see consistently at the top tables are cheating in some way throughout their rounds. Especially with a game that does not necessarily have much interaction, most people playing will get complacent playing this game as each turn is like a game of solitaire, which makes for easy targets to cheat against. Online is the superior method for playing fair, but not many “pros” in this game prefer to play on the client, instead they preach irl events as superior, and while they say this or that, the underlying advantage of playing irl is being able to manipulate your deck, there’s tons of videos by the community detailing how to shuffle your deck for an advantage. None of these hyper competitive players will admit that is the reason, but yet many of them have been caught. And for every time you catch a cheat, it’s certain that it’s not the first nor last time. And there are always those that go undetected. I recently got into the game and looking at the history of it, am not surprised to learn that a lot of successful players have been caught cheating.
@@Drew-ix5ih Exactly and you are also on the spot the key word "no interaction" you can't prevent your opponent in his turn from doing something by negating and stuff (Like in Yu-gi-oh and I assume MTG), the reason for that is that the is kid friendly as Pokemon is supposed to be. There are match-ups where whoever goes first or second will prob win, this is how random and kid friendly this game is. So when you see the same people at the top I think deck manipulation is involved, like it is unrealistic to brick 2-3 times and not that bad out of the hundreds of games you have played.
Thank you for this papi flex! I’ll never forget the regionals where I needed to get into the points to earn my worlds invite and a player palmed a card against me. They needed an energy into their hand for the active. They played max elixir, said it failed, and tried to palm a card from the elixir results to hand. I viewed it as them stealing my worlds invite from me. I am so fortunate I caught them and called a judge. They were ruled a game loss and this locked me in my 2018 invite!
The grabbing of one's own discard pile with one hand while reaching for the opponent's discard pile is a pretty neat trick. A way to deter this, is to play left-handed against an opponent who is playing right handed.
That looks like a technique I used for shoplifting when I was 10. Look at one item while taking another to deflect attention. This was before widespread use of cameras.
It's funny you mentioned zach lesage, because he cheated again later by coming up with a new method of cheating. He lost to someone on a limitless tournament and then reported them for having an innappropriate username and got them disqualified from the tournament. The username wasn't necessarily inappropriate though, and it was allowed on ptcgo
Your video showed up on my main page, JW! Kinda funny how earlier today I was watching Azul's stream on Twitch today and we caught a cheater during a watchalong live at the Sao Paulo Regional Championships, they were playing rapid strike Malamar and counted shady dealings Drizzile as one of the "rapid strike" Pokemon for Malamar's attack, shuffling it back into his deck quickly thereafter (it was to knock out Mew VMAX with 9 rapid strike cards as the Mew player had Oricorio on the bench to reduce damage by 20). Chat and Azul had watched it over and some of us notified someone who could get a hold of judges to review and change the tie into a gameloss and ultimately disqualified the player. Thanks for making this video, keep up the great work!!!!!!!!! (^o^)
Great video! This is really helpful as someone who hasn't had much official tournament experience. The other thing I thought of after watching is to make sure to read cards, especially if they're less commonly played, and keep track of your opponent's actions during their turn. I've had to stop people at locals from using Make Do more than once in a turn or using Moomoo Cheese on a Pokemon without energy attached. I think those were just mistakes by my opponents, but I'm sure there's someone out there who would try to do those things in a cheating way.
Regarding the third cheat, what should I do if I catch my opponent? If no one else close by is paying attention and corroborate, it’s basically “he said, she said” if I escalate it to tourney judge right? On the flip side, what happens if my opponent tries to accuse me of cheat 3 and no one else was paying attention to prove I didn’t and my opponent escalates it to a tourney judge?
Don’t let your opponent touch his hand raise your hand call a judge say the top card was a boss and now it’s the top card of his hand and explain the situation. Also ask others around to verify he doesn’t shuffle his hand before the judge gets there
EXCELLENT QUESTION! So, in most cases, if you suspect foul play Call a judge immediately. The cheating player will likely misspeak when explaining their story AND it's usually possible to rewind game actions. For instance.... if a player Researched their hand, had seven cards, but benched a Pokemon - there should only be 6 cards in hand. Obviously when you call the judge in this case and they have 7 you can prove cheating. I understand it can get more grey than that and really hard to prove, but always being aware of your surroundings is really important in IRL play. Don't be afraid to call a judge.
Never knew declumping was the name of it. Nor did I know it could be perceived as cheating. I've always declumped my deck if there was a certain card I wanted to dig through to off a research/marnie. But I always did at least 2 or 3 shuffles and offered it to cut each time. I understand that following up a declump with some extra shuffles and a cut would still randomize the entire deck, as would thoroughly shuffling, but it just gives the peace of mind thinking you have a chance to dig to what you need without the need of excess shuffling. Il try to avoid declumping in the future, but after pick up pokemon and getting into the habit of skimming through my deck to see what's left after a search, figuring out what's prized, and how many of each cards are left to play out my route of the best odds of digging to what I need, it's going to be a hard habit to remember to break.
So, there is a bit of leeway with the situation you're describing. If you thumb a card or two to the front during a search as you're trying to decide what to grab (or you change your mind) that's not going to be picked up by a judge or an opponent as being cheating. Now what Zach did was way different. He took a look through the entire deck, rearranged cards to ensure a "randomized" distribution and then did a few extremely weak shuffles. This is just stacking no matter how you slice it.
I'd say, as a general rule, if you're ever doing something with the specific ordering of your deck with the goal of improving your odds to a favorable outcome, it's cheating. Declumping is always cheating if the goal is to make it more likely to find something you need. Other things like using a search card to shuffle your deck after having something important be Marnied to the bottom is fine. The reason is that if you properly shuffle your deck, the card order is random, and it mathematically made no difference that you declumped before hand. If you don't properly shuffle, though, then you're actually stacking your deck in your favor. If you just declump as a mental thing before truly shuffling properly, then you're still opening yourself up to having your opponent call a judge over. I'd guess most judges aren't going to believe you if you say you just did it for peace of mind, and you risk getting penalized.
Something important about shuffling your opponent's deck is that I'm not sure how it's going to work while being hygienic. I have heard that some places will prevent players from touching any cards that aren't their own. This is a new challenge we have to face with the pandemic and I'm not sure what the best solution is.
it's part of the official return to play rules from Pokemon, but you can ask for specfic number of cards on the cut and a few other techniques that are available now to try and prevent
I think it's important to note that cheating is rare, and of course you should always be doing everything you can do combat it just in case, but the pokemon community is not frothing at the mouth to cheat ppl at every corner.
Thanks for the video! I am sad it's something that happens but I would rather be aware and know what to watch out for. Peace and love to you all! may all your opponents be honest, great sports and fun.
What about bluffing? You pick up your cards and shout something in excitement or gasp loudly even though that's not the proper reaction. I sometimes do that.
Between games I do 10 stacks of six than grab 5 and shuffle those. Then the next 5 and shuffle those. Then the deck together and shuffle again. Ultimately just trying to get cards away from one another that were on the board. Only time I declump is after 3 or 4 mulligans. But I always shuffle 6 or 7 times after Then offer the deck to cut or shuffle. I have had someone cheat against me before. They stacked there deck and didn't offer to me to shuffle and did there game action. They top deck the three cards they needed to win. Ever since I make them reshuffle and I shuffle afterwards. When my oldest daughter and I were at a league cup a 7 or 8 year old she was against was stacking her deck and wouldn't let my daughter shuffle or cut. She didn't tell anyone until she lost and they were the deciding factor of the juniors. She lost and learned a valuable lesson that I also teach my 9 year old as well. Always cut or shuffle no matter what.
Fairly certain 'declumping' isn't illegal, nonsufficient shuffling/randomization after declumping is the illegal part. Same goes for pile shuffling, which is used a lot of the time just for making sure all 60 of your cards are there
De-clumping is seen as stacking. As judges we are told to look out for it and discourage it where possible. The order of the deck after a shuffle should not be changed during a search, true randomness will cause "clumps" of cards from time to time.
ive had someone cheat against me in a yugioh tournament the other week. he set up his first hands before duel and didnt shuffle the top part of the deck to keep the cards he wanted in order
I can only play the TCG in PTCGO and at home against my brother. I can never play any other way so I have no reason to cheat and PTCGO doesn’t let you cheat anyway (obviously)
There actually are ways to cheat! You can exploit certain bugs to gain different advantages. They're not particularly plentiful, but it is out there. Also, clock manipulation is another way to cheat in online tournaments
You can also have more than one person helping see routes that one player might not see, this giving an unfair advantage which counts as cheating on ptcgo
@@FlexDaddyRighteous He doesn't. I'm mostly just curious if he knew you were posting this. Partly because I find it funny and don't like him. Every time I hear about this guy its about cheating. So many people just seem to not care though and his online tournaments are really popular.
Yep not surprised he has cheated. I think all of the top players that are on top always every year have cheated somehow cards are a random game. This is why on PTCGO you rarely see the same champions again and again.
Honestly, this one is a hard one... not sure I have an answer other than to say that people shouldn't be looking at the deck when they shuffle it - either you or your opponent.
I feel like players can set their deck and easily cheat that way even if they do 6 piles or whatever... shouldn't the oponent always shuffle someone else deck? Would avoid all forms of cheating for the most part...
I never thought the mixing the cards up before shuffling was considered cheating as long as it was actually shuffled after the fact and not half way shuffled and you let your opponent do the same. I see in the video most who were mixing were half way shuffling after splitting the cards which is cheating but if you legit shuffle after the fact and let your open shuffle aswell i don’t see how you can really cheat because your draws will be random either way with correct shuffling.
it's most definitely cheating. If you shuffle your deck afterword but had to de-clump beforehand, then what is the point of shuffling? Random is not equally spaced cards throughout the whole deck.
@@RyanASchuldt I meant de lump before shuffling in general like after a game then declump then shuffle. Once you start shuffling you can’t look at your deck.
Perfect example was reshizard typically had roughly 11 energies in the deck but if you used your gx attack with 6 energies in a game if you don’t either declump before shuffling or shuffle a lot before the next game it’s very likely you still have energies clumped together. Spreading them out after the game before shuffling doesn’t really stack your deck but can just save time shuffling in general. But hey if my opponent is worried about anything like you said they have every right to shuffle my deck as needed.
De-clumping is not illegal tho, I find it weird that you mention that as cheating, the fact that you and your opponent have to shuffle and cut your deck (most people only cut but really you should shuffle also), sufficiently randomizes the deck, if nobody shuffles the deck after doing that yes, it is cheating because you are stacking, but that's why you randomize after any search and then present it to your opponent so they can too, double nickel and other types of stacking work because most people only cut after their opponent "shuffles", I think people should be more inclined towards shuffling when presented a deck to fully randomize it since its part of the game rules, but I also get that in a tournament setting you just want to play as fast as possible and cutting is the fastest way to fulfil that step (some people even decline it to make it even faster which is even worse imo). Look at it this way, lets say you level ball for a Pokémon, and its your first turn so you are also trying to look if any of those level ball searchable mons are prized, so you start placing all of the level ball searchable monsters in the front of the deck while searching so you can count them and pick your mon easier since you don't have to search them again in the deck if you are still trying to decide which Pokémon you want to add to your hand, you can either return the mons back in to de deck as if you were de-clumping, spreading them in random parts of the deck, or, not move them from the front, show the Pokémon you picked to your opponent and shuffling them deck as is, neither of those choices is stacking, why?, because you and your opponent have to randomize the deck after the search, and it does not matter how much you move those mons while picking the one you are adding to your hand, as long as you and your opponent randomize the deck afterwards it is legal because it follows the shuffling rules of the tcg.
1. you are victim blaming. To say that it is up to the opponent to fully randomize the deck is an incorrect assumption. It is always on the player who's deck is shuffled to fully randomize their deck. The responsibility of the secondary player is to accept / reject that randomization. 2. the level ball comment is a bit of a gray area - many judges will allow a player to move a card or two that they are thinking of grabbing without it being an issue. But if you are rearranging most of deck, that certainly increases the order of the deck and can be perceived as cheating. 3. Lastly, declumping is nullified by sufficient randomization, but you neglect to mention that it may take longer to randomize an ordered deck than a shuffled deck. This is CLEARLY in violation of rules because of rules against time manipulation and stalling.
@@FlexDaddyRighteous Ok so, not victim blaming, and not an assumption, I'm saying that the rules specify that: "A player may shuffle the opponent’s deck once that player has finished shuffling their deck or may choose to *cut the deck."... "After a player shuffles their own deck, they should offer their deck to the opponent for reshuffling. (The opponent may also request for this)" I'm saying that people choose the cutting option as if it was the only one, and should be more open to shuffle the opponent cards if they are as worried about randomization as they might imply. And it takes the same time to randomize any deck no matter the order if you do it properly, which is the reason why effective shuffling nullifies "declumping". Its as illegal as looking thru your deck for 5+ times while searching for 1 energy because its the first turn and you are trying to figure out what is prized, it slows the game, yes, because you are taking an effectively longer time with an action that should be instant.
i’m not sold on “declumping” being cheating quite as you said. obviously, if you do it and then just set your deck down it’s a problem. however, after a match your cards generally will be clumped together more than they should be. if you do some shuffling, then try to spread out the cards, followed by a lot more shuffling, i think it’s perfectly fine. otherwise you might not randomize your deck enough and your cards may still be grouped together as they were on the field or in your discard last time. while you theoretically can draw hands of mostly energy or pokemon, it should not happen very often. “declumping” and then further randomizing should be sufficient.
But why do you want to declump in the first place? If you're declumping it's suspicious regardless because if you're confident you're randomizing the deck any combination is possible therefore cards should be able to clump together
@@sparklysilvally1944 but you aren't starting with a random deck. after a game cards are grouped together based on how you played them (trainers in the discard, pokemon and energy on the board, etc).
Here’s why declumping is basically cheating, you are doing one of two things: 1. Placing cards in a favourable order and therefore not sufficiently randomising your deck. Or 2. Wasting time by declumping a deck, just for it to be sufficiently randomised by a proper shuffle moments later.
Man thats not exactly cheating when i was Young playing in juniors or even younger. When u change the same cards that are next to each other its quite often used technique since it is basicly impossible to shuffle those cards appart and it will ruin your deck just cause those cards get stuck together. Of course if you divide more of the it is propadly not right but few cards are totaly okay
Have you ever been cheated against in Pokemon? What happened?
When I was like 9 my friend and I were learning with some store bought championship decks and he decided he was allowed to play 2 energy per turn because it was his house. I wasn't pleased about it but I was young a shrugged it off because it WAS his house
I cheated HAHA HA I reatreated infinitely in one turn played infinite energy and I stacked my deck THIS WAS 5 years ago tho I think I’m fine
My brother used to try to draw extra cards, or so we think. The sleeves sometimes would stick together and he wouldn’t notice. We’ve gotten more professional sleeves since then.
Played against Benjamin branch in Oceania, and he pulled a double colorless energy off stellar wish.
To your point, always be aware of the actions your opponent is taking, and never be afraid to cal a judge. I should have, but I was a newish player and waited until after the round to do so.
The biggest problem I run into is people that play slow until they see a window for time to help them, then they start playing lightning fast and trying to rush me.
*Verlisify has entered the chat with his pitchfork*
Literally just saw this on Twitter… main lesson of the day:
*don’t cheat*
100%
I remember seeing a video about Magic players who cheated and really wanted examples of it for Pokemon TCG, this didn't disapoint!
Keep up the good work!
also didnt really know that that last type of shuffle could be so beneficial, that's how I've shuffled my deck at the beginning of a match everytime since I've started, although I didn't have it broken down into pokemon, trainers, energy, I normally just do it with whatever order the deck was in when I picked it up...
its crazy how accepted cheating is, like we have "top" players that are known/caught cheating and everyone just accepts it
Thankfully, I believe cheating is overall on the decline! It is best to watch closely at locals - that's where I've seen most of these techniques performed.
If you think about it, cards are a random game in terms of shuffling, so when a player is at the top constantly, he manipulates his shuffle somehow. Zach for example is a good player but if he bricks then he can't play the game (draw 4 energy 3 pokemon let's say and another useless tool card), the reason that these players rarely brick and always come on top should be a sign that cheating is involved. Everywhere in the world and I really believe it EVERYWHERE when money and prizes are involved cheating and manipulation of the result is involved as well.
@@mariosplaysszz6261 yes, anytime there is money to be had people will cheat, my comment was more of just the forgiveness of cheaters is a little strange to me, like lesage or rahul both being caught cheaters who are somehow accepted community members
@@mariosplaysszz6261 you’re spot on. I have a long history playing card tournaments of all sorts and there is always cheaters at the top tables. I remember being a teen and competing for scholarships where the older guys in the playgroup encouraged and taught the junior players how to cheat, my teammate took home the big prize by dropping a lightning bolt from his graveyard into his lap and casting it soon after for lethal damage. This was the last year or so of the JSS in mtg, way back when.
There is no doubt in my mind that these players you see consistently at the top tables are cheating in some way throughout their rounds. Especially with a game that does not necessarily have much interaction, most people playing will get complacent playing this game as each turn is like a game of solitaire, which makes for easy targets to cheat against.
Online is the superior method for playing fair, but not many “pros” in this game prefer to play on the client, instead they preach irl events as superior, and while they say this or that, the underlying advantage of playing irl is being able to manipulate your deck, there’s tons of videos by the community detailing how to shuffle your deck for an advantage. None of these hyper competitive players will admit that is the reason, but yet many of them have been caught. And for every time you catch a cheat, it’s certain that it’s not the first nor last time. And there are always those that go undetected. I recently got into the game and looking at the history of it, am not surprised to learn that a lot of successful players have been caught cheating.
@@Drew-ix5ih Exactly and you are also on the spot the key word "no interaction" you can't prevent your opponent in his turn from doing something by negating and stuff (Like in Yu-gi-oh and I assume MTG), the reason for that is that the is kid friendly as Pokemon is supposed to be. There are match-ups where whoever goes first or second will prob win, this is how random and kid friendly this game is. So when you see the same people at the top I think deck manipulation is involved, like it is unrealistic to brick 2-3 times and not that bad out of the hundreds of games you have played.
Thank you for this papi flex! I’ll never forget the regionals where I needed to get into the points to earn my worlds invite and a player palmed a card against me. They needed an energy into their hand for the active. They played max elixir, said it failed, and tried to palm a card from the elixir results to hand. I viewed it as them stealing my worlds invite from me. I am so fortunate I caught them and called a judge. They were ruled a game loss and this locked me in my 2018 invite!
Also.. they were from a predominantly Yugioh background. Coincidence? Idk🤷🏼♂️
@@Harryburchtcg 1😆
OMG!!! That's so disgusting. Congrats on the invite and way to catch the cheater.
The grabbing of one's own discard pile with one hand while reaching for the opponent's discard pile is a pretty neat trick.
A way to deter this, is to play left-handed against an opponent who is playing right handed.
I play left handed for this reason!
That looks like a technique I used for shoplifting when I was 10. Look at one item while taking another to deflect attention. This was before widespread use of cameras.
As a casual player that hasn't been to a regionals in his life this will help a lot when I decide to go, Thanks for the info😁😁😁
No problem!!
Thanks JW! This was really helpful.
It seems once a deck is shuffled, it should be off limits to being searched again.
That is 100% true. Generally, always look to shuffle your opponents deck. Glad you liked!
It's funny you mentioned zach lesage, because he cheated again later by coming up with a new method of cheating. He lost to someone on a limitless tournament and then reported them for having an innappropriate username and got them disqualified from the tournament. The username wasn't necessarily inappropriate though, and it was allowed on ptcgo
#FreeCoochieBaby
Your video showed up on my main page, JW! Kinda funny how earlier today I was watching Azul's stream on Twitch today and we caught a cheater during a watchalong live at the Sao Paulo Regional Championships, they were playing rapid strike Malamar and counted shady dealings Drizzile as one of the "rapid strike" Pokemon for Malamar's attack, shuffling it back into his deck quickly thereafter (it was to knock out Mew VMAX with 9 rapid strike cards as the Mew player had Oricorio on the bench to reduce damage by 20). Chat and Azul had watched it over and some of us notified someone who could get a hold of judges to review and change the tie into a gameloss and ultimately disqualified the player. Thanks for making this video, keep up the great work!!!!!!!!! (^o^)
Thanks for the video because I am going to my first ever regional event in March
Good luck!!
i'll make sure i'll dunk opponents deck on a glass of water if i ever caught one.
This is the way
It looked like Zach did some "De clumping" of his own.
Great video! This is really helpful as someone who hasn't had much official tournament experience.
The other thing I thought of after watching is to make sure to read cards, especially if they're less commonly played, and keep track of your opponent's actions during their turn. I've had to stop people at locals from using Make Do more than once in a turn or using Moomoo Cheese on a Pokemon without energy attached. I think those were just mistakes by my opponents, but I'm sure there's someone out there who would try to do those things in a cheating way.
I really like the format of this video, as well as the information presented. Keep putting out great content! :)
Glad you liked :)
Thank you JW! This was really insightful, and hopefully will cut down the number of cheating incidents!
Glad I could help!
I really dig your glasses man. Whats the brand and model?
Thanks man. They're Tommy Hilfigers - numbers on the sides are TH1686 J5G
Regarding the third cheat, what should I do if I catch my opponent? If no one else close by is paying attention and corroborate, it’s basically “he said, she said” if I escalate it to tourney judge right? On the flip side, what happens if my opponent tries to accuse me of cheat 3 and no one else was paying attention to prove I didn’t and my opponent escalates it to a tourney judge?
Don’t let your opponent touch his hand raise your hand call a judge say the top card was a boss and now it’s the top card of his hand and explain the situation. Also ask others around to verify he doesn’t shuffle his hand before the judge gets there
EXCELLENT QUESTION!
So, in most cases, if you suspect foul play Call a judge immediately. The cheating player will likely misspeak when explaining their story AND it's usually possible to rewind game actions. For instance.... if a player Researched their hand, had seven cards, but benched a Pokemon - there should only be 6 cards in hand. Obviously when you call the judge in this case and they have 7 you can prove cheating.
I understand it can get more grey than that and really hard to prove, but always being aware of your surroundings is really important in IRL play.
Don't be afraid to call a judge.
cameras maybe?
Power to the People. Thanks JW!
Never let yourself be taken advantage of!!
Prepare to tell your opponent to keep their hands above the table and to call over the judge to pick up the cards that fall off the table
when they pay for Malamar using non-Rapid Strike and you don't get offered a chance to examine....
Ready to put some folks under citizens arrest 😤
Jdub out here with the ominous music and tone… I see you first 48…
That's a nice GLC deck you are shuffling there!
Oh yeah!! Love me some GLC
Never knew declumping was the name of it. Nor did I know it could be perceived as cheating. I've always declumped my deck if there was a certain card I wanted to dig through to off a research/marnie. But I always did at least 2 or 3 shuffles and offered it to cut each time.
I understand that following up a declump with some extra shuffles and a cut would still randomize the entire deck, as would thoroughly shuffling, but it just gives the peace of mind thinking you have a chance to dig to what you need without the need of excess shuffling.
Il try to avoid declumping in the future, but after pick up pokemon and getting into the habit of skimming through my deck to see what's left after a search, figuring out what's prized, and how many of each cards are left to play out my route of the best odds of digging to what I need, it's going to be a hard habit to remember to break.
So, there is a bit of leeway with the situation you're describing. If you thumb a card or two to the front during a search as you're trying to decide what to grab (or you change your mind) that's not going to be picked up by a judge or an opponent as being cheating.
Now what Zach did was way different. He took a look through the entire deck, rearranged cards to ensure a "randomized" distribution and then did a few extremely weak shuffles. This is just stacking no matter how you slice it.
I'd say, as a general rule, if you're ever doing something with the specific ordering of your deck with the goal of improving your odds to a favorable outcome, it's cheating. Declumping is always cheating if the goal is to make it more likely to find something you need. Other things like using a search card to shuffle your deck after having something important be Marnied to the bottom is fine.
The reason is that if you properly shuffle your deck, the card order is random, and it mathematically made no difference that you declumped before hand. If you don't properly shuffle, though, then you're actually stacking your deck in your favor.
If you just declump as a mental thing before truly shuffling properly, then you're still opening yourself up to having your opponent call a judge over. I'd guess most judges aren't going to believe you if you say you just did it for peace of mind, and you risk getting penalized.
When they take back all kinds of actions and a minute later attach a 2nd energy
Something important about shuffling your opponent's deck is that I'm not sure how it's going to work while being hygienic. I have heard that some places will prevent players from touching any cards that aren't their own. This is a new challenge we have to face with the pandemic and I'm not sure what the best solution is.
it's part of the official return to play rules from Pokemon, but you can ask for specfic number of cards on the cut and a few other techniques that are available now to try and prevent
As a Local Pokémon Professor this helped me run a league at church lol! Thanks!!
use one of those hand crank card shufflers no one can cheat because it is doing the shuffleing of all the cards.
I think it's important to note that cheating is rare, and of course you should always be doing everything you can do combat it just in case, but the pokemon community is not frothing at the mouth to cheat ppl at every corner.
Herny prior also double nickeled ray cip at virginia 2013 regionals. I thought FOR SURE that was gonna be the "famous example" you were gonna show
10:27, some sticky tape on your shirt can probably work too.
Thanks for the video! I am sad it's something that happens but I would rather be aware and know what to watch out for.
Peace and love to you all!
may all your opponents be honest, great sports and fun.
No problem! Same to you
Moral of the story shuffle your opponents deck.
ABSOLUTELY
What about bluffing? You pick up your cards and shout something in excitement or gasp loudly even though that's not the proper reaction. I sometimes do that.
Between games I do 10 stacks of six than grab 5 and shuffle those. Then the next 5 and shuffle those. Then the deck together and shuffle again. Ultimately just trying to get cards away from one another that were on the board. Only time I declump is after 3 or 4 mulligans. But I always shuffle 6 or 7 times after Then offer the deck to cut or shuffle.
I have had someone cheat against me before. They stacked there deck and didn't offer to me to shuffle and did there game action. They top deck the three cards they needed to win. Ever since I make them reshuffle and I shuffle afterwards.
When my oldest daughter and I were at a league cup a 7 or 8 year old she was against was stacking her deck and wouldn't let my daughter shuffle or cut. She didn't tell anyone until she lost and they were the deciding factor of the juniors. She lost and learned a valuable lesson that I also teach my 9 year old as well. Always cut or shuffle no matter what.
Every time I use an enema, it feels like I’m cheating. 💩🚽
What if a player shuffle the double nickel but with 8 stacks instead of 5? Is it cheating
I like hitting juniors on bottom tables that just do whatever they want while I sit there and cry.
What sleeves are you using for your deck
Dragonshields Gold
Baggy sleeves, for cheating
Fairly certain 'declumping' isn't illegal, nonsufficient shuffling/randomization after declumping is the illegal part. Same goes for pile shuffling, which is used a lot of the time just for making sure all 60 of your cards are there
Sure, we can debate the exact semantics of what constitutes cheating, but I think I did a fairly decent job outlining what was occuring in that video!
Declumping has been explained as wasting time because if you shuffle well you don't need to declump - so why do it?
De-clumping is seen as stacking. As judges we are told to look out for it and discourage it where possible. The order of the deck after a shuffle should not be changed during a search, true randomness will cause "clumps" of cards from time to time.
I agree it doesn't make sense. But I'm pointing out that it doesn't constitute cheating as long as sufficiently shuffled afterwards
ive had someone cheat against me in a yugioh tournament the other week. he set up his first hands before duel and didnt shuffle the top part of the deck to keep the cards he wanted in order
wow, that's terrible. Not even attempting to look like he shuffled
oh you got to 5k congrats
Thank you!
That's why there always should be the third guy to shuffle decks
Agree!!
I recently got into the irl TCG with 2 other friends, so while 2 of us are playing the other one shuffles our decks and rolls the dice/flips coins
A VERY SERIOUS TOPIC
I can only play the TCG in PTCGO and at home against my brother. I can never play any other way so I have no reason to cheat and PTCGO doesn’t let you cheat anyway (obviously)
There actually are ways to cheat! You can exploit certain bugs to gain different advantages. They're not particularly plentiful, but it is out there. Also, clock manipulation is another way to cheat in online tournaments
You can also have more than one person helping see routes that one player might not see, this giving an unfair advantage which counts as cheating on ptcgo
Thought one of these cheats was going to be pull the greninja out of your lap.
Lmao, that's for my history of the game cheating edition 😂😂😂
I like how you did not want to say Zack Lesage 🤣🤣🤣
This is not meant to be a video to drag him, but one to inform people with real life examples of the cheats in practice.
Im surprised the cheater would pull from the discard pile instead of drawing a card from their deck
Yea, draw pile seems safer since you wouldn't see a change.
Did Zach approve this? Not that he has to, or does he? 😆
Why would he have to approve this?
@@FlexDaddyRighteous He doesn't. I'm mostly just curious if he knew you were posting this. Partly because I find it funny and don't like him. Every time I hear about this guy its about cheating. So many people just seem to not care though and his online tournaments are really popular.
I personally don't see it as cheating. After all, sleight of hand and magic are just part of the game in my opinion.
I always cut in a weird and different way each time
Excellent video! Will definitely be more vigilant of players going forward and their actions.
Zach Lesage (the guy stacking his deck around 7:30) has a youtube channel actually.
Yeah i dont like him very much
Yep not surprised he has cheated. I think all of the top players that are on top always every year have cheated somehow cards are a random game. This is why on PTCGO you rarely see the same champions again and again.
How do I stop a local from looking at the bottom card of my deck at the begining of the match to see what I am playing?
Cover their eyes
Honestly, this one is a hard one... not sure I have an answer other than to say that people shouldn't be looking at the deck when they shuffle it - either you or your opponent.
I'm gonna double nickel my friend's mom if he keeps winning with his broken aah charizard deck
I feel like players can set their deck and easily cheat that way even if they do 6 piles or whatever... shouldn't the oponent always shuffle someone else deck? Would avoid all forms of cheating for the most part...
EXACTLY. That's why I shuffle all my opponent's decks, even my friends..
Is double nickel actually cheating or a regular shuffle?
Me clicking on this video 🐍🐍🐍
😂
Can't this also apply to yugioh?
Of course it can. Stucking is stucking you are manipulating the distribution of the deck
I play against someone who does the nickle
Time to show them this video
Is the double nickel cheating
I never thought the mixing the cards up before shuffling was considered cheating as long as it was actually shuffled after the fact and not half way shuffled and you let your opponent do the same. I see in the video most who were mixing were half way shuffling after splitting the cards which is cheating but if you legit shuffle after the fact and let your open shuffle aswell i don’t see how you can really cheat because your draws will be random either way with correct shuffling.
it's most definitely cheating. If you shuffle your deck afterword but had to de-clump beforehand, then what is the point of shuffling? Random is not equally spaced cards throughout the whole deck.
@@RyanASchuldt I meant de lump before shuffling in general like after a game then declump then shuffle. Once you start shuffling you can’t look at your deck.
Perfect example was reshizard typically had roughly 11 energies in the deck but if you used your gx attack with 6 energies in a game if you don’t either declump before shuffling or shuffle a lot before the next game it’s very likely you still have energies clumped together. Spreading them out after the game before shuffling doesn’t really stack your deck but can just save time shuffling in general. But hey if my opponent is worried about anything like you said they have every right to shuffle my deck as needed.
Is that a glc deck I see??? :p
Sure is!! And almost fully blinged out too :D
Why cheat? Where's the fun?
This video is on catching cheaters, not how to cheat. Did you watch the video
I hear you man. It's not fun to win when you cheat.
@@FlexDaddyRighteous what do you do if your opponent doesnt allow you to shuffle there deck
@@liamthompson2630 call the judge lol
@@jaxu I did watch it. My point was, by cheating, you lose the fun. If you're not having fun, then why even play?
based
De-clumping is not illegal tho, I find it weird that you mention that as cheating, the fact that you and your opponent have to shuffle and cut your deck (most people only cut but really you should shuffle also), sufficiently randomizes the deck, if nobody shuffles the deck after doing that yes, it is cheating because you are stacking, but that's why you randomize after any search and then present it to your opponent so they can too, double nickel and other types of stacking work because most people only cut after their opponent "shuffles", I think people should be more inclined towards shuffling when presented a deck to fully randomize it since its part of the game rules, but I also get that in a tournament setting you just want to play as fast as possible and cutting is the fastest way to fulfil that step (some people even decline it to make it even faster which is even worse imo).
Look at it this way, lets say you level ball for a Pokémon, and its your first turn so you are also trying to look if any of those level ball searchable mons are prized, so you start placing all of the level ball searchable monsters in the front of the deck while searching so you can count them and pick your mon easier since you don't have to search them again in the deck if you are still trying to decide which Pokémon you want to add to your hand, you can either return the mons back in to de deck as if you were de-clumping, spreading them in random parts of the deck, or, not move them from the front, show the Pokémon you picked to your opponent and shuffling them deck as is, neither of those choices is stacking, why?, because you and your opponent have to randomize the deck after the search, and it does not matter how much you move those mons while picking the one you are adding to your hand, as long as you and your opponent randomize the deck afterwards it is legal because it follows the shuffling rules of the tcg.
1. you are victim blaming. To say that it is up to the opponent to fully randomize the deck is an incorrect assumption. It is always on the player who's deck is shuffled to fully randomize their deck. The responsibility of the secondary player is to accept / reject that randomization.
2. the level ball comment is a bit of a gray area - many judges will allow a player to move a card or two that they are thinking of grabbing without it being an issue. But if you are rearranging most of deck, that certainly increases the order of the deck and can be perceived as cheating.
3. Lastly, declumping is nullified by sufficient randomization, but you neglect to mention that it may take longer to randomize an ordered deck than a shuffled deck. This is CLEARLY in violation of rules because of rules against time manipulation and stalling.
@@FlexDaddyRighteous Ok so, not victim blaming, and not an assumption, I'm saying that the rules specify that:
"A player may shuffle the opponent’s deck once that player has finished shuffling their deck or may
choose to *cut the deck."... "After a player shuffles their own deck, they should offer their deck to the opponent for reshuffling. (The
opponent may also request for this)"
I'm saying that people choose the cutting option as if it was the only one, and should be more open to shuffle the opponent cards if they are as worried about randomization as they might imply.
And it takes the same time to randomize any deck no matter the order if you do it properly, which is the reason why effective shuffling nullifies "declumping".
Its as illegal as looking thru your deck for 5+ times while searching for 1 energy because its the first turn and you are trying to figure out what is prized, it slows the game, yes, because you are taking an effectively longer time with an action that should be instant.
i’m not sold on “declumping” being cheating quite as you said. obviously, if you do it and then just set your deck down it’s a problem. however, after a match your cards generally will be clumped together more than they should be. if you do some shuffling, then try to spread out the cards, followed by a lot more shuffling, i think it’s perfectly fine. otherwise you might not randomize your deck enough and your cards may still be grouped together as they were on the field or in your discard last time. while you theoretically can draw hands of mostly energy or pokemon, it should not happen very often. “declumping” and then further randomizing should be sufficient.
But why do you want to declump in the first place? If you're declumping it's suspicious regardless because if you're confident you're randomizing the deck any combination is possible therefore cards should be able to clump together
@@sparklysilvally1944 but you aren't starting with a random deck. after a game cards are grouped together based on how you played them (trainers in the discard, pokemon and energy on the board, etc).
@@andrewhedrick8096 yeah so just shuffle the deck don't declump it like a fool
Here’s why declumping is basically cheating, you are doing one of two things:
1. Placing cards in a favourable order and therefore not sufficiently randomising your deck.
Or
2. Wasting time by declumping a deck, just for it to be sufficiently randomised by a proper shuffle moments later.
@@DunkyFuddha yeah so you're either stacking or wasting time
Man thats not exactly cheating when i was Young playing in juniors or even younger. When u change the same cards that are next to each other its quite often used technique since it is basicly impossible to shuffle those cards appart and it will ruin your deck just cause those cards get stuck together. Of course if you divide more of the it is propadly not right but few cards are totaly okay
I'm sorry, you're wrong. It is cheating.