My favourite LSV story is when he was playing a storm deck in a pro tour and realised he forgot to play a copy of Tendrils of Agony…his win condition. So he had to put on this act like “Oh gee, storm count of 10, casting Burning Wish, wonder what I’m going to get…” and convince his opponents to concede through bluffing
This is the equivalent of asking "how many summons was that?" When you have no Nibiru and I have accumulated more Ws from locals than I would like to admit thanks to that trick.
I love the crossover videos as someone who plays both. Its so interesting so see the similarities and differences in professional play. I've played in magicfests and YCSs in the same locations and the experience and legalities are so different
LSV has plausible deniability in that clip while the YGO player recorded himself in 4k saying that he was basically leading his opponents with playing with a token that his deck doesn't even produce (btw, Konami should have made some promo packs with a collection of stated tokens for cards effects like Swordsoul, Adventure, and Plunder Patroll).
It's messed up that MAMA reprinted almost every Swordsoul card last year and included tokens but decided G Golem tokens before we even got any G Golem cards were more important than Swordsoul tokens.
And LSV is literally weighing his options with two legal card activations, as opposed to the hypothetical Scapegoat/Mirror Force bluff. And showing cards that aren't supposed to be shown (such as your tokens or extra deck monsters) is also scummy.
Part of the issue is that YGOs rules create the notion of plausible deniability. MtG doesn't have that. You're allowed to look in your deck box any time for any reason. If you want to ban people looking in their deck box, that's fine, and I get that. But to say that it's only legal to look in the box if you are actually making the play, but you can do the looking before actually declaring the play, but once you look you have to make it and can't change your mind... That's so crazy. Just ban looking in the deck box, you know?
when he said "so with that, let's jump into the video" I was shocked for a moment because my brain always expects him to say "so with that, let's jump into the games"
I think for the Scapegoat example to be a bit more accurate you'd need to actually look at the tokens, during your own turn before setting a card. In that case there's no way to prove you weren't still considering options, in the same way that the Magic player could be considering tjeir options right up until they do something.
Exactly. The magic player had both options available. The yugioh player only had both options until he decided which card to set and passed turn. Gesturing to the deck box after that is misdirection.
@@antman7673weeeeeell bluffing assumes that the person was intentionally lying. So we enter a Schrödinger cat scenario where, until one of the cards in hand is set, the scapegoat player cannot be considered bluffing or telling the truth, regardless of the events that follow after the setting of one of the two cards.
@@antman7673You can still bluff but not in a mindgame sort of way. Activating a search effect to bait an ash even though you have full combo is the most basic bluff in ygo. And in a tournament setting bluffing is just very annoying
I actually don’t really agree with how the Yu-Gi-Oh rules on this at either, but I know why they are that way, and it makes sense. Yugioh cares a lot more about how many times something has happened, it has a really high complexity level, and mind games would only add to that.
His name is Mono Blue Tron because he enjoys Cyberse piles, and Link Monsters are blue. What else could it possibly mean? Why else would he have a giant Linguriboh on the wall?
I think the key difference between Andres and LSV (in Yu-Gi-Oh terms) is what happened AFTER the match. Andres said in his deck profile that the token existed for the sole purpose of misleading folks. LSV said his team wanted to sideboard a copy of Settle (with very little intention of boarding it in) just to make people play around it. Now - is that true? Who knows, but importantly LSV didn't say "Yeah so I wanted this dingus to assume I was making the token so I faked it real good until he walked into my Settle."
As always, intent is important. Andres intentionally misled people while for LSV its way less clear. You could easily argue that making a token was a viable play if his opponent attacked with only 1 or 2 creatures, hence why he grabbed one just in case.
Just goes to show how important plausible deniability is. Ruling against LSV in this exact situation has weirder and broader implications about how to handle ambiguity, while ruling against Andres is fairly black and white.
The big difference is that LSV would not have done anything wrong in Magic terms even if he made his intent known. I want to say he's personally recounted the story and mentioned that his intention was to deceive his opponent and nothing happened because that's perfectly allowed in the rules as long as he doesn't take any illegal game action in the process.
@@RedOphiuchus Absolutely, LSV was well within his rights. My comment was specifically answering the question would he get banned for this *in a Yu-Gi-Oh context*
As someone who got into MTG second, the amount of wierd angle shooting shit that seems less like "bluffing you have something by setting a dead normal spell" and more like actually just cheating you can get away with is fascinating
I'm wondering how much of it is that bluffing things in MTG requires leaving mana up, which has a notable cost(alongside having a card in hand), whereas YGO you can just bluff with a card in hand.
@@simonteesdale9752 most of it. in this case the "bluffing" was good because it was a legit good play if the opponent presented another scenario. modifying the mirror force example a bit, it'd be as if the player could activate mirror force or scapegoat from the hand, but only one of them. if the opp switches 1 monster to defense, then scapegoat is the play to eat the 4 attacks. but if they don't, then the blowout becomes the good play. the bluff was just convincing the opponent via body language that he only had the one play.
@@OmegaShinku I know that MBT's example isn't quite translated properly (I'm an MTG player), but thanks. That particular coment was about the costs of bluffing in MTG, versus in YGO, and whether that's why there's such a huge difference between the rulings. One other explanation could be that YGO is based out of Japan, where MTG is based out of the USA.
All incomplete information games have elements of bluffing. It separates the skilled from the chaff: because these card games, as well as other games, are games of strategy and simulations of warfare - and in warfare, you sometimes deceive your opponent and that's 100% their fault for believing you.
IIRC Another layer to this LSV play is that in the deck list his team all brought to the event only LSV had Settle the Wreckage in the side board. Explicitly so that after the first few rounds, once team's techs had been scouted by the other teams, everyone would be playing around Settle against all of LSVs team but they wouldn't all have to use a side board slot on it. Just a ridiculous piece of information warfare
Not being a competitive player of either game, I'm assuming that the shenanigans that can happen with Pithing Needle would also be covered by these rules.
@@tgva8889 its actually not a question of "legal". Instead the rules are that if you have to name a card, even if you don't name the card exactly correctly, it is assumed by the game that you are referring to it correctly and it is your opponent's responsibility to clarify which specific card. For instance, if you named borborygmous, or even say something like "that red fling creature" like the famous example, until your opponent makes you clarify which one specifically you are referring to, you are not treated as having named the wrong one.
@@tgva8889 There's a good video out there called "Crazy MTG Scandals That Changed The Game" that goes over a few situations like this, and how they changed the rules after. Most notably, IMO, is that someone who had English as their second language said to "go to combat" and it was apparently accepted shorthand in English pro circles for moving to the Declare Attackers step, not "Beginning of Combat". And so he tried to activate an effect that activated in the Beginning of Combat step (a mandatory one even, IIRC), his opponent said no, you went to Declare Attackers, and they called a judge over and the judge (stupidly) ruled that he couldn't activate the effect. It was stupid, and after the rightful backlash to the ruling they changed the rules so you can't shorthand ambiguously like that. Angle shooting has been cut down on (like mistriousfrog says, the Pithing Needle incident also changed the rules so it won't happen again), but in different ways. You're just allowed more...mind-gamey type things like the play discussed in the video (which, IMO, shouldn't be banned anyway since it was a legal action as opposed to deliberately showing tokens you literally can't produce in your deck).
Ygo actually has that exact scenario codified in the rules. Whenever a card tells you to declare a card name, you dont actually need to say the entire name as long as you can describe it a way your opponent understands what card you're declaring. For example, declaring "Black Luster Soldier... the non-ritual one" would be enough to declare Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning
It's a pretty old point of comparison but it would be interesting to compare this to old kamigawa match between Terry Soh and Frank Karsten. It's Karsten's combat, Soh is at 8, Soh has declared blocks and is looking to take 7 but Karsten has the ability to pump his unblocked creature for the last point of damage but doing so would tap a creature he could otherwise block with. Soh asks "I'm at 9, right?", then off the basis that Soh has apparently miscounted his life total, Karsten goes all in, and before damage Soh casts a spell to gain 1 life, survive and kill Karsten on the crackback with Frank's moth tapped.
That play in Yu-Gi-Oh would be weird because in Yu-Gi-Oh different of Magic both players are responsible for maintaining the correct game state Soo in that case or you correct your opponent or you agree about the life amount In the first case the play wouldn't work and on second if you later try kill your opponent because you know he have 8 life you will be caught on cheating
@@chicabu67 In Magic both players are responsible for maintaining the correct game state. Life totals are status information and must be tracked by both players and announced publically (or at least indicated) whenever they change. The bluff wasn't pretending he had the wrong life total, it was pretending he thought his opponent didn't have lethal when they did. This is misrepresenting your thought process, not misrepresenting the board. It's a bit like saying "oops" when you didn't actually make a misplay you just want your opponent to THINK you did. Which might still be against the rules in YGO apparently.
@@chicabu67 And that right there is the difference between Magic and YGO, in Magic, stuff doesn't suddenly become against the rules BECAUSE it was intentional. Either it's against the rules or it's not, but intention is still considered for things like downgrading to a warning, or upgrading FROM a warning. But if you say "Yeah, I was trying to cheat my opponent out of a win" and it turns out what you did was fine, then saying it doesn't suddenly get you a suspension. (It does occasionally make everyone very angry and lead to a rules change though, see Pithing Needle Borborygmos for an example of a rule getting changed because of some bullshit rulings.)
@@KunouNoHana we also have things that are against the rules even without cheating The difference is that looks like in magic isn't wrong trying to take advantage of your opponent In Yu-Gi-Oh rules is and Konami try to enforce it a lot. Even too much can be argued Or Konami is just very dumb with words. Like when Konami banned a player because he said that his girlfriend give the victory of the round to him to later unban when he explained
You mentioned at the end of the video that there are "15-20 active cheats" that the Yugioh rules cover more effectively than Magic. I think it might be a fun video idea, in the same vein of your "things Yugioh does better than Magic" and "things Magic does better than Yugioh," to compare the Tournament Rules of each game.
Better is a very subjetive take tho. Yes is easy to cheap in Magic, i am an Active magic player i can tell you that with confident. But there is the thing...there is a reason why we are not interest in anti-bluffing rules and OUR virtual plataform let us fake priority but holding it or passing it without checks. Thats also a key part of the game. YuGiOh is a complex game in some aspects but if i would critic something about the rules is that their try to eliminate your ability to induce your opp into missplaying. For that yugioh sometimes feels like a more rigid game than magic that is literally a More rigid game in all the sense of the word. People is not allow to missplay except for their own mistakes and they get RULE penalice for that. If you try to activate a card that you cant you get a warning and the card not resolve. in some part thats because yu gi oh cards have a LOT more options to use "missplayed" resources. Like cards that go into the GY because their were activate without proper target your to send them there. In magic that is not cheating, we can play cards with X cost declaring X equal 0 or 1 mana search something in the deck, but we have targets, and put those cards in the GY and those cards WILL TRIGGER any send to the GY effect and can be recover/target by any kind of interaction which in yu gi oh that is impossible for atleast 80% of the cards specially modern cards.
This video was great. Would love to see more crossover videos like this, or just more videos in general explaining how rulings evolved in yugioh to deal with angle-shooting adjacent tactics.
FWIW as a current L2 MTG judge, intentionality is pretty baked into our policy doc as well. Most of the road to the king early 2000/2010s angle shooting has been actively removed from MTG, through a combination of policy not punishing accidents as harshly and also the emphasis in judge training that fishing for penalities is unsporting conduct minor territory. Based on the video there is certainly some very small outside game stuff you can still do in MTG, but honestly the % gain from any of it is so minor that I think most people don't bother, esp when doing so earns you the judge side-eye and general community dislike
Most gray area is something like missing chalice trigger on first opponent chalice-check to "gotcha" on second one. Missing trigger is common, but there should never admit intention because otherwise this is cheating 😅
Would it be correct to say the major difference is the scope of "misrepresenting the gamestate" in each game? It seems like Yu-Gi-Oh defines it broadly, meaning you cannot misrepresent public or private information, such as counting summons to bluff Nibiru. While Magic defines it tightly, meaning I could claim my hand is seven mountains when playing green, so long as I don't misrepresent anything in public information like saying Goyf is a 1/2 when it's actually a 3/4.
@@Ioun267 Magic divides information into 4 categories. Life total, counters attachet do player, continous effects with no defined expiration like initiative and monarch, amount and types of mana in player's pool, location in dungeon and how many times the Ring has tempted player are status information. Details of game actions that still affect current game state, name of any visible object, counters not attackhed to player, state and zone of any object or player, score of current match, step/phase where game is and who has priority are free information. Number of any type of objects in any game zone not defined as free information, characteristics of objects in public zones not defined as status or free information, game rules, tournament policy, oracle text and any other official information about current tournament are derived information. Cards are considered having oracle text printed on them. Everything else is private information. Players must announce any changes to status information about themselves and represent it with physical designation. If player notices discrepancy in recorded or announced status information, they need to point it out immediately. Any question asked by judge must be answered completely and honestly regardless of type of information. Player may ask to do so away from table. Derived, free and status information may not be represented incorrectly. Players must anwser completely and honestly about any questions about free information. At regular REL all derived information is considered free.
I really enjoy plays like going for suboptimal lines in order to make it seem like you dont have access to certain cards when you do. A line I've done before in the ptcg os not grabbing Radiant Greninja early game for draw to bluff that I prized it, then slamming it turn 2 to punish an opponent not benching manaphy
I'm not sure how this compares to Yugioh, but one thing infamous about MTG judging is how strict the "Judges can't give advice" rules are. One of the most well known examples is players asking whether they can use Spellskite's effect on something, to which the judge will answer "yes" and then stay nearby so they can explain a few seconds later why it didn't work.
@@5imian622 In YGO that is considered coaching. It makes sense in magic where you can activate cards that cannot resolve at activation so that you can get a cool combo, but in YGO judges can only tell you if the activation would be legal.
Yeah I mean, as someone who has also judged numerous games for like a decade now, that kind of angleshooting in MTG has been widely cut down every time it reared it's head for ages and cheating has basically always included intentionality as a component, you're not cheating unless you do it on purpose. Otherwise it's lesser but sometimes equally damaging rules violations
There's a reason why a lot of times in MtG, if you happen to perform an illegal move, you're allowed to "walk it back" in most scenarios unless you *explicitly* cannot walk it back because of things like unknowable info becoming revealed (e.g. scrying). IIRC you don't even get a warning or penalty excepting intentional attempts at cheating or repeated failings?
@@ArceusShaymin depends a lot on the REL (Rules Enforcement Level). The more prestigious the event, the higher the stakes, the more is expected of players. Take backsies might fly at your local FNM without issue, but not at a Pro Tour.
The LSV bluff always felt very weird to me because if Dezani chose to play defense he was open to so many more blowouts other than the ONE OF SIDEBOARDED SETTLE, that the bluff feels very low impact even if scummy, it was probably the optimal play anyway. Its also a very funny match because LSV gets the Settle very early on and the commentators keep saying MAN ADANTO REALLY HIDES WELL A SETTLE THE WRECKAGE HUH IT CAN LOOK LIKE YOULL JUST MAKE A TOKEN
I don't remember if this was in a post game interview or on twitter, but I remember seeing LSV comment on the play saying that Dezani wasn't really falling for the bluff, he was right to attack with all creatures and he would have done the same in that situation. He was playing it up for the camera.
@@rahzarkRight, keep in mind that Andanto is public information. His opponent knows that he has to get past this extra blocker or risk a different blowout. You can't play around a 1 of in a decklist like this.
Re: 5:28, Magic's rules documents also account for intent, by the way. Judges can downgrade (some) penalties if they reasonably believe it was an honest mistake and not an intentional abuse. Edit: I realize I wasn't clear. While the above is true, I also meant to explain that Magic also determines if something is cheating or not based on intent. From the Infraction Procedures document: "Most Game Play Error infractions are assumed to have been committed unintentionally. If the judge believes that the error was intentional, they should first consider whether an Unsporting Conduct - Cheating infraction has occurred." A policy like this has been around since between 1994 and 2000. It's just that things like bluffing are not considered cheating, even when intentional. Lying when asked about public information (like cards in hand), misrepresenting the game state, or trying to obscure public information are cheating. Wearing a "I love Burn" shirt but not playing burn is intentionally misleading, but not cheating, since the misdirection is on meta information and not game information.
Thats more on sentencing guidelines over whether or not rules are actually violated though. Most competitive scenes leave some degree of option for judges to discuss the severity of a rules violation, not just the binary yes or no for what the punishment is.
Thank you for this. It's kind of embarrassing MBT "misrepresented the gamestate" like this, especially when I'm pretty sure that intent was still part of the definition of cheating back when he played Magic.
@@Metallicity yes, this is definitely the case. From what I can see, MonoBlueTron/MBT posted to Reddit in 2018 describing himself as a new Yugituber. I found an IPG version from 2012 with very similar language to the above about intent separating a Game Play Error versus Cheating. I'm looking for earlier documents, but can't find any right now. From what I'm reading from someone's summary of the history of the IPG, this has been around in some form since at least *2001*, which makes it very likely that YGO got the idea from Magic's rules enforcement... Edit: yes. I found an absolute legend that archived a bunch of old WotC documents, and the 2000 "Penalty Guidelines" before it was even called the IPG did include that intent is what separated cheating from a different infraction. Even the undated document before it (written between 1994 and 2000) also includes this. So, yeah, it's exceedingly likely that Magic has factored in intent while judging for longer than Yugioh has existed.
True, but in Magic intent only comes into play once an action has been determined to be illegal, the only difference it makes is what _kind_ of illegal action that is. Problem is, in Yugioh, it seems like intention can actually determine if an action is _legal to begin with._
I really enjoyed you doing this kind of historical narration! I would be fascinated to hear other funny instances in card game history, or other “what if player from X game did this in Y game?”
As a (Bri'ish) person who enjoys both your content and Kenobi's, I'm glad you're the Yugituber who decided to talk about this so I get both sides of the coin. I will say, as a MtG Judge, that the rules for Magic also require intent for something to be considered cheating, rather than a mistake, and the two are handled very differently. Intentional cheating is a DQ or ban compared to making the same play unintentionally breaking the rules, which is just a warning or game loss (at worst) and an attempt to fix the boardstate. Also, almost all of the angle shooting you talked about from early Magic/YuGiOh has been completely eliminated from the game (except in the shadiest of LGSs) and has been for my entire fifteen years of playing. Or, at least, I haven't encountered it over here in the UK in any of the casual or competitive environments I've come across, from FNM to World Cup Qualifiers. Maybe the US is different.
Its very hard to call, because in a situation where the opponent played it a bit mote cautiously on the attack, making the token is better than Settle, so getting ready to make it feels legitimate, as you say it really comes down to the intentionallity of "did he grab the token to bluff, or did he grab it as part of considering options", very tough position to be in, do not envy anyone having to make that call
The point was that in MtG you are allowed to misrepresent your position like that. You aren't allowed to misrepresent any publically known information (there is a rule about where you have to place your creatures due to dryad arbor, a creature that is also a land going unseen because it was mixed in with a player's lands in a tournament), but you absolutely can bluff about what is in your hand, or your intentions. In fact, small misleads like that aren't even considered scummy, but rather generally seen as big brained, great plays. The culture of response to bluffs is the real difference that is reflected in the rules.
@@mistriousfrog In that regard I might have chosen the wrong game bc as a ygo player I see these bluffs as big brain plays just as you said rather than scummy. I would LOVE to play opponents like this and play mind games with them, it would feel like I'm in an anime.
@@mistriousfrog oh yeah, I understand that, I was more reacting to the hypothetical "judging this at Yu-Gi-Oh" MBT brings up at the end, but I appreciate that I've worded it vaugely haha
@@FlareBlossom I prefer way magic does it, but Mtg's communication rules lead sometimes to bit silly interactions. Amount of cards in your hand is derived information, which means you are not obliged to answer your opponent about it, but you are not allowed to obstruct figuring it out for themselves either and you are not allowed to mispresent it. Usually players just answer if opponent asks about amount of cards in hand, but you could spread your hand and let them figure it out for themselves. Amount of blue cards in your hand is private information. You are still required to answer completely and truthfully about private information to judge, but between players there is no rules about private information communication. Players are allowed to say whatever they want about private information. Judge blog even gives quite devious example "For example, if a player casts Slaughter Games and names Scapeshift, his opponent may say that he or she only has three copies of Scapeshift in their library, even if it actually contains four." So with 2 cards in hand you are not allowed to say "I have 3 cards in hand.", but you are allowed to say "I have 3 blue cards in hand."
Choosing to play a suboptimal extra in a deck that doesn't need its extra much, in order to make your opponent think you're on a different deck than you're actually on when Diablosis lets them look at your extra, is a play that occurs entirely within the confines of the game. It's not cheating because the only thing you've done is use game pieces in a way that is explicitly intended by the rules. Something like counting summons when you don't have Nibiru occurs outside the game. You are adding additional information that would not exist on the board otherwise, in order to give yourself an advantage. For another example, while it's legal to play a Mathmech extra deck in Lab to smokescreen Kash, it would be illegal to play a Mathmech extra deck in Lab and then "accidentally" flip over your Laplacian during setup to convince your opponent you're playing Mathmech. One is something that happens within the game, one is something outside of the game
No, tokens are not game pieces. They stay outside the ED and MD. If your opponent mistakes your deck, because they made assumptions based on your ED then that is a misplay on their part.
Surely asking if that's 5 summons or even just asking your opponent pause so you can think if you do don't have a handtrap isn't adding any new info as both players either know or don't know that nib or handtraps in general exist it's only them trying to read into your actions that would lead them to play differently. Surely they should just make the optimal play which is often playing around every handtrap you can anyway. You haven't said that you do or don't have nib. The nib one I get because it's pretty blatant and clearly for an advantage but I'd often at locals joke along the lines of wish this face down was a drowning mirror force or waking the dragon cards that I'm probably not running and it's true they aren't and it's generally not to gain an advantage as it would be just before they attack etc but it is to spook them a little before I resign etc and I wouldn't like to think that was against the rules. Is it also cheating to say you have no responses then since you are revealing hidden info because I do so all the time since I'm often playing decks that don't want to go into time or didn't want to shill out for optimal handtraps and played more engine instead at locals. If its the rules it's the rules but I'm surprised it falls that way.
It's interesting how different games handle bluffing. I remember a japanese mahjong player getting ejected from a professional tournament for sighing too loudly when he drew a good tile, because you are absolutely not allowed to bluff in Japanese mahjong. Then there's contract bridge, where they hate bluffing so much that in professional play, they set up a barrier to prevent you from seeing your partner across the table.
Tournament play of Bridge doesn't really hate bluffing, but they do hate giving away extra information among partners. I can bid 2H on a hand with no hearts all I want to try and get the opponent to switch suits or overbid, but if I am doing it because I agreed beforehand with my partner that an opening bid of 2 and a suit means I don't have any of that suit, then that's not allowed. Same with mannerisms from your partner, which is why there's the screen between players of the same team (there's a player from each team on each side of it). Even the tempo of your bidding needs to be somewhat consistent, since suddenly changing it could convey information such as a having a bad hand to your partner.
Yeah it's very interesting, I believe in contract bridge the play you mentioned would actually be legal, if you had declared it to be part of the system you and your team were playing. On the other hand, in diplomacy you are permitted to misreprent the game state, because the game is about communication and if you and an other opponent conspire to mislead another opponent about the rules or game state, it is their own fault for being tricked. Ultimately, the rules about what is considered cheating and what is legal in a game of hidden information depends on the game.
@@aesirloki4833iirc in the story being referenced P1 calls a judge and asks "can I cast pithing needle and name dark confident?" The judge says yes (it's a legal move even though it doesn't actually stop DC's ability) P1 casts pithing needle. P2 lets it resolve P1 names a fetchland that P2 could have sacrificed in response. The question is if making a judge call on a topic you know the answer to in order to mislead your opponent about a play you want to make is okay.
The thing for me is that he is actively interacting with a non-game piece, likely with the intent of deceiving. Even though the card could be activated, you don't need to preemptively grab the token. That seems like a pretty pointed attempt at misdirection. But also, I could see a judge just giving him a slap on the wrist and a "Don't do it again", not a ban.
@@geminia999 he didn't hand it to him, his opponent reached across the table and grab it all by himself without even asking and started moving it across the board.
@@Heoltor yer; the person who asked for the token to be used to do the maths WAS the opponent not LSV; LSV just followed what his opponent asked for. its like asking to see your graveyard when you have a way to reanimate on the field but instead of reanimating i am just gonna cast a spell from my hand and win that way
If he was just grabbing the land that makes tokens preemptively, I don’t think you could fault him at all, but I can see why someone might find grabbing the token a little sketchy.
@@multievolution It also could be viewed as a visualization technique, one of which the opponent used as well. A lot of times, MTG players will position both their creatures and the opponents creatures before declaring any attacks in what they think will happen. This helps calculate everything needed. In this case, having the token in sight, since both players know that it can be made, helps LSV check if its enough to save his board wipe should the opponent not go all out and his opponent is able to see just how many attacks presents the lethal he is after.
I guess in that example it comes down to how intense the bluffing is. For example, in an entirely different game state, there's nothing stopping me from looking at my graveyard if I want. I may have cards that can activate there, and some of those effects may do something to help my current situation, but if I'm just checking the cards I have in graveyard, there should be no problem. However, if my intention with checking the GY is to give my opponent the impression that I am indeed going to activate any of those effects, that may be too subtle. And the more in-the-nose it gets it starts getting more and more into cheating territory instead of just giving signals that if my opponent reads a certain way it's their own fault. As Joseph said, it's not the same to just reach for my deckbox for a second (though I do think that one may be a tiny bit more of a gray zone), than saying "Oh man, if you attack now I sure am dead, because the SCAPEGOAT I have set face down won't protect me from death this very same turn! Oh gee!"
Every time I watch a video about like controversial rulings in mtg, there are dozens of horror stories about players getting quite literally cheated out of their wins by rule sharkers, and the judges siding with the rule sharkers. Over half are against children who can't really go against an adult judge, the rest are timid players taken advantage of. Quite a large number is literally judges/store owners colluding with their friends playing the game. What breaks me the most is how devastated the players are by what happens, how they're often brought to tears, how they still remember the interaction badly. I'm so glad yugioh is much better in this regard. One story is another player watching a kid play, the kid says he wants to go into combat (battle phase), and his opponent smugly informs him that "combat" is player shorthand for "I would like to skip the 'beginning of combat' step and go directly to the 'declare attackers' step", so all his 'beginning of combat' triggers would not happen, which the judge backed up (it was the official ruling at the time). Next game he doesn't quite remember the name, so he says "start of combat", opponent tells him that since he didn't specifically say "beginning of combat" it doesn't count, and then since he said the word "combat" the same shorthand from before applies and the triggers are skipped. Judge agrees again. Kid in tears. WTF.
This is an instance of a horrible judge. This exact thing happened at Pro Tour Aether Revolt, and WOTC eventually clarified that there is no such thing as a required shortcut. If a player does not agree to a proposed shortcut presented by an opponent (here being "yeah, you can go to declare attackers") then the shortcut does not happen and whatever is said is assumed to be a simple passing of priority. The second ruling is outright insane. This isn't angle-shooting; that's just cheating with a judge for the same reason as above, in addition to the fact that analogous language has always been permitted as long as both players know what is going on. If not, the judge's job is to CLARIFY and then rewind to the moment the communication breakdown occurred to continue play with (again) a simple pass of priority. Admittedly, YGO isn't significantly better in this regard. I've handed out more than my fair share of slow play warnings and a few penalties for stalling. Judges are actively bad in YGO at spotting and dealing with angle-shoots because most of them don't really know the rules themselves. Fake-counting summons to get people to play around Nib when they don't have it, asking to look at graveyards to burn clock, there's a LOT that players in YGO do that isn't allowed, and a LOT that judges often don't allow that is explicitly legal. And then, of course, there is outright cheating. Which, in my experience, has been much more common in YGO. ESPECIALLY during the era of remote duels.
@@AAdams-em1uv it was before the rulings change. Going back to the same video again, I found another comment expressing the same thing happening to them - literally said "beginning of combat", opponent said "the phrase beginning of combat includes the word combat, meaning we are now in the declare attackers step", and judge sided with opponent. Sure those are awful judges colluding with their friends, but this incidents do happen, and the rule sharking nature of MtG policy both enables these awful judge decisions and encourages this mentality for the players to the point that they will try to scum out a literal child, who literally gets reduced to tears (not just this story, several). Regarding yugioh judges, I don't think not properly punishing angle shooting / rule sharking in YGO is even on the same level as actively supporting this behavior and ruling for the sharker against the victim in MtG. No kid will go home crying because their opponent counted loudly with no nibiru, they will if their opponent scammed them from a win they deserve and the judge sided with the scammer. Slow play stuff is pretty awful, the timerules should be completely reworked. They indeed allow players to scam wins. At least slow play IS considered an offense in the rulebook though, the rules try to discourage it and players got banned/disqualified for it. Cheating is cheating. Kinda hard to enforce in remote duels, ultimately you just have to hope that the players are playing for the game and not for the win. I don't have an insane amount of experience with YGO judges as I haven't played a lot of paper YGO, just online, but in my experience they were very nice and fair. Playing against them they let me walk back stuff I shouldn't be allowed to but warned me it's not allowed in principle, always had good conduct etc. Somewhat unrelated but when I faced a ton player of my region I think he intentionally went a little easy on me since he could tell I was new to paper play, and after I lost he explained to me the big misplay I made. He didn't just jump on his free win, he didn't try to scum me, he was just nice.
@@tcoren1 Oof, if that first thing would happen to me in a local environment, that would have been the last time that store sees me. In a bigger tournament, that's 100% an appeal and if for some reason the Headjudge sides with the floorjudge, it might be a "quit the game forever". I can handle bad luck and unfortunate losses, I cannot stand getting treated unfairly
@@skuamato7886 yeah, it seems pretty awful, hopefully they're rarer than the impression I got. I don't know how big those events are, I hope those awful judges are not permitted in large events, but even if this is a "kid accidentally registers for a big event" case it seems awful. In the interest of fairness I tried to search up videos like "controversial yugioh rulings" and read the comments there to have more idea on bad experiences on the yugioh side. They do seem to exist, although I got the impression that they tend to be less commonplace and extreme. It's mostly stories about judges giving blatantly wrong rulings on card interactions (either out of malice or incompetence), which is very bad, but I think not quite on the level of losing a game to a literal verbal miscommunication. Another MtG story I got reminded of, was a new player was getting attacked for lethal, but they had creatures to block. Because they were inexperienced with the lingo, they accidentally agreed to go to damage step without blocking (to be clear, this was not an unreasonable shortcut, it was something an experienced player should understand, but they were not an experienced player). They tried to argue back that no, OBVIOUSLY, they wanted to block the lethal attack, they just didn't understand their opponent's words, but the judge ruled in favor of the scammer against the victim
@@tcoren1 Yep, that's mostly correct. Big YGo "Judge scandals" usually revolve around judges simply ruling card interactions wrong. That's mainly because there is no comprehensive Rulebook as there is in MTG, so sometimes there is no clear cut answer to a question. It kinda works like in irl law: If you don't know how it's supposed to work, you read up on similar cases that got handled by a higher authority (in this case, the OCG) and derive your answer from there. Far from perfect but usually works. Except when it doesnt.
Coming from a magic perspective it’s interesting how different yet universal attitudes are for this kind of thing. Every magic player i know would consider the story of asking a judge if pithing needle can target dark confidant and then naming polluted delta is super cool yet none of them liked the pithing needle borborymos story. Whereas there was a YGO thread about pushing a card up in your hand bluffing that it was an answer and everyone agreed that was scummy even though it seemed the opposite to me.
Large Magic the Gathering tournaments are such a pain in the rear since people are absolutely looking to rules shark any possible chance they get. So I'm glad YGO tries to cut down on that to an extent.
This just feels like another thing someone would call a judge on you for. Judge my opponent reached like he was going to tap something and didn't. He's misrepresenting the game state
Beyond just the intentionality there's also the issue of how some aspects of private knowledge in YGO are a bit fuzzy. Someone might be frustrated and not be sure if the opponent's combo can even be Nibiru'd. They might ask someone, "Which monsters have activated their effects this turn?" in their main phase and outright be TRYING to make the opponent think they have something like Talents or Kurikara but actually just be trying to keep track of what they need to play around.
If I were a judge, I would probably let it go with a warning. While it is a legal play, he doesn't need to reach into the deck box right at that point and pull out a token. Using the Scapegoat example, as face-down cards are private knowledge, grabbing some tokens preemptively implies that you will be using them. Regardless of if that face-down card is either Scapegoat or Mirror Force, similar to counting the number of summons out loud to bluff Nib, it is a misleading action that would not be legal in YGO.
@@TeamHighCloud You are trying to deceive your opponent. There is no purpose of counting summons other than to try and trick your opponent into thinking you have Nibiru.
@@TeamHighCloudyes, you’re giving your opponent private info, regardless of whether it’s true or not you are ultimately using private info to manipulate/mislead a player into conducting a bad play. This gives you more advantage than that player since you used private info to gain slight advantage. Think of it like this, you bait your opponent by asking for summons, then he makes a suboptimal board trying to play around nibiru, then you go play, and he does the same thing to you. It doesn’t lead to a healthy game if both players are actively lying about their cards.
This is where MBT'S translation doesn't quite get all the nuances right. Notably, the play LSV was representing was an entirely legal one to make, while the activating Scapegoat would have been entirely illegal in MBT's example. A better translation would be if the known Scapegoat was set, and the Mirror Force was in hand, and a Makyura had been destroyed previously this turn.
You are allowed to ask for the number of summons, as it is simply inquiring about knowledge of the gamestate, and the existence of a card like nibiru has no bearing on your ability to ask this question, on the other hand, you cannot explicitly or impliedly state that you have nib in hand, so you can ask how many summons, but just don't mention nib.
Really interesting discussion, and I love having you as someone that has played both games competitively weigh in and explain. I never played magic competitively enough to really get to grips with it, but there is always a vibe that your opponent's are constantly sharking that yugioh just has never had for me. There are definitely advantages to mtgs more clearly defined rules, but the intent portion of ygo is really good for the tournament environment imo.
When is Joseph gonna collab with the prof, tho? They give off the same energy in their respective communities. Except for all the bussy business, the prof don't do that.
I am now imagining prof swinging for lethal saying "and as the kids say, I am about to smash that bussy" before turning to do finger guns towards the camera
MY favourite episodes are when Prof has younger guests on his show and he pulls out language that's like... a generation or two behind them. It's masterfully done humour@@Doombacon
I dont think your analysis is incorrect, but I think if anything, the fact that he picked up the token and started waving it around would result in it being ruled against him. Like you said, there is a difference between making a motion towards the scapegoat tokens and actually picking them up and thumbing through them. I think the context of this being a feature match also hurts his case because there is no “he said/she said”, its just blatantly on camera, and judges were there to watch.
It's a little different than MBT'S explanation (which is good for a simple translation). A slightly better one would be if both cards (the known Scapegoat and the unknown Mirror Force) were set. Notably, the play LSV was pretending to set up for was perfectly legal, and against a more cautious attack, would have been optimal. Was the intent to bluff an opponent into getting blown out? Yes, absolutely. Was he representing an illegal line of play? Not at all.
@@simonteesdale9752 Both can't be set, otherwise it wouldn't be a bluff anymore. If you know I have Scapegoat and a hidden card I drew, and that I set both of them, then you know I can activate Scapegoat and something else. That something else would immediately put you on guard for the possibility of anything happening. If instead I set only one card, then it could either be the Scapegoat you know about or a random card you don't know about. The bluff is that I drew bad and set the Scapegoat you know about to buy myself another turn, while in reality the random card was a game-winning Mirror Force.
@@simonteesdale9752 “representing a legal line” is not at all the issue here tho. This issue is clear intent to mislead. And like the other person who responded to you said, if they set 2 cards, its no longer a bluff, which is an entirely different scenario because in this case you know for a fact that Scapegoat is set.
@@SatanicWren That's why I say that the translation is off. Both players can see the Adanto face-up in play (which is the equivalent of knowing the scapegoat is set.) LSV was representing a perfectly legal play he could make, that would be in some cases optimal. Edit: Yes, the intent was absolutely to mislead, but there's an important difference between misleading by alluding to a play you can make, and one that's illegal.
@@simonteesdale9752 Well no, the issue is entirely intent, the specifics of which arent really the issue here. Torres having a Swordsoul token and using it to represent any token, such as a Nib token, is entirely legal. The only bannable offense there was the intent to mislead.
As you say, making a token was a legal play and it would even likely be the *correct* play if his opponent got scared and just swung with one creature. I agree that it seems defensible under the intent rule.
Reminds me of the "legal cheating" incident with Dkayed, which I never understood how it worked because Fateful Adventure has both a trigger effect and an ignition effect to search so you shouldn't be able to mislead the opponent into using Ash against the wrong effect. Then again, I only play on MD so maybe on paper is actually possible to do it. This is also tangentially related to tokens, in this case Adventurer Token. Coincidence?
At that time Master duel didn't highlight which effect was used, so you could summon a monster that has no trigger effect then quickly activate the ignition effect of Fateful in order to "simulate" the trigger effect of Fateful which gets the equip, provided your opponent didn't have a quick effect response to give them a window between the summon and the activation of the ingition on Fateful. So the opponent could easily think Fateful would add an equip yet you added Gryphon. This was later fixed in MD with a QoL update highlighting the specific effects, but in TCG it was NOT A PLAY from the very start since the opponent can ask you which effect of Fateful you are using, and you HAVE TO answer truthfully or you get a penalty immediately for "misrepresenting the game state" This wasn't a case though for MD since you cannot communicate with the player while the log at that time didn't clarify which effect was used.
@@babrad I see, makes sense. I guess you can't just say "Fateful Adventure effect, response?" When the card has multiple effects. It would be the same as saying "Triple Tactics Talents effect, response?", since you can only respond with Ash if they use the effect to draw 2.
@@Ragnarok540 actually, that's kinda two different situations. you _can_ just say the former, however doing so after a summon would immediately lock you into the trigger effect, as it's the only valid activation in the post-summon segoc window. and because the physical game has no automatic passing of that window, your opponent has to explicitly declare their lack of response _before_ you have the opportunity to activate the ignition effect, and asking if they do means you pass up the opportunity to activate the trigger effect ( since you have to declare the activation of all your simultaneous trigger effects at once, so your opponent cannot possibly have a response up until the point where you've declared all your effects - this, incidentally, is why chain blocking is possible ). so there's no actual ambiguity in which effect you're activating, as it can be gleaned entirely by if you're activating it during the segoc window or not meanwhile, absolutely none of this applies to triple tactics, as it's fully ambiguous which effect you're activating unless it's literally impossible to resolve all but one of the effects at activation. even then, though, you could very reasonably be given a warning by a persnickety judge, as the three effects are technically subeffects of the card's single main effect, and the process of declaring which subeffect you're activating occupies the same timing as declaring targets ... meaning just saying you're activating triple tactics is the same as flipping raigeki break without saying which card you're trying to pop. these sorts of things are effectively part of the effect's cost ( hell, subeffects can outright define their own costs and targets, so choosing which on you're activating technically occurs _before_ costs and targeting ), so performing them correctly is _mandatory_ for an effect's activation to be legal
Based on the Nibiru example, I think it might be closer to being a rules violation in LSVs case. Grabbing the token is very similar to trying to get your opponent to stop at 4 summons by counting along. You are giving your opponent information that leads them to a certain conclusion that will influence play. But, it's fairly close and could go either way.
The big difference there is that LSV absolutely had the means, resources, and opportunity to activate Adanto and make a token. In a similar vein, if you actually have a Nibiru in your hand, counting along to make sure you know when it's activatable doesn't misrepresent the gamestate.
@@HakureiIllusion Counting the number of summons doesn't misrepresent the game state even if you don't have Nibiru in the hand. You would be accurately accounting for the number of summons which occurred to that point.
@@josephcourtright8071Niburu is the only card where counting the summons is relevant so its very clear the intent is to make the opponent think of playing around Niburu. Again its the intent that matters here. You ain't allowed to do that
@@josephcourtright8071 Nibiru is, as far as I know, the only card whose activation condition is based on the number of summons. Therefore putting emphasis on the number of summons being performed can only be relevant if you have Nibiru; which means that if you don't have it, you're misrepresenting the gamestate by suggesting you do.
From a practical stand point, I think Yugioh more or less needs to have more strict rules just due to practical concerns. Consider how people would act if they thought they could get a leg up by hitting you with the jedi mind trick regarding once per turns. Moreover, given how big a problem time is in Yugioh, consider how much extra time would be wasted every round, calling judges over and trying to discern whether your opponent explicitly lied about the game state, or whether they merely spoke in a manner that was meant to misdirect. For some other famous angle shoots, I imagine 'all my legal targets gain fear' would probably have gotten Patrick Chapin banned if he was playing Yugioh. 'Who are you targeting with Esper Charm' would also get you banned, I think.
Been watching kenobi for a while. A lot of his stuff can be a bit mtg doomer-y but this video was an interesting one and highlighted one of my favorite plays on the mtg pro tour
I think your comment about organizing lands is a little misleading. It's pretty standard etiquette and tourney procedure to accurately display things like lands that have effects and how much mana you have available to activate them (Failing to do so in some more extreme cases like Arbor Dryad is literally cut-and-dry cheating at comp REL). I think saying "I am representing this trick on board" is polite and does not commit you to doing that trick or represent intent to do so. Pulling out the token is definitely more cheeky, but defensible to represent a plausible line of play in response to plausible attacks? LSV, for what it may or may not be worth, claims the bit was more or less a joke- he knows his opponent personally, they both know that LSV might have Settle the Wreckage and that attacking into it loses the game on the spot, but that it's probably still right to attack all- in other words, the bluff didn't matter at all. I'm tempted to mostly believe him, and at least it gives a plausible intent.
Ive been playing MTG since I was 10, and dear god the amount of nonsense that people tried on me, a 10 year old kid, to try and win the game was insane. I havent played the game completely for about 3/4 years now, but I can say that between 2009 and 2019 besides some smelly locals player I didnt have any problems with people angel shooting. But boy was that first 5 years full of it. To the point that talking tournament strategy would include angle shooting plans and "gotcha" moments. I will say that with my background I dont get mad at angel shooting, I do think the game is a lot more fun when people dont do it.
The important skill, not trust to anything that is not publick info. Some "bites" like trying to counter uncountrable spell is quite common but legal, while actualy illegal action is "rewind" such counterspell attempt, not attempt iteslf. And mindgames with trashtalk become even more fun when you play with friends in multyplayer. EDH is full of diplomacy, while 2HG is huge on team bluff and that kinda point.
The big difference is that bluffing is a big part of magic to begin with. The biggest thing I can think of is leaving up mana to fake that you have interaction when you don't so that your opponent might misplay or play suboptimaly. This is not even mentioning the many nuances of the combat phase. It could be easily argued that making a token was the optimal play if the one guy didn't swing out with all his creatures and settle the wreckage was only the best against a full swing.
@@MIKAEL212345fair point, but in the case of ygo, it seems like its regarded as "unsportsman" like because it missrepresents the game state. Imo, the gamestate shouldnt include anything outside the fields zones and hands.
@aesirloki4833 I think there is a lot of nuance to that even still, and why these sorts of rules will never be perfect. Like, imagine you're gonna combo off in Yugioh, and your opponent slightly pushes one card out of their hand when you activate a search/draw effect. Well that definitely feels like Ash Blossom. They didn't use it there, but now you're cautious, you're going to attempt to play around a perceived Ash, playing a bait or two, and then they pull out a non-raised card and it's Nib on your 5th summon. Later you find out your opponent isn't even playing Ash Blossom. That's the sort of bluffing Yugioh wants to tackle because you're misrepresenting game state when there is not even a single chance of Ash coming down. This is different when you already know the Ash exists games 2 or 3, because the possibility has presented itself based on the card being used. But when everything is blind, don't act like something can happen that never will.
@@Treblebeatgames I understand. I think its a ygo topic more than anything. I used to play when i was younger, played MtG and now FaB. Very different types of game. But the concept of "making your opponent unsure of whats next" is a WILD concept. For instance, in your example, its like if the player whos about to combo should be reassured by his opponent thag he wont activate a hand trap... like what? Lmao. Again, i do understand Konamis decisions to prevent sticky situations or, what we could call "sharking", because most things could be abused by the wrong, ill intent players.
@@Treblebeatgamesbut what you described is the coolest interaction I ever heard, I don't get why it's not legal, it would make up for situations where you go second and haven't drawn a single handtrap, balancing the luck factor a bit
I would agree with the LSV thing...if he didn't pick up the token in such an obvious way. Putting the mana like that is much more nuanced, but actually picking the token up in clear view of his opponent, to clearly put the guy in the mindset of "I am going to summon this" really feels like it crosses a line. Also he has no "reason" to go look at the token. His land card says all of its stats on it.
L2 Magic Judge here: Cheating in Magic, by the rules, requires those things: 1) a deliberate action by which advantage can potentially be gained 2) that is illegal 3) the one taking it has knowledge that it is, in fact, illegal. Reaching for a token is deliberate, advantage can be gained, but the action itself isn't illegal. Therefore not all checkmarks apply for the action to be considered a cheat. In the Yugioh Tournament Infractions and Penalties Policy, it just has different definitions of what is considered legal and what not, but the principle for intent is the same. Intent is present in both documents as a defining factor. The reason all the above checkmarks need to apply is because cheating implies we know we are cheating and do it anyway. Otherwise we aren't cheating, we are being naive and/or ignorant. This is why any disruptive penalty has it's equivalent "non-cheating" version, depending on how disruptive it is. As for why those games have different ways to tackle bluffs and "fair play" I think it has to do with philosophy and probably even Japanese vs American mentality in gaming. In Yugioh, emphasis is mostly placed in correct technical play using supplied materials (cards) and less emphasis is given on "outside of game" actions. On the other hand, Magic is more inspired by traditional games like Poker (in fact many pros actually have a career in Poker), so each game differs in what it considers "fair play" Examples in Magic: IDs are allowed. You can "fail to find" a card you are looking for in a hidden zone, even if you know there is one there. You can begin executing an action that is only partial due to limitations (for instance, we both need to discard a card but only one of us has one). Those are small differences that if added together, paint a different picture of the general philosophy.
> In the Yugioh Tournament Infractions and Penalties Policy, it just has different definitions of what is considered legal and what not, but the principle for intent is the same. Intent is present in both documents as a defining factor. If I understand correctly, in MTG, intent only makes the difference between a mistake and a cheating attempt, but both are still illegal, the only difference is what action the judge takes. If an action is legal, then intent does not matter. The problem is, in Yugioh, intent can sometimes make the difference between a legal action and an illegal one. To my understanding, keeping a Swordsoul token visible when you're not playing that deck would have been perfectly legal until the guy said he was doing it to trick his opponents.
@@Dominator150395 The principle is the same. However, in MTG there is no instance where cheating is considered cheating when the action itself is not illegal. It needs to be 1) illegal 2) deliberate 3) you being aware that is illegal (regardless of your ability to infer if doing so is to your advantage, as long as you believe it is, it is deliberate). That said, according to the penalty guidelines in Yugioh, ALL examples of cheating given there are illegal actions, so I presume it works the same way. It does not explicitly state it in the document (so a high level judge may give us more information about that), but if we follow the document to the letter, by stating only illegal actions in the cheating section of the rules and actually marking each of them individually as to what infraction each action would result in, I infer it has the same requirements as in MTG.
@@edwardsgamingcorner3880 I'm genuinely curious: if the dude had said "I'm using the Swordsoul token because I like how it looks, even though I'm not playing Swordsoul", would he have been warned or penalized in any way?
@@Dominator150395 this is tricky in that it isn't "binary yes/no"; let's tackle it pedantically: the Tournament Policy states "If a Deck List is being used, only cards registered on their Deck List or cards labeled as Tokens should be in the Card Case." That means you are allowed to have with you tokens, provided said tokens are eligible to be used as tokens for your deck. However, in the "Tokens" description of the document it states: "Items that could be mistaken for other game elements [...] cannot be used as tokens, even if they have been labeled as tokens." That means that tokens that specific cards create (such as the above mentioned Swordsoul token) fall into the category of "being mistaken for other game elements", since if your deck cannot produce such tokens, technically, you are not allowed to have them in your deck box as tournament material for the registered list you provided. As such, displaying among tournament materials a token that your deck cannot create for any reasons, technically is not allowed. However, this isn't "explicitly written" it is "interpreted" this way from the document, therefore, the Head Judge is the final arbiter of how "pedantically" we interpret or enforce the above two paragraphs in the Tournament Policy document. I hope this sheds some light as to the legality of the situation. Now, as for the intent, to be classified as cheating, assuming whatever the player states is true, the statement "I just want to look at it but I am not playing with it" is not malicious to classify as "cheating"... but this is if we take the words spoken at face value... as normally, a judge would further investigate the intent, the circumstance, behaviour, how the player conducted similar actions in other rounds, etc... so it isn't "clear cut" without investigation. The above answer of "not cheating" is if we assess that the words spoken after we finish our investigation are true and the player has benevolent intention. Does this cover the essence of your question?
MBT passed the judge test?? And got entered into the judge program?? And this is the first time I've heard about this while being a viewer for years???????
I feel like in this example the games are too fundamentally different to make such a one for one comparison. The way you describe this, holding two islands untapped without a Counterspell in hand is a misrepresentation of board state, when Blue leverages a lot of its advantage from option-selecting with instant speed spells.
holding two islands untapped without counterspell isnt misrepresenting the gamestate, it is the gamestate. Saying "gotta make sure I leave two islands untapped for my counterspell" without a counterspell is misrepresenting the gamestate
It only becomes a problem when you talk or whatever to misrepresent the game state. It'd more be like asking "Do you pay the one" (referring to a tax like Smothering tide) effect when it was destroyed last turn and you hope they pay extra mana for no reason.
I find intent/"mindgames" to be very interesting since it often differs so much between people. Some consider it to be bad sportsman like/borderline cheating while others consider it to be another aspect of the game where you can present things that can muddy things. As someone converted from digital (Duel Links to MD to TCG), I cannot in good faith play at higher level events without others trying to do these one up things (I had a judge call at a decently stacked for me using the G-Golem tokens. I was on mathmech and the tokens say on them they can be used as a general use token). While like you said, you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, this is one advantage the digital card game have where you borderline dont interact with the othwr individual outside of the game itself. Great discussion video as always! (Please play Dual Destinies soon)
But surely this isn't really true, is it not the same to load into MD with all the accessories for one archetype and play another? Is toggling your response window not the same as asking how many summons for nib?
@@peterusmc20 I consider the accessories similar to deckboxes and deck mats in person. The mindgames/intent to decieve here would be more like the example mentioned in the video would be the swordsoul token (that has no official printing so they had to go out of their way to do this) that caused the player to be banned. However, I'm pretty sure he would had dodged the ban if he simply didn't say it in the deck profile which nailed him for having bad intent. it's a bit harder to go that route when everything is baked into the digital client itself so misleading isn't as easy with your accessories. On toggling response windows, I find that more in line with saying "thinking" after your opponent does a play. You could be bluffing, you could actually have an Imperm, or you could need to think about if you wanna drop cause you're already X-2-1. But your intention is still hidden so you have plausible deniablity. If you start counting summons in an attempt to mindgame, that is probably worse in a judge's book than just asking "how many summons was that?" on the 4th/5th summon. I personally don't have much experience with this so forgive me if I'm ill informed but this seems more like a sportsman issue. (Generally I try to tune out whatever my oppponent is doing, I had lean into me and stare into my eyes while I was doing my small world bridge). From my experience trying to misled with implications can get you in trouble (saying "go off until the 5th summon") but just clarifying game state "what summon is this?" or "have you used baron negate this turn?" is pretty much fine. Not trying to be antagonistic here! Just me genuinely trying to say what I think of this.
@@peterusmc20importantly in master duel you cannot toggle the response window on if you do not have a valid response to use. If you have no cards in hand or field that can activate then the game does not allow you to stop your opponents play by bluffing a response. I think this makes it very clear what Konami thinks about this kind of bluffing.
One of the only locals i ever went to i was playi by fur hire and kept asking for my opponent for responses to my actions and chain blocking ash every game, except for one game where my opponent told me “i dont have anything youre good” so i skipped a step and didnt chain block beat and he dropped ash on me instantly. That was also the last time i ever went to a local tournament
@@thorscape3879 i meant that i didnt go through the extra step of summoning another guy to chain block beats effect specifically to play around ash because my opponent said he didnt have anything
yeah the opponent ashing you there was illegal in fact they first made an illegal play by revealing private information (that they had nothing), and then another by revealing they were lying
i think the grabbing of the token pulls me over to the opinion of it wouldn't be okay in yugioh tbh but I'm not even close to a judge I don't even know what half my own cards do
It's honestly a really weird (and interesting) comparison, and MBT's explanation is good for a general overview, but doesn't quite translate properly. A more accurate translation would be to have both the known Scapegoat and an unknown Mirror Force set, while under a floodgate that only allows you to activate one spell or trap per turn. There are genuine lines of play the opponent could make, that would make activating Scapegoat the right choice (and notably a possible one in this version), but the intent is definitely to bluff them into running into mirror force.
I vaguely remember a discussion about this from years ago. But basically we determined that LSV being able to make the token and wanting to be ready to do so if the opponent did not full swing was very valid. Lsv was clearly mathing everything out and it was a case of "if he doesnt attack with all i will token, if he does i will settle the wreckage" the person who did something wrong was the opponent who called it into question as simply grabbing a token for possible future use and piling your lands would never have been against the rules Since the days you played competitive magic though things have changed a lot. Basically there are multiple levels of rules enforcement now, casual, tier 2, and tier 1, casual is kitchen table, tier 2 is semi competitive, and tier 1 is competitive. It's now fully understood that if you want to check rules you call a judge when the actual violation comes into question. And that you need a specific violation to call a judge on, you can say "the math doesn't work out on how many cards are in your hand" and call a judge, but if you are calling judges for multiple angle shooting cases the judges can issue you a rules violation instead.
YOOOOO NO WAY?? Collab between PK and MBT?!!!! Edit- 1) this was horrendous news, LSV tainted 😭😭😭 2) I think you translate between the two games really well! 4) The digs at PK's name are hilarious but also very strange. You do have 'the best beard in Esports entertainment' right there, and you focused more on surface level analysis. Lol. Still loved the video as someone who has watched both on premiere!
I switched from Yugioh to Pokemon in 2017 and one thing there that I don't think would fly in Yugioh is the concept of ID'ing aka Intentional Drawing. This is a concept that is allowed in Pokemon where two players who are guaranteed or have already made the cut mutually agree to take the tie. Now some players might find it scummy but why should two players who are guaranteed to make the top-whatever if they tie play it out? For the record, TPCi knows about ID'ing and it is allowed by the governing body. It gets mentioned on stream from time to time during events.
Slightly less relevent but Asking to think with noblegal responces falls into slowplay rules as well. Time is a pretty important thing to manage in a tournament setting so in a scenario like there is a minute left on the clock, your opponent is going through their combo to kill you and you have no legal responces, ans everytime they activate an effect you go "Think.... think..... think..." to time them out and give yourself the win (you had more lifepoints) you'd get hit with a slowplay penalty.
One minor thing, the tokens are provided at the tournament so LSV wasn't reaching for his own tokens. Maybe yugiho YCS and other such tournaments can require players to use onky provided tokens based on what the deck can use. Due to the limited zones in yugioh you don't need tons of tokens.
MBT is mistaken. You most certainly can count the summons of the gamestate and ask your opponent how many they have conducted, as long as you do not name your intent of using Nibiru, you are not misrepresenting the game state and you are only asking for already public information.
A comment on P.K.'s video brought up a good point and I'll summarize it here, if your opponent is trying to get information on your deck before play has even started by looking at your deckbox, tokens, or even playmat is that not also cheating? If your opponent is using that information to make gameplay actions... that seems fishy, and probably an actionable rules violation, at best.
It's kinda similar to the YGO rule where both asking about hidden information, and answering a question about hidden information with a lie, are illegal.
Mind games add to the strategies. When I play Esper Doom Foretold on Arena and don't have any relevant black cards, I just play blue and white lands to represent blue/white control until I have a relevant black card. The threat of counterspells has definitely worked in my favor plenty of times even though there are no counterspells in my deck. I also like to put my cursor over Golden Egg (which highlights the card for the opponent) during their combat phase to encourage them to attack into my Omen of the Sun. Doom Foretold plays a lot of low-powered cards, but they all act as 2/3/4-for-1's.
In the Token case, I think it was pretty fine as long as he actually could summon said token if he chose to. In that case he would just be weighing his options and trying to check if the token is a valid one is a legitimate move IMO.
This is very interesting, and you're right. I like how yugioh has evolved to implement mind-games. We see this everytime in simulators, judging what you opponent has/hasn't done, being aware of the possible punishes for your plays depending on the meta, etc. It's all about the communication during the plays, and we see it in greater effect in older formats; just like in History of Yugioh, and how much you, and Cimoooo think through your plays. It plays with the resources, and interactions of the game itself; we're not playing poker! And that sort of bullshit should only be allowed on those sort of games with that sort of cards. The scenario you described is nice as well; IMO it makes sense to think your opponent has set the scapegoats you know they have if they're about to be defeated by battle, so it's up to your cautiousness, and agressiveness to expect a Mirror Force or not. But the motion of looking through tokens is just so silly. Although not punishable by rules in your opinion, I would still penalize him because it's just so stupid. What kind of psychopath is in such a hurry to summon their goats when it's not even the time? When neither battle phase has been declared, or he even tried to activate the card? What does he even need to see among his tokens in his deckbox? If they have foil? If he has 4? A normal player would instead take a peek at his set card every now, and then, thinking about activating it or not. This is akin to the subtle stall many players like to abuse because of the time rules. Same spirit, different purpose. Ridiculous.
in all fairness, the scapegoat tokens occupy a similar space as stuff like kuriboh tokens where they're adorable little bastards and i could not fault anyone for taking a moment to admire them, esp. in a situation where they could conceivably use some moral support
Wait wait wait, I sort of understand not being able to count for Nibiru, but you can't ask if your opponent has activated a monster effect? That just seems like something you might need to do to if you were thinking on your turn and you needed to double check if a negate was used or something.
I think this is where the "intent" part of the rule comes into play. If you asked that with the intention of making your opponent think you have TTT then that's not cool but if your intent was in fact to remember if they already used a hand trap or something then that's ok.
You can't intentionally count for Nibiru if you don't have one to activate and you can't ask if your opponent has activated a monster effect if you have nothing that can matter if does. It's more of a line of, you can't give the impression that you have a response when you don't actually have one in hand or on the field. Like, it would be like if you could manually make Master Duel constantly ping you as if you had a Hand Trap in hand when you don't have them in the deck to make your opponent make a sub optimal play.
Then you would ask something like "Did you use this negate already?" or "Are we playing under (relevant monster effect) right now?" or something like that. It's be related to the game state. But just broadly asking "Did you activate a monster effect?" is broad to the point where that probably wouldn't be how you say that if you were really trying to recall information about the game state. But that specific wording is on a tech card and so your opponent might read into your question as "Can I play my good card from hand yet?" and play around it because you manipulated them. So since the rule is based on intent, the way you phrase the question matters because one is natural and relevant and one isn't. And importantly if a judge did come over, it wouldn't just be "He asked this question!" he'd look at our hand and you could probably just explain the line which would come off as sincere.
@@digisenshi But even then, in MD you can turn off your chains and just respond manually to whatever you want to, just that it requires a bit of reflexes. That makes it so your opponent thinks you have no response so they play carelessly. In that case it's more like "I don't want to reveal my opponent what I have", which depending on your point of view, could be just fair or completely scumy.
@@kuroneko687 Sure. But Yugioh is based a lot on hidden information. There's already a decent burden on the player on assuming what your opponent has to respond to you. But if we add the layer that your opponent can now intentionally mislead you on that hidden information, we get to some shenanigans that just feel exhausting to have to deal with. I'd rather not have to assume my every opponent is possibly doing everything under the kitchen sink to win a locals ots pack.
The only real issue with the analysis is that the bluff was a possible move he could make. He could have made the token if he wanted, but he just had settle the wreckage in hand as well
This is I think a big thing a lot of people seem to just be flying over there heads. So many people in both videos comments are just saying that they want to lie to there opponent and have that mind game of just claiming they have a counter spell in there hand while having two mountains untapped and it's kind of driving me insane. Like people are talking about intent and misrepresenting the game state while others seem to just like the fact that they can tell there opponent oh man a nib would sure kill your board if you don't end on a negate in two more summons and just have that in the air while you don't even have nib in your deck or side. It just doesn't make sense to me to even let your opponent even able to do that as it would be a war of lying and not even playing the game at that point. Why even play hand traps if you can just start the match with no hand traps in your deck and just lie to your opponent about running every game winning hand trap any time some effect that would make them lose goes off.
@@ZackSparks It's a tough case but the fact that it was something he *could've* legally done and that you can't prove he was trying to fake out (which he probably was but again, you can't prove it) is why it would probably fly? I feel like pulling out the token is a bit too far for me personally but that's not what the rules are there for
@jimzh7669 coming from magic, why would saying "be careful about doing that because I have the card that would punish you for it" be problematic? I can see the argument if it's public information that you can't have that card, but if they haven't been given access to your deck list, they have to decide whether to play around it or not anyways and you saying you might have it doesn't change that. Saying you have it is also generally a mistake because if you actually have a card which would win the game if they play into it, why would you warn them?
I remember the discussion about bluffing nib came up in discourse a while back, and farfa interviewed some top konami judge and asked him about it, and the judge insisted that bluffing nibiru was not an illegal play as long as you dont directly lie and say you have nibiru. I dont think judges have a consistent understanding of this issue, and I dont think theres real answers to any of these questions
I guess that's the issue you face when you go for intention-based ruling. On the one hand it counters a lot of scummy technicalities, but on the other it's inherently subjective and can lead to inconsistency.
Asking "how many summons was that" is just asking information about the gamestate. The implication is there, yes, but that doesn't seem too scummy to me.
That judge was right. Asking for public information and your opponent making assumptions about that question is not against the rules per se. It's against the rules if your intent is to mislead the opponent, and definitely can get you penalties, but Konami doesn't want to discourage players from asking for information they have every right to know. That's why intent is such a big thing in policy now. Same goes for verbally counting summons. It's better if you don't do it, but it's not strictly against the rules to keep track of public information verbally like it is to keep track using a die.
I think that at the end of the day, attacking into four open White mana in a format with Settle in it is a risk where you have to accept some of the blame. It's not some unexpected card no one plays that you would never have run into had you been thinking properly, it's one of the main ways you can instantly lose the game in that format. You've got to have it in mind when you make decisions. The angle-shoot is kinda scummy obviously, but it's the kind of thing that if you're a serious competitive player you should be able to sort out of your decision making so you can fixate on only the facts of the game itself. The token situation is pretty different because it's someone just fundamentally saying they're angle-shooting the opponent. You could argue in LSV's case on the other hand that he was just seriously considering one potential play that he could have made, had the opponent made a different choice. It's cheesy yeah, but there's no technical issue with considering a play you could legally make, so long as you don't directly declare you're making it.
Literally nobody can get blown out by this "angle shooting" if they just ignore their opponent and play to the game state. I'm not sure why you would ever pay attention to any non-game action your opponent does.
I personally find checking a token perfectly fine, what I see as a scummy tactic is counting the damage. Using that scapegoat example, it would be like doing the math of how much life points you'd have left when your opponent hits you with their highest attack monster, "I'm at 3150, Summoned Skull would put me at 650." there is no reason to do that gesture at all regardless of your game state, the player is going out of his way to guide his opponent. In a sports analogy, it's like pretending you have some discomfort in your leg that can hinder it, having to push through the pain, but in reality you are totally fine, just trying to catch your opponent off guard. Turning sports into acting. Mind games are great when it's two geniuses trying to out wit each other, but leave the acting in Hollywood.
MTG players love to card shark and angle shoot and erm actually. I think the most famous one for me is always going to be The Pithing Needle Borborygmos story. I think Yugioh having a "Player Intent" part of the rules is really important because... yeah you know what I'm trying to do. There what command or signet or charm was it? There's so many stories where it's just like "This is the dumbest thing that a judge has ruled on, both players knew that the player what the player was trying to do."
I think if you do specific plays against your opponent based on their token, clothing, accessories, tattoo, sleeves, dice, whatever else, you’re being naive or dumb. Imagine doing this, losing, and then calling a judge to ban your opponent because you’re salty 🤦🏻♂️
1:45 Historically there have been instances where Magic the Gathering prizing couldn't be done because of regional laws, even for some large events (Grand Prix Hanover 2009 is the big one that comes to mind), though it's certainly been the exception rather than the rule, and players have usually been very frustrated by it.
7:00 the old guy who sneaks into millions of kids rooms at night and gets away with it because he gave them a present would certainly qualify for that list
In MD or other online simulators, people use the toggle on/off for responses to do a very similar thing. Toggle off when you have a Nibiru to save it for the end of the main instead of the 5th summon to get more value. I feel bluffing evenly matched by going into the battle phase is another example of this. I think these attempts to 'prime' (im not sure this is the right term) your opponent are natural in a card game. In the end, the only way to not get duped in instances like this is to just not read into the opponents actions that are not related to the game itself.
That's techincally not bluffing, that's just making the game stop asking you to do something when an effect is legal to be activated say you have a trap and a nibiru, the game will constantly ask you to activate something even if after you have 5 summon, technically your opponent doesn't know that you have nibiru It's like having to make back seat gaming to shut up
Well sometimes I do the evenly match thing irl, attempt to go bp so they shotgun everything just to say "k I will continue my main phase" and slap a DRNM or a ttt, depends on the gamestate
@jps_user20 some emulators have a bluff option as well which is useful both to hide whether you do have a response and to make your opponent think you might. I in general put bluff on immediately on nexus since it denies my opponent as much info as possible and missing activation windows is always a worry.
Here i thought this was going to be a reaction video but you barely talked about Pleasant Kenobi at all xD Not only that but it was quite informative as well. Good Job^^
I think my favorite Magic moment like this is someone having a Chameleon Colossus in play and playing Profane Command saying, "You lose 6 life and all my legal targets gain Fear" leading to them winning the game because their opponent didn't realize the Collosus had protection from black and therefore it didn't gain Fear and was able to be blocked.
@@roviverdandelarosa2181 I can't speak to the mind of the opponent, but it seems likely that he assumed that meant all creatures on board and that was lethal damage. I believe after the game the opponent asked what he missed and the player who did it explained and they had a laugh.
The whole angle shooting and people trying to dishonestly scum out wins is a big reason why I’m not comfortable playing in the compedetive scene for most games. I’ve run into a lot of opponents in a lot of different games try cheat or just trick their way into wins they didn’t deserve and as I feel like I can hold my own in a match I’m not a dishonest enough person to keep up with the exceedingly cut throat community’s. Last tournament I played I got harassed and bullied by my opponent until I broke into tears and the judge said “finish the game or forfeit” and had no words for my opponents frankly unacceptable behavior.
I like bluffing and misrepresenting private information as an aspect of the game personally. It makes for an interesting secondary meta-level of play that can as you said; steal wins through trickery that you otherwise wouldn't have achieved. But that to me isn't something unfair, just an extra expression of skill at the game, and ability to "level" your opponents into misplaying out of caution about a specific scenario. That said, what you described with the bullying is absolutely not the same thing. That kind of harassment should have no place in any game, doubly so in a sanctioned event.
@@mistriousfrogCouldnt disagree more. In the case of Yugioh, the game just doesnt work unless there's clear and consistent communication between the two players at all times. Winning via "mindgames" or whatever runs directly counter to that extremely necessary feature of the game. Plus it just feels scummy and invites bad blood when the game is supposed to be, ya know, fun?
Gonna jump in quickly on some things about current magic. From my experience magic, if not necessarily the rules then the players, has become a lot better at differentiating mind games and bluffing from sharking and trying to draw a line there. A pretty good example is pithing needle, which (simplifying a bit here) lets you name a card and have its effects not be able to be activated. Originally if you didn’t name the exact right card opponents would ankle shoot by saying “oh you only name borborygmos, not borborygmos enraged which is what I’m playing”. Realising this is incredibly stupid and scummy the rules were changed and now even if you don’t name the exact right card, as long as it is clear which card you mean then that’s what’s stopped. Additionally if your op isn’t sure what card you mean it’s up to them to have it be clarified, not to conveniently assume you’d name something useless. There’s still several thing I’d really want to be specifically addressed in mtg rules (chalice checking is the big one) but in those cases they tend to be heavily frowned upon by the general player base.
Yeah, as someone who follows magic, the line between bluffing and angle shooting seems really, really clear. Keeping track of the storm count against burn with open mana to bluff Weather the Storm? Bluffing. Hiding your Dryad Arbor in your lands? Angle shooting. It’s taking the step from misdirection to outright deception.
Chalice checking has a very easy solution: Remember your triggers. It's not like you're allowed to forget you have the Chalice if you play your OWN spells into it either. I prefer there being no rule against Chalice checking, because as dumb as it is, there's no way to make a rule against it that doesn't either result in innocent players getting punished, or just letting everyone get away with it anyway. The Andres suspension is an indication that this kind of rule DOESN'T work given he had to admit it on camera before any action could be taken, not that we should import rules like that to MTG. Mind you I play digital, you can't Chalice check in digital. When I played in person I just remembered my triggers or I didn't get to do them. That simple.
@@KunouNoHana if it’s got an easy solution your op shouldn’t be making a play hoping you’ve forgotten said easy solution. Rules documents, contrary to popular belief, are not there to stop someone from making plays. Because they cannot stop cheating. With enough effort and some good excuses you can pretty easily get away with it. Get caught playing a second land in main phase 2? “Oh sorry it was a long turn, forgot I’d already made my land drop”. You get a minor warning, take back the play and proceed. It takes a lot of evidence and effort to actually show a repeated pattern and prove cheating normally. Rules are there to discourage actions by threatening punishment if you are caught. It doesn’t matter if ‘getting caught’ is hard to do, the point is the threat. So no, yugiohs suspension of Andres is not actually an indication this doesn’t work. It’s an indication it works really well. People are now aware of the threat and punishment, and so are less likely to make the same play. You would have to be far more careful with your language, what you say about the tokens, and moreover now people in the general public are aware that people might use tokens in this way they probably aren’t going to take said tokens into account when it comes to making decisions. If a similar rule was introduced for chalice checking it would not make it impossible, because yes sometimes the board state gets complicated and you and your op genuinely both missed the chalice. But in the few cases where you can actually show your opponent was chalice checking, potentially you overheard them talking about before the match (has happened to a friend of mine before), or they use the wrong language then they can get penalised for making an action that is unsporting. And it’s that threat which is important. It wouldn’t change anything for normal people, heck might not even prevent it entirely but it does discourage it which helps move the game into a better place for the community. And while we are at it the fact that the official online simulators don’t allow chalice checking kind of indicates it’s not an intended mechanic and should not be considered as such.
@@barbedwire9975 Your friend heard someone talking about Chalice checking (a last ditch desperation style move because it usually just results in nothing but wated mana) before a match? Wow, hope they remembered their chalice triggers and the opponent's spell got countered. At which point their opponent did not cheat, and nothing happened. I don't think allowing your friend to call a judge to have them potentially DQd is a better solution than doing what the card says. Under the OLD trigger rules the player chalice checking would get a warning for missing the trigger and your friend would have gotten a failure to maintain, minor, guess which one of those can get you DQd if you get too many? I understand that you'd like this rule, even if, hypothetically, it wouldn't catch a single person, because it makes you feel like the behavior is being discouraged, but I don't think it would discourage the behavior. I think it would just make people not talk about it, it's not like anyone OTHER than Andres who's using mismatching tokens, sleeves, or playmats is going to STOP doing those things. In order to work rules have to be enforced, understandable, and consistent. Hell, your version of the rule actually penalizes anyone who tells their opponent after a match "Hey, you missed a trigger, gotta work on that". I don't want to go back to "Did Kibler know if Angel of Despair was a may trigger or mandatory because if he did know it was mandatory he cheated (and his opponent failed to maintain game state) by not pointing out his opponent missed it, but if he thought it was a may trigger then he was right not to say anything" because frankly, that rules scenario SUCKS so much worse than Chalice checking.
@@KunouNoHana 1. Chalice checking is not always last ditch and this was being spoken by someone saying they were going to be chalice checking by dashing in ragavan against chalice on one. They were clearly intending to use the ‘technical legality’ of the play to gain an advantage. They were not being chalice checked, they were chalice checking. 2. I’m not saying go back to the old rules, I agree it shouldn’t be up to the opponent to remember all your triggers. The key part of chalice checking is that you do remember the trigger and hope your opponent doesn’t. You are intending to hopefully gain an advantage in the scenario your opponent stuffs up. The intent is the important part and like in yugioh that’s what would be punished. Your making a play where the only possible benefit comes from your opponent screwing up, which is not an intended part of the game and not even bluffing because actual chalice checking involves no hidden information or anything. 3. It does discourage people, it’s the whole reason why yugiohs rules work. And if it’s in the rules documents people will say “hey, chalice checking is not allowed, don’t do it”. That’s how rules work. Robbery doesn’t suddenly become normalised because people “don’t talk about it” because it’s illegal. 4. I haven’t ever actually laid out the exact wording of the ruling at any part, but given that I’m fully aware both people can miss a trigger and that that’s fine no you wouldn’t be punished for reminding your opponent to remember their triggers. In fact even if you had chalice checked you wouldn’t be punished unless you specified “hey remember your chalice triggers”. If your just saying any triggers well then that could be anything. For example not reminding your opponent of ledger shredder triggers from their own spells wouldn’t be included here because you the player hasn’t done anything. And so saying “hey remember you triggers” doesn’t, you know, mean your telling your opponent “hey I purposefully did a thing that would only benefit me if you forget your triggers”.
Ah, Pleasant kenobi. Dude can either be the most ball knowing magic player or the most annoying, so basically the most yugituber-like content creator MtG has to offer.
I'm not sure if the token debacle is mentioned in this video but the only reason the guy got banned for bluffing with tokens is because he admitted to using the specific token he chose to bluff with, if the guy literally just kept his mouth shut then nothing would have happened. Someone could literally say that they held all their cards in their left hand to bluff their opponent and even though that is stupid and ridiculous they would still get banned. It's hard to feel bad for someone who literally admitted to cheating when they didn't have to lmao.
Yeah... Joseph literally says as much in the video. Hence the whole thing about intent. Using Taia tokens in a non-SwoSwo deck is perfectly legal lmao Also what?? No they wouldn not get banned for holding their cards in their left hand.
@@JakeFish5058 Wouldn't they? Imagine they do a deck profile and say "yeah, I used my left hand the whole match, I was trying to cheat and trick my opponent". The way they tried to cheat it's ridiculous, but even then they admitted they had the intent.
@@kuroneko687 They need to cheat (misrepresent the gamestate in this case) intentionally, not just have the intent to cheat. If that were the case, saying "I really wanted to [cheat] but I didn't because it's against the rules" would be a bannable offense lol
@@JakeFish5058It... is a bannable offense lmao. The intention to cheat IS bannable You need to be very clear that you're joking if you want to say something like that
The difference between the mirror force/scapegoat scenario is that in magic LSV was able to activate both, so like you mentioned, he missrepresented his intentions. In the yugioh scenario, there was no way to activate scapegoats, so that would be actively missrepresenting the gamestate. It would be different if he already had mirrorforce set and he THEN set the scapegoats.
To be fair, you are allowed to misrepresent hidden information in Magic, you just can't directly lie about free or derived information. I can leave up two islands to pretend I have a counterspell and conspicuously take a moment or two to "Think" whenever my opponent casts a spell, and as long as it doesn't veer into obvious slow play it's generally accepted that people can do that. I can't however, directly lie to you about what cards I've played that turn, or the order face down creatures entered the battlefield, or even just NOT tell you whether I have the cities blessing (this is considered player status information, like your life total, and must be communicated every time it changes, it's just irrelevant to most formats so nobody does unless they're playing cards that care).
We give Konami a lot of shit, because they deserve it. That said, one of the best things they’ve probably ever done for the longevity of the game was to curb this kind of behavior.
I actually think the opposite. Leveling your opponent by bluffing about private information makes for an interesting second layer to games. Obviously you should never misrepresent any publically known information because that is absolutely outright cheating. Even showing a swordsoul extra deck monster face up on your deck I think is sketchy and probably rightfully illegal because that is information your opponent isn't supposed to have access to. But if you sit down and tell them you have a swordsoul deck, or start counting summons audibly even without nibiru, that is just an interesting mind game and skill expression rather than anything scummy. Obviously it is illegal under current rule sets so you shouldn't, but I don;t think they should be.
It seems more like they are pandering to socially awkward players that can't handle the fact theyve been played in a game where you have incomplete information.
@@geiseric222literally every other private information game allows bluffing. Because they assume players are socially skilled enough to handle human interaction. But yugioh is a Japanese game at heart so I guess it has to pander to its current humanity crisis...
Is it illegal to proceed to battle phase even if you don't have an Evenly Matched? I've used that tactic a couple of times to force out things like Welcome Labrynth and IP.
Its okay mbt. We knew lsv was a cryptobro the second he shelled out for f&b with channel fireball. We still got Reid Duke. Also, LSV used to bluff KCI without knowing the deck
I think i would definitely rule against it because the grab the token, he has no reason to do that, the land literally tells you everything about the token, and he has even less reason to do it before attackers have been declared. I dont think he misrepresented his decision makong i think he misrepresented his actions. Sure he could have made the token but it’s clear he only grabs to card to try and influence his opponent. For a hypothetical, say you have a nibiru in hand. Your playing against a deck that has a 4 summon line, that you know you can otk through with your current hand while you couldnt otk through the nib token for some reason, so you start counting summons to truthfully indicate you have nibiru, but only do so to manipulate them to your favour. You technically havent misrepresented the game state but its the exact same actions for the exact same reasons as counting if you didnt have it.
6:07 Another significant disconnect I see here is that even in the YGO competitive event rules it indicates that cheating "[includes]... intentionally misrepresenting gamestate, rules, or tournament policies". I could see an argument for "lying about a facedown card is misrepresenting gamestate" (even though I don't agree with it), but I don't see how "having access to some tokens in your deck box" says *anything at all* about the GAMESTATE.
He also cheated on his pregnant wife. Never idolize these people. Especially card game players cause like MBT said most of the old pros are were pros because of things outside the game.
@@StefanDillandMarcRIPI realize he’s kind of sleazy, but having met the guy, I kinda like him. He’s a nice enough guy, which isn’t always the case in the pro TCG scene.
@@StefanDillandMarcRIPYou have zero idea what happened. As it turns out their relationship is one of a demographic that is much more likely for the wife to leave the husband (women with PhD husband with much less formal education).
@@StefanDillandMarcRIP i mean, yeah, the whole thing is these are just entertainers or personalities and your like or dislike of them should probably start and end at that. While researching this LSV shit there is the same obsessed guy on the freemagic subreddit who appears on every single thread over multiple years discussing it. I don't give a shit what he did unless its somewhere on par with committing genocide or sexually assaulting minors. I will never have the opportunity to be his friend. No one REALLY knows what happened. I will watch his daily cube videos and thats about it.
2:00 the actual reason that ygo doesn't do cash prizes has to do with Japanese laws about monetary rewards and basically the tldr is that its illegal to use the admission fee from a tournament to garnish the prize pool, so it has to come entirely from a third party sponsor (as long as the amount is declared before calling out for entries). Also until "recently" (2018) tournaments were viewed as gambling because "professional gaming" was literally not a legally recognized occupation in Japan. You were considered just a gambler by law I guess. So basically its because nobody wants to pay out of their own pocket to finance an entire tournament, so rewards for tournaments are almost always Things rather than Cash. This *has* started to change as of late, but odds are the ygo scene is still just lagging behind of like, Capcom etc. E: OH NOOO HE'S A CRYPTO GUY NOW?? NOOOOOO
My favourite LSV story is when he was playing a storm deck in a pro tour and realised he forgot to play a copy of Tendrils of Agony…his win condition. So he had to put on this act like “Oh gee, storm count of 10, casting Burning Wish, wonder what I’m going to get…” and convince his opponents to concede through bluffing
iirc he made top 4 and convinced everyone to split, amazing shit (notably it was a local, not the pro tour)
A classic, better yet that he lost when his opponent was like "ok, search it"
My favorite LSV story is when he encountered the user LSV sucks on MTGO and the chatbox is just him saying "well this is awkward"
This is like that bit in jojo part 3
This is the equivalent of asking "how many summons was that?" When you have no Nibiru and I have accumulated more Ws from locals than I would like to admit thanks to that trick.
I love the crossover videos as someone who plays both. Its so interesting so see the similarities and differences in professional play. I've played in magicfests and YCSs in the same locations and the experience and legalities are so different
LSV has plausible deniability in that clip while the YGO player recorded himself in 4k saying that he was basically leading his opponents with playing with a token that his deck doesn't even produce (btw, Konami should have made some promo packs with a collection of stated tokens for cards effects like Swordsoul, Adventure, and Plunder Patroll).
It's messed up that MAMA reprinted almost every Swordsoul card last year and included tokens but decided G Golem tokens before we even got any G Golem cards were more important than Swordsoul tokens.
And LSV is literally weighing his options with two legal card activations, as opposed to the hypothetical Scapegoat/Mirror Force bluff. And showing cards that aren't supposed to be shown (such as your tokens or extra deck monsters) is also scummy.
Part of the issue is that YGOs rules create the notion of plausible deniability. MtG doesn't have that. You're allowed to look in your deck box any time for any reason.
If you want to ban people looking in their deck box, that's fine, and I get that. But to say that it's only legal to look in the box if you are actually making the play, but you can do the looking before actually declaring the play, but once you look you have to make it and can't change your mind... That's so crazy. Just ban looking in the deck box, you know?
It’s not likely they don’t have the art master duel
Though it is just mo ye they should probably make something more generic so it’s less obvious
its funny that this warrants less watch time than a debate about whether or not you put the crockpot into the fridge or not.
when he said "so with that, let's jump into the video" I was shocked for a moment because my brain always expects him to say "so with that, let's jump into the games"
I really like the rosary on the doorknob mono blue tron, really adds to the room decor :)
honestly cannot remember where i got it - i think jillian gave it to me? i use it to ward off ghostricks
@@MBTYuGiOh What if it just keeps them stuck in the room with you?
@@PharaohofAtlantis I think being trapped with Ghostrick Draco Future would be pretty cool, the guy's probably got some stories
I think for the Scapegoat example to be a bit more accurate you'd need to actually look at the tokens, during your own turn before setting a card. In that case there's no way to prove you weren't still considering options, in the same way that the Magic player could be considering tjeir options right up until they do something.
Exactly. The magic player had both options available. The yugioh player only had both options until he decided which card to set and passed turn. Gesturing to the deck box after that is misdirection.
What a bad rule is that you can’t mind game someone.
Bluffing not allowed.
@@antman7673weeeeeell bluffing assumes that the person was intentionally lying. So we enter a Schrödinger cat scenario where, until one of the cards in hand is set, the scapegoat player cannot be considered bluffing or telling the truth, regardless of the events that follow after the setting of one of the two cards.
@@antman7673You can still bluff but not in a mindgame sort of way. Activating a search effect to bait an ash even though you have full combo is the most basic bluff in ygo. And in a tournament setting bluffing is just very annoying
I actually don’t really agree with how the Yu-Gi-Oh rules on this at either, but I know why they are that way, and it makes sense. Yugioh cares a lot more about how many times something has happened, it has a really high complexity level, and mind games would only add to that.
His name is Mono Blue Tron because he enjoys Cyberse piles, and Link Monsters are blue. What else could it possibly mean? Why else would he have a giant Linguriboh on the wall?
I thought it was because of his favorite link fodder in his favorite archetype, Marincess Blue Tang. And he really also like Linguriboh
0:37 MBT is Marincess Blue Tang whats the issue?
MonoBlueTron
Mr. Bussy Trainer
"my deck don't win, judge"
I think the key difference between Andres and LSV (in Yu-Gi-Oh terms) is what happened AFTER the match. Andres said in his deck profile that the token existed for the sole purpose of misleading folks. LSV said his team wanted to sideboard a copy of Settle (with very little intention of boarding it in) just to make people play around it. Now - is that true? Who knows, but importantly LSV didn't say "Yeah so I wanted this dingus to assume I was making the token so I faked it real good until he walked into my Settle."
As always, intent is important. Andres intentionally misled people while for LSV its way less clear. You could easily argue that making a token was a viable play if his opponent attacked with only 1 or 2 creatures, hence why he grabbed one just in case.
Just goes to show how important plausible deniability is. Ruling against LSV in this exact situation has weirder and broader implications about how to handle ambiguity, while ruling against Andres is fairly black and white.
The big difference is that LSV would not have done anything wrong in Magic terms even if he made his intent known. I want to say he's personally recounted the story and mentioned that his intention was to deceive his opponent and nothing happened because that's perfectly allowed in the rules as long as he doesn't take any illegal game action in the process.
@@RedOphiuchus Absolutely, LSV was well within his rights. My comment was specifically answering the question would he get banned for this *in a Yu-Gi-Oh context*
Lsv did go on to say that many times fhough
As someone who got into MTG second, the amount of wierd angle shooting shit that seems less like "bluffing you have something by setting a dead normal spell" and more like actually just cheating you can get away with is fascinating
I'm wondering how much of it is that bluffing things in MTG requires leaving mana up, which has a notable cost(alongside having a card in hand), whereas YGO you can just bluff with a card in hand.
@@simonteesdale9752 most of it. in this case the "bluffing" was good because it was a legit good play if the opponent presented another scenario. modifying the mirror force example a bit, it'd be as if the player could activate mirror force or scapegoat from the hand, but only one of them.
if the opp switches 1 monster to defense, then scapegoat is the play to eat the 4 attacks. but if they don't, then the blowout becomes the good play. the bluff was just convincing the opponent via body language that he only had the one play.
@@OmegaShinku I know that MBT's example isn't quite translated properly (I'm an MTG player), but thanks.
That particular coment was about the costs of bluffing in MTG, versus in YGO, and whether that's why there's such a huge difference between the rulings.
One other explanation could be that YGO is based out of Japan, where MTG is based out of the USA.
@@simonteesdale9752nothing is based in the USA
All incomplete information games have elements of bluffing. It separates the skilled from the chaff: because these card games, as well as other games, are games of strategy and simulations of warfare - and in warfare, you sometimes deceive your opponent and that's 100% their fault for believing you.
IIRC Another layer to this LSV play is that in the deck list his team all brought to the event only LSV had Settle the Wreckage in the side board. Explicitly so that after the first few rounds, once team's techs had been scouted by the other teams, everyone would be playing around Settle against all of LSVs team but they wouldn't all have to use a side board slot on it. Just a ridiculous piece of information warfare
Not being a competitive player of either game, I'm assuming that the shenanigans that can happen with Pithing Needle would also be covered by these rules.
ygo actually had an almost 1-to-1 boborygmos moment back in the day with naming "black luster soldier" to mean envoy of the beginning
AFAIK those angle shoots are no longer legal in Magic so I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't allowed in Yugioh either.
@@tgva8889 its actually not a question of "legal". Instead the rules are that if you have to name a card, even if you don't name the card exactly correctly, it is assumed by the game that you are referring to it correctly and it is your opponent's responsibility to clarify which specific card. For instance, if you named borborygmous, or even say something like "that red fling creature" like the famous example, until your opponent makes you clarify which one specifically you are referring to, you are not treated as having named the wrong one.
@@tgva8889 There's a good video out there called "Crazy MTG Scandals That Changed The Game" that goes over a few situations like this, and how they changed the rules after. Most notably, IMO, is that someone who had English as their second language said to "go to combat" and it was apparently accepted shorthand in English pro circles for moving to the Declare Attackers step, not "Beginning of Combat". And so he tried to activate an effect that activated in the Beginning of Combat step (a mandatory one even, IIRC), his opponent said no, you went to Declare Attackers, and they called a judge over and the judge (stupidly) ruled that he couldn't activate the effect. It was stupid, and after the rightful backlash to the ruling they changed the rules so you can't shorthand ambiguously like that. Angle shooting has been cut down on (like mistriousfrog says, the Pithing Needle incident also changed the rules so it won't happen again), but in different ways. You're just allowed more...mind-gamey type things like the play discussed in the video (which, IMO, shouldn't be banned anyway since it was a legal action as opposed to deliberately showing tokens you literally can't produce in your deck).
Ygo actually has that exact scenario codified in the rules. Whenever a card tells you to declare a card name, you dont actually need to say the entire name as long as you can describe it a way your opponent understands what card you're declaring. For example, declaring "Black Luster Soldier... the non-ritual one" would be enough to declare Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning
It's a pretty old point of comparison but it would be interesting to compare this to old kamigawa match between Terry Soh and Frank Karsten. It's Karsten's combat, Soh is at 8, Soh has declared blocks and is looking to take 7 but Karsten has the ability to pump his unblocked creature for the last point of damage but doing so would tap a creature he could otherwise block with. Soh asks "I'm at 9, right?", then off the basis that Soh has apparently miscounted his life total, Karsten goes all in, and before damage Soh casts a spell to gain 1 life, survive and kill Karsten on the crackback with Frank's moth tapped.
That play in Yu-Gi-Oh would be weird because in Yu-Gi-Oh different of Magic both players are responsible for maintaining the correct game state
Soo in that case or you correct your opponent or you agree about the life amount
In the first case the play wouldn't work and on second if you later try kill your opponent because you know he have 8 life you will be caught on cheating
@@chicabu67 In Magic both players are responsible for maintaining the correct game state. Life totals are status information and must be tracked by both players and announced publically (or at least indicated) whenever they change. The bluff wasn't pretending he had the wrong life total, it was pretending he thought his opponent didn't have lethal when they did. This is misrepresenting your thought process, not misrepresenting the board. It's a bit like saying "oops" when you didn't actually make a misplay you just want your opponent to THINK you did. Which might still be against the rules in YGO apparently.
@@KunouNoHana i think that understand what happened now.
In that case it's a legal play if you don't say that you intended to do it
@@chicabu67 And that right there is the difference between Magic and YGO, in Magic, stuff doesn't suddenly become against the rules BECAUSE it was intentional. Either it's against the rules or it's not, but intention is still considered for things like downgrading to a warning, or upgrading FROM a warning. But if you say "Yeah, I was trying to cheat my opponent out of a win" and it turns out what you did was fine, then saying it doesn't suddenly get you a suspension. (It does occasionally make everyone very angry and lead to a rules change though, see Pithing Needle Borborygmos for an example of a rule getting changed because of some bullshit rulings.)
@@KunouNoHana we also have things that are against the rules even without cheating
The difference is that looks like in magic isn't wrong trying to take advantage of your opponent
In Yu-Gi-Oh rules is and Konami try to enforce it a lot. Even too much can be argued
Or Konami is just very dumb with words. Like when Konami banned a player because he said that his girlfriend give the victory of the round to him to later unban when he explained
You mentioned at the end of the video that there are "15-20 active cheats" that the Yugioh rules cover more effectively than Magic. I think it might be a fun video idea, in the same vein of your "things Yugioh does better than Magic" and "things Magic does better than Yugioh," to compare the Tournament Rules of each game.
Better is a very subjetive take tho. Yes is easy to cheap in Magic, i am an Active magic player i can tell you that with confident. But there is the thing...there is a reason why we are not interest in anti-bluffing rules and OUR virtual plataform let us fake priority but holding it or passing it without checks. Thats also a key part of the game.
YuGiOh is a complex game in some aspects but if i would critic something about the rules is that their try to eliminate your ability to induce your opp into missplaying. For that yugioh sometimes feels like a more rigid game than magic that is literally a More rigid game in all the sense of the word. People is not allow to missplay except for their own mistakes and they get RULE penalice for that. If you try to activate a card that you cant you get a warning and the card not resolve.
in some part thats because yu gi oh cards have a LOT more options to use "missplayed" resources. Like cards that go into the GY because their were activate without proper target your to send them there. In magic that is not cheating, we can play cards with X cost declaring X equal 0 or 1 mana search something in the deck, but we have targets, and put those cards in the GY and those cards WILL TRIGGER any send to the GY effect and can be recover/target by any kind of interaction which in yu gi oh that is impossible for atleast 80% of the cards specially modern cards.
This video was great. Would love to see more crossover videos like this, or just more videos in general explaining how rulings evolved in yugioh to deal with angle-shooting adjacent tactics.
Thank you for protecting the Yu-Gi-Oh community's honour, Mr. Master of Business Taxation
FWIW as a current L2 MTG judge, intentionality is pretty baked into our policy doc as well. Most of the road to the king early 2000/2010s angle shooting has been actively removed from MTG, through a combination of policy not punishing accidents as harshly and also the emphasis in judge training that fishing for penalities is unsporting conduct minor territory. Based on the video there is certainly some very small outside game stuff you can still do in MTG, but honestly the % gain from any of it is so minor that I think most people don't bother, esp when doing so earns you the judge side-eye and general community dislike
Most gray area is something like missing chalice trigger on first opponent chalice-check to "gotcha" on second one. Missing trigger is common, but there should never admit intention because otherwise this is cheating 😅
Would it be correct to say the major difference is the scope of "misrepresenting the gamestate" in each game?
It seems like Yu-Gi-Oh defines it broadly, meaning you cannot misrepresent public or private information, such as counting summons to bluff Nibiru. While Magic defines it tightly, meaning I could claim my hand is seven mountains when playing green, so long as I don't misrepresent anything in public information like saying Goyf is a 1/2 when it's actually a 3/4.
@@Ioun267 Magic divides information into 4 categories.
Life total, counters attachet do player, continous effects with no defined expiration like initiative and monarch, amount and types of mana in player's pool, location in dungeon and how many times the Ring has tempted player are status information.
Details of game actions that still affect current game state, name of any visible object, counters not attackhed to player, state and zone of any object or player, score of current match, step/phase where game is and who has priority are free information.
Number of any type of objects in any game zone not defined as free information, characteristics of objects in public zones not defined as status or free information, game rules, tournament policy, oracle text and any other official information about current tournament are derived information. Cards are considered having oracle text printed on them.
Everything else is private information.
Players must announce any changes to status information about themselves and represent it with physical designation.
If player notices discrepancy in recorded or announced status information, they need to point it out immediately.
Any question asked by judge must be answered completely and honestly regardless of type of information. Player may ask to do so away from table.
Derived, free and status information may not be represented incorrectly.
Players must anwser completely and honestly about any questions about free information.
At regular REL all derived information is considered free.
I really enjoy plays like going for suboptimal lines in order to make it seem like you dont have access to certain cards when you do. A line I've done before in the ptcg os not grabbing Radiant Greninja early game for draw to bluff that I prized it, then slamming it turn 2 to punish an opponent not benching manaphy
I'm not sure how this compares to Yugioh, but one thing infamous about MTG judging is how strict the "Judges can't give advice" rules are. One of the most well known examples is players asking whether they can use Spellskite's effect on something, to which the judge will answer "yes" and then stay nearby so they can explain a few seconds later why it didn't work.
It's the exact same thing in YGO as well, yeah
This is how judging in YGO works too.
One of the best questions you can learn to ask judges in magic is "will this work the way I want it to"
@@5imian622 In YGO that is considered coaching. It makes sense in magic where you can activate cards that cannot resolve at activation so that you can get a cool combo, but in YGO judges can only tell you if the activation would be legal.
can i use baronne's negate on underworld goddess? yes.
Yeah I mean, as someone who has also judged numerous games for like a decade now, that kind of angleshooting in MTG has been widely cut down every time it reared it's head for ages and cheating has basically always included intentionality as a component, you're not cheating unless you do it on purpose. Otherwise it's lesser but sometimes equally damaging rules violations
There's a reason why a lot of times in MtG, if you happen to perform an illegal move, you're allowed to "walk it back" in most scenarios unless you *explicitly* cannot walk it back because of things like unknowable info becoming revealed (e.g. scrying).
IIRC you don't even get a warning or penalty excepting intentional attempts at cheating or repeated failings?
@@ArceusShaymin Na you can warnings got accidentals
@@ArceusShaymin depends a lot on the REL (Rules Enforcement Level). The more prestigious the event, the higher the stakes, the more is expected of players. Take backsies might fly at your local FNM without issue, but not at a Pro Tour.
The LSV bluff always felt very weird to me because if Dezani chose to play defense he was open to so many more blowouts other than the ONE OF SIDEBOARDED SETTLE, that the bluff feels very low impact even if scummy, it was probably the optimal play anyway.
Its also a very funny match because LSV gets the Settle very early on and the commentators keep saying MAN ADANTO REALLY HIDES WELL A SETTLE THE WRECKAGE HUH IT CAN LOOK LIKE YOULL JUST MAKE A TOKEN
I don't remember if this was in a post game interview or on twitter, but I remember seeing LSV comment on the play saying that Dezani wasn't really falling for the bluff, he was right to attack with all creatures and he would have done the same in that situation. He was playing it up for the camera.
@@rahzarkRight, keep in mind that Andanto is public information. His opponent knows that he has to get past this extra blocker or risk a different blowout. You can't play around a 1 of in a decklist like this.
Re: 5:28, Magic's rules documents also account for intent, by the way. Judges can downgrade (some) penalties if they reasonably believe it was an honest mistake and not an intentional abuse.
Edit: I realize I wasn't clear. While the above is true, I also meant to explain that Magic also determines if something is cheating or not based on intent. From the Infraction Procedures document:
"Most Game Play Error infractions are assumed to have been committed unintentionally. If the judge believes that the error was intentional, they should first consider whether an Unsporting Conduct - Cheating infraction has occurred."
A policy like this has been around since between 1994 and 2000.
It's just that things like bluffing are not considered cheating, even when intentional. Lying when asked about public information (like cards in hand), misrepresenting the game state, or trying to obscure public information are cheating. Wearing a "I love Burn" shirt but not playing burn is intentionally misleading, but not cheating, since the misdirection is on meta information and not game information.
Thats more on sentencing guidelines over whether or not rules are actually violated though. Most competitive scenes leave some degree of option for judges to discuss the severity of a rules violation, not just the binary yes or no for what the punishment is.
@@mistriousfrogyes Magic does that, too. Your comment made me realize I wasn't clear, so I updated it.
Thank you for this. It's kind of embarrassing MBT "misrepresented the gamestate" like this, especially when I'm pretty sure that intent was still part of the definition of cheating back when he played Magic.
@@Metallicity yes, this is definitely the case. From what I can see, MonoBlueTron/MBT posted to Reddit in 2018 describing himself as a new Yugituber. I found an IPG version from 2012 with very similar language to the above about intent separating a Game Play Error versus Cheating.
I'm looking for earlier documents, but can't find any right now. From what I'm reading from someone's summary of the history of the IPG, this has been around in some form since at least *2001*, which makes it very likely that YGO got the idea from Magic's rules enforcement...
Edit: yes. I found an absolute legend that archived a bunch of old WotC documents, and the 2000 "Penalty Guidelines" before it was even called the IPG did include that intent is what separated cheating from a different infraction.
Even the undated document before it (written between 1994 and 2000) also includes this. So, yeah, it's exceedingly likely that Magic has factored in intent while judging for longer than Yugioh has existed.
True, but in Magic intent only comes into play once an action has been determined to be illegal, the only difference it makes is what _kind_ of illegal action that is. Problem is, in Yugioh, it seems like intention can actually determine if an action is _legal to begin with._
I really enjoyed you doing this kind of historical narration! I would be fascinated to hear other funny instances in card game history, or other “what if player from X game did this in Y game?”
As a (Bri'ish) person who enjoys both your content and Kenobi's, I'm glad you're the Yugituber who decided to talk about this so I get both sides of the coin.
I will say, as a MtG Judge, that the rules for Magic also require intent for something to be considered cheating, rather than a mistake, and the two are handled very differently. Intentional cheating is a DQ or ban compared to making the same play unintentionally breaking the rules, which is just a warning or game loss (at worst) and an attempt to fix the boardstate.
Also, almost all of the angle shooting you talked about from early Magic/YuGiOh has been completely eliminated from the game (except in the shadiest of LGSs) and has been for my entire fifteen years of playing. Or, at least, I haven't encountered it over here in the UK in any of the casual or competitive environments I've come across, from FNM to World Cup Qualifiers. Maybe the US is different.
So british mono blue players doesn't hold their lucky goblin token as a deck-keeper?
Its very hard to call, because in a situation where the opponent played it a bit mote cautiously on the attack, making the token is better than Settle, so getting ready to make it feels legitimate, as you say it really comes down to the intentionallity of "did he grab the token to bluff, or did he grab it as part of considering options", very tough position to be in, do not envy anyone having to make that call
The point was that in MtG you are allowed to misrepresent your position like that. You aren't allowed to misrepresent any publically known information (there is a rule about where you have to place your creatures due to dryad arbor, a creature that is also a land going unseen because it was mixed in with a player's lands in a tournament), but you absolutely can bluff about what is in your hand, or your intentions. In fact, small misleads like that aren't even considered scummy, but rather generally seen as big brained, great plays. The culture of response to bluffs is the real difference that is reflected in the rules.
@@mistriousfrog In that regard I might have chosen the wrong game bc as a ygo player I see these bluffs as big brain plays just as you said rather than scummy. I would LOVE to play opponents like this and play mind games with them, it would feel like I'm in an anime.
@@mistriousfrog oh yeah, I understand that, I was more reacting to the hypothetical "judging this at Yu-Gi-Oh" MBT brings up at the end, but I appreciate that I've worded it vaugely haha
@@FlareBlossom I prefer way magic does it, but Mtg's communication rules lead sometimes to bit silly interactions.
Amount of cards in your hand is derived information, which means you are not obliged to answer your opponent about it, but you are not allowed to obstruct figuring it out for themselves either and you are not allowed to mispresent it. Usually players just answer if opponent asks about amount of cards in hand, but you could spread your hand and let them figure it out for themselves.
Amount of blue cards in your hand is private information. You are still required to answer completely and truthfully about private information to judge, but between players there is no rules about private information communication. Players are allowed to say whatever they want about private information. Judge blog even gives quite devious example "For example, if a player casts Slaughter Games and names Scapeshift, his opponent may say that he or she only has three copies of Scapeshift in their library, even if it actually contains four."
So with 2 cards in hand you are not allowed to say "I have 3 cards in hand.", but you are allowed to say "I have 3 blue cards in hand."
@@Datuna-vw3un yes this seems way more interesting to me and gives a sense of freedom.
So if you put a full mathmech extra deck alongside your labrynth deck (during Kash/diablosis meta) it's cheating?
yeah, huh, definitely should have talked a little about that
Choosing to play a suboptimal extra in a deck that doesn't need its extra much, in order to make your opponent think you're on a different deck than you're actually on when Diablosis lets them look at your extra, is a play that occurs entirely within the confines of the game. It's not cheating because the only thing you've done is use game pieces in a way that is explicitly intended by the rules.
Something like counting summons when you don't have Nibiru occurs outside the game. You are adding additional information that would not exist on the board otherwise, in order to give yourself an advantage.
For another example, while it's legal to play a Mathmech extra deck in Lab to smokescreen Kash, it would be illegal to play a Mathmech extra deck in Lab and then "accidentally" flip over your Laplacian during setup to convince your opponent you're playing Mathmech. One is something that happens within the game, one is something outside of the game
No, tokens are not game pieces. They stay outside the ED and MD.
If your opponent mistakes your deck, because they made assumptions based on your ED then that is a misplay on their part.
Surely asking if that's 5 summons or even just asking your opponent pause so you can think if you do don't have a handtrap isn't adding any new info as both players either know or don't know that nib or handtraps in general exist it's only them trying to read into your actions that would lead them to play differently. Surely they should just make the optimal play which is often playing around every handtrap you can anyway. You haven't said that you do or don't have nib.
The nib one I get because it's pretty blatant and clearly for an advantage but I'd often at locals joke along the lines of wish this face down was a drowning mirror force or waking the dragon cards that I'm probably not running and it's true they aren't and it's generally not to gain an advantage as it would be just before they attack etc but it is to spook them a little before I resign etc and I wouldn't like to think that was against the rules.
Is it also cheating to say you have no responses then since you are revealing hidden info because I do so all the time since I'm often playing decks that don't want to go into time or didn't want to shill out for optimal handtraps and played more engine instead at locals.
If its the rules it's the rules but I'm surprised it falls that way.
It's interesting how different games handle bluffing. I remember a japanese mahjong player getting ejected from a professional tournament for sighing too loudly when he drew a good tile, because you are absolutely not allowed to bluff in Japanese mahjong. Then there's contract bridge, where they hate bluffing so much that in professional play, they set up a barrier to prevent you from seeing your partner across the table.
That might not be bluffing as much as a way to keep partners from sending nonverbal cues or signals to each other.
@@WavemasterAshiyknow you're right I'm probably thinking about the weird restrictions they have on deliberate bluff ("psychic") bidding
Tournament play of Bridge doesn't really hate bluffing, but they do hate giving away extra information among partners. I can bid 2H on a hand with no hearts all I want to try and get the opponent to switch suits or overbid, but if I am doing it because I agreed beforehand with my partner that an opening bid of 2 and a suit means I don't have any of that suit, then that's not allowed. Same with mannerisms from your partner, which is why there's the screen between players of the same team (there's a player from each team on each side of it). Even the tempo of your bidding needs to be somewhat consistent, since suddenly changing it could convey information such as a having a bad hand to your partner.
The Japanese are wild, man
Yeah it's very interesting, I believe in contract bridge the play you mentioned would actually be legal, if you had declared it to be part of the system you and your team were playing. On the other hand, in diplomacy you are permitted to misreprent the game state, because the game is about communication and if you and an other opponent conspire to mislead another opponent about the rules or game state, it is their own fault for being tricked.
Ultimately, the rules about what is considered cheating and what is legal in a game of hidden information depends on the game.
Funny LSV's token is the example here when the Pithing Needle "naming" Dark Confidant exists and it involves asking a judge for clarification.
Well pithing needle is activated abilities and Bob is a Upkeep trigger iirc
@@aesirloki4833iirc in the story being referenced
P1 calls a judge and asks "can I cast pithing needle and name dark confident?"
The judge says yes (it's a legal move even though it doesn't actually stop DC's ability)
P1 casts pithing needle.
P2 lets it resolve
P1 names a fetchland that P2 could have sacrificed in response.
The question is if making a judge call on a topic you know the answer to in order to mislead your opponent about a play you want to make is okay.
The thing for me is that he is actively interacting with a non-game piece, likely with the intent of deceiving. Even though the card could be activated, you don't need to preemptively grab the token. That seems like a pretty pointed attempt at misdirection. But also, I could see a judge just giving him a slap on the wrist and a "Don't do it again", not a ban.
I kind of agree, especially since he hands the token over to his opponent so he can consider it into his calculations.
@@geminia999 he didn't hand it to him, his opponent reached across the table and grab it all by himself without even asking and started moving it across the board.
@@Heoltor yer; the person who asked for the token to be used to do the maths WAS the opponent not LSV; LSV just followed what his opponent asked for. its like asking to see your graveyard when you have a way to reanimate on the field but instead of reanimating i am just gonna cast a spell from my hand and win that way
If he was just grabbing the land that makes tokens preemptively, I don’t think you could fault him at all, but I can see why someone might find grabbing the token a little sketchy.
@@multievolution It also could be viewed as a visualization technique, one of which the opponent used as well. A lot of times, MTG players will position both their creatures and the opponents creatures before declaring any attacks in what they think will happen. This helps calculate everything needed. In this case, having the token in sight, since both players know that it can be made, helps LSV check if its enough to save his board wipe should the opponent not go all out and his opponent is able to see just how many attacks presents the lethal he is after.
I guess in that example it comes down to how intense the bluffing is. For example, in an entirely different game state, there's nothing stopping me from looking at my graveyard if I want. I may have cards that can activate there, and some of those effects may do something to help my current situation, but if I'm just checking the cards I have in graveyard, there should be no problem. However, if my intention with checking the GY is to give my opponent the impression that I am indeed going to activate any of those effects, that may be too subtle. And the more in-the-nose it gets it starts getting more and more into cheating territory instead of just giving signals that if my opponent reads a certain way it's their own fault.
As Joseph said, it's not the same to just reach for my deckbox for a second (though I do think that one may be a tiny bit more of a gray zone), than saying "Oh man, if you attack now I sure am dead, because the SCAPEGOAT I have set face down won't protect me from death this very same turn! Oh gee!"
Surprised that #Djinngate wasn't brought up on this topic.
Bro I swear that I sided it out... I use laval chain to dump djinn
Legit turned me off competitive yugioh at the time and eventually lead to me quitting the game. I hated that shit so much.
According to Hoban he never actually kept djinns in when he said he sided them out
Every time I watch a video about like controversial rulings in mtg, there are dozens of horror stories about players getting quite literally cheated out of their wins by rule sharkers, and the judges siding with the rule sharkers. Over half are against children who can't really go against an adult judge, the rest are timid players taken advantage of. Quite a large number is literally judges/store owners colluding with their friends playing the game.
What breaks me the most is how devastated the players are by what happens, how they're often brought to tears, how they still remember the interaction badly.
I'm so glad yugioh is much better in this regard.
One story is another player watching a kid play, the kid says he wants to go into combat (battle phase), and his opponent smugly informs him that "combat" is player shorthand for "I would like to skip the 'beginning of combat' step and go directly to the 'declare attackers' step", so all his 'beginning of combat' triggers would not happen, which the judge backed up (it was the official ruling at the time). Next game he doesn't quite remember the name, so he says "start of combat", opponent tells him that since he didn't specifically say "beginning of combat" it doesn't count, and then since he said the word "combat" the same shorthand from before applies and the triggers are skipped. Judge agrees again. Kid in tears. WTF.
This is an instance of a horrible judge. This exact thing happened at Pro Tour Aether Revolt, and WOTC eventually clarified that there is no such thing as a required shortcut. If a player does not agree to a proposed shortcut presented by an opponent (here being "yeah, you can go to declare attackers") then the shortcut does not happen and whatever is said is assumed to be a simple passing of priority. The second ruling is outright insane. This isn't angle-shooting; that's just cheating with a judge for the same reason as above, in addition to the fact that analogous language has always been permitted as long as both players know what is going on. If not, the judge's job is to CLARIFY and then rewind to the moment the communication breakdown occurred to continue play with (again) a simple pass of priority.
Admittedly, YGO isn't significantly better in this regard. I've handed out more than my fair share of slow play warnings and a few penalties for stalling. Judges are actively bad in YGO at spotting and dealing with angle-shoots because most of them don't really know the rules themselves. Fake-counting summons to get people to play around Nib when they don't have it, asking to look at graveyards to burn clock, there's a LOT that players in YGO do that isn't allowed, and a LOT that judges often don't allow that is explicitly legal. And then, of course, there is outright cheating. Which, in my experience, has been much more common in YGO. ESPECIALLY during the era of remote duels.
@@AAdams-em1uv it was before the rulings change. Going back to the same video again, I found another comment expressing the same thing happening to them - literally said "beginning of combat", opponent said "the phrase beginning of combat includes the word combat, meaning we are now in the declare attackers step", and judge sided with opponent.
Sure those are awful judges colluding with their friends, but this incidents do happen, and the rule sharking nature of MtG policy both enables these awful judge decisions and encourages this mentality for the players to the point that they will try to scum out a literal child, who literally gets reduced to tears (not just this story, several).
Regarding yugioh judges, I don't think not properly punishing angle shooting / rule sharking in YGO is even on the same level as actively supporting this behavior and ruling for the sharker against the victim in MtG. No kid will go home crying because their opponent counted loudly with no nibiru, they will if their opponent scammed them from a win they deserve and the judge sided with the scammer.
Slow play stuff is pretty awful, the timerules should be completely reworked. They indeed allow players to scam wins. At least slow play IS considered an offense in the rulebook though, the rules try to discourage it and players got banned/disqualified for it.
Cheating is cheating. Kinda hard to enforce in remote duels, ultimately you just have to hope that the players are playing for the game and not for the win.
I don't have an insane amount of experience with YGO judges as I haven't played a lot of paper YGO, just online, but in my experience they were very nice and fair. Playing against them they let me walk back stuff I shouldn't be allowed to but warned me it's not allowed in principle, always had good conduct etc.
Somewhat unrelated but when I faced a ton player of my region I think he intentionally went a little easy on me since he could tell I was new to paper play, and after I lost he explained to me the big misplay I made. He didn't just jump on his free win, he didn't try to scum me, he was just nice.
@@tcoren1 Oof, if that first thing would happen to me in a local environment, that would have been the last time that store sees me. In a bigger tournament, that's 100% an appeal and if for some reason the Headjudge sides with the floorjudge, it might be a "quit the game forever". I can handle bad luck and unfortunate losses, I cannot stand getting treated unfairly
@@skuamato7886 yeah, it seems pretty awful, hopefully they're rarer than the impression I got.
I don't know how big those events are, I hope those awful judges are not permitted in large events, but even if this is a "kid accidentally registers for a big event" case it seems awful.
In the interest of fairness I tried to search up videos like "controversial yugioh rulings" and read the comments there to have more idea on bad experiences on the yugioh side. They do seem to exist, although I got the impression that they tend to be less commonplace and extreme. It's mostly stories about judges giving blatantly wrong rulings on card interactions (either out of malice or incompetence), which is very bad, but I think not quite on the level of losing a game to a literal verbal miscommunication.
Another MtG story I got reminded of, was a new player was getting attacked for lethal, but they had creatures to block. Because they were inexperienced with the lingo, they accidentally agreed to go to damage step without blocking (to be clear, this was not an unreasonable shortcut, it was something an experienced player should understand, but they were not an experienced player). They tried to argue back that no, OBVIOUSLY, they wanted to block the lethal attack, they just didn't understand their opponent's words, but the judge ruled in favor of the scammer against the victim
@@tcoren1 Yep, that's mostly correct. Big YGo "Judge scandals" usually revolve around judges simply ruling card interactions wrong. That's mainly because there is no comprehensive Rulebook as there is in MTG, so sometimes there is no clear cut answer to a question. It kinda works like in irl law: If you don't know how it's supposed to work, you read up on similar cases that got handled by a higher authority (in this case, the OCG) and derive your answer from there. Far from perfect but usually works. Except when it doesnt.
This is one of the few quirks of Yu-Gi-Oh! rules that I am actually pleasantly surprised to find out about.
Coming from a magic perspective it’s interesting how different yet universal attitudes are for this kind of thing. Every magic player i know would consider the story of asking a judge if pithing needle can target dark confidant and then naming polluted delta is super cool yet none of them liked the pithing needle borborymos story. Whereas there was a YGO thread about pushing a card up in your hand bluffing that it was an answer and everyone agreed that was scummy even though it seemed the opposite to me.
YOU CAN'T PULL A TWINPEAKS REFERENCE ON ME THAT EASILY JOSEPH
Large Magic the Gathering tournaments are such a pain in the rear since people are absolutely looking to rules shark any possible chance they get. So I'm glad YGO tries to cut down on that to an extent.
This just feels like another thing someone would call a judge on you for.
Judge my opponent reached like he was going to tap something and didn't. He's misrepresenting the game state
Beyond just the intentionality there's also the issue of how some aspects of private knowledge in YGO are a bit fuzzy. Someone might be frustrated and not be sure if the opponent's combo can even be Nibiru'd. They might ask someone, "Which monsters have activated their effects this turn?" in their main phase and outright be TRYING to make the opponent think they have something like Talents or Kurikara but actually just be trying to keep track of what they need to play around.
If I were a judge, I would probably let it go with a warning. While it is a legal play, he doesn't need to reach into the deck box right at that point and pull out a token. Using the Scapegoat example, as face-down cards are private knowledge, grabbing some tokens preemptively implies that you will be using them. Regardless of if that face-down card is either Scapegoat or Mirror Force, similar to counting the number of summons out loud to bluff Nib, it is a misleading action that would not be legal in YGO.
Is it really considered cheating to count summons to bluff nibiru?
@@TeamHighCloud You are trying to deceive your opponent. There is no purpose of counting summons other than to try and trick your opponent into thinking you have Nibiru.
@@TeamHighCloudyes, you’re giving your opponent private info, regardless of whether it’s true or not you are ultimately using private info to manipulate/mislead a player into conducting a bad play. This gives you more advantage than that player since you used private info to gain slight advantage.
Think of it like this, you bait your opponent by asking for summons, then he makes a suboptimal board trying to play around nibiru, then you go play, and he does the same thing to you. It doesn’t lead to a healthy game if both players are actively lying about their cards.
This is where MBT'S translation doesn't quite get all the nuances right.
Notably, the play LSV was representing was an entirely legal one to make, while the activating Scapegoat would have been entirely illegal in MBT's example.
A better translation would be if the known Scapegoat was set, and the Mirror Force was in hand, and a Makyura had been destroyed previously this turn.
You are allowed to ask for the number of summons, as it is simply inquiring about knowledge of the gamestate, and the existence of a card like nibiru has no bearing on your ability to ask this question, on the other hand, you cannot explicitly or impliedly state that you have nib in hand, so you can ask how many summons, but just don't mention nib.
Really interesting discussion, and I love having you as someone that has played both games competitively weigh in and explain. I never played magic competitively enough to really get to grips with it, but there is always a vibe that your opponent's are constantly sharking that yugioh just has never had for me. There are definitely advantages to mtgs more clearly defined rules, but the intent portion of ygo is really good for the tournament environment imo.
When is Joseph gonna collab with the prof, tho? They give off the same energy in their respective communities.
Except for all the bussy business, the prof don't do that.
IIRC on stream MBT said that he'd insta collab with the prof the second he was asked to.
I am now imagining prof swinging for lethal saying "and as the kids say, I am about to smash that bussy" before turning to do finger guns towards the camera
MY favourite episodes are when Prof has younger guests on his show and he pulls out language that's like... a generation or two behind them. It's masterfully done humour@@Doombacon
I dont think your analysis is incorrect, but I think if anything, the fact that he picked up the token and started waving it around would result in it being ruled against him. Like you said, there is a difference between making a motion towards the scapegoat tokens and actually picking them up and thumbing through them. I think the context of this being a feature match also hurts his case because there is no “he said/she said”, its just blatantly on camera, and judges were there to watch.
It's a little different than MBT'S explanation (which is good for a simple translation). A slightly better one would be if both cards (the known Scapegoat and the unknown Mirror Force) were set.
Notably, the play LSV was pretending to set up for was perfectly legal, and against a more cautious attack, would have been optimal.
Was the intent to bluff an opponent into getting blown out? Yes, absolutely.
Was he representing an illegal line of play? Not at all.
@@simonteesdale9752 Both can't be set, otherwise it wouldn't be a bluff anymore. If you know I have Scapegoat and a hidden card I drew, and that I set both of them, then you know I can activate Scapegoat and something else. That something else would immediately put you on guard for the possibility of anything happening.
If instead I set only one card, then it could either be the Scapegoat you know about or a random card you don't know about. The bluff is that I drew bad and set the Scapegoat you know about to buy myself another turn, while in reality the random card was a game-winning Mirror Force.
@@simonteesdale9752 “representing a legal line” is not at all the issue here tho. This issue is clear intent to mislead. And like the other person who responded to you said, if they set 2 cards, its no longer a bluff, which is an entirely different scenario because in this case you know for a fact that Scapegoat is set.
@@SatanicWren That's why I say that the translation is off.
Both players can see the Adanto face-up in play (which is the equivalent of knowing the scapegoat is set.)
LSV was representing a perfectly legal play he could make, that would be in some cases optimal.
Edit: Yes, the intent was absolutely to mislead, but there's an important difference between misleading by alluding to a play you can make, and one that's illegal.
@@simonteesdale9752 Well no, the issue is entirely intent, the specifics of which arent really the issue here. Torres having a Swordsoul token and using it to represent any token, such as a Nib token, is entirely legal. The only bannable offense there was the intent to mislead.
As you say, making a token was a legal play and it would even likely be the *correct* play if his opponent got scared and just swung with one creature. I agree that it seems defensible under the intent rule.
Reminds me of the "legal cheating" incident with Dkayed, which I never understood how it worked because Fateful Adventure has both a trigger effect and an ignition effect to search so you shouldn't be able to mislead the opponent into using Ash against the wrong effect. Then again, I only play on MD so maybe on paper is actually possible to do it. This is also tangentially related to tokens, in this case Adventurer Token. Coincidence?
At that time Master duel didn't highlight which effect was used, so you could summon a monster that has no trigger effect then quickly activate the ignition effect of Fateful in order to "simulate" the trigger effect of Fateful which gets the equip, provided your opponent didn't have a quick effect response to give them a window between the summon and the activation of the ingition on Fateful. So the opponent could easily think Fateful would add an equip yet you added Gryphon.
This was later fixed in MD with a QoL update highlighting the specific effects, but in TCG it was NOT A PLAY from the very start since the opponent can ask you which effect of Fateful you are using, and you HAVE TO answer truthfully or you get a penalty immediately for "misrepresenting the game state"
This wasn't a case though for MD since you cannot communicate with the player while the log at that time didn't clarify which effect was used.
@@babrad I see, makes sense. I guess you can't just say "Fateful Adventure effect, response?" When the card has multiple effects. It would be the same as saying "Triple Tactics Talents effect, response?", since you can only respond with Ash if they use the effect to draw 2.
@@Ragnarok540 actually, that's kinda two different situations. you _can_ just say the former, however doing so after a summon would immediately lock you into the trigger effect, as it's the only valid activation in the post-summon segoc window. and because the physical game has no automatic passing of that window, your opponent has to explicitly declare their lack of response _before_ you have the opportunity to activate the ignition effect, and asking if they do means you pass up the opportunity to activate the trigger effect ( since you have to declare the activation of all your simultaneous trigger effects at once, so your opponent cannot possibly have a response up until the point where you've declared all your effects - this, incidentally, is why chain blocking is possible ). so there's no actual ambiguity in which effect you're activating, as it can be gleaned entirely by if you're activating it during the segoc window or not
meanwhile, absolutely none of this applies to triple tactics, as it's fully ambiguous which effect you're activating unless it's literally impossible to resolve all but one of the effects at activation. even then, though, you could very reasonably be given a warning by a persnickety judge, as the three effects are technically subeffects of the card's single main effect, and the process of declaring which subeffect you're activating occupies the same timing as declaring targets ... meaning just saying you're activating triple tactics is the same as flipping raigeki break without saying which card you're trying to pop. these sorts of things are effectively part of the effect's cost ( hell, subeffects can outright define their own costs and targets, so choosing which on you're activating technically occurs _before_ costs and targeting ), so performing them correctly is _mandatory_ for an effect's activation to be legal
Based on the Nibiru example, I think it might be closer to being a rules violation in LSVs case. Grabbing the token is very similar to trying to get your opponent to stop at 4 summons by counting along. You are giving your opponent information that leads them to a certain conclusion that will influence play. But, it's fairly close and could go either way.
The big difference there is that LSV absolutely had the means, resources, and opportunity to activate Adanto and make a token. In a similar vein, if you actually have a Nibiru in your hand, counting along to make sure you know when it's activatable doesn't misrepresent the gamestate.
@@HakureiIllusion Counting the number of summons doesn't misrepresent the game state even if you don't have Nibiru in the hand. You would be accurately accounting for the number of summons which occurred to that point.
@@josephcourtright8071 This is not how it has been handled in practice.
@@josephcourtright8071Niburu is the only card where counting the summons is relevant so its very clear the intent is to make the opponent think of playing around Niburu. Again its the intent that matters here. You ain't allowed to do that
@@josephcourtright8071 Nibiru is, as far as I know, the only card whose activation condition is based on the number of summons. Therefore putting emphasis on the number of summons being performed can only be relevant if you have Nibiru; which means that if you don't have it, you're misrepresenting the gamestate by suggesting you do.
From a practical stand point, I think Yugioh more or less needs to have more strict rules just due to practical concerns. Consider how people would act if they thought they could get a leg up by hitting you with the jedi mind trick regarding once per turns. Moreover, given how big a problem time is in Yugioh, consider how much extra time would be wasted every round, calling judges over and trying to discern whether your opponent explicitly lied about the game state, or whether they merely spoke in a manner that was meant to misdirect.
For some other famous angle shoots, I imagine 'all my legal targets gain fear' would probably have gotten Patrick Chapin banned if he was playing Yugioh.
'Who are you targeting with Esper Charm' would also get you banned, I think.
Been watching kenobi for a while. A lot of his stuff can be a bit mtg doomer-y but this video was an interesting one and highlighted one of my favorite plays on the mtg pro tour
I think your comment about organizing lands is a little misleading. It's pretty standard etiquette and tourney procedure to accurately display things like lands that have effects and how much mana you have available to activate them (Failing to do so in some more extreme cases like Arbor Dryad is literally cut-and-dry cheating at comp REL). I think saying "I am representing this trick on board" is polite and does not commit you to doing that trick or represent intent to do so.
Pulling out the token is definitely more cheeky, but defensible to represent a plausible line of play in response to plausible attacks? LSV, for what it may or may not be worth, claims the bit was more or less a joke- he knows his opponent personally, they both know that LSV might have Settle the Wreckage and that attacking into it loses the game on the spot, but that it's probably still right to attack all- in other words, the bluff didn't matter at all. I'm tempted to mostly believe him, and at least it gives a plausible intent.
Ive been playing MTG since I was 10, and dear god the amount of nonsense that people tried on me, a 10 year old kid, to try and win the game was insane. I havent played the game completely for about 3/4 years now, but I can say that between 2009 and 2019 besides some smelly locals player I didnt have any problems with people angel shooting. But boy was that first 5 years full of it. To the point that talking tournament strategy would include angle shooting plans and "gotcha" moments. I will say that with my background I dont get mad at angel shooting, I do think the game is a lot more fun when people dont do it.
The important skill, not trust to anything that is not publick info. Some "bites" like trying to counter uncountrable spell is quite common but legal, while actualy illegal action is "rewind" such counterspell attempt, not attempt iteslf. And mindgames with trashtalk become even more fun when you play with friends in multyplayer. EDH is full of diplomacy, while 2HG is huge on team bluff and that kinda point.
The big difference is that bluffing is a big part of magic to begin with. The biggest thing I can think of is leaving up mana to fake that you have interaction when you don't so that your opponent might misplay or play suboptimaly. This is not even mentioning the many nuances of the combat phase. It could be easily argued that making a token was the optimal play if the one guy didn't swing out with all his creatures and settle the wreckage was only the best against a full swing.
bluffing is a part of literally every single card game where you have imperfect information
@@MIKAEL212345fair point, but in the case of ygo, it seems like its regarded as "unsportsman" like because it missrepresents the game state. Imo, the gamestate shouldnt include anything outside the fields zones and hands.
@aesirloki4833 I think there is a lot of nuance to that even still, and why these sorts of rules will never be perfect. Like, imagine you're gonna combo off in Yugioh, and your opponent slightly pushes one card out of their hand when you activate a search/draw effect. Well that definitely feels like Ash Blossom. They didn't use it there, but now you're cautious, you're going to attempt to play around a perceived Ash, playing a bait or two, and then they pull out a non-raised card and it's Nib on your 5th summon. Later you find out your opponent isn't even playing Ash Blossom. That's the sort of bluffing Yugioh wants to tackle because you're misrepresenting game state when there is not even a single chance of Ash coming down.
This is different when you already know the Ash exists games 2 or 3, because the possibility has presented itself based on the card being used. But when everything is blind, don't act like something can happen that never will.
@@Treblebeatgames I understand. I think its a ygo topic more than anything. I used to play when i was younger, played MtG and now FaB. Very different types of game. But the concept of "making your opponent unsure of whats next" is a WILD concept. For instance, in your example, its like if the player whos about to combo should be reassured by his opponent thag he wont activate a hand trap... like what? Lmao.
Again, i do understand Konamis decisions to prevent sticky situations or, what we could call "sharking", because most things could be abused by the wrong, ill intent players.
@@Treblebeatgamesbut what you described is the coolest interaction I ever heard, I don't get why it's not legal, it would make up for situations where you go second and haven't drawn a single handtrap, balancing the luck factor a bit
I would agree with the LSV thing...if he didn't pick up the token in such an obvious way. Putting the mana like that is much more nuanced, but actually picking the token up in clear view of his opponent, to clearly put the guy in the mindset of "I am going to summon this" really feels like it crosses a line.
Also he has no "reason" to go look at the token. His land card says all of its stats on it.
Eh? If his opponent opted to not attack with all of his creatures, LSV's correct play is to create a token.
L2 Magic Judge here: Cheating in Magic, by the rules, requires those things: 1) a deliberate action by which advantage can potentially be gained 2) that is illegal 3) the one taking it has knowledge that it is, in fact, illegal. Reaching for a token is deliberate, advantage can be gained, but the action itself isn't illegal. Therefore not all checkmarks apply for the action to be considered a cheat.
In the Yugioh Tournament Infractions and Penalties Policy, it just has different definitions of what is considered legal and what not, but the principle for intent is the same. Intent is present in both documents as a defining factor.
The reason all the above checkmarks need to apply is because cheating implies we know we are cheating and do it anyway. Otherwise we aren't cheating, we are being naive and/or ignorant. This is why any disruptive penalty has it's equivalent "non-cheating" version, depending on how disruptive it is.
As for why those games have different ways to tackle bluffs and "fair play" I think it has to do with philosophy and probably even Japanese vs American mentality in gaming. In Yugioh, emphasis is mostly placed in correct technical play using supplied materials (cards) and less emphasis is given on "outside of game" actions. On the other hand, Magic is more inspired by traditional games like Poker (in fact many pros actually have a career in Poker), so each game differs in what it considers "fair play"
Examples in Magic: IDs are allowed. You can "fail to find" a card you are looking for in a hidden zone, even if you know there is one there. You can begin executing an action that is only partial due to limitations (for instance, we both need to discard a card but only one of us has one). Those are small differences that if added together, paint a different picture of the general philosophy.
> In the Yugioh Tournament Infractions and Penalties Policy, it just has different definitions of what is considered legal and what not, but the principle for intent is the same. Intent is present in both documents as a defining factor.
If I understand correctly, in MTG, intent only makes the difference between a mistake and a cheating attempt, but both are still illegal, the only difference is what action the judge takes. If an action is legal, then intent does not matter.
The problem is, in Yugioh, intent can sometimes make the difference between a legal action and an illegal one. To my understanding, keeping a Swordsoul token visible when you're not playing that deck would have been perfectly legal until the guy said he was doing it to trick his opponents.
@@Dominator150395 The principle is the same. However, in MTG there is no instance where cheating is considered cheating when the action itself is not illegal. It needs to be 1) illegal 2) deliberate 3) you being aware that is illegal (regardless of your ability to infer if doing so is to your advantage, as long as you believe it is, it is deliberate).
That said, according to the penalty guidelines in Yugioh, ALL examples of cheating given there are illegal actions, so I presume it works the same way. It does not explicitly state it in the document (so a high level judge may give us more information about that), but if we follow the document to the letter, by stating only illegal actions in the cheating section of the rules and actually marking each of them individually as to what infraction each action would result in, I infer it has the same requirements as in MTG.
@@edwardsgamingcorner3880 I'm genuinely curious: if the dude had said "I'm using the Swordsoul token because I like how it looks, even though I'm not playing Swordsoul", would he have been warned or penalized in any way?
@@Dominator150395 this is tricky in that it isn't "binary yes/no"; let's tackle it pedantically: the Tournament Policy states
"If a Deck List is being used, only cards registered on their Deck
List or cards labeled as Tokens should be in the Card Case."
That means you are allowed to have with you tokens, provided said tokens are eligible to be used as tokens for your deck.
However, in the "Tokens" description of the document it states:
"Items that could be mistaken for other game elements [...] cannot be used as tokens, even if they have been labeled as tokens."
That means that tokens that specific cards create (such as the above mentioned Swordsoul token) fall into the category of "being mistaken for other game elements", since if your deck cannot produce such tokens, technically, you are not allowed to have them in your deck box as tournament material for the registered list you provided.
As such, displaying among tournament materials a token that your deck cannot create for any reasons, technically is not allowed. However, this isn't "explicitly written" it is "interpreted" this way from the document, therefore, the Head Judge is the final arbiter of how "pedantically" we interpret or enforce the above two paragraphs in the Tournament Policy document.
I hope this sheds some light as to the legality of the situation. Now, as for the intent, to be classified as cheating, assuming whatever the player states is true, the statement "I just want to look at it but I am not playing with it" is not malicious to classify as "cheating"... but this is if we take the words spoken at face value... as normally, a judge would further investigate the intent, the circumstance, behaviour, how the player conducted similar actions in other rounds, etc... so it isn't "clear cut" without investigation. The above answer of "not cheating" is if we assess that the words spoken after we finish our investigation are true and the player has benevolent intention.
Does this cover the essence of your question?
MBT passed the judge test?? And got entered into the judge program?? And this is the first time I've heard about this while being a viewer for years???????
tbf passing the rc-1 and getting into the judge program is incredibly easy and doesn't actually mean anything
I feel like in this example the games are too fundamentally different to make such a one for one comparison. The way you describe this, holding two islands untapped without a Counterspell in hand is a misrepresentation of board state, when Blue leverages a lot of its advantage from option-selecting with instant speed spells.
holding two islands untapped without counterspell isnt misrepresenting the gamestate, it is the gamestate. Saying "gotta make sure I leave two islands untapped for my counterspell" without a counterspell is misrepresenting the gamestate
It only becomes a problem when you talk or whatever to misrepresent the game state. It'd more be like asking "Do you pay the one" (referring to a tax like Smothering tide) effect when it was destroyed last turn and you hope they pay extra mana for no reason.
I find intent/"mindgames" to be very interesting since it often differs so much between people. Some consider it to be bad sportsman like/borderline cheating while others consider it to be another aspect of the game where you can present things that can muddy things. As someone converted from digital (Duel Links to MD to TCG), I cannot in good faith play at higher level events without others trying to do these one up things (I had a judge call at a decently stacked for me using the G-Golem tokens. I was on mathmech and the tokens say on them they can be used as a general use token). While like you said, you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, this is one advantage the digital card game have where you borderline dont interact with the othwr individual outside of the game itself. Great discussion video as always! (Please play Dual Destinies soon)
But surely this isn't really true, is it not the same to load into MD with all the accessories for one archetype and play another? Is toggling your response window not the same as asking how many summons for nib?
@@peterusmc20 I consider the accessories similar to deckboxes and deck mats in person. The mindgames/intent to decieve here would be more like the example mentioned in the video would be the swordsoul token (that has no official printing so they had to go out of their way to do this) that caused the player to be banned. However, I'm pretty sure he would had dodged the ban if he simply didn't say it in the deck profile which nailed him for having bad intent. it's a bit harder to go that route when everything is baked into the digital client itself so misleading isn't as easy with your accessories.
On toggling response windows, I find that more in line with saying "thinking" after your opponent does a play. You could be bluffing, you could actually have an Imperm, or you could need to think about if you wanna drop cause you're already X-2-1. But your intention is still hidden so you have plausible deniablity. If you start counting summons in an attempt to mindgame, that is probably worse in a judge's book than just asking "how many summons was that?" on the 4th/5th summon. I personally don't have much experience with this so forgive me if I'm ill informed but this seems more like a sportsman issue. (Generally I try to tune out whatever my oppponent is doing, I had lean into me and stare into my eyes while I was doing my small world bridge). From my experience trying to misled with implications can get you in trouble (saying "go off until the 5th summon") but just clarifying game state "what summon is this?" or "have you used baron negate this turn?" is pretty much fine.
Not trying to be antagonistic here! Just me genuinely trying to say what I think of this.
@@peterusmc20importantly in master duel you cannot toggle the response window on if you do not have a valid response to use. If you have no cards in hand or field that can activate then the game does not allow you to stop your opponents play by bluffing a response. I think this makes it very clear what Konami thinks about this kind of bluffing.
One of the only locals i ever went to i was playi by fur hire and kept asking for my opponent for responses to my actions and chain blocking ash every game, except for one game where my opponent told me “i dont have anything youre good” so i skipped a step and didnt chain block beat and he dropped ash on me instantly. That was also the last time i ever went to a local tournament
This is why you're not allowed to skip steps in YGO. By game rules it is an illegal play.
Yeah, that's not legal
@@thorscape3879 i meant that i didnt go through the extra step of summoning another guy to chain block beats effect specifically to play around ash because my opponent said he didnt have anything
yeah the opponent ashing you there was illegal
in fact they first made an illegal play by revealing private information (that they had nothing), and then another by revealing they were lying
i think the grabbing of the token pulls me over to the opinion of it wouldn't be okay in yugioh tbh but I'm not even close to a judge I don't even know what half my own cards do
It's honestly a really weird (and interesting) comparison, and MBT's explanation is good for a general overview, but doesn't quite translate properly.
A more accurate translation would be to have both the known Scapegoat and an unknown Mirror Force set, while under a floodgate that only allows you to activate one spell or trap per turn.
There are genuine lines of play the opponent could make, that would make activating Scapegoat the right choice (and notably a possible one in this version), but the intent is definitely to bluff them into running into mirror force.
@@simonteesdale9752 i actually originally wrote it like this, but felt "imagine a floodgate" was too in-the-weeds
I vaguely remember a discussion about this from years ago. But basically we determined that LSV being able to make the token and wanting to be ready to do so if the opponent did not full swing was very valid. Lsv was clearly mathing everything out and it was a case of "if he doesnt attack with all i will token, if he does i will settle the wreckage" the person who did something wrong was the opponent who called it into question as simply grabbing a token for possible future use and piling your lands would never have been against the rules
Since the days you played competitive magic though things have changed a lot. Basically there are multiple levels of rules enforcement now, casual, tier 2, and tier 1, casual is kitchen table, tier 2 is semi competitive, and tier 1 is competitive. It's now fully understood that if you want to check rules you call a judge when the actual violation comes into question. And that you need a specific violation to call a judge on, you can say "the math doesn't work out on how many cards are in your hand" and call a judge, but if you are calling judges for multiple angle shooting cases the judges can issue you a rules violation instead.
YOOOOO NO WAY?? Collab between PK and MBT?!!!!
Edit-
1) this was horrendous news, LSV tainted 😭😭😭
2) I think you translate between the two games really well!
4) The digs at PK's name are hilarious but also very strange. You do have 'the best beard in Esports entertainment' right there, and you focused more on surface level analysis. Lol.
Still loved the video as someone who has watched both on premiere!
My brain will always understand PK ad phantom knights :/
what happened to 3
Tainted how?
simply do what i do for most pros' twitters - I Pretend I Do Not See It
By being a cryptobro elon musk dickrider lmao@@Luckingsworth
I switched from Yugioh to Pokemon in 2017 and one thing there that I don't think would fly in Yugioh is the concept of ID'ing aka Intentional Drawing. This is a concept that is allowed in Pokemon where two players who are guaranteed or have already made the cut mutually agree to take the tie. Now some players might find it scummy but why should two players who are guaranteed to make the top-whatever if they tie play it out? For the record, TPCi knows about ID'ing and it is allowed by the governing body. It gets mentioned on stream from time to time during events.
It is allowed in mtg as well. Tournament integrity is reason why I have heard ppl oppose IDs.
I love it when MTG and YGO RUclipsrs crossover! My childhood and adulthood coming together ❤
I love MBT. Gotta be my favorite Main Battle Tank on RUclips
In yugioh, is it against the rules to ask your opponent for time to think when you don't have an activatable effect?
Yes. You are lying about having a response. It would be on your opponent to figure out if you're lying or not.
Slightly less relevent but Asking to think with noblegal responces falls into slowplay rules as well. Time is a pretty important thing to manage in a tournament setting so in a scenario like there is a minute left on the clock, your opponent is going through their combo to kill you and you have no legal responces, ans everytime they activate an effect you go
"Think.... think..... think..." to time them out and give yourself the win (you had more lifepoints) you'd get hit with a slowplay penalty.
One minor thing, the tokens are provided at the tournament so LSV wasn't reaching for his own tokens.
Maybe yugiho YCS and other such tournaments can require players to use onky provided tokens based on what the deck can use. Due to the limited zones in yugioh you don't need tons of tokens.
Named MBT short for Mono Blue Tron but where is the Tron videos like 1+1+1 = 7?
MBT is mistaken. You most certainly can count the summons of the gamestate and ask your opponent how many they have conducted, as long as you do not name your intent of using Nibiru, you are not misrepresenting the game state and you are only asking for already public information.
A comment on P.K.'s video brought up a good point and I'll summarize it here, if your opponent is trying to get information on your deck before play has even started by looking at your deckbox, tokens, or even playmat is that not also cheating? If your opponent is using that information to make gameplay actions... that seems fishy, and probably an actionable rules violation, at best.
It's kinda similar to the YGO rule where both asking about hidden information, and answering a question about hidden information with a lie, are illegal.
the situation described would 100% be given to the HJ to consider a UC-penalty
As someone who watches MBT for the personality and who plays magic competitively, the fact that the mind games are basically illegal is crazy to me
Mind games add to the strategies. When I play Esper Doom Foretold on Arena and don't have any relevant black cards, I just play blue and white lands to represent blue/white control until I have a relevant black card. The threat of counterspells has definitely worked in my favor plenty of times even though there are no counterspells in my deck. I also like to put my cursor over Golden Egg (which highlights the card for the opponent) during their combat phase to encourage them to attack into my Omen of the Sun. Doom Foretold plays a lot of low-powered cards, but they all act as 2/3/4-for-1's.
In the Token case, I think it was pretty fine as long as he actually could summon said token if he chose to. In that case he would just be weighing his options and trying to check if the token is a valid one is a legitimate move IMO.
This is very interesting, and you're right.
I like how yugioh has evolved to implement mind-games. We see this everytime in simulators, judging what you opponent has/hasn't done, being aware of the possible punishes for your plays depending on the meta, etc.
It's all about the communication during the plays, and we see it in greater effect in older formats; just like in History of Yugioh, and how much you, and Cimoooo think through your plays.
It plays with the resources, and interactions of the game itself; we're not playing poker! And that sort of bullshit should only be allowed on those sort of games with that sort of cards.
The scenario you described is nice as well; IMO it makes sense to think your opponent has set the scapegoats you know they have if they're about to be defeated by battle, so it's up to your cautiousness, and agressiveness to expect a Mirror Force or not.
But the motion of looking through tokens is just so silly.
Although not punishable by rules in your opinion, I would still penalize him because it's just so stupid.
What kind of psychopath is in such a hurry to summon their goats when it's not even the time? When neither battle phase has been declared, or he even tried to activate the card? What does he even need to see among his tokens in his deckbox? If they have foil? If he has 4?
A normal player would instead take a peek at his set card every now, and then, thinking about activating it or not.
This is akin to the subtle stall many players like to abuse because of the time rules. Same spirit, different purpose. Ridiculous.
in all fairness, the scapegoat tokens occupy a similar space as stuff like kuriboh tokens where they're adorable little bastards and i could not fault anyone for taking a moment to admire them, esp. in a situation where they could conceivably use some moral support
Fun Fact: I know what MBT stands for without googling :P
But... don't be ashame, you chosed the right game in the end ;)
Wait wait wait, I sort of understand not being able to count for Nibiru, but you can't ask if your opponent has activated a monster effect? That just seems like something you might need to do to if you were thinking on your turn and you needed to double check if a negate was used or something.
I think this is where the "intent" part of the rule comes into play. If you asked that with the intention of making your opponent think you have TTT then that's not cool but if your intent was in fact to remember if they already used a hand trap or something then that's ok.
You can't intentionally count for Nibiru if you don't have one to activate and you can't ask if your opponent has activated a monster effect if you have nothing that can matter if does. It's more of a line of, you can't give the impression that you have a response when you don't actually have one in hand or on the field. Like, it would be like if you could manually make Master Duel constantly ping you as if you had a Hand Trap in hand when you don't have them in the deck to make your opponent make a sub optimal play.
Then you would ask something like "Did you use this negate already?" or "Are we playing under (relevant monster effect) right now?" or something like that. It's be related to the game state. But just broadly asking "Did you activate a monster effect?" is broad to the point where that probably wouldn't be how you say that if you were really trying to recall information about the game state. But that specific wording is on a tech card and so your opponent might read into your question as "Can I play my good card from hand yet?" and play around it because you manipulated them. So since the rule is based on intent, the way you phrase the question matters because one is natural and relevant and one isn't.
And importantly if a judge did come over, it wouldn't just be "He asked this question!" he'd look at our hand and you could probably just explain the line which would come off as sincere.
@@digisenshi But even then, in MD you can turn off your chains and just respond manually to whatever you want to, just that it requires a bit of reflexes. That makes it so your opponent thinks you have no response so they play carelessly. In that case it's more like "I don't want to reveal my opponent what I have", which depending on your point of view, could be just fair or completely scumy.
@@kuroneko687 Sure. But Yugioh is based a lot on hidden information. There's already a decent burden on the player on assuming what your opponent has to respond to you. But if we add the layer that your opponent can now intentionally mislead you on that hidden information, we get to some shenanigans that just feel exhausting to have to deal with. I'd rather not have to assume my every opponent is possibly doing everything under the kitchen sink to win a locals ots pack.
He wasn’t banned for a year, he was banned for “two consecutive 6 month periods.”
Me: So a year then.
This particular incident only accounted for half a year.
The only real issue with the analysis is that the bluff was a possible move he could make. He could have made the token if he wanted, but he just had settle the wreckage in hand as well
This is I think a big thing a lot of people seem to just be flying over there heads. So many people in both videos comments are just saying that they want to lie to there opponent and have that mind game of just claiming they have a counter spell in there hand while having two mountains untapped and it's kind of driving me insane. Like people are talking about intent and misrepresenting the game state while others seem to just like the fact that they can tell there opponent oh man a nib would sure kill your board if you don't end on a negate in two more summons and just have that in the air while you don't even have nib in your deck or side. It just doesn't make sense to me to even let your opponent even able to do that as it would be a war of lying and not even playing the game at that point. Why even play hand traps if you can just start the match with no hand traps in your deck and just lie to your opponent about running every game winning hand trap any time some effect that would make them lose goes off.
Well it's not the "only issue" it's the reason why there's a debate and it's not 100% obvious he was cheating and should be banned
@NeoBoneGirl I'm saying it's the reason it's not a good 1 to 1 comparison off the top of my head I cared to analyze to hard
@@ZackSparks It's a tough case but the fact that it was something he *could've* legally done and that you can't prove he was trying to fake out (which he probably was but again, you can't prove it) is why it would probably fly? I feel like pulling out the token is a bit too far for me personally but that's not what the rules are there for
@jimzh7669 coming from magic, why would saying "be careful about doing that because I have the card that would punish you for it" be problematic?
I can see the argument if it's public information that you can't have that card, but if they haven't been given access to your deck list, they have to decide whether to play around it or not anyways and you saying you might have it doesn't change that.
Saying you have it is also generally a mistake because if you actually have a card which would win the game if they play into it, why would you warn them?
I remember the discussion about bluffing nib came up in discourse a while back, and farfa interviewed some top konami judge and asked him about it, and the judge insisted that bluffing nibiru was not an illegal play as long as you dont directly lie and say you have nibiru. I dont think judges have a consistent understanding of this issue, and I dont think theres real answers to any of these questions
I guess that's the issue you face when you go for intention-based ruling. On the one hand it counters a lot of scummy technicalities, but on the other it's inherently subjective and can lead to inconsistency.
Asking "how many summons was that" is just asking information about the gamestate. The implication is there, yes, but that doesn't seem too scummy to me.
That judge was right. Asking for public information and your opponent making assumptions about that question is not against the rules per se. It's against the rules if your intent is to mislead the opponent, and definitely can get you penalties, but Konami doesn't want to discourage players from asking for information they have every right to know. That's why intent is such a big thing in policy now. Same goes for verbally counting summons. It's better if you don't do it, but it's not strictly against the rules to keep track of public information verbally like it is to keep track using a die.
I think that at the end of the day, attacking into four open White mana in a format with Settle in it is a risk where you have to accept some of the blame. It's not some unexpected card no one plays that you would never have run into had you been thinking properly, it's one of the main ways you can instantly lose the game in that format. You've got to have it in mind when you make decisions. The angle-shoot is kinda scummy obviously, but it's the kind of thing that if you're a serious competitive player you should be able to sort out of your decision making so you can fixate on only the facts of the game itself.
The token situation is pretty different because it's someone just fundamentally saying they're angle-shooting the opponent. You could argue in LSV's case on the other hand that he was just seriously considering one potential play that he could have made, had the opponent made a different choice. It's cheesy yeah, but there's no technical issue with considering a play you could legally make, so long as you don't directly declare you're making it.
Literally nobody can get blown out by this "angle shooting" if they just ignore their opponent and play to the game state. I'm not sure why you would ever pay attention to any non-game action your opponent does.
I personally find checking a token perfectly fine, what I see as a scummy tactic is counting the damage. Using that scapegoat example, it would be like doing the math of how much life points you'd have left when your opponent hits you with their highest attack monster, "I'm at 3150, Summoned Skull would put me at 650." there is no reason to do that gesture at all regardless of your game state, the player is going out of his way to guide his opponent. In a sports analogy, it's like pretending you have some discomfort in your leg that can hinder it, having to push through the pain, but in reality you are totally fine, just trying to catch your opponent off guard. Turning sports into acting.
Mind games are great when it's two geniuses trying to out wit each other, but leave the acting in Hollywood.
MTG players love to card shark and angle shoot and erm actually. I think the most famous one for me is always going to be The Pithing Needle Borborygmos story. I think Yugioh having a "Player Intent" part of the rules is really important because... yeah you know what I'm trying to do. There what command or signet or charm was it? There's so many stories where it's just like "This is the dumbest thing that a judge has ruled on, both players knew that the player what the player was trying to do."
I think if you do specific plays against your opponent based on their token, clothing, accessories, tattoo, sleeves, dice, whatever else, you’re being naive or dumb. Imagine doing this, losing, and then calling a judge to ban your opponent because you’re salty 🤦🏻♂️
1:45 Historically there have been instances where Magic the Gathering prizing couldn't be done because of regional laws, even for some large events (Grand Prix Hanover 2009 is the big one that comes to mind), though it's certainly been the exception rather than the rule, and players have usually been very frustrated by it.
7:00 the old guy who sneaks into millions of kids rooms at night and gets away with it because he gave them a present would certainly qualify for that list
In MD or other online simulators, people use the toggle on/off for responses to do a very similar thing. Toggle off when you have a Nibiru to save it for the end of the main instead of the 5th summon to get more value. I feel bluffing evenly matched by going into the battle phase is another example of this. I think these attempts to 'prime' (im not sure this is the right term) your opponent are natural in a card game. In the end, the only way to not get duped in instances like this is to just not read into the opponents actions that are not related to the game itself.
That's techincally not bluffing, that's just making the game stop asking you to do something when an effect is legal to be activated
say you have a trap and a nibiru, the game will constantly ask you to activate something even if after you have 5 summon, technically your opponent doesn't know that you have nibiru
It's like having to make back seat gaming to shut up
Well sometimes I do the evenly match thing irl, attempt to go bp so they shotgun everything just to say "k I will continue my main phase" and slap a DRNM or a ttt, depends on the gamestate
@jps_user20 some emulators have a bluff option as well which is useful both to hide whether you do have a response and to make your opponent think you might. I in general put bluff on immediately on nexus since it denies my opponent as much info as possible and missing activation windows is always a worry.
Here i thought this was going to be a reaction video but you barely talked about Pleasant Kenobi at all xD Not only that but it was quite informative as well. Good Job^^
I think my favorite Magic moment like this is someone having a Chameleon Colossus in play and playing Profane Command saying, "You lose 6 life and all my legal targets gain Fear" leading to them winning the game because their opponent didn't realize the Collosus had protection from black and therefore it didn't gain Fear and was able to be blocked.
Did the opponent conceded or he just didn't blocked? Why didn't he confirmed what those legal targets are?
@@roviverdandelarosa2181 I can't speak to the mind of the opponent, but it seems likely that he assumed that meant all creatures on board and that was lethal damage. I believe after the game the opponent asked what he missed and the player who did it explained and they had a laugh.
Wow. Yugioh really is a game for lawyers. Its not just a meme.
The whole angle shooting and people trying to dishonestly scum out wins is a big reason why I’m not comfortable playing in the compedetive scene for most games. I’ve run into a lot of opponents in a lot of different games try cheat or just trick their way into wins they didn’t deserve and as I feel like I can hold my own in a match I’m not a dishonest enough person to keep up with the exceedingly cut throat community’s. Last tournament I played I got harassed and bullied by my opponent until I broke into tears and the judge said “finish the game or forfeit” and had no words for my opponents frankly unacceptable behavior.
Like they litteraly called me the T-slur
@@4Refros that's terrible! if that happened at an OTS (and you haven't already) i would REALLY recommend reporting that incident.
I like bluffing and misrepresenting private information as an aspect of the game personally. It makes for an interesting secondary meta-level of play that can as you said; steal wins through trickery that you otherwise wouldn't have achieved. But that to me isn't something unfair, just an extra expression of skill at the game, and ability to "level" your opponents into misplaying out of caution about a specific scenario.
That said, what you described with the bullying is absolutely not the same thing. That kind of harassment should have no place in any game, doubly so in a sanctioned event.
@@mistriousfrog"i like lying to my opponent"
@@mistriousfrogCouldnt disagree more. In the case of Yugioh, the game just doesnt work unless there's clear and consistent communication between the two players at all times. Winning via "mindgames" or whatever runs directly counter to that extremely necessary feature of the game. Plus it just feels scummy and invites bad blood when the game is supposed to be, ya know, fun?
Gonna jump in quickly on some things about current magic. From my experience magic, if not necessarily the rules then the players, has become a lot better at differentiating mind games and bluffing from sharking and trying to draw a line there. A pretty good example is pithing needle, which (simplifying a bit here) lets you name a card and have its effects not be able to be activated. Originally if you didn’t name the exact right card opponents would ankle shoot by saying “oh you only name borborygmos, not borborygmos enraged which is what I’m playing”. Realising this is incredibly stupid and scummy the rules were changed and now even if you don’t name the exact right card, as long as it is clear which card you mean then that’s what’s stopped. Additionally if your op isn’t sure what card you mean it’s up to them to have it be clarified, not to conveniently assume you’d name something useless. There’s still several thing I’d really want to be specifically addressed in mtg rules (chalice checking is the big one) but in those cases they tend to be heavily frowned upon by the general player base.
Yeah, as someone who follows magic, the line between bluffing and angle shooting seems really, really clear.
Keeping track of the storm count against burn with open mana to bluff Weather the Storm? Bluffing. Hiding your Dryad Arbor in your lands? Angle shooting.
It’s taking the step from misdirection to outright deception.
Chalice checking has a very easy solution: Remember your triggers. It's not like you're allowed to forget you have the Chalice if you play your OWN spells into it either.
I prefer there being no rule against Chalice checking, because as dumb as it is, there's no way to make a rule against it that doesn't either result in innocent players getting punished, or just letting everyone get away with it anyway. The Andres suspension is an indication that this kind of rule DOESN'T work given he had to admit it on camera before any action could be taken, not that we should import rules like that to MTG.
Mind you I play digital, you can't Chalice check in digital. When I played in person I just remembered my triggers or I didn't get to do them. That simple.
@@KunouNoHana if it’s got an easy solution your op shouldn’t be making a play hoping you’ve forgotten said easy solution. Rules documents, contrary to popular belief, are not there to stop someone from making plays. Because they cannot stop cheating. With enough effort and some good excuses you can pretty easily get away with it. Get caught playing a second land in main phase 2? “Oh sorry it was a long turn, forgot I’d already made my land drop”. You get a minor warning, take back the play and proceed. It takes a lot of evidence and effort to actually show a repeated pattern and prove cheating normally. Rules are there to discourage actions by threatening punishment if you are caught. It doesn’t matter if ‘getting caught’ is hard to do, the point is the threat.
So no, yugiohs suspension of Andres is not actually an indication this doesn’t work. It’s an indication it works really well. People are now aware of the threat and punishment, and so are less likely to make the same play. You would have to be far more careful with your language, what you say about the tokens, and moreover now people in the general public are aware that people might use tokens in this way they probably aren’t going to take said tokens into account when it comes to making decisions.
If a similar rule was introduced for chalice checking it would not make it impossible, because yes sometimes the board state gets complicated and you and your op genuinely both missed the chalice. But in the few cases where you can actually show your opponent was chalice checking, potentially you overheard them talking about before the match (has happened to a friend of mine before), or they use the wrong language then they can get penalised for making an action that is unsporting. And it’s that threat which is important. It wouldn’t change anything for normal people, heck might not even prevent it entirely but it does discourage it which helps move the game into a better place for the community. And while we are at it the fact that the official online simulators don’t allow chalice checking kind of indicates it’s not an intended mechanic and should not be considered as such.
@@barbedwire9975 Your friend heard someone talking about Chalice checking (a last ditch desperation style move because it usually just results in nothing but wated mana) before a match?
Wow, hope they remembered their chalice triggers and the opponent's spell got countered.
At which point their opponent did not cheat, and nothing happened. I don't think allowing your friend to call a judge to have them potentially DQd is a better solution than doing what the card says.
Under the OLD trigger rules the player chalice checking would get a warning for missing the trigger and your friend would have gotten a failure to maintain, minor, guess which one of those can get you DQd if you get too many?
I understand that you'd like this rule, even if, hypothetically, it wouldn't catch a single person, because it makes you feel like the behavior is being discouraged, but I don't think it would discourage the behavior. I think it would just make people not talk about it, it's not like anyone OTHER than Andres who's using mismatching tokens, sleeves, or playmats is going to STOP doing those things. In order to work rules have to be enforced, understandable, and consistent. Hell, your version of the rule actually penalizes anyone who tells their opponent after a match "Hey, you missed a trigger, gotta work on that".
I don't want to go back to "Did Kibler know if Angel of Despair was a may trigger or mandatory because if he did know it was mandatory he cheated (and his opponent failed to maintain game state) by not pointing out his opponent missed it, but if he thought it was a may trigger then he was right not to say anything" because frankly, that rules scenario SUCKS so much worse than Chalice checking.
@@KunouNoHana
1. Chalice checking is not always last ditch and this was being spoken by someone saying they were going to be chalice checking by dashing in ragavan against chalice on one. They were clearly intending to use the ‘technical legality’ of the play to gain an advantage. They were not being chalice checked, they were chalice checking.
2. I’m not saying go back to the old rules, I agree it shouldn’t be up to the opponent to remember all your triggers. The key part of chalice checking is that you do remember the trigger and hope your opponent doesn’t. You are intending to hopefully gain an advantage in the scenario your opponent stuffs up. The intent is the important part and like in yugioh that’s what would be punished. Your making a play where the only possible benefit comes from your opponent screwing up, which is not an intended part of the game and not even bluffing because actual chalice checking involves no hidden information or anything.
3. It does discourage people, it’s the whole reason why yugiohs rules work. And if it’s in the rules documents people will say “hey, chalice checking is not allowed, don’t do it”. That’s how rules work. Robbery doesn’t suddenly become normalised because people “don’t talk about it” because it’s illegal.
4. I haven’t ever actually laid out the exact wording of the ruling at any part, but given that I’m fully aware both people can miss a trigger and that that’s fine no you wouldn’t be punished for reminding your opponent to remember their triggers. In fact even if you had chalice checked you wouldn’t be punished unless you specified “hey remember your chalice triggers”. If your just saying any triggers well then that could be anything. For example not reminding your opponent of ledger shredder triggers from their own spells wouldn’t be included here because you the player hasn’t done anything. And so saying “hey remember you triggers” doesn’t, you know, mean your telling your opponent “hey I purposefully did a thing that would only benefit me if you forget your triggers”.
Ah, Pleasant kenobi. Dude can either be the most ball knowing magic player or the most annoying, so basically the most yugituber-like content creator MtG has to offer.
I'm not sure if the token debacle is mentioned in this video but the only reason the guy got banned for bluffing with tokens is because he admitted to using the specific token he chose to bluff with, if the guy literally just kept his mouth shut then nothing would have happened. Someone could literally say that they held all their cards in their left hand to bluff their opponent and even though that is stupid and ridiculous they would still get banned. It's hard to feel bad for someone who literally admitted to cheating when they didn't have to lmao.
Yeah... Joseph literally says as much in the video. Hence the whole thing about intent.
Using Taia tokens in a non-SwoSwo deck is perfectly legal lmao
Also what?? No they wouldn not get banned for holding their cards in their left hand.
@@JakeFish5058 Wouldn't they? Imagine they do a deck profile and say "yeah, I used my left hand the whole match, I was trying to cheat and trick my opponent". The way they tried to cheat it's ridiculous, but even then they admitted they had the intent.
@@kuroneko687 They need to cheat (misrepresent the gamestate in this case) intentionally, not just have the intent to cheat.
If that were the case, saying "I really wanted to [cheat] but I didn't because it's against the rules" would be a bannable offense lol
@@JakeFish5058It... is a bannable offense lmao. The intention to cheat IS bannable
You need to be very clear that you're joking if you want to say something like that
@@nh6574JOKINGLY
The difference between the mirror force/scapegoat scenario is that in magic LSV was able to activate both, so like you mentioned, he missrepresented his intentions. In the yugioh scenario, there was no way to activate scapegoats, so that would be actively missrepresenting the gamestate. It would be different if he already had mirrorforce set and he THEN set the scapegoats.
To be fair, you are allowed to misrepresent hidden information in Magic, you just can't directly lie about free or derived information. I can leave up two islands to pretend I have a counterspell and conspicuously take a moment or two to "Think" whenever my opponent casts a spell, and as long as it doesn't veer into obvious slow play it's generally accepted that people can do that. I can't however, directly lie to you about what cards I've played that turn, or the order face down creatures entered the battlefield, or even just NOT tell you whether I have the cities blessing (this is considered player status information, like your life total, and must be communicated every time it changes, it's just irrelevant to most formats so nobody does unless they're playing cards that care).
We give Konami a lot of shit, because they deserve it. That said, one of the best things they’ve probably ever done for the longevity of the game was to curb this kind of behavior.
I actually think the opposite. Leveling your opponent by bluffing about private information makes for an interesting second layer to games. Obviously you should never misrepresent any publically known information because that is absolutely outright cheating. Even showing a swordsoul extra deck monster face up on your deck I think is sketchy and probably rightfully illegal because that is information your opponent isn't supposed to have access to. But if you sit down and tell them you have a swordsoul deck, or start counting summons audibly even without nibiru, that is just an interesting mind game and skill expression rather than anything scummy. Obviously it is illegal under current rule sets so you shouldn't, but I don;t think they should be.
@@mistriousfrog"An interesting mindgame is when I lie to my opponent"
@@mistriousfrogif you want mindgames play poker
It seems more like they are pandering to socially awkward players that can't handle the fact theyve been played in a game where you have incomplete information.
@@geiseric222literally every other private information game allows bluffing. Because they assume players are socially skilled enough to handle human interaction.
But yugioh is a Japanese game at heart so I guess it has to pander to its current humanity crisis...
Is it illegal to proceed to battle phase even if you don't have an Evenly Matched? I've used that tactic a couple of times to force out things like Welcome Labrynth and IP.
Not even a little bit
No, thats a game mechanic, you just can't go
"Alright go to battlephase so i can evenly match you"
Its okay mbt. We knew lsv was a cryptobro the second he shelled out for f&b with channel fireball. We still got Reid Duke.
Also, LSV used to bluff KCI without knowing the deck
A card store owner playing the new hot card game? What a crypto bro! 🤡
@@Luckingsworth "new and hot" lmao
I love highly technical videos like this. Thanks for scratching that itch!
I think i would definitely rule against it because the grab the token, he has no reason to do that, the land literally tells you everything about the token, and he has even less reason to do it before attackers have been declared. I dont think he misrepresented his decision makong i think he misrepresented his actions. Sure he could have made the token but it’s clear he only grabs to card to try and influence his opponent.
For a hypothetical, say you have a nibiru in hand. Your playing against a deck that has a 4 summon line, that you know you can otk through with your current hand while you couldnt otk through the nib token for some reason, so you start counting summons to truthfully indicate you have nibiru, but only do so to manipulate them to your favour. You technically havent misrepresented the game state but its the exact same actions for the exact same reasons as counting if you didnt have it.
6:07 Another significant disconnect I see here is that even in the YGO competitive event rules it indicates that cheating "[includes]... intentionally misrepresenting gamestate, rules, or tournament policies". I could see an argument for "lying about a facedown card is misrepresenting gamestate" (even though I don't agree with it), but I don't see how "having access to some tokens in your deck box" says *anything at all* about the GAMESTATE.
LSV is no longer a crypoguy I believe, though unsure if that's because he no longer believes in it or if it's just because he got burned by it.
He also cheated on his pregnant wife. Never idolize these people. Especially card game players cause like MBT said most of the old pros are were pros because of things outside the game.
@@StefanDillandMarcRIPI realize he’s kind of sleazy, but having met the guy, I kinda like him. He’s a nice enough guy, which isn’t always the case in the pro TCG scene.
@@StefanDillandMarcRIPYou have zero idea what happened. As it turns out their relationship is one of a demographic that is much more likely for the wife to leave the husband (women with PhD husband with much less formal education).
@@StefanDillandMarcRIP i mean, yeah, the whole thing is these are just entertainers or personalities and your like or dislike of them should probably start and end at that. While researching this LSV shit there is the same obsessed guy on the freemagic subreddit who appears on every single thread over multiple years discussing it. I don't give a shit what he did unless its somewhere on par with committing genocide or sexually assaulting minors. I will never have the opportunity to be his friend. No one REALLY knows what happened. I will watch his daily cube videos and thats about it.
2:00 the actual reason that ygo doesn't do cash prizes has to do with Japanese laws about monetary rewards and basically the tldr is that its illegal to use the admission fee from a tournament to garnish the prize pool, so it has to come entirely from a third party sponsor (as long as the amount is declared before calling out for entries). Also until "recently" (2018) tournaments were viewed as gambling because "professional gaming" was literally not a legally recognized occupation in Japan. You were considered just a gambler by law I guess.
So basically its because nobody wants to pay out of their own pocket to finance an entire tournament, so rewards for tournaments are almost always Things rather than Cash.
This *has* started to change as of late, but odds are the ygo scene is still just lagging behind of like, Capcom etc.
E: OH NOOO HE'S A CRYPTO GUY NOW?? NOOOOOO