Fluffy’s Favorites

Quality article. Very nice. haha

Also, I don't know what has been in your favorites thing before (or if this is the first) so I'm gonna go with 'favorite multicolored card for each color pair, and, maybe, why.

Favorite artwork or, alternatively, Least favorite artwork (the best of the worst)

Those are some good suggestions. The artwork one could be pretty funny, especially with some of the art from MtG's past is pretty horrendous.

Wow, that made no sense.

Revision: The artwork one could be pretty funny, especially with some of the art from MtG's past being as horrendous as it is.

Ha, something like this happened at my last FNM. It was Esper vs BUG, game two. BUG won the first game, but Esper was going to win with his AEtherling . So as a last ditch effort, BUG Abrupt Decay s it. So Esper conceded because he would lose next turn. But BUG is like "hey, you won actually. I was just bluffing." But Esper called a judge, because he decided that it was his own fault for conceding, so if he technically lost he would take the loss. Of course, that was a no, and I don't even know who won the third game, but still, it was pretty funny.

@ Unforgivn_II That's hilarious. Victory via attempting to cast a spell on an illegal target.

This is not really cheating... but I was once at a tournament where 2 twin brothers were playing each other, boros vs. golgari. After 3 games, boros won, but golgari probably had the stronger deck. Golgari accused boros of cheating, but without any specific evidence of any play. Golgari storms out of the room while boros sulks in a corner. Pretty dramatic at the time, but now hilarious.

Another time, someone plays a Boros Guildgate untapped then continues playing. Opponent catches it, but boros's excuses were both "no, I played that last turn" (even thought the boardstate says that is impossible)," and "Sorry, I normally play with shocks, so I didn't know". Dude- B.S.!

I watched someone play a Godless Shrine tapped and then scry, pointed it out to him and he was like "oh crap! I thought it was a Temple of Silence , looks almost the same." His opponent and he decided that they would take care of it by putting on the bottom after revealing it to all players. It makes me happy when players can figure out a compromise so that they can keep playing.

How could you not include Trey Van Cleave?!

The photographer caught him cheating!

I was highly considering that one. I should've had an honorable mentions section, but I picked my favorite five and rolled with it.

@flyguy

sounds like all that nonsense came from two guys at one LGS, but where I'm getting at is, its crazy how many different iterations of the same game end up occuring all over the world where a small group of players, even just two or three people, have to call all the rules and judge moments in their play group and some crazy interpretations can come from these isolated play groups, including rules being applied wrong and what not. It's not surprising to expect some form of rules infraction at any level of play, but these strait up cheating video's you posted, like the first one, thats just scary to think there are players out there who knowingly and purposefully cheat to their advantage, right in front of other players and even camera's.

I've only come across cheating twice, as it turns out, it was the same player two seperate times.

First time the guy cheated wasnt too big a deal, although at the time it was just lack of knowledge and him exploiting that, banking on me not calling a judge and by extension him getting away with it. anyways, here's the deets, at the avacyn restored pre release limited event, Timberland Guide he played one, it got a counter, then he played a second Timberland Guide and he claimed both get a +1 counter, now obviously they only trigger themselves and not eachother, He confused me into thinking he was right, and he was so confident I didnt bother to call judge, after the event I went home and looked up the cards in question and realised he purposefully made an illegal play to gain an advantage.

The next time I saw this player was at a different card shop, the previous one shut down due to economy, indian face one tear, and wouldnt you know it, we got paired, so I am running my good stuff bant brew from right before innistrad rotated, and it ran Restoration Angel and Thragtusk everybodies favorite midrange combo from that season.

Leave it to this cheater D-bag to have a new bag of tricks to hose the metta, I hadnt seen this guy since our last encounter, and at the time I was like %85 sure it was the cheater from before but I didnt say anything. He's piloting MBC from that era and he runs Mutilate .

We should all know how and when state based actions work right? I play thrag, next turn opponent responds with Mutilate He claims that all creatures get -x/-x til end of turn, so when my thrag dies and my 3/3 beast token hit the field he claimed that it would die too. That is false. Yet like last time, the way he composed himself, and his confidence, was enough to convince me at the time, I didn't call judge, and he won the match.

Directly after this, I checked with some other players and even a judge and they confirmed for me that the beast token would not die due to state based actions.

I was so heated at the moment, the second I had tangible proof this guy was cheating I walked over to him, in the middle of his game and just blurted out in front of everyone why he was wrong from the last game, almost as if to say, Don't try cheating here again, cuz I'll call you on that sh*t.

granted, I can't prove the matches would have ended differently had he not gotten away with his purposefully crafted illegal plays, but at the same time, these seemingly common play mistakes, were all things that benefitted him and his position on the board, whether thats just selective learning, he hears half of how a card works and assumes it does what he wants, or its all completely pre meditated and he is gigantic butt for trying to get away with cheating, Something I see no value in, if you have to cheat to win then why are you investing money in the hobby in the first place?

o ya, nice article fluffybunnypants

Behgz That not necessarily cheating per say, it's a fine line. Cheating as actually defined by the rules must be proven to have intent, where as it just sounds like he doesn't know the cards well enough and/or is making an interruption that favor himself. Let's face it, players always have a vested interest in an interaction going their way. Either way, good lesson to always call a judge over whenever a card is in dispute.

For instance, last modern FNM I had someone play Engineered Explosives for 1 against my Slippery Bogle with a Spider Umbra on it. I was pretty certain there was a way to stack it to save my Slippery Boggle!, but we both wanted the judge there to be sure - no harm no foul.

I played 100 Cheatyface at once one time.

I won.

Excellent article fluffybunnypants. Reminds me of a few matches I've had against a particular player at FNM. This guy just can't seem to stop himself from "accidentally" drawing 8 cards, marking less damage than he actually took, putting guildgates or scrylands out untapped, and even milling less than 10 when Jace, Memory Adept was used against him. At first I let it slide because it appeared he was making honest mistakes. Now I've taken to watching his every step and calling him on each "mistake". I've had discussions with other players who indicate they also caught him making mistakes. What makes it worse is this guy has racked up a large of store credit with top-5 placements!

I one time cheated due to lack of attention to detail.

It was the Future Sight Pre-release and I was running a red black deck with Scourge of Kher Ridges and 4 Augur of Skulls .

Well I read augur of skulls wrong (this was before I used the internet to know every card before a set came out) and used its sacrificing ability pretty much whenever I felt like. I ended up top-8 with not one single person calling me on it.

Afterwards my buddy and I realized how the card actually read and I personally apologized to the players I had played asked if they wanted to pack war with the packs I won it was a lot of fun and great way to clear my conscience :)

One thing I've gotten used to is to bring my tablet along whenever I play. Not just for managing tokens, counters etc, but primarily because I want to have internet access to look up Oracle texts and/or rules discussions.

One reason for that is that one of the players in my group regularly claims that the Oracle text says this or that (what it usually doesn't), and is extremely bold about it, not even considering the mere possibility of being mistaken. First I thought he's trying to cheat, but the truth is more probably that he really is that ignorant. I, who played less than a year at the time, had to teach that player with his ten-years experience about activating effects between first strike damage step and normal damage step along with the existence of those steps, of course with evidence because he believes nobody short of a level 27 judge. Oh, wait, I'm getting carried away here...

The point I'm trying to make is that not everyone that looks like he's cheating really is, some people just don't understand everything and are too proud to admit it, even to themselves. I prepare against cheaters and stupids alike, not bothering anybody with any kind of judgement about the intention of a player, especially not myself.

I play a ton of casual magic at a coffee shop in my area and this one kid played a Hellion Crucible and put 10 counters on it and sacced it (in a few turns' time.) He decided he was going to try to put 5 tokens on the battlefield and I explained that it didn't say, "Remove X counters, for every 2 removed this way put a token onto the battlefield," so it would not work like that. He got really mad and looked it up, then got angrier. I Doom Blade the token and swing him to death.

So he decides in his anger that he's going to change decks for game 2 of the two out of three. He plays Grindstone and says, "I hope you have some artifacts in there, because if not I'll mill right through your deck in one turn! This card is so good!" and I explained that land are colorless. Enrage 'd, he looked it up and scooped.

Now he tends to make semi-decent, although very-much cookie-cutter decks and then stacks. He doesn't offer for cuts and generally gets mad if you ask him to cut his deck.

To this day, if something happens in the presence of myself and my friends that we can't explain or seems very confusing, one of us unfailingly says ".... Two Explores".

I say it all the time in the form of a question whenever someone plays Explore and announces it.

thanks for the article man :P

I once had a guy "drop" his deck on the floor (he just knocked it over deliberately) after I passed the turn. He spent a while picking it up and appeared to be concentrating on something. When he put his deck back on the table, he very dramatically said "please be a Mountain " over and over in a conspicuous way, before drawing a card and saying "yes!" in fake surprise. Joke was on him though as I realised before he drew that he needed 2 more mana for the Utvara Hellkite I knew he had in hand, so I didn't bother cutting. He then realised his mistake before passing the turn and allowing me to swing for lethal.

The moral of the story? If you're going to cheat, at least be clever enough to cheat in a way that benefits you at least a little bit.

Or, you know, cheaters never win and what not.

it's like these people are repeating the same mantra over and over in their heads: "I had fun once... It was awful..."

Why helps me is that I know how to bottom deal and otherwise manipluate cards, I can watch someone shuffle and know if thy are doing it. I usually don't cut in FNM events unless I notice someone being "careful" while shuffling.

I wish you had explained the top two better. As a newer player, I had to search to even see what the deal was on the top video, and on the second one I have no idea what's going on.

ProsBloom was one of the very first dedicated combo decks. It won by generating enough mana to draw your whole deck with Prosperity using Squandered Resources and Natural Balance . You then ditched your whole hand (comprised of your deck) to Cadaverous Bloom to Drain Life for a dumb amount of damage.

He kept a prime component in his lap at a GP and got caught.

That was an awesome explanation, thanks!!!!!!