Scumbag or Genius: When Tokens Get You In Trouble

Tokens, innocent little tokens. Nothing can go wrong, right?
Don't forget to use the code PLEASANTKENOBI when you can checkout Warhammer 40k: Warpforge here: warpforge.page...
#mtg #magicthegathering #yugioh

[@joekeny]

One of my favorite stories like this is some guy played a pithing needle and their opponent had 3 polluted deltas in play and the guy with the needle called for a judge and asked if he could name griselbrand with the needle, judge said yes, he plays the Needle and after his opponent lets it resolve he names polluted delta.

[@unraveki]

What a Chad

[@richardpapierski925]

Slight correction. He asked if he could name Dark confidant with needle, but the rest is gold.

[@RobertEspinosa-c8f]

One of my favorite pithing needle moments was back when gitaxian probe was legal in modern. It was an MTGO screenshot with probe in the opponent’s graveyard on T1, the player’s hand with 3 misty rainforests with no other lands, and a pithing needle on the other side naming misty rainforest.

[@dougfile6644]

Haha! That Probe & Needle story is brutal 😁

[@ivanorozco2155]

To build upon what was said about naming dark confidant, he specifically asked if he could name the card that pithing needle was useless against so that his opponent thought he didnt knew what he was doing

[@FineOtter]

I feel like one of the problems with calling what LSV and this yugioh player did cheating or even unsporting is that it only works because your opponent is actively trying to gain information outside of what is available based on the rules of the game which is arguably the same thing.

[@HaxDotCombo]

Konami doesn't like outside-gams bluffs at all, it's weird. You're explicitly not allowed to do a verbal bluff.

[@RBGolbat]

So are you saying the ideal way to play is Arena where we can’t see the opponents reaction to things?

[@justinfriedman2039]

​@RBGolbat I think what he's trying to say is that both players should be paying attention to this type of stuff because it IS in person and does not exist in a vacuum like arena. So if you're a purely technical player with no poker skills, then arena may be best for you, but part of the charm of card games is sitting across foem your opponent and playing rhe mind games. You can still play mind games on arena (think of a blue player having 2 mana open and you don't know what's in their hand).

[@justthedecoy4687]

If I have a way to make a token on board I'm going to let my opponent think that I'm going to do that until he attacks I can play my deflecting palm

[@kylegonewild]

Metagaming at the table essentially. Not really "cheating" so much as breaking the spirit of the competition (to some).

[@Cheerwine091]

I’d be interested in a video about Chalice Checking (when you cast into a chalice of the void, knowing your spell should get countered by it, but not mentioning that trigger to see if your opponent forgets it), and how that practice compares to normal bluffs.

[@ElliotButch23]

He actually already has one. kzbin.info/www/bejne/maaYmJ95j9uFhLcsi=uHWoVqtsvCBUEioq

[@PleasantKenobi]

Already did one, with some added StoryTime about one of my worst MTG opponents ever.

[@C4PT41NSL1NKY]

@@PleasantKenobi As an asthmatic that story especially pissed me off

[@russellhumphrey5209]

I like the idea of bluffs, but I consider Chalice checking straight cheating and it should always result in some sort of penalty, or an official warning. To me there is a difference between a bluff and sharking, and make the game both way less fun to play but also to watch. I have similar views about diving in soccer and its probably the only reason Im not a huge fan of the sport, its so fun and then a stupid dive and im no longer interested

[@UsableObject]

​@russellhumphrey5209 but casting something into a chalice and wanting it to be countered is a legal play. Chalice doesn't say 'you can't cast spells with cmc x' and if someone wanted to cast a bunch of 1 drops into chalice and have them countered that's up to them and I don't see how you could prove it otherwise

[@bishop_breloom]

To explain the switch off to the side: Due to Yugioh not having cash prizing winners of major tournaments like a YCS are given physical goods in the form of a prize card that represents the events season, a playmat with the cards art, a deck box, and a Nintendo Switch… for some reason.

[@alicepbg2042]

cheaper than ps5?

[@CaptainMarvel4Ever]

Some people think Konami has a deal with Nintendo, but now their giving away PS5s and gaming PCs, so IDK.

[@r3zaful]

​@@alicepbg2042you say like Konami never given ps5.

[@alicepbg2042]

@@r3zaful that is a lot rarer.

[@FNigslol]

It's a random stores tournament not a ycs or a regional lmfao youre dumb

[@danielllau8949]

I really thought you were going to bring up that legacy tournament where LSV won by doing some lines of play that had their opponents concede thinking he had a tendrils of agony in the sideboard. He was supposed to have it but messed up and forgot it, so he had to buff the whole tournament.

[@PleasantKenobi]

I could make a whole different video on that one.

[@SuperbFairy]

there's nothing anyone could really say in regards to that though, in each of the games LSV demonstrated that he had the deterministic combo set so upon confirming that opponents conceded to not waste time, as a lot of professionals would do. While it's amusing that he didn't have the card in his sideboard to Wish for in game, he didn't deceive his opponents. Also he didn't forget to bring the card, you have to submit your decklist in advance, he made an error with the decklist and they wouldn't allow him to correct it so he couldn't legally put the right card in his sideboard after that

[@BasketChase98]

Reminds me of the guy who kept calling a judge over bc he said he didn’t have any tokens and the judge would give him a handful of coins to use. Whenever the judge would leave he’d look at his opponent, pull like a fistful of quarters out of his pocket and say “I don’t actually need the tokens, I’ve made $14 so far today.”

[@StevenTLawson]

Based

[@SketchingHands]

Totally remember that! 😂

[@diamonddudeygo]

One of the main differences being that Yu-Gi-Oh has very elaborate turn 1 setups that can be customized to beat what your opponent is doing exactly. If you know your opponent is on Tearlaments before your match starts, you can focus on making Abyss Dweller turn 1, a card that essentially says "you win the game" in the matchup. We also have arguably more turn 1 card selection and tutoring than Legacy in smaller decks, so while the decision making doesn't impact mulligan decisions, it very much impacts Pot of Prosperity decisions. In the context of the format that happened in, there were three major decks around (Branded Despia, Floowandereeze and Swordsoul). He was on Branded Despia. On the Floowandereeze matchup the token stuff doesn't matter because they're the Moon Stompy of the format and Chalice on 1 is effective against everything but Chalice on 1 decks (the mirror) But in the Swordsoul matchup, there is one decision that was important. Against the mirror, if you got wyrm-locked early, you want to end on Qixing Longyuan, while against Despia you wanted to end on Chengying because they can play through Qixing way easier. So by feigning he was on Swordsoul, he was getting a definite advantage when he lost the die roll against Swordsoul. Obviously this is very arguable, but not completely negligible.

[@bostycraiova]

Slightly unrelated, but how is it ok to have such matchup dependent plays that completely obliterate certain strategies? In this situation, if you just walk around the tournament room and see what the others are playing, do you just gain a massive advantage?

[@Josephhof]

@@bostycraiovayes, its relevant in top cuts where everyone knows what everyone is playing you can choose if you go second Vs certain matchups or leave different cards up its a thing.

[@bennettpalmer1741]

I think the only reason he was "gaining an advantage" is simply because his opponents were easily fooled. If you assume that your opponent is telegraphing their deck beforehand, and make a bad play because of it, that's your own fault. Why would you trust your opponent to give you information that they don't need to, especially when it makes such a major difference? I have to imagine all the real swordsoul players take basic precautions so that their opponents don't see their tokens before the match begins.

[@DuncanHarbison]

@@bostycraiova Generally its fine because it's a trade-off that powerful strategies have to deal with. You can play a really powerful deck but in game 2 and 3 your opponent's hate card is basically their companion so you guaranteed have to deal with it, and in game 1 if you don't know what your opponent is playing you would make the board based on what's best against the largest percentage of the field. And sometimes decks will capitalise off of that, if my opponent's are all making boards that can negate lots of monster effects I can just play a deck full of spells. If your opponent knows what you're playing then it's a bit of a problem but the situations that happens are either locals or at top cut, and there aren't many players who realistically deck build with making it from top 32 to the finals in mind, most people just have enough to worry about getting through swiss to top 32.

[@randomprotag9329]

@@bennettpalmer1741 I would also assume the custom swordsoul tokens would be used at locals and not actual events.

[@SoopaPop]

I have a gameplay habit that my opponents always misread: whenever I draw a cantrip, I have a tendency to get overly excited. (nothing better than drawing even more cards) but my opponents usually mistake this for drawing a bomb. ive gotten comments from other players like "great draw, eh" and then i realize they have no clue and say "uh, yeah"

[@digitalstatictv]

As a.. well former competitive Yugioh player, the Infect comparison was spot on. In Yugioh, if Andres was going first, he'd either automatically reveal what deck he was playing, or if he's going 2nd, the deck he's bluffing (Swordsoul) is infamously "fair" and does everything pretty well and nothing overwhelming, so youre unlikely to steer too far from your regular combo line. UNIRONICALLY, some of the most interesting Yugioh games are when the first turn player sets up an unbreakable board and the turn 2 player scoops before getting a turn, so then the turn 1 player has no idea what he's siding against. But that's not allowed in feature matches :/ and gives you WAY more concealment than the stupid token did

[@GG_Nowa]

The format this was In was branded, floo, swoso format. Being matched Vs swoso going second would mean your opponent makes quixing longyaun anticipating the mirror which in the mirror is optimally better but against branded despia is way worse than the the normal chixiao board go for that against the other two decks that aren't the mirror are way more impactful.

[@brofst]

Wait that's not allowed? What? In Magic scooping before you play a spell or even in response to opponent casting a "look at your hand" spell are totally valid and legitimate tactics to deny information for G2

[@digitalstatictv]

@@brofst Haha, it isn't allowed in feature matches on stream

[@lostalone9320]

Oh god, really? It's considered cheating to concede a game you are losing?

[@digitalstatictv]

@@lostalone9320 Just on feature matches on stream :)

[@EisenKreutzer]

I did this on Arena, to great succes a few years ago, hovering my mouse over my Castle Ardenvale as if I was planning to create a token, and then blowing them out with Settle once they attacked. The opponent can see the cards you hover your mouse over highlighted on their end, making it the Arena equivalent of this bluff.

[@kirkprospector4958]

Meanwhile I’m on my end making their transformers card sleeves make noise for fun.

[@ClassicDura]

Hi YGO player here. 1. The Switch was there because it's one of the prizes you get for winning the event. 2. The reason this bluff was deemed suspension worthy is because his intention was to reveal private information, which in YGO is against the rules. That includes any private information, including what you are or aren't playing. Lying about it included as well. Telling your opponent what deck you play, showing your cards, etc. while you're paired up with someone for a match is deemed illegal. What he did was not illegal in the sense of "Oh he used a token of an archetype" because a lot of players use tokens from different archetypes because not everything that can make a token, has an official token release (wild from a MTG perspective). If he didn't publicly state "I did this make my opponent think I was playing a specific strategy so they would optimize their plays around it" is what got him in trouble, because he publicly admitted to cheating.

[@luminous3558]

Also there is no official swordsoul token which means he had to get a proxy made for this trick.

[@danielklein5829]

Yeah I don't think this makes the Yu-Gi-Oh! attitude towards bluffing legitimate. Having played a lot of both, making your opponent think "he's on swordsoul" is not something which ought to generate a ban. Just removes an aspect of card games which ought to enhance them. It just does not make sense to rule this as cheating.

[@fatpad00]

I think what makes it not scummy is had LSVs opponent not attacked he would have made the token. It was a play line that had a legitimate likelygood to be correct

[@LibertyMonk]

I disagree. Just because it was a valid option doesn't mean he wasn't coaxing his opponent into overextending into his board wipe. Making the token was a threat, "if you don't, I'll just chump or build up value". As is stated in a different clip, the only reason Settle was in his deck was because of how Team United Constructed deck building works, that single copy of Settle is supposed to be in the back of the opponents' minds when playing anyone on the team, even though it'll "never" get played, since it's just one copy among several sets of 75. Now LSV is trying to put that ghost out of the mind of his opponent, so he can get him with it. If it isn't scummy, it's not because his feint was an actual threat if the opponent ignores it to look for the knockout. That makes it *worse* not better. To my sensibilities, it's not scummy because 1: hand bluffs (combat tricks, etc) are a core part of the game, and 2: he didn't fail to maintain or clearly communicate the actual state of free or derived information on the game, only softly suggesting hidden/private information is probably in the opponent's favor.

[@AnarchyintheUK1]

A friend of mine at the time was playing in a locals and got matched up in a mirror match. I don't remember the exact deck he was playing (I wanna say Masterpiece), but the first game goes to him and in his sideboard is Cranial Extraction. In the other guys sideboard, he assumed, also had Cranial Extraction. So my friend makes a show of going through his sideboard, moving cards in and out, making sure the counts are good. They play, the other guy goes first. Goes to turn four, the guy slams down his Cranial and names my friend's Cranial. My friend had the widest smile, "I don't have any. Check for yourself." He made all of us think he had side boarded it in on the sheer bluff of trying to get this man to waste his turn four. It was wild.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

There's a friend I have who always holds up 7 mana whenever he's in blue to threaten to rift your board if you attack into him. Funny thing there is, though, I ALWAYS attack into him when he does specifically to bait it out, especially if I have my own wrath effect in hand. Everyone else gets their stuff bounced when that works, and he gets his board destroyed.

[@agentkhaine2204]

Stealing this trick because I love it.

[@ChaosArmoury]

I don't even consider what LSV did here to be a bluff. Settle and Adanto were both valid plays for him to think through and making a token might have been better than Settle depending on the attacks. You can also see Jeremy moving potential blockers before declaring attackers to plan what he wanted to do. Both of them were working with hypothetical game states.

[@LibertyMonk]

Literally the only reason Settle was in his list was because it was an open decklist tournament, so having a single copy forced opponents to have to think about it. This is a bluff, he's trying to get the opponent to not think about the odds that single copy of Settle amongst several decks happens to be in his hand, and instead focus on the ability he can see on board. Yes, Adanto is a valid option if he plays cautiously, and a motivator for him to swing extra aggressively. But actively reinforcing "this is what I want to do" when you're not committed to it is a feint or a bluff.

[@Damn_Cat]

Theres an additonal piece of information here that is missing: the swordsoul token isnt an official token. Its a custom-made game piece used to represent the token that is made specifically by swordsoul of mo ye. In addition to this, yugioh tokens are encouraged to be used to represent any token that can be made in the game. Because there is no official token card for the swordsoul token, and this token was hand-crafted to represent the swordsoul token, this constitutes an intentional, pre-game signal to the opponent that the player is running swordsoul, which falters at specific combo chokepoints that other decks don't.

[@randomprotag9329]

at that point its the opponents fault. if a player makes assumptions from out of game information and they were wrong about it, its there fault due to the fact that them having a token does not confirm the deck as it could be for anouther deck or specific card, looking too much into info that says little deserves the lost.

[@Damn_Cat]

@@randomprotag9329 I don't see it that way. To me, it's like giving someone a leading question, where the intent is to direct someone towards an answer that you expect, like a self-determining prophecy. The opponent wasn't looking for a specific piece of information out of game, but it's conveniently sitting right in the middle of the table where the field centre is, or just off to the side of the game mat, clearly in view. And if we spin the argument around the other way: is it one player's fault for *not* trying to mislead the other before entering a game state?

[@zsewqaspider]

@@Damn_Cat It's still on the person who got blindsided, they were the one who decided to act on metagamed information by assuming that it was anything more than a token the guy liked the art of.

[@najawin8348]

@@randomprotag9329 "its there fault due to the fact that them having a token does not confirm the deck as it could be for anouther deck or specific card" Swordsoul tokens are _mechanically unique_ in yugioh. They're the only tokens that have the specific creature type "tuner". This creature type is specifically used for one of yugioh's summoning mechanics. Any other token requires you to have a non-token tuner to use this summoning method. The person had a _custom made game piece for a deck that behaved in a mechanically unique way_ and then used it just as a normal token. Is this enough to disqualify him? I dunno, probably not. But it's not like someone here is just reading into things too much. It's reasonable to interpret mechanically unique things in a certain way, especially if they have to be custom made.

[@randomprotag9329]

@@Damn_Cat they were using outside infomation, they shouldn't have factored in said outside information to begin with. actively trying to use the pregame for extra infomation should be able to have consequences.

[@pargustavsson712]

Yugioh judge (and occasional Head Judge) here. One major thing about the swordsoul token: that token doesnt exist as printed, so Torres had a custom made token that he used to missrepresent the gamestate. Which in itself speaks towards the possibility of intent to misslead the opponent. As for missrepresent the gamestate, anything from when the players sit down can be included. Claim that you are playing a different deck? Missrepresenting the gamestate. Count number summons out loud? Missrepresenting the gamestate. Take out a token from deckbox during gameplay when no effect have been used that summons tokens? Missrepresenting the gamestate. Basically any action taken by a player that isnt part of the actual gameplay that is made in any way to try and influence your opponents decision making can be considered missrepresenting the gamestate if a judge determines it was done with intent. Part of this strictness is that players once upon a time took inspiration from magic and tried to pull off a lot of questionable stuff, which over time made the policy stricter and stricter on these kinds of behaviour.

[@pedrohdalla]

I used to play a single mountain in my monoblack aggro deck and everytime that came out, my opponents were always scared of lightning bolt which led them making misplays and boarding Hydroblasts LOL

[@moominfin]

The control player with red sleeves and red shirt is a perfect analogue to the YGO situation. Only, in MTG the jig is usually up rather quickly, so you can at most trip up their mulligan and a single turn if they're going first, where it's not unlikely that they're going to play the same land and pass either way. Like, playing my MTGA angel tribal deck, I'm going to play crystal grotto and pass no matter deck you're playing what because that's just what my deck does, and then when you play a blue land I can ignore the red sleeves. In YGO, your first turn usually involves using most or all of the cards in your hand and making an "endboard" setup of several monsters/spells/traps, possibly with some cards in hand that can be played from the hand as disruption, while the opponent plays disruption from their hand (on your turn). Thus, making your opponent think you're playing a different deck for just a single turn can be very impactful, as it can influence the player going first to choose different cards for their endboard, and the player going second to use their disruption differently on their opponent's turn. For example, if you're going second against Branded, your primary goal is to disrupt Branded Fusion on their first turn, but if you thought you were playing against a different deck, you might use the disruption early and so not have it available for Branded Fusion. Plus, in modern YGO if you're going second it might take up to 15 minutes until you play a card that actually reveals what deck you're playing, so it's definitely not just a pre-game bluff. A common trick in the MTGA equivalent, Master Duel, is to use Mikanko sleeves and avatar to try to make your opponent think you're playing Mikanko, because some players will just pass against it without summoning any monsters (Mikanko wants the opponent to have monsters on board for their strategy, so the idea is to simply not have any).

[@TheExFloridaMan]

Most yugioh players think Andres Shouldnt have been banned, i among them. He def shouldnt have said why he had the Taia Token but regardless he wasnt doing anything that gave him a measurable advantage. Playing that format, it isnt even that big of an advantage unless he scoops game 1 without playing and the opponent sides for that matchup thats completely on the opponent. I also dont think LSVs is cheating considering he never tapped for mana.

[@BegravelseinBrussels]

To be fair, as LSV notes, while it was a bit of showmanship, Dezani was basically priced in to attacking anyway.

[@kirkprospector4958]

Yeah attacking was the play regardless I think

[@lostalone9320]

The Settle is a one of, IIRC, so its unlikely that LSV has it. And if he does there is no real way to play around it, Dezani will get blown out at some point.

[@MAlanThomasII]

The copy of Dualist #5 I have sitting on the shelf right here-released between Fourth Edition and Ice Age-has an article on bluffing in Magic. It's mainly talking about the sort of buffing you can do in play, but it's still clear that everything from "accidentally" dropping cards to verbal fake-outs and the like were not only allowed but encouraged by official publications. That being said, it did warn that if you tried some of the tactics at a tournament in front of "the people who run the Duelists' Convocation," they will kill you. So not everyone was on board. . . .

[@HakureiIllusion]

I do think there's some very clear differences between Torres's and LSV's situations. One thing that is not mentioned in this video which I think is relevant is the token in question that Torres showed off in his video. Unlike WotC, Konami very rarely prints actual physical representations of specific tokens. When they do sometimes make tokens, they usually have very generic designs and no listed relevant stats/effects. Rare exceptions do exist (like the Sky Striker Ace token that Hornet Drone makes) but the Swordsoul token in the video was not one of them. (Also for transparency, the one Vince pulled up and the one in the deck profile video are different, but neither of them are actual printed tokens made by Konami.) This means that Torres went out of his way to purchase/obtain a custom token designed for Swordsoul players and put that in a visible spot. Comparatively, nothing LSV did went that far; he had the resources to activate Adanto, it was a legal play at the time, the token he reached for was the appropriate one, and he didn't put it onto the battlefield or anything. In fact, it was his opponent who snatched it off the side of the table and brought it over to calculate with as if it were already in play. Torres was "misrepresenting the game state" by intentionally showing off a token his deck had no way of generating, and not one that can be easily and normally obtained through normal means like cracking open packs, but one that he had to purchase custom-made from a third party. While I disagree with Konami's wording that the game state can be misrepresented before the game even happens, I do think that the intended boundaries of the rule in question were violated in Torres's case. Another thing about Yugioh that Magic players may not be totally familiar with, games of Yugioh are decided much quicker than games of Magic. As Vince mentioned, there's no mulligans in Yugioh, meaning opening hand variance is much greater, but also the speed and methods of interaction that a game of Yugioh has usually mean that whichever player pulls ahead in the first two turns will generally take the round. There's also no resource system like Magic's lands and mana; card advantage is the only indication of how much a player can do at any given time. Turns tend to be explosive on both ends, and there's not much leeway to "wait and see" what your opponent is playing before deciding what to interact with. The interactive cards in question (such as Infinite Impermanence or Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring) generally need to be fired off at very specific times to have the necessary impact to warrant using them, and "playing safe" and holding onto them can easily cause that opportune moment to pass by in the blink of an eye. What I mean here is, if you have any indication your opponent is playing Swordsoul (such as seeing them with a custom-designed Swordsoul Token that you have to go out of your way to obtain), you need to mentally prepare yourself to identify the moments where using those interactive cards will have the most devastating effects against a Swordsoul deck, and if you're wrong, the ideal time has probably passed by the time you've realized it. That being said, I think if Konami were in charge of Magic and had those rules in place, they probably would have hit LSV with the same penalty over the Adanto incident. As much as I think Torres's conduct leans less into the "mindgames" side of things and more on the "scummy" side of things while LSV's conduct doesn't, the specific reasoning that Konami listed in the explanation for Torres's suspension equally fits LSV's situation and therefore he likely would've been punished in a similar way.

[@HakureiIllusion]

Gotta add to this, since I hopped over from MBT's response video and am conflating some points that weren't made on both his video and Vince's video: Yugioh's tournament rules do consider "intent" for some infractions. Two games could have the exact same rules infraction and be punished in different ways based on the judge's perceived intent behind the infraction. One game could have a player making an honest mistake and taking an illegal game action as a result, and just get a warning or maybe even just rewind with no penalty depending on what impact the game action had. Another game with the exact same illegal action could warrant a loss, DQ, or suspension if the player clearly did it knowing it was illegal and with the intent of getting away with it. So if a player brings a whole stack of tokens and just happens have the Swordsoul token on top, that probably wouldn't have garnered a response. But when that player makes a video and literally records themselves saying in it "I am putting this token in a visible spot to deceive my opponent", that's precisely why the Yugioh rules give judges leeway to consider intent, so the latter situation can be punished while the former can be ignored.

[@SDragonfly]

One of the most common pre-game bluffs on the Pokémon online client is to use sleeves with art for a Pokémon that's central to a totally different deck or archetype. It's the same kind of pre-game mindgame that isn't actually affecting the game state but might have a player going first question their setup and turn 1 plays, especially if the other player's setup hasn't explicity broadcast what deck they're on

[@DuncanHarbison]

Similar example happened to me but in yugioh, except it backfired for my opponent. Ritual cards are blue and this ritual deck was water type for context. My opponent brought out a nekroz playmat, brought out a blue deck box with "nekroz" written on the top, brought out a blue sleeved deck and I thought "he's trying waaaay too hard here, he's playing qliphort", played accordingly and won the match.

[@Fome]

This is such a low level bluff, no mtg player would ever fall for

[@MrZer093]

In Vanguard’s standard format, only a couple of decks can utilize a mechanic that requires an extra deck. However, you can theoretically use that extra deck in other decks, even if you can’t access it. I’ve been doing that but it isn’t that bad since this is a game where you can’t do much on turn 1 and the jig is up the moment your turn 1 starts. Even so, this little quirk got banned. I feel maybe Japanese companies frown upon what would be seen as poker tactics in their games?

[@Lightning_Lance]

I guess no bluffing does fit the game style of Yugioh a bit more than it would in Magic, with trap cards being a hint as well compared to instants coming out of nowhere (the only hint you get in mtg is open mana)

[@esseubot]

Konami banning people for weird stuff isn't that uncommon. They ban people if they openly say they're adding cards to their deck purely because it can make them win if they stall for time in the round - what would make sense if it wasn't so poorly enforced that stalling for time is still a viable strategy. Also reminder that during remote duels we had literal recordings of people cheating, moving cards, or straight up running 14/15 cards on their side deck as a tech to have the last card be anything still go unpunished, while the person who recorded the cheat get punished.

[@luminous3558]

Yes they ban people for declaring intent to slow play. Maybe people should stop declaring that they do that.

[@esseubot]

My problem isn't that they aren't banning people who declare they'll slow play - my problem is that even still slow play is still a present and valid strategy in the game. It is almost like an open secret at that point. (as in, Konami's stance on it is contradictory, you either allow slow play as a strategy or seek to eliminate it from the setting)@@luminous3558

[@DuncanHarbison]

The issue with time is one konami made worse too, like if they hadn't changed the time rules to be so unbelievably awful then people would have less incentive to do nothing for 5 minutes then make a cowboy. And there would be no grey areas of a judge, who might be good at rulings but not good at current plays, trying to decide if a combo was a real combo or a stall for time combo.

[@esseubot]

Correct, I remember when time rules changed rolles pretty much no one was happy with it@@DuncanHarbison

[@lostalone9320]

Thing is - In MtG, no-one gets banned for slow play. You get warned for slow play, and then get prompted to make a play (and speed up generally) or take a game loss. You can theoretically get a match loss, or a full DQ, for slow play. But even then you won't get banned from competitive play for it.

[@DrFunkin]

I'm not sure how this would have been enforced by Konami, but the thing that always stuck with me about this is "technically" LSV isn't misrepresenting the game state. Making the token is always an option, so even if it isn't the option he's going to take, it is still something his opponent should consider. Yeah he made it look like more of a real thing than it was but it was still a real option. Saying flat out in a video that "I do this to mislead my opponents on what deck I'm playing" Is a different thing than "Visibly considering a valid option during the game that I'm not going to take." Konami treating this more like the Dryad Arbor controversy in MTG than the LSV one (which i agree shouldn't even be a controversy, it is was just smart play).

[@TrueWhovian82]

As someone who's been playing YuGiOh for most of my life, I can confirm that bluffing is basically non-existent at higher tiers of play. Essentially the games go too quickly for me to worry about if my opponent has a battle trap (something like settle the wreckage). The mentality you go in with is generally "I will kill them now because if I don't they'll kill me next turn." If it turns out my opponent has something like settle the wreckage and I can't negate (counter) it, oh well, gg, go next. Could I set a card face down and hope it scares my opponent into not attacking? Sure. But if they're any good, they'll attack anyway.

[@lostalone9320]

Which really just underlines why the rules are so weird. It's a game where getting bluffed would cost you a game anyway, so you make them show you. And yet apparently if your pupils dilate too much when you look at your own hand, that's cheating.

[@TrueWhovian82]

@@lostalone9320 Actually, you can't make them show you. Game rules explicitly state that unless you're using an effect that grants you access to private knowledge you aren't allowed to check or have a judge check for you. You can activate something like Mind Crush (name a card, if it's in the opponent's hand they have to discard it) and they can just say they don't have it. And you're not allowed to check. Which means my opponent could just lie and if they use it next turn, they could just say they topdecked it.

[@wilhelmbecknee5870]

There's another similar event in yugioh as well, someone whos actions literally forced konami to change the rules of the game. There's a player named Patrick hoban, one of the best players of his era and during an event there was a very commonly played card that most players considered so annoying a lot of people would offer to side them out for games two and three as long as the other player did as well. It was standard to max it out in their deck but Patrick didn't, he only played 2 in his main and the rest in his side so when his opponent made this offer he said "of course!" And proceeded to side them out... Then sided the other one that was in his side back to his deck. When Patrick drew the card his opponent accused him of cheating, they had a deal, Patrick explained to him that he didn't lie or cheat, he followed their deal exactly to the Tee. When judges were called they couldn't do anything, Patrick technically didn't cheat. Many players accused him of poor sportsmanship, many players applauded him, but ultimately konami let everyone know what they thought by changing the rules. Players are no longer allowed to make any sort of deals with your opponent, you're not even allowed to make a deal to give your opponent the win. If you surrender you better not discuss it with your opponent before hand, judges will give you a game loss lol

[@A11sopp]

This is a bit of a misrepresentation of what happened, since Hoban never actually managed to pull this trick off in the tournament where he intended to do this because he never played any mirror matches. So there was never any judge call or anything. The only reason we know that he ever intended to do it was because someone else topped playing his decklist and another player talked their list on the live stream. (Also, it wasn't in an official Konami event anyway.)

[@DuncanHarbison]

Djinn was also never maxed out, it was played as a single copy because it was so easily searchable and so people just assumed he and Ben only played one. Ben Leverett did the side deck thing on the day and Hoban didn't.

[@chardhrosreaper2307]

This is has been an interesting conversation point in Magic: the Gathering over the years. Generally the idea of misleading an opponent has traditionally been thought of as almost morally justified because the opponent shouldn't have been angling for a win with information from outside the game anyway. If that information lead them to a wrong conclusion, well that's what a person gets by trying for an edge by focusing on something besides playing cards. Perhaps the popular viewpoint will change here as time passes: I can see both approaches having advantages. As a side note, it was nice to see Brian David-Marshall on coverage, as well as Andrew Elenbogen (who is a local that sometimes played around me at Friday Night Magic events or Prereleases).

[@shadowbandit147]

Fully agree. I made the same analogy in my comment but its the same in D&D with keeping player information separate from character information. If you angle for a win with outside information on my monster then your character will die because its not what you think. Maybe i have an illusion on it. Maybe its been altered by a mage or something else along those lines.

[@EdBurke37]

I can kinda understand Konami saying the deckbox trick "Misrepresented the Game State" even though the game hadn't started since everyone knows that the first turn of a Yugi-Oh game is the dice roll for player one, lol.

[@alvarovieira5683]

My biggest bluff was on a pauper tournament. My opponent cast a spell and I thought for a second, picked up an Island back to my hand, said "maybe not" and put it back. My opponent played around daze for the rest of the match.

[@jugglervr]

Great bluffs are what make paper magic playable. I had a lands player Ghost Quartering me for multiple turns. I had 7 basics in the deck (very rare in Legacy) but every time I fetched past all the others to the very last one to make it look like I was on the last one each time so I kept ramping while he spun his wheels with Life from the Loam.

[@DrewIsARealBoy]

I specifically thought of that exact LSV moment when I saw the clip in question. What are the chances of that lol

[@haidynwendlandt2479]

I had a friend of mine when I started playing modern who had deck boxes labeled “Merfolk” and “Infect.” They were Death and Taxes and 8 Whack.

[@51gunner]

I think that to some degree, bluffing is an inescapable part of Magic. If you've got cards in hand and open blue mana, your opponent HAS to consider if you've got a counterspell - even if you've just got some dead draw in hand. You're not allowed to deceive your opponent about how many cards (if any) you have in hand, but they can absolutely draw their own conclusions about what the cards (if any) do. I also think it could get very, very, very hair-splitting if you deny the players the ability to look at tokens or handle them mid-game. Maybe the player wants to read the token - what a given card does is information the player is supposed to have. You could re-read the spells in your hand as much as you like - so why not your tokens, or cards in your sideboard (if you had a spell/ability that could fetch them, like a Wish or a Karn). Ruling that they can't be touched or considered at all seems short-sighted. One could argue that the player is responsible to know all the effects of all the cards... but Limited is also a format played professionally, and imagine in WOE if you couldn't reread what exactly the heck the Young Hero role did. So yes. LSV pulls a bit of a fake-out here. It's fine. It spices up the game a bit. Even if one views it as a bit unsportsmanlike... I think a game gets a lot more interesting when it's allowed to have its "villains" who do things like that. It helps build narratives of "oh, THAT guy" and is probably good for the game overall even if it's not the most delightful thing in the moment.

[@SyaoLin213]

The thing with banning over this kind of thing in Yugioh is weird because it largely only works if the player admits that was their intent -- people do this kind of "silent bluff" in Yugioh too but how they go about talking about doing it is the difference between whether they get away with it -- the only known examples of people getting banned over this kind of bluff are when the players admits to it themselves. Obviously it would create a huge problem if you're not allowed to have elements from outside the game suggesting something about your deck that isn't true(i.e. using a themed deck box/sleeves that doesn't actually match any cards in your deck, using a certain playmat, discussing your matchups, etc)

[@xolotltolox7626]

The nintendo switch is there because that's the prizing for wining a YCS Official YuGiOh events are not allowed to hand out cash prizing, because the game's creator, KAzuki Takahashi, said he didn't want his game to be played for money

[@Sasambots]

I run a single sideboard card that makes stickers in my pauper deck and force my opponent to choose the randomized sticker sheets at the start of games to confuse them.

[@GoggleCandy]

There is a marketed difference in both examples, but the biggest is how tribal Yu-Gi-Oh is compared to MTG. MTG you can splash in options for removal, buffs, etc that can generate these sorts of token. However, in YuGiOh, token aren't really a splashed-in option. If you see a specific token in a deck, you generally know what deck that player is currently running. Back in the early 00s and even some 10s, you would see Sheep tokens splashed in every which way as they had so many uses. Now though, all cards and token feel very specific and can VERY much inform your opponent and change their gameplay dramatically. If I sit down to play and spot a Nibiru token, you've told me you have it in your deck and now I'll hesitate summoning more then 4 times in a turn.

[@DerpyLaron]

I mean isn't this number one rule you learn as a player. Whenever they cast something, attack or do anything impactful you tell them to hold on for a sec make sure you want to let it happen. You do that a few times having the counter ,removal or protection spell and people will start to perk up and question their actions. Giving you an edge

[@JesterQueenAnne]

Konami is very strict regarding bluffing and misdirection. Of course, this is often ambiguous and dependent on intention, so most of the time no action is taken, in the end what got Andres suspended was admitting he did it with the intention to mislead his opponents, if he didn't there wouldn't have been any grounds to sanction him. As a yugioh player, I consider this to be complete bullshit. I think the rules that forbid you from revealing or asking to be revealed hidden information and from hiding known information are good, but something like this is going overboard, there's a difference between carrying a Swordsoul token and explicitly telling your opponent "I'm playing Swordsoul".

[@r3zaful]

Monarch accident People sleeving 15 token cards and use it as decoy to make their opponent think it's was an extra deck monarch. Guaranteed people will find a loophole more, better stop it before it become a pandemic.

[@brianlimoges2946]

“I’ll just keep THESE TWO ISLANDS untapped and pass”.

[@vendusmortem1433]

So the only reason it could be a problem is if the opponent was actively trying to read to get that information outside of in game actions and plays, which in itself could be read as cheating but this is close to impossible to place a rule on. With that said, it is a part of the game that both players should be allowed to play it. Completely reasonable and like poker or any other game, playing bluffs and distraction is just a part of it. How interesting would is online poker with avatars instead of cams and no chat? It is a beautiful play and shows a masterful skill that players on both sides need to be aware of and practicing, both in use and against. This is one of my favorite games in all of competitive MTG history because of these actions and plays. Shows that magic truly a game greater than just grabbing the highest win rate deck and rolling dice to hope you get the cards you want. Thanks for pointing out this game. Awesome and more people need to point out these examples more often.

[@drifterzcrew24]

As a YGO judge the following example comes up a lot. Nibiru, the Primal Being is a monster that can summon itself by tributing/sacrificing all monsters/creatures on both players field, if the turn player has summoned/cast 5 or more monsters during the Main Phase. Questions would always come up since opponents would ask how many summons have happened that turn, bluffing the Nibiru, and players would then have to determine if the opponent had the card in question. Totally a legit thing since number of summons is public knowledge and must be answered truthfully. The token ban is an overreaction by Konami, it's a common thing to have tokens for a completely unrelated deck, since in YGO any printed token card can be used to represent any token in play. It's a common joke to put a token belonging to a total non-meta relevant deck and say that you're playing that archetype. At that point all his opponents probably knew what deck he was playing after the 1st or 2nd round. The ban was just a way to set an example to other players to not be silly, and that Konami indeed look/refer to deck profiles and social media as a way to ban people confessing cheating/unsportsmanlike conduct.

[@0ff_13lvck4]

When i played lantern control i had storm/mana counters in my deck box and would bring them out while we were shuffling up and ask my opponent if they thought the counters were cool and if they were okay with me using them instead of writing things down.

[@sirhades92]

Surely the "can i name dark confidant with my pithing needle" bluff is more emblematic of the kind of shit we magic players do

[@od6421]

I think the band 3OH!3 put it best when they said in the hit song DONTTRUSTME "Don't trust a Magic the Gathering player with 4 white mana held up in a constructed environment where Settle The Wreckage exists". It's just so true

[@RazgrizAce67]

Definitely on the side of genius. Magic is a game where not all information is known and using that fact to your advantage is part of the game. Played commander the other day against new Jodah that had assembled a board that would clearly win next turn. I made all the plays like I was desperate to find an answer and chip his life total as much as possible and that I was not able to find it. On his turn he tapped out, building up even move and without thinking, full swings as if he won. I play Everybody Lives! from hand, take no damage, go to my turn, swing as he has no untapped creatures and win. Blowouts like that require bluffing, part of the game.

[@Reluxthelegend]

0:50 The nintendo switch is part of the prizing.

[@sirhades92]

For those who don't know, YUGIOH doesn't give cash prices, so if you win you get a PS5 or something

[@rgkyu-gi-oh2462]

​@@sirhades92 a switch no PS5's

[@el_super_laser]

I do that with sleeves. Uw control with gruul vibe sleeves❤❤❤

[@AidyJames]

I've done something like this in Pokémon - using a GX marker when my deck didn't run any GX Pokémon. Everyone did it.

[@DarknayseLyn]

Reminder that the same LSV forgot his storm card in his storm deck and proceeded to win tye whole event without a wincon.

[@supergamerguy9224]

As a magic and yugioh player, this is 2 different things entirely. Handtraps, lines of play, how you prepare for your opponents turn 1 blind is absolutely crucial knowledge that must be sussed out or figured out within them activating 1-2 card effects, so you can identify what choke point you need to shut them down on. Tricking your opponent before the match started is disrespectful, and quite rude in Yu-Gi-Oh, but really not that important in magic.

[@RedOphiuchus]

Actually it's more important in magic because you have mulligans. In Yugioh, you're stuck with your starting hand, so you don't have any control over what cards you start with anyway. Unless two different decks have the same starter, you'll know what's up before having taken any game actions. In magic, if you have a bad hand you can get a new one with one card less. If you manage to trick your opponent into thinking you're a deck that you're not then you could convince them to keep a hand that would be really good against that deck but be horrendous against your deck.

[@nh6574]

@@RedOphiuchus Yugioh is a one turn game so knowing what your opponent plays is also very important. You would make different plays on turn 1 if you know what your opponent is playing (and you're going first)

[@CocoMura]

if I see my opponent anguishing a decision I will occasionally motion to tap open mana when I got NOTHING. Just a cheeky lil bluff. Nothing more.

[@Pcervelli11]

Sometimes I play with Pokémon tokens so they think I’m playing my Venasaur deck instead of Tron

[@maximiliangunther9597]

I had a player at an fnm wear a burn shirt, sleeves, playmat and labeled deckbox. I kept the nuts against them on martyr proc. Turned out they were playing affinity and I realized on turn 3 that I had kept the perfect hand anyways

[@Zanji1234]

i never will understand why someone cheats at ygo tournaments (even ycs) i mean... i would understand it if some grand money price is on the line but yeah you get some displays, a console or so but yeah konami has some weird Tournament policies. for example: you can't take notes AT ALL (only your life points, the current turn (there are cards that need to track the turns), and some mandatory effects reminders but EVERYTHING else is a no go. So even a card for example let you know what your opponement has face down you can't take notes of that as soon as they are flipped face down again. Or you opponement searches his deck and takes a card on his hand. Or even if you have a complete look at the hand of your opponement you are not allowed to make a note AT ALL.

[@Noirevert]

If you’ve not discussed Chapin’s “Give all my legal targets fear” play with Profane Command that’s an all timer.

[@blankazure217]

For people who do not know, yugioh has a history of weird rules. A positive ruling change was actually the showering ruling, yes you have to be physically clean to enter major events. It just shows that only konami can be dirty.

[@joshua3539]

I have a miiryn deck that's about changeling and tribal payoffs like Gilt leaf archdruid and tuktuk scrapper. Play cards like priest of Titania and kunema Tyrant of Orazca. The decks inherently deceitful. But I consider it an artform in itself. The bluff is the play that keeps you in the game an extra turn, changes play patterns and generally initiates anxiety of a clear cut win for an opponent. You can concede honorably or hold out on the blocker of mind alone. Politics exist in magic. Deals are made. Play the player

[@AdamHoelscher]

This was really interesting. As long as this these are the rules/meta-rules around Yu-Gi-Oh it is not a game I will play and exactly one of the reasons you noted in the video. It's a card game with private information. The whole idea of private information is that your opponent doesn't just worry about what you have, but the whole world of what you might have. If I'm not allowed to bluff my opponent, I'd rather play Chess.

[@ScourgedSheggoth]

Nah, I absolutely love mind games in MTG. No greater feeling than ripping the win away from someone who thought they had it but in reality they played right into you and your plan.

[@aurafighter9579]

Bit of a strange question for a magic video, but where do you find competitive 40k tournaments? Been thinking of getting into tournaments and wondered if you had any tips?

[@colgatelampinen2501]

In magic players are allowed to lie about private info. Konami does not send Pinkertons after their fans. Both have something going for them.

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

This sounds like two negatives for MtG

[@goldlink567]

I don't think this needs any kind of ban, at worst it should have been a warning to all players that doing _this_ thing can be considered misrepresenting the board state, it's insane it ended up as a 1 year ban. For any non-yugioh players it's good to know for context that a lot of YGO players put their tokens either faceup on top of their Extra Deck (basically a 15 companion/commander deck), and I know some who put them upside down in the middle as or under their field center. (Where your cards are placed on the board now matters, there's literally a chess deck that uses the column mechanic... also a gun deck that uses it. I'm serious.) So the tokens are (probably) not in some deck box to be flashed at the opponent trying to spot knowledge to give them the wrong idea, most players literally set their tokens next to their board.

[@luminous3558]

He got banned for on video stating that he was misleading his opponent intentionally. Thats all. The token situation couldve easily just been passed over had he not talked about it. The 1 year ban was because he had already won the tournament and thus could no longer be penalized with a game/match loss or DQ and thus the penalty gets escalated.

[@triplebog]

I feel like the ideal that the people who call lsv's move scummy are chasing, that out if game information doesn't effect in game outcomes is a futile and impossible ideal. You just simy cannot divorce a card game completely from external factors. Human expressions and reactions aside. Every match you play has the oppressive weight of the "meta" hanging over it. Bringing you out of game knowledge, true or false, about your opponent's deck.

[@cylonsteve2511]

Great moment in competitive magic 😎 I miss playing magic in person...

[@oscarsantillan6487]

I have always loved/hate the LSV story, I love how he played his opponent like a fiddle, one of the best bluffs in magic in all time, but i would definitely hate it if it would had happened to me, but I would never consider it as cheating, or unsportsmanship conduct

[@DuncanHarbison]

The yugioh policy changes recently have been really weird, the token mind games existed in yugioh 15 yugioh ago with people playing a gladiator beast fusion monster in their deck that wasn't gladiator beasts and accidentally flashing it to the opponent (and then bluffing that bluff when they're playing gladiator beasts etc) but now you can't lie to your opponent. You have to "no comment" a lot of stuff because you also can't reveal information that they're not entitled to have. I can't say "I have settle the wreckage in hand - go ahead declare attacks" and see if the opponent holds back attackers, and I also can't say "yeah you can probably put lethal on board I didn't draw settle the wreckage". They removed an entire aspect of the game and I really dislike that.

[@eronsentertainmentstore6487]

The Switch, YGO doesn't pay pricemoney but they give electronics and special price cards.

[@hiddenrapture6672]

They are quite different, one had 2 legal plays and was bluffing one opposed to the other and the other one specifically stated that he was trying to gain and unfair advantage outside of game mechanics. There is no reason to ever show your tokens that you use until they are used on the field. There are also a variety of bluffs you can do in yu-gi-oh (say "thinking" and pretending to read backrow or cards in hand, and counting the summons for nibiru) but it is more about managing resource by optimizing disruption of the opponent plays(for the most part, outside some random bs that floats around) and playing out your cards in the right order to get the crucial cards you used played.

[@Davefacechannel]

I love playing with the D&D lands because the flavor text let's me be more convincing when I scry and have to fake read to bluff

[@chikenugets9165]

I think the key difference is that lsv had the option to make the token, if his opponent hadnt swung out he would have done it. It wasnt lying it was just showing the option that was public knowledge while hiding the one that was hidden. Andres admitted that he put the token on the top with the direct intention of tricking his opponent into thinking he was playing a different deck than he was which if he hadnt said he wouldnt have gotten in trouble for havibg the token its the intent that matters in this scenario. Yugioh has an explicit rule against telling your opponent hidden information. With closed decklists your deck is included in that information so lying about what deck you are playing is cheating, if he didnt tell everyone that was the reason he had a swordsoul token he wouldnt have been banned for having it. Lsv bluffed in a game about bluffing. Andres lied to his opponent before the game. Also in yugioh where you only get 1-2 turns playing around a card that doesnt exist can be an instant loss. Specifically swordsoul has effects whenever you banish a card so you will likely make a different monster than normal in order to avoid triggering your opponents effect when they dont actually have it so you just made your board weaker because of it.

[@Mr.YExplains]

Double sided tokens would make "having the right token" tough.

[@justthedecoy4687]

I always wonder what would happen if I put double face cards next to my deck with my opponent assuming I double these cards in my deck

[@helioscomis3732]

It would really depend on the comp level you're playing at, in casual/fnm the judge would just ask you if you could store them in a different box. in comp rel you would be considered cheating because you have additional cards in your deck box outside of the registered cards, it would likely be ruled as having more than 15 cards in your sideboard.

[@DungeonCreator20]

MTG anticheat: *Player manages to slight of hand an extra 5 lands and 6 lighting bolts into their hand and cast them while the judge is being assaulted by their husband* "2 months probation Yugioh anticheat: *Player just shows a png of a cool sword guy he isnt using* "ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON!"

[@sc2_Nightmare]

It's a card game. There is a reason why your hand is secret. Because part of any good card game is the ability to play your opponent as much as your cards, maybe even more so. If you opponent falls for (mis-)information besides the cards on the field, that's their fault.

[@alanhe4476]

i play bridge, a game where the bidding aspect of the game is meant to be purely public information however, it rarely ends up working as intended in casual club level play, due to how inherently difficult it is to go through the checks of "how much of this is implicit from knowing each others' playstyle" as opposed to a formal agreement that there's a lot of while not deliberately scummy play, new players joining a club that are unaware of the rules and cause a disagreeable ruling for one of the parties at the table due to "i didnt know that was a rule" as a consequence of shortcutting or the development of a somewhat inbred understanding of the game from casual kitchen table play

[@haidynwendlandt2479]

I thought in Yu-Gi-Oh you could literally just play random monsters in the Extra Deck that you had no way of summoning? Is this not the same thing, where you just fill your extra deck even if you’re not going to use it?

[@Zachpi]

I'm not much of an MTG player, came here after I saw MBT tweet about it, so apologies if I miss some detail. I actually don't think konami would count this as cheating though. The big thing that crosses into drawing penalties or potentially bans in yugioh is when your bluff isn't possible. Torres couldn't make a swordsoul token with his deck, and he said in the deck profile that it was specifically for tricking an opponent, which isn't what Konami wants players doing, so he got a ban. If it was in a game and you pick up say a Nibiru token(very powerful card that stops combos) during your opponent's turn, that'd be fine if you have Nibiru, but not allowed if you don't have it in hand. I think the big difference is that a lot of rules in yugioh are intentionally vague because they are there to give judges the ability to deal with people that aren't participating in the way konami wants, where as MTG has more strict/consistent rules that are almost meant to be stretched and pushed up to as an aspect of the game. In relation to Torres, Konami is also pretty tight on what creators say, a number of times players have gotten for jokes in deck profiles about cards they play for things that could be seen as abusing the rules, which absolutely leads to a lot of situations where seemingly strange tech cards go unexplained, usually when they're there for games that go into time.

[@AoyagiMei]

Open deck lists would unironically solve the entire pre-game info mining bs.

[@pyrobryan]

Yes, the settle bluff was deceptive, but at that level of play you should assume that your opponent isn't going to hand you all that information. If you are making your decisions based on your opponents telegraphs, that's your mistake.

[@LucianDevine]

Pulling off bluffs like this feel so damn good. I pulled off a similar one at a GPT a long time ago. I was playing my Elfdrazi deck, and my opponent was playing an Ezuri Elf deck. He attacked for 9, but had an Ezuri in play and 5 mana untapped including 2 Tectonic Edges. I had 3 lands in play, including 1 Eldrazi Temples, Garruk Wildspeaker, and a mana dorks. I picked up the pen, asked 9 damage, and he went for the kill with Ezuri overrun tapping out. I put pen down, cast Fog, untap, play 4th land that is a 2nd Eldrazi Temple, cast Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre killing Ezuri and win on his next turn. If he doesn't go for the kill and keeps his mana untapped I can't cast Ulamog, because he can kill my temples with his Tectonic Edges in response to the targeting of them by Garruk, and I had to play the 2nd one before Garruk to get the max 8 Eldrazi mana off of tapping them both untapping with Garruk then retapping them.

[@georgeerniej]

It's completely fair in a face to face game of chance and hidden information

[@dkdomo6760]

People did this in Yugioh where they’d have a “extra deck” but it was all tokens face down to look like an extra deck while the players are playing decks that want zero cards in extra deck to deceive opponents

[@leadpaintchips9461]

I think the grabbing the token was a bit too much, but I love the separation of mana and the counting along. It's not misrepresenting the game state, it's not using something sketchy, it's the opponent trying to read a player and that player misdirecting them. Directly interacting with a prop from outside of the game _during_ a game I think was scummy, but if it was just sitting on the side and he kept glancing in that direction I think would've been perfectly ok.

[@LuisCórdoba-m7k]

I used to play a BW token decks in modern back in the day. The deck box was red, had Storm written on it and had red sleeves. I also played storm too, so people didn´t know if it was storm or tokens

[@MercuryA2000]

I'd say its scummy and clever. I'd personally rule grabbing the token as perfectly fair play, like giving an 'annoyed eye roll' when you draw to suggest you didn't like the draw, or pretending to think even without any activatable cards to make your opponent think you have a hand trap. As for the token, the only reason I would say they should penalize him for that is if there's no feasible way for a token (Because that is a completely legal token card) to come up in the duel. Even if its "Just in case I get nibirud" that's a valid reason to need a token. And even if there isn't a reason to need a token, a year? Seriously? That's a DQ at absolutely worst. What next? Are people gonna get DQed because they use a blue eyes deck box? A charmers play mat? Its an aesthetic choice.

[@turgid4391]

The moment you allow your opponents body language to affect your decision making you’re giving them a massive advatange. Don’t read into whatever they’re putting out there bc chances are it’s mean to mislead

[@wyatt864]

I've definitely done this in modern. I always have some weird fucking tokens I carry around and I'm secretly playing a completely different rogue deck that wins even less often than whatever deck my tokens imply 😎

[@aydenhuennekens]

ngl I try to pen trick people and somethings I like to think it works but whenever I get pen tricked all I can do is have a good laugh and shake their hand.

[@hovaldundinsk5536]

I play derp shadow hulk.. I love when people turn 1 my shadow so I can top deck a reanimation spell like footsteps.

[@kellyhoesing2573]

Whenever I play degenerate blue control decks they're always in a Red mana symbol deck box.

[@ironwolf56]

I don't see this stuff any different than say in baseball or football where teammates and coaches trade signs to coordinate the game and sometimes will throw in fake signs that don't actually mean anything just to throw off the opposing team.

[@pokedadsam9041]

LSV representing something his deck can do is different than putting an extra card your deck doesn’t need. He also could have been waiting to see if he can win without casting settle. And if his opponent doesn’t commit lethal he likely doesn’t settle and makes a token at end of turn. 🤷‍♂️

[@AlienValkyrie]

Without actual mind reading, there's no way to accurately tell whether someone was bluffing, or whether they just didn't notice the better line at first, then realized that was an option right as they had to make the choice. Sure, at a pro level, it might be hard to argue you didn't see the line, but who knows; there could always be a game plan where it's better to try and hold on to your more powerful answer for next turn. Ultimately, trying to crack down on bluffing will always descend into a shit-slinging mess of accusations and difficult judgment calls about things that can't be proven one way or another, only argued based on vibes; trying to draw lines on what is and isn't okay in ways that will almost certainly not be consistent - and for what? Making it so players have to sit stone-faced and keep all relevant information in their mind, because actually checking the game state would telegraph your cards in hand, and if it didn't, would be considered unsportsmanlike conduct? At the end of the day, these are still hidden information games we're talking about. A player's visible behavior outside of game actions will always be affected by the hidden information they have; obscuring that connection to deny the opponent evidence about that information is functionally necessary for how the game works. Even just the time it takes to pass priority can tell an opponent whether you have something you *could* be doing, and I don't see a potential game more controlling for that variable catching on any time soon. I'm wondering if Konami would force you to tell your opponent whether you have any... spell speed 2, is that what it's called? whether you have any possible responses, because pretending to think about doing something when you don't have anything might count as an illegal bluff.

[@charlesjenkins7130]

I like to have weird color sleeves for my decks. Orange for mono white or blue sleeves on a green deck. I also like the pretty Dragon Shield sleeves.

[@lordmj329]

Yugioh specifically is very weird about a lot of 'bluffing' type actions. I believe there's a part in the rules that states "you are not allowed to lie to your opponent." You also are not allowed to give away any form of private information, such as saying you do or don't have a card in your hand or deck. As an example, there's a card called Nibiru, which has the effect to remove all monsters on the board if your opponent has summoned 5 times in a turn. You can actually get in trouble for counting the number of summons out loud for your opponent. Regardless of if you have the card or not. You're not allowed to state "I have no hand traps, go off." And you're also not allowed to call a judge to ask a 'hypothetical question' about the game if you don't know how cards interact. You must actually commit to trying to make the play and /then/ the judge will let you know if it's a legal action or not.

[@luminous3558]

You can ask ruling interactions between card A and card B as long as you aren't asking the judge to coach your play.

[@acehealer4212]

I don't play competitive TCGs so I have no skin in this game. I'm a casual Yu-Gi-Oh! fan and I find this interesting. I think I need to learn more about MTG because I don't understand a lot of this lol.