With Gencon less than two months away, I wanted to ask a few questions, provoke some discussion, propose some scenarios and see what people think specifically regarding what to do in certain situations. I don’t necessarily consider there to be right and wrong questions to each of these answers (although I might feel very strongly one way or the other on some.)

All of these question and scenarios are assumed to be in relation to the LCG Joust or Melee championships.

Question 2:

You’ve made it to the single elimination cut of the Joust Championships and are seeded 7th, and you are playing the 2nd seeded player.

It is the dominance phase of round 8 and you have already cycled through your plots one complete time in a very close game, thus you and your opponent know each other’s plots. Thus you both know that you have Rule By Decree in your unused plot deck. During said dominance phase your opponent asks you how many cards you have in hand and you respond “nine”. You do NOT ask the question back as you have been quietly keeping track of your opponent's cards and you are sure they have ten in hand. During the round 9 plot phase you reveal Rule By Decree. But your opponent says they only have nine cards thus neither of you discard any cards. You are sure they had ten cards, but after watching them count their cards in hand, you realize there is only nine. You figure you must have counted wrong or forgotten a play they made.

Two rounds later, during the draw phase, your opponent says “Oh man, I just dropped a card on the ground” and reaches down to pick it up. Again, you were pretty sure they should have had 6 cards in hand after they drew two, but now they have seven. You begin suspecting that the particular card was dropped prior to your Rule By Decree two rounds ago.

What would you do:
A) Confront your opponent, accusing them of cheating?
B) Call the TO and explain the situation?
C) Ignore the situation because you don’t believe you can actually prove anything?
D) Start trying to find your own ways to skirt the rules?

Assuming you choose B), lets say you explain the situation to the TO, your opponent is fuming and strongly denies any wrong doing. Thoughts?

B) Call the TO and explain the situation should be always the first option in cases like this.

Now it is very hard to rule. There are 3 possible options for this scenario.

1. your oppo did this on purpose (which is very hard to prove), then he should be disqualified

2. your oppo did this by acident, (you can prove it by tracking down the cards he had), then I would let them finnish the game, but if the afflicted player would want it, I would make the oppo lose the game but not completey disqualifie him so he can have a 7th place

3. you cant prove anything, then watch this player closely and if something happens again he should be disqualified

Also if the oppo tries to help to solve this situation, helps to track down the cards etc. that should be a sign that he was not trying to cheat and thus disqualification should not be the only solution.

Ultimately, this comes down to one player's word against another's. Was the player who dropped the card trying to avoid an RBD last round, or is the player calling "shenannigans" on the dropped card raising a stink in order to get rid of the card (or more). It's almost impossible (as this scenario is written) for someone coming in from the outside to figure out where the honest (or not-do-honest) mistake was made.

If you called this TO over and there was significant disagreement about when the card was "dropped," the only median solution is to discard the dropped card (~ so that no one is happy) and move on. It comes down to sportsmanship, really, which is a very tough thing to call, hypothetically or otherwise.

So if you are convinced that they had 10 cards when they say they have 9, check the floor, lap, etc.

~Hadn't realized this "urban legend" had made the rounds through the AGoT community.

ktom said:

~The names of people, places, and events has been changed to protect those involved. No suspect on Cops is guilty untill proved so by a court of law. The producers of jackass insisit that you do not try this at home, they will not look at any submitted home videos.

I think we're just doomed to hear things like this every so often.

But - yeah, in this example, you need to call the TO, explain the situation and let them rule. Understand that it is one players word against anothers and accept an equitable ruling. the idea of discarding the dropped card seems liek a reasonable compromise.

It seems to be somehow a very constructed scenario. Of course you can go a little further in the consequences, say the dropped card was a westeros bleeds which is "found" after a successful intrigue challenge in the dominance phase- who cares about RbD in this case?

Seriously, you forgot choice no.4: Ask your opponent to set things as straight as they could possibly be under the given circumstances by discarding down to 4 cards or if he refuses to do so ask him how much he needs the win for his his/her ego.

Anyway i think the choice you would make is usually depending on the special case and situation you are in.

Old Ben said:

This particular scenario has more truth than "constructedness" to it.

Stag Lord said:

Nice.

You should have enough facts to base an investigation off of here, I think. The Rule by Decree play should mean that both players agree on the hand size from two rounds ago when plots were revealed. I would say that the burden would be on each player to reconstruct the plays/draws of the player who dropped the card since then. Hopefully, by a combination of memory and looking at what's currently in play and in the discard and dead piles (and possibly some notes taken by the players over the last couple rounds?), the players could present their sides of why the hand size should be six or seven and one argument would be more convincing than the other as to whether the player just dropped the card or had to have dropped it before the Rule by Decree. Even if it seems pretty convincing that the player should have six cards in hand if they had 9 when RbD was revealed (and thus dropped the card prior to that), I don't think the TO should do much more than make the card that was found stay discarded since you can't do more than speculate as to whether the player was cheating or just dropped the card.

schrecklich said:

Notes? I'm not sure how I feel about the legality of someone taking notes during a game.

i wouldn't trust notes. Not trying to be mean or accuses anyone, but its so easy to write down the wrong thing or miss writing down something...

We had a guy who tried to keep trtack of power w/ pencil and paper (and not counters) and had a couple of times were his count didn't meet the physical counters count.....no real arguments, but both people were displeased with the situation.

schrecklich said:

In the end, the biggest problem taking a "reconstruct" attitude toward the scenario is that you have to go backwards to the point the card was dropped and/or the RBD was revealed. That is both difficult and counter-productive. A whole round has gone by - a round that could have been very different if one player had had to discard 6 cards from hand at the beginning of it. It's like chaos theory in reverse.

As you say, about all anyone can do is figure out how to move forward. The dropped card being discarded is about the only way to do it.

Lars said:

An even more extreme example: It is not terribly uncommon for people at large events to take basic notes for a later tourney report. Nothing more complicated than opponent's name, House, game highlights and outcome. And they STILL get things like House and opponent's name wrong. So I have no trouble believing that taking notes during a game so that you can backtrack if disagreements arise would not only be insulting, but suspect.

Right, I was only advocating reconstruction for the purpose of determining the player's recent hand size deciding the question of whether the card had been dropped right then (and could be put back in the player's hand) or had been missing for a while (and should be discarded).

As for the notes, I wasn't advocating taking notes to win in-game arguments, but they might be an extra source of information if you had taken them for a report or if you had used some ability that let you look at your opponent's hand and you had jotted down the contents for future reference.

Personally I think smething should have been said as soon as you realize that they have fewer cards in hand than you calculated. Bring it up. Ask if they dropped it. Reconstruct the last known count they had and how many cards were played versus drawn then. Look around the table the floor, *cough*intheirlap*cough*.

If that card magically turns up after that call for a TO. Honestly at that point I'd demand a loss of that game and make sure all my friends and metamates were on the watch for funny business.

So, one of the first things I learned when playing this game (and not through some sort of lecture, but by example) was the importance of keeping things in perspective. To me, it was obvious right away that this was a community that prided itself on remembering that it's just a game, and at the end of the day, friends are more important than winning. This kind of situation reeks of more competitive CCGs, and hopefully is rare in our friendly enviroment.

That said, If I did not actually see any cards get dropped, I would call the TO over to discuss how to handle the newly found card. If I actually saw cards get dropped (in an effort to cover up a previously dropped card, or not), I'm not really sure what I would do. Probably just let it go. Either way, I hope I would be able to look past such an incedent, and accept whatever ruling was made by the TO.

dormouse said:

assuming the person who calculated did so correctly and is not infaliable. If you miscounted, do you start searching the room and body cavities?

Deathjester makes the best point. If someone cheats, well they have to live with it. I'm not going to stop playing the game (or tournamnet) becuase of it, i just will have 0 respect for that person and if i played them again then i would be wary and more along the lines of dormouses response.

That is the point though Lars. If I'm wrong in my count I'm wrong, but if I bring it up when I think there is a mistake then we can figure it out like friends. Last turn they had X cards. We each drew 2 and then they drew 2 more through a card effect and only played one during that last phase. If we can agree on this then there should be an additional card. We look for it. If it can't be found we move on, but they know I know how many cards they are claiming and any cards appearing after the fact when we have discussed the cards in hand after my RBD fizzled. If an additional card suddenly pops up after my saying they should have one more and them arguing against it I would expect them to volunteerly penalize themselves or accept the ruling of the of the TO.

I would push for dismissal of the game if they argued they should keep the card or suspected they had done it on purpose.

I prefer to kep things friendly, but I won't let someone take advantage of me or my friends because of that. Too many times I've seen people take advantage of others in just that way, depending on that persons unwilling to be confrontational or goodwill to let them get away with things. As most people who have played me can attest I'm a nice guy. I'm not that nice though. It isn't my win/loss record I'm worried about, it is what they may do to a friend's, or worse to someone who may or may not be a friend but is new to the game or new to competition in this community and walking away feeling cheated. Permissive attitudes can turn what has pretty much always been a friendly game between men and women who act lake ladies and gentlemen to a M:tG tournament. I don't mind being the bad guy so others don't have too.

dormouse said:

then we get into stalling and all kinds of other headaches. Your assuming that people are trying to take advantage of you in a game. If someone is that desperate, then they have their own issues and it wouldn't bother me.

In what 8 gencon's with multiple events there has only been one supposed instance of cheating. If (big if) someone does cheat then i'll be 'wary' of that person 'taking advantage of me.' until then this community gets the benefit of the doubt.

If no one is wary until after the fact, how does anyone ever determine that cheating occurred so that people can start being wary? No, at an official competitive event, and particularly something like the World Championships, you really must be wary at all times regardless. Doing so in that sort of evironment is not a nock against your honest opponents and AGOT friends. If they are such, they should understand the necessity and should likewise be doing everything in their power to keep games as honest and fair as possible.

If we disagree about the card count that should be in hand, justifying our numbers should not beconsidered stalling.

You don't have to make an issue of it. That is a decision that is yours to make, until the TO or FFG insist that all irregularities are reported. My decision is to point out irregularities for their own benefit when it is an accident and everyone elses when it purposeful. I'm not saying you have to do it my way, or even agree with it, but I ask that you understand it and respect it as my decision and my right.

In short, I'm not the one people should try and play fast and loose with when it comes to rules and card counts.