Hello!

In my group we've been finding a (kind of) moral dilemma regarding the shuffling of cards prior to the game.

One player usually separates characters in one stack, non-characters in another stack, and then combines them into his deck by putting one of each stack. Thus, his deck is character-noncharacter-character-noncharacter… Then he "shuffles" the deck by giving it a couple of tumbles.

This ways he makes sure he doesn't get too many characters or too few.

I'm used to Magic: the Gathering Organized play, and that is clearly a no-no, and is considered cheating. There's even a nice article explaining this: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=judge/article/20060707a

How should we proceed in small tournaments around here? A FAQ clarification, or a public declaration from someone with some authority regarding this (blog entry, something we can show to players) would really be appreciated (if it's not already somewhere!), as it falls into the "shady" realm and some people don't think of this tactics as "cheating" but as "preventing people from getting stuck with too many/few characters". I still think it's not fair, and thus, if it's allowed, everyone should be doing it, and if it's not, noone should be doing it.

Thanks in advance!

This is totally shady and totally stacking your deck. The rules specifically say to shuffle your deck "as you would with a deck of playing cards … until they are sufficiently randomized." There is nothing "sufficiently randomized about what this guy is doing. In fact, is is purposefully and openly trying NOT to randomize his deck in order to make sure that he always draws a good mix of characters, locations, etc. This would be akin to a Vegas poker dealer trying to make sure that he always deals a good mix of hearts, spades, etc.

In terms of "official ruling" for tournaments, FFG does not have a rule for how to shuffle or randomize a deck. They expect players to be mature enough not to do crap like this. What they do instead is give the tournament organizer wide discretion to make sportsmanship calls. Specifically, the tournament rules say the following:

"Players are expected to behave in a mature and considerate manner, and to play within the rules and not abuse them. … The TO, at his or her sole discretion, may penalize or remove players from the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct."

So whoever is the TO for your local events has clear authority from FFG to tell the guy that he is abusing the "shuffle until sufficiently randomized" rule and can assign appropriate event consequences from there.

I can tell you, as a TO and judge at the national level, that anyone "shuffling" like this in an officially sanctioned event would receive a loss for the first game they were caught doing it in and receive a warning about stacking their deck. If they continued to do it, they would get bounced from the tournament. So if this guy is ever planning to play at an FFG sanctioned event, he should probably get out of the habit of doing this now and learn to play for real.

It's also worth noting that the AGoT Tournament rules give the opponent the option/right to shuffle the opponent's deck before the game begins. So while most players simply do a "courtesy cut" (or even tap), every player has the right to completely shuffle the opponent's deck before handing it back to them. At which point, the original player is allowed one final cut of their deck only . So, if you want to avoid the "sportsmanship" call, simply have this guy's opponents exercise their right to shuffle an opponent's deck as part of the pre-game procedure.

Thanks! Will divulge this among my play group.

I disagree, Ktom5.

I have played CCGs for 20 years now, and "power shuffling" has been common practice since day 1. There is nothing "shady" about unbunching your cards before you shuffle. At the end of games, your cards are usually grouped together (because that is how they are while they are in play during the game), so breaking them up is a way of "randomizing" those cards. After a couple of games, I usually sort my deck, then power shuffle it in a way similar to this. Granted, I have a bit of OCD when it comes to shuffling, and I will shuffle my deck about 25 times between games, but still, the act of power shuffling itself is not a "shady" means of randomization.

Also, the Tournament Rules have you covered. Here is what they say:

I also want to note that the rules section that I quoted states "A combination of shuffling techniques should be used…". That seems to completely contradict the idea that we would shuffle the cards like Poker cards. How many shuffling techniques are there with a standard deck of playing cards? To me, this particular rules seems to validate power shuffling as a second technique of shuffling.

From the article linked above :

" There are many different ways that players randomize their decks. There is the riffle shuffle (also called a shotgun shuffle), there is the pile shuffle where a player makes several face down piles of cards on the table, rearranging the cards’ order, and there is the “mash” shuffle where a player separates a deck in half and then pushes the stacks back together. Some of these methods are known by different names and there are other types of shuffles but, when performed properly, they are all intended to do the same job; randomize the deck.

Another shuffling method used (although it is not a shuffle at all) is called a “weave” or “mana weave.” Commonly, players mana weaving will separate their deck into two piles, one for spells and one for land. At this point, they arrange the cards in a set pattern: two spells, one land, two spells, one land, and so on. In a 60 card deck with 20 land cards, this leaves the deck in a nice 2:1 ratio of spells to land and assures that the player will draw plenty of land.

If left as is, the deck in the above example is obviously not randomized; in fact, the cards are in a known pattern. Although the exact order of the cards is not known, there is a pattern of two spell cards and one land card repeating throughout the deck. Left in this state, this is a stacked deck and qualifies as Cheating. After going through all the work of mana weaving, the deck still needs to be randomized."

Replace "mana shuffling" with your term (power shuffling) and the underlying message remains the same; if not shuffled additionaly afterward, your deck is in a stacked state (which is cheating in any game). I personally tend to do the pile shuffle at the beginning of the game, followed by some riffle shuffling and mash shuffling (in my hand instead of on the table, like you woul with playing cards if you couldn't do the riffle shuffle). During the game, I just do the riffle and "hand mash".

tjstyles said:

But the key phrase there is "before you shuffle." I read the original post as putting the deck into the "character, non-character, character, non-character, etc." pattern, then maybe doing a couple of cursory cuts. No more. The cuts were clearly not intended to disturb the pattern, so at that point, the deck has still been put in the intentional, alternating card-type pattern. That's not sufficiently random, would be considered stacking the deck, and "illegal."

However, doing as you say - unbunching, then actually shuffling thoroughly - is completely different.

So I don't see your description of unbunching and the OP's description as the same thing - because in the OP, the unbunching into the set pattern was the only shuffling/randomization that took place. If I misunderstood the OP, I'm apologize. I agree that there is nothing wrong with creating a pattern, and then doing a thorough randomization.

But creating a pattern as your "thorough randomization" is stacking your deck, which is a problem.

tjstyles said:

But at the same time, just because you have the option to shuffle your opponent's deck, or call a judge over to do it for those worried about damaging cards, doesn't mean this isn't cheating. If the person in question from the OP did as you do, where you separate, "power shuffle," then continuously shuffle for a good number of times (I believe one of the pioneers of card magic said about 12 is sufficient to randomize from a known pattern, like a just opened deck of playing cards), then it is a different story. In his example, though, this player did not do that. Whether his opponent catches it and decides to shuffle it himself, or not, is irrelevant. At the point he passes his deck to the opponent for cutting/shuffling, he is in a "stacked deck" state, and that is just plain unsportsmanlike.

ktom said:

Ah,I had read: "Then he "shuffles" the deck by giving it a couple of tumbles" as a few shuffles, not a few cuts. I read your post as taking exception to the separating and stacking part of the post.

I could have articulated myself a little better, too. I think if any player shuffled his deck two or three times and handed it to me, I would want it shuffled more regardless of what happened prior to the shuffles. If my opponent shuffles his deck a dozen or more times, I don't think I would care if he meticulously sorted his cards exactly how he wanted before shuffling. To me, the question is 100% about how many shuffles ake place, and I didn't get that from the posts.

Sorry, english is my third language and I'm not too proficient at it.

I meant that, yes, the shuffling after the "power shuffling" is clearly insufficient. That is the case.

Anyways, if you think your post-power shuffling technique is good and random enough, there's no need for power shuffling to start with, don't you think?

I think the essence is to give the deck in a completely random order. "Power shuffling" does not achieve that purpouse. If you extensively shuffle the deck 25 times after the power shuffle, I think we will all agree the deck is pretty randomized (unless you are an illusionist and didn't really shuffle it, only pretended to do so ). So instead of power shuffling, maybe it's a better idea to invest the time into randomizing the deck as much as possible.

Also, all this has made me think why there are almost on "library manipulation" cards in AGOT, kind of old staples in Magic as "brainstorm", "ponder", "preordain" and the like. Well, guess Martell has some cards to play with the library somehow, but that's it.

Thanks!