I'm sure that when you search you deck for say a collector that you move basics to the front of your deck to see what you do and don't have in your deck, and according to what i have understood your arguments to be that action is the exact same as declumping because you have moved cards out of their original shuffled position.
This statement makes it clear you
have not understood the heart of the matter. I will be happy to clarify it for you. It is not matter of moving cards out of their "original shuffled position": every time you shuffle
again you are doing that! The problem is people are taking time to re-arrange their deck in a manner that would increase the likelihood of a preferential draw. That is what "declumping" is about, a more even distribution when it would be preferential for your drawing. Really need a
Rare Candy? Play a non-Suppporter Search card (even if it requires some luck) and you notice the three
Rare Candy left in your deck are all in a row in your deck. You then top deck one, bottom deck the other, and middle deck the remaining copy.
If you and/or your opponent shuffle sufficiently, you have the same likelihood that they are clumped together again. Which means your efforts were a waste of time
and provides a screen for actual cheaters. If I am a cheater, now just have another opportunity to try to stack my deck. Can you just shuffle it away? Probably, but as long as I am not being penalized, as a hypothetical cheater I might as well try.
So in the
Rare Candy example I've just given, you use a non-Supporter search card, notice the
Rare Candy, and split them up manually, instead of allowing your shuffle the
chance to (or not to) do the job. Now you need to riffle shuffle
seven times to sufficiently re-randomize your deck. If you don't, and especially if you aren't forthcoming and warning your opponent, your declumping just became stacking.
By moving certain cards out of certain locations for whatever reason you have influenced the deck position and therefore the dispersion of the cards which is in your mind cheating.
If you are actually searching for a card as part of a card effect legally played, you are allowed to move cards out of the way for your search. What is being called into question is moving cards
for a non-effect related reason. If there is a card effect that says "search your deck for clumps of cards and break them up, then shuffle your deck" I've got no problem with declumping in such a scenario and I doubt Ness would either.
This is not just cheating "in my mind", or Ness's, though I don't presume to speak for him: I just happen to share a viewpoint so what you say about this viewpoint applies to me, even if it is directed to him. If you are attempting to influence the results of randomization, making them no longer sufficiently randomized,
you are cheating.
If moving basics to the front to see what you have is not bad, but moving the 4 rare candy clump at the bottom is then all i see is a contradiction.
If after careful explanation you still see this as contradiction, then you should have no problem with me constantly stacking my deck as much as time allows. Hopefully that is blatantly a problem for you and this will give you pause to try yet again to understand what Ness is saying.
In the first case we have someone moving cards around
for the effect mandated by a card. While not always necessary, that is what moving around the possible legal targets for a search effect is about: efficiently choosing your target before you
sufficiently randomize your deck. There is no intent at affecting the randomization of the deck
and no attempt. It is not wasting time either since it
directly used to speed up your selection.
Moving around "clumped" copies of
Rare Candy are
specifically attempts at
reducing the randomization of your deck. If you follow by sufficiently randomizing your deck, again you're just wasting time and providing a smokescreen for actual cheats. If somehow you fail to sufficiently randomize, you are actually attempting to cheat. If your opponent didn't catch what was happening, then you are succeeding at cheating, even if you didn't mean to.
I am perfectly fine with declumping because it really doesn't affect anything in my mind, maybe the math says it does, but we do have to remember that this is a children's card game.
I find this final statement disturbing. Please reconsider this stance: this isn't such a big deal playing your little brother at home, but at a tournament with Prizes on the line? Also when the underlying principals make it logical for more drastic deck alterations to be allowed? Definitely something to make sure you either understand or can undermine the opposing argument.
TheRolesWePlay: The politeness of your response (which went up as I was typing this) was appreciated and sufficient to convince me I should be more careful with my wording (I am unhappy with the exact wording of my response to you, but editing it now would confuse the point). At least I remembered to attempt to remain civil with pokeking11, eh?