"Declumping" a Deck

[djjoe227]

Yet they both consume time, and just because you and I (yes I don't think so too) think declumping isn't useful in the long run, doesn't mean there aren't people who do think it is useful. And it isn't against the rules, frowned upon yes, illegal no.

Just because a few people think something doesn't mean that it is correct. A group of wrong people are still wrong.

It's not against the rules, Pokepop pointed that out, but it is frowned upon as you said. On that note, why support it?

Also shuffling strategy does change, I've seen little kids spray cards all over before, that's because they aren't used to it yet, and haven't nailed it down yet. Over time however players get better, and more efficient.

Strategy changes, improving however does not. Shuffling has one of two results: A Randomized deck, or not. If the deck is Not randomized, the deck was not shuffled, and therefore the shuffling doesn't need to improve- it needs to happen.

Spraying cards everywhere and then gathering them up again is shuffling because the result will be random. It might not look "proper", or "neat", or "Professional" but it's not about looks- it's about getting it done.

 

[Barkjon]

I'd honestly prefer an analogy without Rare Candy in it. It makes us who play Stage 1's bad about ourselves.

 

[TheRolesWePlay]

Just because a few people think something doesn't mean that it is correct. A group of wrong people are still wrong.

It's not against the rules, Pokepop pointed that out, but it is frowned upon as you said. On that note, why support it?



Strategy changes, improving however does not. Shuffling has one of two results: A Randomized deck, or not. If the deck is Not randomized, the deck was not shuffled, and therefore the shuffling doesn't need to improve- it needs to happen.

Spraying cards everywhere and then gathering them up again is shuffling because the result will be random. It might not look "proper", or "neat", or "Professional" but it's not about looks- it's about getting it done.

Also the ruling is that declumping isn't illegal, does that mean that the judges are wrong?

You obviously haven't noticed that I don't support declumping, since it is in fact an ineffective method, but I do support players doing so as it isn't against the rules, I may try to dissuade them from it if I felt the need to, but I won't stop them from doing it.

And when I was referring to the kid spraying his cards around, I meant he was shuffling, but instead of ending up in one pile they scattered around.

And yes people do improve with shuffling. They learn a how long they want to shuffle their deck, they learn the safest way to shuffle their deck, and they learn different ways to shuffle like the 6PS, and their skills therefore improve. Also if you want to get really nitty gritty, all deck orders are random, not all of them are favorable, but are equally random

 

[bullados]

And, before this gets turned into a further flame war than it already is, I'd like every single person participating in this debate to read this article. You might learn something.

 

[TheRolesWePlay]

Thank you Bullados, that article is going straight into my favorites.

Unfortunately with every great article there comes great abuse, I'll go wait for people to start accusing me of those fallacies.

 

[MGS-58]

although i don't really have an opinion on the matter i think this could be a great youtube video for jason to do and post on gym. show people how you shuffle and tell them why u do so. A video showing i think will more accurately describe what you are doing. On another note, I think everyone who posted has strong opinions on the matter which is good but I think personal attacks are a bit much. It's hard to read posts with so much condescending attitude. I get u guys are trying to improve the game but I don't think people should be stomped on to do so.

 

[Otaku]

What your describing I have never seen. I have never seen a player become uncomfortable because the opponent is declumping, if they take too long point it out, and they might stumble to hastily finish, but no such action I've seen has the opponent distressed, unless prior tension is built.

TheRolesWePlay: This entire thread started because Ness stated he didn't like it, so for sure it bothered him. Having had it brought to light, it bothers me as well.

There are to problems with this. The first is my continued argument of trying to control the behavior of the player. The other is that you are the minority, and most players are fine with this, and why should the game have to conform to your ideals because you don't like it?

My previous comment was in direct response to your own, where you felt the issue was worth dismissing because you had not encountered anyone who ever had an issue with it. I was making the point that Ness (the topic starter) and myself at least have problems with it, and reading the thread we are not alone.

The majority does not determine right or wrong. Nor am I making an emotional appeal, but rather one founded in logic. The only reason declumping is technically legal is because those in charge decided it was too hard to enforce. That is as opposed to accepting it as something that cannot be enforced but should be illegal anyway to discourage the behavior and prevent cheaters from having a "soft cheat" option.

Actually engaging in the behavior is, at best, a superstitious ritual. Only instead of being a behavior I already find questionable to allow at the beginning of the game, this is one that takes place in the middle of the game and could take place repeatedly. Tell me, would you like it if I kept throwing objects past your head? What if I assured you I was not aiming for you, just near you? What if there was some way for you to know that was the absolute truth? Would you still like me doing it?

It keeps coming back to the same point: if declumping "works", it is cheating: you have successfully made your deck "less random". If declumping is "properly erased" by thoroughly randomizing the deck afterwards, then it creates other problems. At the very least it is wasteful, though as has been pointed out, this is not the heart of the problem, just a point. If we got something like FireRed/LeafGreen Pidgeot back, which enabled a search of your deck every turn, declumping could easily burn enough time to be clearly significant to the game.

What is the main point is that you're creating a scenario where someone claiming they do not wish to cheat is "going through the motions" of cheating, and a simple mistake or missed step and they will cheat. As a side effect of this action, you just give actual cheaters another easy venue to cheat.

As for my concerns outweighing others, I'll state it again: it is about what is right and what is wrong. It doesn't matter that I want this: I laid out why it was a poor practice that should be eliminated. The only reason to keep it legal is that it cannot be enforced as a rule, and the only reason player's can give for doing it is "it is my superstitious ritual that makes me feel better".

 

[vaporeon]

I just don't understand why this is a problem. It's just as stupid as the whole thing with you not being able to put your deck sideways, something I've always done. It's not an issue. I shuffle well when I declump. Cheating is not even on my mind when I'm doing it. Its just an automatic action to me.

I understand this is a problem by you but it does not matter. All you have to do is shuffle the deck and problem solved. My main issue is you made a thread about this and telling everyone who does it is cheating for taking some of the allowed time they are given to move cards around the deck. There are other issues that need to be addressed.

---------- Post added 11/02/2011 at 09:30 PM ----------

Rearranging cards in your deck does not make it any more random. Gosh, if your posts weren't bad enough I have to look at that avatar, too? That thing tilts me to no end.

How does it not make it more random? Declumping and stacking are 2 different thing. People do it because they think it will shuffle better. Shuffles work better when copies of the card are around the deck. I even take the max amount of time to shuffle my deck and offer for it to be shuffled or cut.

You see to be the only one with the problem because anyone I talk to does not care unless you say they can't shuffle or cut and what does my avatar have to do with anything? I made the things like 2 years ago.

 

[TheRolesWePlay]

My previous comment was in direct response to your own, where you felt the issue was worth dismissing because you had not encountered anyone who ever had an issue with it. I was making the point that Ness (the topic starter) and myself at least have problems with it, and reading the thread we are not alone.

The majority does not determine right or wrong. Nor am I making an emotional appeal, but rather one founded in logic. The only reason declumping is technically legal is because those in charge decided it was too hard to enforce. That is as opposed to accepting it as something that cannot be enforced but should be illegal anyway to discourage the behavior and prevent cheaters from having a "soft cheat" option.

Actually engaging in the behavior is, at best, a superstitious ritual. Only instead of being a behavior I already find questionable to allow at the beginning of the game, this is one that takes place in the middle of the game and could take place repeatedly. Tell me, would you like it if I kept throwing objects past your head? What if I assured you I was not aiming for you, just near you? What if there was some way for you to know that was the absolute truth? Would you still like me doing it?

It keeps coming back to the same point: if declumping "works", it is cheating: you have successfully made your deck "less random". If declumping is "properly erased" by thoroughly randomizing the deck afterwards, then it creates other problems. At the very least it is wasteful, though as has been pointed out, this is not the heart of the problem, just a point. If we got something like FireRed/LeafGreen Pidgeot back, which enabled a search of your deck every turn, declumping could easily burn enough time to be clearly significant to the game.

What is the main point is that you're creating a scenario where someone claiming they do not wish to cheat is "going through the motions" of cheating, and a simple mistake or missed step and they will cheat. As a side effect of this action, you just give actual cheaters another easy venue to cheat.

As for my concerns outweighing others, I'll state it again: it is about what is right and what is wrong. It doesn't matter that I want this: I laid out why it was a poor practice that should be eliminated. The only reason to keep it legal is that it cannot be enforced as a rule, and the only reason player's can give for doing it is "it is my superstitious ritual that makes me feel better".

Let me explain myself here. I was referring to people I've met in real life, and unfortunately that's the only way that I can observe people being annoyed with declumping, (most of which aren't annoyed) and while yes the majority doesn't and in many cases shouldn't make rules in this case you also can't automatically assume your right, and the majority might be right. The option of shuffling your opponent's deck are available for such gray areas in the rules.

As for your rock analogy it really depends, if you and I had a bad history then I'd probably be annoyed, and if not and I noticed what you why you were doing it then I might not be upset.

I never understood the whole reasoning of why it's cheating if it works, and not 'it's cheating all the time,' because in such a scenario, the deck could be well shuffled and yield a convenient top deck, which would be taken into consideration in both situations, but only one would be suspicious regardless of the top deck. It's hard to explain.

The problem I have is that people don't think about probability that way in most matches, if they see their energy clumped they might think, 'oh man no wonder I haven't been drawing into energies, I should fix this,' and probably not 'oh I should try to increase my chances of increasing my chances of getting this card.' And your problem is probably that you view the meaning of these as the same, and after stopping to think about it many would realize this, but in the moment not everyone realizes this.

Add on the fact that after shuffling they might try to focus their shuffling on that point instead of the rest of the deck, and the opponent's opportunity to shuffle/cut and the problem disappears in my opinion. But some of the people here seem to want to label them as cheaters, without understanding the root of the problem, or trying to understand why other players view this argument as pointless. You may see the option of declumping as wrong, but view declumping as inconsequential and the lack of reasoning to be aggrivating.

 

[MrMeches]

As long as that person lets their opponent acknowledge why they're doing it, I believe it should be fine, however if I see someone with their hands under the table with their deck, re-organising it, then I'd agree something is wrong..

I had marked several things but went back and reread and came down to this one statement.

Declumping to me comes down to Spirit of the Game, something many have forgotten.


The Spirit of the Game is composed of the following tenets:
 Fun: Pokémon is a game, and games are meant to be fun for all parties involved. When a game
ceases to be fun, players find other things to do.
 Fairness: Games cease to be fun when players break the rules to achieve victory. A player
should prefer to lose a game than to win by cheating.
 Honesty: Players of any game should strive to act honestly while playing that game. If a player
inadvertently breaks a rule during a game and becomes aware of the error before his or her
opponent or a judge, that player should make the opponent and the judge aware of the misplay.
 Respect: Players, spectators, and staff should be treated with the same respect that players
would expect for themselves. Distracting an opponent or a judge to gain advantage shows
disrespect to everyone involved in a Pokémon tournament.
 Sportsmanship: Winning or losing with grace is vital to the enjoyment of a game. The desire to
continue playing a game can be soured by players who berate their opponents after winning or
losing a match. Likewise, a player who plays the clock, rather than the game, shows poor
sportsmanship and should be discouraged from doing so whenever possible.
 Learning: Players should strive to help each other increase their Pokémon play skills. It is not a
player’s responsibility to make his or her opponent’s plays for that opponent. However,
discussing strategies, offering tips, or constructively critiquing game play decisions after the
match has been completed helps both participants to become better players

I agree that declumping can be a waste of time in certain contexts. However, in my experience as a Judge for many years declumping is sometimes used by players to refocus and slow down to make better decisions in critical moments of the game. It might not be a favorable statement, but many top players have performed declumping techniques even when they were not significant movements to the game, only to 'see' that winning move... Jolteon* anyone. Communication to the opponent to move some thigns around occurred, and THAT is my point.

Call it making critical selections or moving possible targets to an area in the deck only to go back and change them, declumping is a very slippery slope. This slope can simply go away be performing the simple task of SotG.

If a player notices a grouping of cards, and would feel more secure in the knowledge that they have separated them, ASK THE OPPONENT. If the opponent wants to have a FAIR and FUN match, then I would hope they would oblige in positive SPORTSMANSHIP and simply request it be done in a timely manner. Some players 'feel' it necessary even though shuffling will randomize things accordingly.

Declumping and Stacking, IN MY OPINION, only become Cheating when minimal shuffling occur after the fact. This provides an avenue of having a greater knowledge of what the player will be drawing into next.

Let the flames begin.

Fish

 

[The Gorn]

If, when I shuffle your deck, can I take individual cards and put them in specific places in your deck?

No?

Well, you can't either.

 

[Otaku]

I have probably spent too much effort on this topic, when there are better ones to debate.

Like how much I distrust Cracked.com is. :lol: I personally have found them insightful on issues I did not know much about, but the instant I read about something I am familiar with, you lose faith in them. I think there might be some interesting insight in that article, but fear it is buried within to much questionable content to be easily deciphered.

I like how the article is set-up that disagreeing with it means you "must" be falling prey to the fallacies contained within.

 

[Politoed666]

If, when I shuffle your deck, can I take individual cards and put them in specific places in your deck?

No?

Well, you can't either.

False statement.

That's like saying, "when you play Pokémon Collector, can I look through your deck and pick out three Basic Pokémon, too?" ...which is obviously a stupid question. Additionally, since he or she shuffles afterward, the "specific place" doesn't matter, so long as it's not in the same place it was. That's the point.

The problem is that you can't see the contents of your opponent's deck. If, while shuffling his or her deck, you took out a few cards without looking at them, stuck them somewhere else in the deck, and continued to shuffle, I don't think that would be a problem. Don't see much point to that, though.

 

[Moss Factor]

Someone may have mentioned this, but the whole argument of "well my opponent can just shuffle my deck if they don't like my declumping" is the biggest load of bull in the thread. Its literally insulting. Effectively what you're saying is that its OK to cheat because your opponent has the option to stop you from doing so.

Its your opponent's option, but not his or her responsibility to stop you from cheating. Its your obligation not to cheat.

If you are altering your deck in any way that isn't explicitly stated on a card then you are cheating. That's it. End of sentence. If you move "clumped" cards around, you aren't "randomizing" your deck, you're unrandomizing it.

Random does not mean "evenly spaced." Randomization is a messy process! It means sometimes you have god draws and sometimes you have dead draws. It doesn't mean that you get consistent draws every single game. If you're moving cards around to try and give yourself better draws, that means your deck is no longer random.

Jason is being pretty forgiving with his "wasting time" argument. Basically if you declump your deck you are doing so to make your deck unrandom. This is simply his way of countering the argument of "well I shuffle afterward!" to those who declump. If you truly do make your deck random afterward, there was no point to declumping. But lets be serious: nobody truly randomizes their deck in a mid-game shuffle. It just doesn't happen. So to say that you're truly randomizing your deck with a mid-game shuffle after de-clumping you're either delusional (in cheater-denial) or simply straight up cheating.

So to get back to my original point, no, I'm not going to "just shuffle your deck if I don't like your declumping." You need to stop cheating. Just stop declumping. Stop. Now.

 

[Ness]

If, when I shuffle your deck, can I take individual cards and put them in specific places in your deck?

No?

Well, you can't either.

What an epic post. I alol'd.

And I will never in a million years see how Spirit of the Game promotes stacking your deck.

Fairness: Games cease to be fun when players break the rules to achieve victory. A player
should prefer to lose a game than to win by cheating.

Somebody is missing something here.

 

[vaporeon]

If, when I shuffle your deck, can I take individual cards and put them in specific places in your deck?

No?

Well, you can't either.

I would hope not. When I give you my deck to shuffle, I expect you to shuffle but if you cut my deck, you can cut in any way you like.

 

[Politoed666]

It isn't cheating.

It isn't against the rules.

And the whole reason it isn't against the rules is because you deliberately randomize your deck afterwards. It's a very legitimate argument.

 

[cpeterik]

^^ this this all of this
edit: ninja'd that was refering to moss' post

The thread is CRAZY! It reminds me of that thread from a few months ago where a Junior at Nats admitted to "practicing rolling heads with dice". It's insane! As long as you roll above your shoulder, it is impossible!
Same with this whole clumping issue. If you SHUFFLE your deck, your cards will de-clump. No need to waste time.
You know how you order a deck for deck checks? Did you know that you can randomly shuffle your deck enough times to get it INTO that order? Also, I question the age of "rolesweplay".

---------- Post added 11/02/2011 at 09:08 PM ----------

And the whole reason it isn't against the rules is because you deliberately randomize your deck afterwards. It's a very legitimate argument.

Then why do it in the first place. BOOM ROASTED

 

[Otaku]

Just to note, it almost was made a part of the tournament rules that "declumping" would have been illegal.
The sole reason argued against it and why it was not made against the rule was the difficulty in enforcement ("I wasn't declumping, I was moving a card that I was considering getting with my search and I changed my mind")

So declumping is definitely not a good thing and while allowed (with sufficient randomization afterward), it is frowned upon.

It isn't cheating.

It isn't against the rules.

And the whole reason it isn't against the rules is because you deliberately randomize your deck afterwards. It's a very legitimate argument.

Emphasis added. Unless Politoed666 believes PokePop is mistaken, misinformed, or lying, then "declumping" is only legal on a technicality: it was impossible to enforce so they left it legal. As stated, I would suggest they make it illegal but known to be enforced by the honor system (unless somehow proven, e.g. someone confesses to doing it).

 

[vaporeon]

^^ this this all of this
edit: ninja'd that was refering to moss' post

The thread is CRAZY! It reminds me of that thread from a few months ago where a Junior at Nats admitted to "practicing rolling heads with dice". It's insane! As long as you roll above your shoulder, it is impossible!
Same with this whole clumping issue. If you SHUFFLE your deck, your cards will de-clump. No need to waste time.
You know how you order a deck for deck checks? Did you know that you can randomly shuffle your deck enough times to get it INTO that order? Also, I question the age of "rolesweplay".

---------- Post added 11/02/2011 at 09:08 PM ----------



Then why do it in the first place. BOOM ROASTED

Why do people believe in God? Why do people bring or wear good luck charms? Why do people netdeck? Why do people declump? Because it makes them feel better. That's all it has to do.