"Declumping" a Deck
- Thread starter Ness
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Just answering a question, not even going to waste anyone's time with my own opinions..
Pretty clear answer.
i know this has been talked about to death with 32 pages and all, but one question i have is how does one go about randomizing a deck if cards stick together? like i get the randomization giving u 3 candies sometimes but what about if my cards just get stuck? when i play my hands tend to get sweaty which led to some of my cards sticking together. my question is can i move those cards in that situation or is that also considered declumping? bear in mind these cards were like communication and rare candy and not like 3 typhlosions stuck together.
Alazor
Active Member
You pull them apart like any other card from the back. You can obviously feel that there is a clump without looking at the cards. But I don't think that is the type of declumping I would worry too much about, because you could still accidentally see the card. If you are searching your deck, then your deck is public knowledge in that point in time. There is a trade-off between shuffling your deck and making decisions during a pokemon game. Moving cards around and reading them to make game decisions should be allowed. From my testing, clumping pokemon together has a greater effect than declumping 2 or 3 Rare Candies. Try it out. You might be surprised, you might not.
I would say, you could. Which is why I think declumping could be arbitrary, because it was not like you picked the Comm. and the Typhlosion. That's kind of why I thought Ness' 3 Rare Candy example was arbitrary, if somehow 3 Rare Candy did get stuck together. As a judge I think you have to see what would be a practical enforcement of declumping. Shuffle thoroughly afterwards is all I'm getting.
I would say, you could. Which is why I think declumping could be arbitrary, because it was not like you picked the Comm. and the Typhlosion. That's kind of why I thought Ness' 3 Rare Candy example was arbitrary, if somehow 3 Rare Candy did get stuck together. As a judge I think you have to see what would be a practical enforcement of declumping. Shuffle thoroughly afterwards is all I'm getting.
losjackal
Technical Administrator
I respectfully disagree with your logic, Gorn.
It is frowned upon now, and PokePop said the sole reason against making it a rule is because it is unenforceable.
Because the old Pokemon forums are gone, we are left to speculate what were the reasons FOR making it a rule. I'll bet there were numerous (and stacking was probably one of them), but let's not conclude that because it was almost illegal that it means that everyone thought it was cheating.
Note that there is a big jump between something being considered for being against the rules and for any occurrence of it to be called cheating.
Let's look at some of the things that are against the rules:
patterned or non-Pokemon art back sleeves: There are two reasons that this is against the rules. One is that some artwork can be inappropriate and while some cases are obvious (nekked ladies), there are a lot of edge cases that POP did not want to put their TOs and HJs in the position of having to decide on. Also, patterned sleeves or some artwork can make marking cards easier, as subtle differences in a design or pattern can be used that are very hard to detect. This is not saying that everyone who would use non-Pokemon artwork sleeves is trying to subvert the morals of young players or trying to mark their cards. The vast majority of players have no such intention. But the rule was put in place to protect against those few cases.
Similarly, those "declumping", for the most part, are not trying to cheat and will shuffle their deck sufficiently to randomize it. However, there was a concern that it made it easier to cheat (either intentionally or even unintentionally) and so it was considered for banning under the rules. However, as has been touched upon quite a bit in this thread, discerning the difference between declumping, temporarily making a possible choice, making an actual choice, but not revealing it yet, then changing one's mind, and many other similar actions would be next to impossible and so enforcement would either be impossible, or impossibly heavy handed.
It is not necessarily saying that all actions that move cards around equals cheating.
Let's look at some of the things that are against the rules:
patterned or non-Pokemon art back sleeves: There are two reasons that this is against the rules. One is that some artwork can be inappropriate and while some cases are obvious (nekked ladies), there are a lot of edge cases that POP did not want to put their TOs and HJs in the position of having to decide on. Also, patterned sleeves or some artwork can make marking cards easier, as subtle differences in a design or pattern can be used that are very hard to detect. This is not saying that everyone who would use non-Pokemon artwork sleeves is trying to subvert the morals of young players or trying to mark their cards. The vast majority of players have no such intention. But the rule was put in place to protect against those few cases.
Similarly, those "declumping", for the most part, are not trying to cheat and will shuffle their deck sufficiently to randomize it. However, there was a concern that it made it easier to cheat (either intentionally or even unintentionally) and so it was considered for banning under the rules. However, as has been touched upon quite a bit in this thread, discerning the difference between declumping, temporarily making a possible choice, making an actual choice, but not revealing it yet, then changing one's mind, and many other similar actions would be next to impossible and so enforcement would either be impossible, or impossibly heavy handed.
It is not necessarily saying that all actions that move cards around equals cheating.
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