Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Stalling, A clear definition?!?!?!?

It's as legal as continuing to Mulligan again and again with a Fossil deck, trying to get a god hand.
Do it too long and you're going to get a warning, and maybe a penalty or even a game loss.

Seems we got people focused on extremes. Either they see everything as illegal stalling or they see everything as legal play. Use the common sense rule. Moving the same counter back and forth cannot be anything but stalling.
 
godevoir said:
In the quote you just posted it says nothing about legal Moves running down the clock.....
Click to expand...

Doesn’t it? It says that if the head judge determines that a player is intentionally attempting to stall out a match, it will be considered cheating, and subject to the appropriate penalties.

Does the method of stalling really matter? The fact that there may be no way for the head judge to make that determination during the match doesn’t change the fact that the person is stalling.
 
This discussion is starting to run in circles. Lets face it, there is always going to be a time limit put on matches, it's the only way to run an organized event and keep it flowing properly. The only thing that makes sense then is to put a time limit on each players turn, you can not expect everyone to process the flow of information in the game at the same rate you are. So a player that might on the face of it, appear to be playing slow.. might just be considering all the consquences of thier play. Should they be penalized for this? NO! Well then what about the player who is trying to stall? It has to be considered a legal way of playing a match, has to be! So you are left again with putting a time limit on each players turn, ideally 75 seconds, a minute and a half, which I hope everyone would agree is ample time to do all that you need to do. And if that player does not complete their turn in the allotted time? Thier turn ends! What greater penalty could you assess than not being able to attack and do damage to your opponents Pokemon! Now if I Know that going into the match, my stalling could wind up with me having several turns in which I might not get the opportunity to attack, but that is part of my strategy.. who does it hurt? ME! limit the amount of time that a player has to complete their turn and all the issues associated with slow play and stalling become a mute point!!!
 
Consider the following situation.

Prizes are tied.

Player one has a Blaziken Ex with no damage and three fire energy active and a Team Aqua's Manectric with one fire energy and no damage on the bench.

Player two has a Team Aqua's Carvanha active with no Pokemon on the bench.

It is Player two’s turn. His hand is empty. He draws an energy search. Player two looks at his watch and sees that there is just under two minutes left to play. He can legally do all of the following: Look through his discard pile; Look through his opponent’s discard pile; play his energy search and search through his deck for an energy card and put it in his hand and then shuffle his deck. Attach the energy card to the Team Aqua's Carvanah.

Could these actions legally take two minutes? Sure. Are they just as obvious a stall as moving a damage counter back and forth between two Slowbros? Sure.

Why should one move be considered strategic while the other is just plain cheating?

So, if you are Player one and you call over a judge, what could a judge do? A judge could, I think, reasonably ask Player two what he is trying to accomplish with these legal moves. Then, as the ruling states, if the head judge determines that a player is intentionally attempting to stall out a match, it will be considered cheating, and subject to the appropriate penalties.

This could be eliminated with some sort of timer. If not chess style game timers, then certainly turn counters should be considered.

Common sense PokePop? In a Pokemon game?
 
My favorite play when I see the "Carvahna" scenario is to let the player "stalling" know that I am going to give his opponent one extra turn at the end of his turn.

He can then do what he likes, the end is near, and he will not be able to avoid it with the "stalling" methods herein described.

Anyone who has ever tried to stall in one of my matches has heard that before. It is the ultimate answer for a judge - to rule that the opponent gets a turn, and the foolishness of a "no choice choice" will not be tolerated.

That is a ruling consistant with the "Spirit of the Game".

I am not implying that clever little hobbitses will not find other ways to stall, but the obvious ones will be eliminated.

M45
 
this is sorta like energy tranz w/Venusaur Ex or sceptile. move energy,and just keep playing around.
ill move it to venusaur. naa,i like my snorlax,he will get the energy.wait nevermind,i want it back on venusaur EX....etc.
 
godevoir>
I think what you are talking about is different, if your deck just happens to stall the opponent than that is perfectly legal and strategic. (like if your wailord has no energy but it is active and everytime they attack you just heal it) If someone is just taking too long to do anything, or is doing things that don't have a purpose to them in that situation, than that is stalling. Stalling is perfectly legal (like in any other game) if it is strategic.
 
peachyoto, that is what I have been trying to say. My first scenario was for blatent stalling. The wailord EX deck was designed to take a few prizes and just run the game out of time by healing and Not playing exceptionally fast. That is what I was talking about.


Godevoir

__________________
 
If you mean to stall to win by having your opponent run out of cards, that's fine.

If you mean to stall so that you win by intentionally stalling out the time, then by definition of the floor rules, is that not cheating?
 
What I don't like about the time limit idea in the first place is that I can't play to stall out until the opponent decks. This is completely different from stalling out the time limit. In fact, if you're trying to do this, you'd take your turns faster. Just a side note.

Ideally, games would have no time limit. This would eliminate time stalling, period. It would also allow a player to win by decking their opponent. But as for a practical solution for tournament play, I believe that this would be the best solution to eliminate slow play:

When time is called, the player whose turn it is finishes their turn. Then the other player takes a turn and the game ends at the end of the opponent's turn.

What this would do is make it so you can't stall to your advantage by making it so the game ends on your turn. Rather, it would encourage faster play, because neither player would want the game to end on their turn. I think that this would effectively eliminate a lot of slow play. However, a player with a timer could simply stall until 2 seconds before time is called and then end his turn so that he gets the last turn. But in order to stop this from happening, all the judge has to do is call the beginning of the round and actually start the timer up to 15 seconds apart, so that the staller's timer isn't consistant with the judge's timer.

Do you see any flaws in this system. It would be great if TO's would use a system like this. NO more worrying about vague stalling that is hard to call.
 
Heres a good idea. Ban watches from big tournaments and don't allow players to see how much time is left in a match. That way, stalling is more or less impossible to do because you have no idea how much time is left, and how much time you need to stall for. I don't feel anyone would be against the banning of watches at big tournaments.
 
Adv1sor said:
That's the best idea I've seen on this so far Physics Squirrel.
Click to expand...
I agree, that is definately the best idea so far, and it definately seems like it would work really well.
 
If the player KNEW the opponent would get a turn after time is called, this would stop the "stall out" wins/draws. Good idea PS.
 
Adv1sor said:
If you mean to stall to win by having your opponent run out of cards, that's fine.

If you mean to stall so that you win by intentionally stalling out the time, then by definition of the floor rules, is that not cheating?
Click to expand...


I meant deks like Wailord EX. My Wek deck Takes 2 or 3 prizes and As long as I am up on prizes I will heal Untill time runs out.Some times I will run out of heal but I still win on time. I dont mean Just sit there and wait I mean it is A strategy.


squirell, that Idea is awsome that would almost eliminate stalling completely...... Nice thinking.


Godevoir
 
well
actually
I do like Squirrel's solution

that seems to be my input for now
I don't really feel like thinking about anything new
 
It always puzzled me as to why Wizards didn't use the MtG procedure when time is called. I'm guessing that the DCI arrived at 5 turns after time is called as this removed entirely any way of controlling the end of game through slow play.

I don't know if the change will ever be adopted for pokemon :(. Assuming that PUI trusts its HJs in much the same way that the DCI used to, then the HJ can already impose additional turns or a time extension if he/she so wishes.

As a HJ I will come down hard on any attempt at slow play to gain an unfair advantage. Everyone knows if stalling to a win/draw has taken place and it sours the tournament experience for everyone except the player engaging in the unsporting conduct. In general I'm a lienient HJ.. but not on this particular infraction!
 
Let a slow play-warning be accompanied with a 3 minute time extension. Then the stalling player is at an disadvantage.
 
Stalling is a tough ruling to make. You need to put it into context. There is no good "clear" definition that I can think of. The existing definition needs to be somewhat vague so that judges can make a Stalling ruling based on the situation. When you see Stalling, you know it.

The damage swap example in the intial post is a classic endless loop problem. In LOTR, endless loops are resolved 2 ways:

1. The card(s) involvled in the endless loop are banned for standard-format play (the format used at all the major tournaments).

or

2. Endless-loop actions are limited to some minimum value.

In Pokemon, if time was short and I saw someone doing continue damage swapping or energy transferring just because they can, I'd rule Stalling. Like PokePop said, your actions need to be "useful."

Last week at a tournament, I had a player do PsyShadow a couple times, even though he had no more energy in his deck. He admittedly did it to stall out the clock, thinking he could do it just for the "heck of it." I didn't learn about this until after the match, and I gave him a Stalling warning.

Any decent judge should be able to catch Stalling. You have the "right" to play trainers and do other things that might not provide any apparent advantage, but useless actions, like endless damage swapping, endless energy transferring, or multiple deck searching certainly fit the definition of Stalling when time is short.

Personally, I wouldn't go as far as M45 and give the offending player's opponent an additional turn when time is called. I'd just issue the Stalling warning. Giving someone a last-turn advantage seems like a decent idea, but I personally do something different. I don't let the players see the official time clock. I don't call out time when there's 10 minutes or less left. If I see anyone continually looking at their watch or the room-clock, that's usually a good indication that they might be stalling.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top