Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

What qualifies as "sufficiently randomizing" your deck?

Frost Mage

New Member
Shuffling seems like it's a pretty gray area as far as the rules go. I shuffle my deck 7 times, then randomly pile shuffle my deck before the game begins, then shuffle those piles together, then shuffle an additional 7 times. Of course, during games, because I shuffle quickly, I can hit the mathematically-sound 7 shuffles fairly easy after a search. But what happens if I'm playing with someone and I can see that their shuffling method is clearly not sufficient? Do I simply shuffle in addition to my cut of their deck after they search? Do I call a judge and potentially embarrass someone just because they don't have as much practice shuffling? Really interested in this topic when it comes to higher level events.
 
I am not a Judge. But I am a Professor, League Owner, Tournament Organizer, Player, and perhaps most importantly a PokéDad of a competitive Senior. With those credentials, I would challenge you broaden your mind and truly consider what is "sufficient" mid-game. (And I know some people may disagree with what I'm about to say. But this philosophy lets me not worry about it.)

If you were to take an ordered deck...for example either your deck list in order, or even a fresh pack of 52 playing cards. 7 shuffles would theoretically fully randomize it, correct? We agree on that. Indeed that is how a game should begin.

But mid-game, at any given time, the deck is already semi-random order. Or in other words, it is not in a prescribed order like the deck list or a fresh pack of cards. Mathematically speaking, 7 shuffles is overkill here. In my opinion, all that is needed is enough shuffling and a cut so that the top few cards are completely unknown. Because in the game of Pokémon TCG, only a few cards will be drawn until the next card effect has the player go back into the deck, and ultimately shuffle again.

Personally, I don't have a problem with declumping and then only shuffling a little bit either. My reasoning is, there are three possibilities when searching my deck:

  1. I notice clumped cards and declump them
  2. I notice clumped cards and leave them alone
  3. I notice no cards are clumped
All three of those situations are knowledge about my deck. And knowledge about the deck has to be destroyed by shuffling. In my opinion, there is no net difference between #1 happening intentionally and #3 happening naturally. Therefore, the same amount of shuffling should be required afterwards.

Now, I understand there are ways to still stack the deck here. If my opponent N's me, and I place my garbage hand on top of my deck, riffle shuffle twice, and then the opponent cut middle-to-deep, it's a pretty good bet my garbage cards got buried and I won't be drawing back into them soon. One would think this happens ALL THE TIME in matches everywhere, intentionally or not. Still, I'm pretty okay with it for time's sake because chances are ALL of the cards in my hand weren't garbage...like, I wouldn't mind getting one or two of them back actually. But by lightly shuffling and having the entire hand get buried (depending on the opponent's cut of course), I'm taking the chance of shooting myself in the foot too.

 
This is a grey area at best, but I would ask if you felt the deck was sufficiently randomized after you shuffled it. Would you allow your opponent to do the same exact thing that you did against you? If you answer no, then the deck is not sufficiently randomized.

Mathematical standpoint for a deck of 52 cards shows that 7 riffle shuffles, or 2500 overhand shuffles randomizes a deck sufficiently. https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/20002.4-6.shtml
 
I am not a Judge. But I am a Professor, League Owner, Tournament Organizer, Player, and perhaps most importantly a PokéDad of a competitive Senior. With those credentials, I would challenge you broaden your mind and truly consider what is "sufficient" mid-game. (And I know some people may disagree with what I'm about to say. But this philosophy lets me not worry about it.)

If you were to take an ordered deck...for example either your deck list in order, or even a fresh pack of 52 playing cards. 7 shuffles would theoretically fully randomize it, correct? We agree on that. Indeed that is how a game should begin.

But mid-game, at any given time, the deck is already semi-random order. Or in other words, it is not in a prescribed order like the deck list or a fresh pack of cards. Mathematically speaking, 7 shuffles is overkill here. In my opinion, all that is needed is enough shuffling and a cut so that the top few cards are completely unknown. Because in the game of Pokémon TCG, only a few cards will be drawn until the next card effect has the player go back into the deck, and ultimately shuffle again.

Personally, I don't have a problem with declumping and then only shuffling a little bit either. My reasoning is, there are three possibilities when searching my deck:

  1. I notice clumped cards and declump them
  2. I notice clumped cards and leave them alone
  3. I notice no cards are clumped
All three of those situations are knowledge about my deck. And knowledge about the deck has to be destroyed by shuffling. In my opinion, there is no net difference between #1 happening intentionally and #3 happening naturally. Therefore, the same amount of shuffling should be required afterwards.

Now, I understand there are ways to still stack the deck here. If my opponent N's me, and I place my garbage hand on top of my deck, riffle shuffle twice, and then the opponent cut middle-to-deep, it's a pretty good bet my garbage cards got buried and I won't be drawing back into them soon. One would think this happens ALL THE TIME in matches everywhere, intentionally or not. Still, I'm pretty okay with it for time's sake because chances are ALL of the cards in my hand weren't garbage...like, I wouldn't mind getting one or two of them back actually. But by lightly shuffling and having the entire hand get buried (depending on the opponent's cut of course), I'm taking the chance of shooting myself in the foot too.

I don't agree with that, because why would you declump if your deck has been sufficiently randomized?
 
If you don't think your opponent is sufficiently randomizing his/her deck, call a judge.

As a judge, I would have the player shuffle his deck a couple more times, and continue the game, probably without a penalty. I would also try to observe the player's next shuffle to see for myself if the player is not shuffling properly.

At any event, there are seldom enough judges to watch every shuffle. We appreciate being notified when there are improper shuffles, so we can teach players how to properly shuffle.
 
I don't agree with that, because why would you declump if your deck has been sufficiently randomized?

Because players don't like the non-uniform distribution. Or superstition. Whatever the reason for declumping, in my opinion, the knowledge of the deck at that point is all the same.
 
If I remember correcly, you can cut the opponent's deck but can't reshuffle it, correct? However, if you call a judge and the judge shuffle, you can't cut it, it is deemed sufficiently shuffled.
 
Nope, on the one point, I'm afraid either you're totally wrong, or my memory has faded to black from misuse. Ha ha. In the point of a player involvement only, you can either cut and/or shuffle WITHIN REASON. Wearing down the paint pixels of your opponent's deck by repetitive shuffling any number of times (be it 7 or 70 shuffles) isn't necessary. However it isn't wise not to at least cut your opponent's deck. I always told friends who play (even non-competitive players) to protect themselves from the poor shuffling of others, or the deliberate cheaters out there by lightly shuffling and/or cutting their opponent's deck ..... AT ANY LEVEL EVENT, BUT ESPECIALLY HIGHER LEVEL EVENTS, where higher level prizes are on the line. At least that way they have a measure of control over their own destiny - they did all they could to ensure a fair game. You do however have the right idea about the judge's intervention - whenever they shuffle the deck for the player, their shuffle is always deemed sufficient.

As a side point, it might be wise to point out that IN THE PAST....certain Canadian players have been called out for declumping their decks and many people (from different countries - but primarily players from the US) called them cheaters. Let's just say, it probably would be wise to discontinue the practice of declumping and just ensure a fair shuffle is done by both players in a match. However let's not go all OCD on this and try to mandate exactly how much is sufficient, since everyone's viewpoint will be skewed to their own fears, and preferences. Balance is key.



Judge credentials: 3 time head judge Canadian Nationals, also head judge Masters division another year.
 
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This is really are this is to know about declumping: Shuffling does not mean equal distribution. The only reason I could see declumping being used is not because of superstition but because they saw that a few of the same card are together in the deck, and thus take them apart so that it's "random", when actually they have been semi-ordered. Like I said before, if you're shuffling sufficiently, every card has the same likelihood as any other to be in any place of the deck.
 
This is really are this is to know about declumping: Shuffling does not mean equal distribution. The only reason I could see declumping being used is not because of superstition but because they saw that a few of the same card are together in the deck, and thus take them apart so that it's "random", when actually they have been semi-ordered. Like I said before, if you're shuffling sufficiently, every card has the same likelihood as any other to be in any place of the deck.

Yep. This reminds me of the same broken thinking that makes people go "lol randomizer on TCG Online is fail" because they hit clumps or otherwise aren't getting perfect distributions of cards 100% of the time. RANDOMNESS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY, GOOD NIGHT

One of these days I'm going to record a video of myself doing a manual Fisher-Yates shuffle.
 
Yep. This reminds me of the same broken thinking that makes people go "lol randomizer on TCG Online is fail" because they hit clumps or otherwise aren't getting perfect distributions of cards 100% of the time. RANDOMNESS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY, GOOD NIGHT

One of these days I'm going to record a video of myself doing a manual Fisher-Yates shuffle.
I have begun to felt like the RNG on PTCGO is a little weird (i.e getting unusually bad hands), but yeah.
 
I have begun to felt like the RNG on PTCGO is a little weird (i.e getting unusually bad hands), but yeah.

What you're seeing is really good shuffling. Computers shuffle decks far better and faster than humans, and have a far greater range of deck orderings than we do.
 
Any further discussion of declumping itself should be a different thread. But be sure to read these previous threads (2011, 2012, 2013), and these rulings (2011, 2013), before you even bother.

The point of me bringing it up is in the context of "sufficient randomization", and me pointing out how any kind of knowledge of the deck should be destroyed. Let's keep focusing on that in this thread.
 
Which parts do you disagree with? The better, the faster or the greater range of deck orderings? Because it would be foolish to disagree with the last two. However, "better" is in the eye of the beholder. We each have our own preferences, and may not agree with the choices of others. Of course that doesn't make them wrong - just different. Don't confuse your preferences for absolute truth - it may not work for everyone else.
 
By "better", I would mean the latter two qualities I mentioned, plus the fact that no possible deck order is any more likely than any other - the distribution is completely random.
 
Which parts do you disagree with? The better, the faster or the greater range of deck orderings? Because it would be foolish to disagree with the last two. However, "better" is in the eye of the beholder. We each have our own preferences, and may not agree with the choices of others. Of course that doesn't make them wrong - just different. Don't confuse your preferences for absolute truth - it may not work for everyone else.
If you shuffle well, you theoretically should shuffle just as well as a computer.
 
True but how long would it take you to "shuffle just as well as a computer?" Considerably longer. That's why there are time limits on actions in pokemon, and why we shouldn't go all OCD on trying to shuffle the spots off the cards. As I said before, Balance is key.
 
Ummm, if that comment was directed at me (which I suppose it probably is), I don't mean any disrespect, nor did I mean to sound condescending - I just meant to be brutally honest. Conversing in an internet forum is an art in itself. You have to know when to be tactful, and when to be brutally honest. I'm afraid I probably haven't quite got the hang of it yet. If I offended anyone I apologize - However the message would still be the same
 
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