NoPoke said:
where in the floor rules does it allow 'legal stalling'?
Its something that I've missed
Legal stalling is basically making all moves possible in order to eat up time on the clock, even if they don't really inpact the game. I will show you how you cna be perfectly within the rules and eat up 2 minutes on a running clock.
Like my exaple earlier, say I am playing blaziken against rocklock, it is my turn and there are two minutes left on the clock. My entire bench is heavily damaged and I have 2 prizes left. Time is about to run out and if my opponent gets to take their turn I will lose because all they have to do is ATM rock me for mutliple prizes. There isn't really any way I can win the game, but that doesnt mean I can't make plays like on a normal turn. Think for a second, play a gym, then copycat your 11 card hand, I have to shuffle, takes a few seconds even moving quickly, draw my 11 cards, take a few seconds to quickly look over those cards. What can I do next? Well I have 2 firestarters to put somwhere, that will take a couple of seconds to decide. Oh wait I have a swoop too I can play on my benched dunspace, I discard him take a few more seconds to look through my deck and choose a basic to switch him with. Shuffling...few more second...present it to you to cut...few more seconds. Then I can evolve him, and don't forget I have my energy for the turn and oops, the clock just ran out, and I didn't even get to finish my turn. What I did was perfectly within the rules, I played that last turn exactly as I would have any other turn, and I took a resonable amount of time (keyword reasonable) for each card I played. I didn't change my speed, because even though time is runnig down I will still think out the concequences of my moves. I made every move possible from my hand and time ran out, therefor my turn ends (I could attack with something) and the game is over, I win on prizes. That is legal stalling, and as long as the rules allow it I see no problem using the rules their full extent. A judge can't do anything about this because they can't call the winner of the game, it isnt in their power, even though in this case it was clear who the winner would be. Not the courteous or sportsmanlike thing to do (SOTG and all that junk) because a good player knows when he's licked, a good player also knows the rules and how to use the rules to their advantage, simple as that.
Bottom line, or if you didnt care to read the same thing again, clocks are expensive. Here's a solution, extend the game with out a time limit so "legal" stalling like I did before is pointless. I know there is no chance I can beat you playwise so I just let you take your turn and end the game, and don't even bother with all that other stuff. Magic does a 5 turn extension, I think a good solution for pokemon would be extending the game TURN wise. Not even 5 either, even one or two turns would work well. Maybe extend the game based on the highest number of prizes left? I realise this might delay some tournaments but at nationals I saw a game that lasted into a 17 minute sudden death because of the shedinja that doesn't let you take a prize when it is KO'd. Or how about a turn extension with a maximum amount of time that each person can take for their turn. Just some way that your opponent gets a chance to take their turn.