"You dont know what I was doing when I was looking at my deck..." That is your quote Ness, yet YOU seem to think "you" know what others ARE doing to their deck while searching, bc you have stated so in the OP. What a coincidence. I call that a mighty high horse you are on. Really???? It is not OK to question YOUR searches in YOUR deck, but it is OK to question all your oppo's.
I'm not going to argue over whether or not I know people are declumping because this thread is proof that they are. There are times when
declumping can be blatant, especially to an experienced, knowledgeable player. However, to expect judges to be consistently be able to distinguish between it and good-intended retrieving of cards related their search would be very difficult.
It's important to note that the judge who told me I was declumping my deck was talking about a game from over three years ago. Unless he's Rainman and is going to tell me how much damage was on my Jirachi on turn 4 of Game 2, I'm going to laugh that off like any reasonable person would. Quit trying to nitpick my 20 posts, it isn't going to change that declumping is either unfair or wasting time.
And until I'm disrespectful to you, try to return the favor, rather than flaming a post like an irate 12 year old.
The "Japanese shuffle" takes groups of cards from the middle of the deck and places them on top, very fast, again and again.
It does not do much to change the order of a deck if types of cards are spaced out.
Personally, I will riffle shuffle after someone does this if I am playing them.
I've seen this shuffle a few times and it is awful! Basically, the player breaks the deck in half and repeatedly moves the bottom half to the top-half, and the bottom-half again to the top half! (Are we talking about the same thing?) But this is essentially doing nothing if the player is grabbing the same halves. Even if he does grab a different amount of cards each shuffle, it is only changing the order of a select few cards. This shouldn't even be considered shuffling.
If they did this in SILENCE - there couldn't be an issue, as the opponent would have no way of knowing what was going on.
Now, enter a zealous judge who happens to see it...and we have some issue coming.
Now, I assume, straying off topic JUST A BIT, that if someone is seeing literally ordering their deck before a match, that would still be considered cheating, even if they "Japanese Shuffled" it a few times before handing it to their opponent.
This is taking the declumping to the extreme...but I can tell you for a fact that this EXACT thing has happened in the past, not only in this game, and it is where a lot of people get their extreme hatred from allowing a player to change the randomness of their deck from.
This is why you are one of the most-respected judges in the game. You have integrity and uphold both fairness and Spirit of the Game. I remember a ruling you issued at Illinois. At the time, you were allowed to use foreign cards in decks. A player played a Japanese Holon Mentor and his opponent (with a Holon Mentor sitting on top of his discard pile), called a judge.
"Doesn't he need a translation for this?" he asked you.
"Are you telling me you don't know what it does?" you sharply responded.
"Well..." he trailed off.
And you issued a warning to him for even asking. You recognized this player was simply trying to take advantage of a rule and maintained the fairness of the game. The game needs more judges with this common sense approach to fairness.
1. Can I de-clump as long as I riffle shuffle 6 times afterwards?
2. If I didn't de-clump, because I noticed my Rare Candies were nicely spaced out, but now I have that knowledge: is somehow 2 riffle shuffles sufficient now?
1. Yes, as long as the judge agrees six riffles is enough to randomize your deck. No judge has refuted this yet. (Also keep in mind riffling isn't the only way to randomize your deck.) Vince, Michael? Care to give us your thoughts on what is expected from a shuffle?
2. Technically, you should always be shuffling enough to randomize the deck. However, if your opponent is going to allow such a brief shuffle out of etiquette, you should maintain the Spirit of the Game by not memorizing any patterns in your deck for the same reason you shouldn't rearrange your deck to your liking. If there is some noticeable pattern that caught your attention, simply give it a better shuffle. (This area starts to get a little sticky because no one wants to spend 5 of our 30 minutes shuffling.) If you did happen to notice two of something together and got away with a brief shuffle, your advantage would be even smaller than that of a deliberate reorganization. I think that is why so many players are forgiving of brief shuffles if they do not see you rearranging cards. Rarely is your deck going to have some perfect order by chance that you are going to try to maintain by not shuffling thoroughly.
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The whole reason this thread got blown out of proportion is further proof that this is indeed a problem. If declumping was a simple waste of a few seconds, no one (including me) would make a deal about it. The reality is people are doing it to decrease the chances of drawing bad hands. (We've even seen people admit to this on this thread.) And that does indeed constitute cheating.
I am going to refrain from answering any questions I've already addressed. I'll respond to one or two more posts directed at me as long as they are not repeating the same questions. And then I think we will all be better off focusing our energy on more serious problems the game faces, such as:
- PTCGO has shown no or very little improvement in rules glitches and other issues for the last three months.
- There isn't enough time to allow for 2/3 to be played out in tournaments.
- Creating more fair tiebreakers, if possible.
