In Magic: The Gathering, there are several common ways people cheat. Some of the most common cheats include straight up lying, deck manipulation while shuffling, stalling, rule sharking, adding cards to a draft deck, cutting into foils, and mana weaving. Cheating can lead to game and match losses, or even complete disqualifications.
Mana weaving is the most common cheat in Magic: The Gathering, as it involves scrying and swapping cards with another card in your hand. This cheat can lead to unspent mana and a loss of game points.
To prevent cheating, players should be aware of common phrases like “haste”, “exile”, and “flying”. They should also be aware of the rules for drawing extra cards, stalling, playing extra lands, adding cards to limited, intimidation, triggered abilities, and manipulating life.
To work in secret, players should separate the most important cards from the rest of the deck into their own pile. After shuffle, players must hand their deck over to the opponent for shuffle.
Intimidation and triggered abilities can also contribute to cheating in Magic: The Gathering. To protect themselves from being scammed, players should be aware of these cheats and take steps to protect themselves from being scammed.
📹 How to Catch People Cheating at Magic: The Gathering
People don’t always play fair, but you can come prepared. We cover 5 ways people cheat at Magic: The Gathering, and how to …
Is there a cheat for slot machines?
Cheating a slot machine can be done by making light, which can interrupt the sensors used by land-based casinos to determine the number of coins or bills being inserted. A pocket laser light can make the machine think you’re inserting coins or bills while you’re not. While scammers have used this method in both land-based and online casinos, there are fewer ways to cheat slot machines today. Cheating can lead to fines, blacklisting, and imprisonment, and it may not work. While it is still possible to cheat both land-based and online slot machines, it has become more difficult and not worth the risk.
How is Hasbro ruining Magic The Gathering?
The stock of Hasbro has been underperforming relative to the expectations of the investment bank, with a price target of $42 per share, which is approximately 30% below the current market price. The primary concern is that Hasbro has been engaged in excessive production of Magic cards, which has resulted in an inflation of the company’s earnings but has simultaneously caused a deterioration in its long-term brand value. This has resulted in mounting frustration among players, collectors, distributors, and local game stores.
Is it a sin to play Magic: The Gathering?
Magic has significantly influenced the author’s understanding of community and imagination, leading to a deeper connection with their faith. This has influenced their Bible reading, church life, and their prayers. Magic is not just a card game, but it is a tool for spiritual growth. While there are concerns about Magic being satanic or sinful, it is a community that accepts and encourages imagination.
The author wonders what could happen in their churches if more Christians were invited to experience the power of community and imagination. While there are concerns about Magic being satanic or sinful, it is essential for the long-term health of a Christian’s soul.
What is the 75% rule in MTG?
The 75 rule in MTG represents a foundational concept that informs both the construction of decks and the decision-making process during gameplay. The 75 rule suggests that a deck should be powerful enough to win against 75 opponents, thereby ensuring a balanced and effective deck.
What is the 21 damage rule in Magic The Gathering?
Commander Damage is a game where a player loses the game if they have been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander. The commander is tracked across zone changes, and any damage already dealt is counted. In a free-for-all multiplayer format, players start with 40 life, place their commander face-up in their zone, and draw a hand of seven cards. Players are seated randomly in a circle and progress one player at a time in clockwise order around the table.
What is the rule 713 in Magic The Gathering?
A substitute card is a game supplement that can be used to represent a double-faced or meld card, providing the standard missing card back these cards are naturally lacking. It is an optional substitute for traditional transforming, meld, or modal double-faced cards, ensuring that the cards are indistinguishable when face down. To use a substitute card, players must have the actual double-faced card in their possession. Substitute cards were introduced as checklist cards with Innistrad in 2011, and the name change to “substitute cards” in the rules occurred in 2020 with Zendikar Rising.
How to win at Magic: The Gathering?
The game involves attacking and blocking creatures to win. The combat phase is the middle phase of each turn, where players choose which creatures to attack and which opponents to attack. Tapped creatures indicate attacking, while opponents choose which creatures to block. Once all blockers are chosen, each creature deals damage equal to its power. An attacking creature that isn’t blocked deals damage to the player it’s attacking, while an attacking creature that is blocked deals damage to the blocking creature or creatures. This strategy is crucial for maximizing victory in the game.
What is the rule 0 in Magic: The Gathering?
Rule 0 is an unofficial rule in Commander that allows players to modify the rules of a non-competitive game with the approval of all other players involved. It allows exceptions to the official rules with the approval of all other players involved, such as using a non-legendary creature as commander or playing with banned or silver-bordered cards. Rule 0 is named after the fact that it precedes all other rules in the game, as it is often listed numerically in rulebooks and instruction manuals.
This allows players to modify everything that follows if they wish to do so. Rule 0 is similar to the concept of “house rules” in Magic. It is important to discuss rule 0 after the game to understand what players enjoy and what should be discussed before the next game.
Can you cheat in Magic: The Gathering?
Cheating in competitive MTG has a long history, with players manipulating decks, mana weaving, and using game rules unsportsmanlikely. This guide aims to educate players on cheating in Magic: The Gathering, covering common cases of issuing game and match losses, disqualifications, and suspensions to cheating players. Cheating can occur pregame, during, or after the game, and can result in game and match losses, complete disqualifications, or suspensions. The goal is to help players avoid this scourge and promote fair play in the game.
📹 The Most Common Cheat In Magic: the Gathering
Mana Weaving: The Most Common Cheat In Magic: the Gathering MTG Rules referenced in this video: …
Cheat #5: Marked cards It’s also a good idea to periodically exchange the sleeves on your sideboard cards for ones in your maindeck. Because your sideboard cards are played a lot less frequently than your maindeck cards they don’t get worn as fast. The newer looking sleeves can be considered “marked”, especially since they are on your sideboard cards.
Gave a guy an upgraded marked cards violation because he was using white sleeves and had been picking at his fingers during the event. He eventually began to bleed and when deck checked we found that it just so happened that his kikki jikkis in his kikki chord deck were the most marked. Gave a game loss, forced to resleeve, and clean his hands up
Oh man, when I was playing back in college, my roommate cheated constantly . I got really good at spotting cheating, because he was doing it in literally every game. More recently, I had a case where I was at a draft, and my round one opponent was a kid who didn’t realize he was shuffle cheating. Did the whole “mana weaving” thing, followed by a brief pile sort. I really doubt he was cheating on purpose, that’s just how lots of kids play and they think getting a perfect mix of lands and nonlands proves the deck is thoroughly mixed. The kid presents the deck to me to cut. And I pick it up, do about ten mash shuffles, then cut it and return it. The kid kept a one-lander on the draw, I assume because he’s used to always drawing lands if his hand is light. He did not. He got annihilated. He does the same cheaty-shuffle in game two. I properly shuffle his deck again. And he gets mana screwed again. Honestly, I should have talked to him about mana weaving, pile shuffling, and how that’s actually cheating. But I don’t think the average 9 year old is going to react well to being told they’re cheating by a 37 year old regular, even if the person is very clear that they’re not being accused of intentionally cheating.
Playing MTG at a competitive level for a number of years definitely made me really picky about shuffling etiquette. When I would shuffle my cards or my opponent’s, I would have the backs facing towards my opponent and the fronts angled downwards so I couldn’t see them either. I would make a big show of not looking at my cards as I shuffled too, just so my opponent would feel comfortable that there was zero chance I could have seen the cards as I shuffled. Another thing worth noting is that at competitive and professional REL, the rules specify that you must SHUFFLE your opponent’s deck when they present it to you. Just cutting their deck is not considered sufficient, though judges do seem somewhat lax in enforcing this. It’s always a good practice regardless because shuffling rather than cutting removes the chance of your opponent benefitting from any kind of shenanigans.
Had a guy mash shuffle my deck very forcefully damaging a couple of sleeves and cards, then called a judge and told them I was playing with marked cards. Thankfully the players sat beside us had seen the incident and vouched for side of the story. Apparently this player was well known for doing so in tournaments.
This article would have been useful back when I got demolished at a prerelease when I was 14, especially the ‘in situ’ shuffle and the marked sleeves. This one guy that eliminated me always seemed to top deck the one card he needed even after a cut; he put his bombs in sleeves with a larger frayed edge so I always cut on it -_- Two years later the guy and a judge got busted for being besties and always splitting the rewards for the Pres and FNMs
1) You can not only cut your opponents deck, but you can shuffle it as we well. 2) If your opponent is shuffling your deck and you don’t believe it is sufficiently randomized, call a judge. And on a semi-related note my LGS recently had a Road to Nationals event for Flesh and Blood. In the finals one player got a warning for not properly maintaining the game state (not putting cards in the graveyard from the battlefield). Afterwards 3 other players he played against said the same thing happened to them. But none of them called the judge so he didn’t get his first warning until the finals. If they would have called the judge he would have been warned earlier and been at risk of a game loss if he got caught again. Don’t be afraid to call a judge. It’s not rude, that is what they are there for.
To avoid unintentionally marked sleeves, it would be better to use outer shields (Clear) or double sleeve (if allowed) your favorite sleeves to use to avoid wear and tear and just replace the outer shields. I always use them on those special sleeves I have. That or probably use generic non-clear/transparent(specially if you have double sided cards) sleeves just to simplify everything.
I remember participating in a legacy tournament, and having been told before the start by a kind fellow player i should have my deck checked because i was using transparent sleeves. I asked the judge. He proceeded to watch through my deck, back facing. He pulled out 4 cards and i was flabbergasted when i saw the 4 copies of force of will i had in ny deck. Turns out, alliances have a slightly lighter tone on the backs for whatever printing mistake which i was absolutely unaware of. If he didn’t check i would have been easily disqualified if my opponent requested a check. So i got black sleeves and got kicked out (3 loss 1 win) at the first round anyway 😂😂😂
You can also help with this as an honest player by normalising some of the behaviour. I always offer my desk to my opponent to cut at the beginning of the game, i verbally declare land plays etc. The more these things are normalised the less room in the “social contract” there are for cheaters to exploit.
@ Weird shuffling, that’s me for sure, I do a 8 card pile shuffle, and just lay them out randomly into several piles then do a the more normal chunk shuffling a few times after. I get that it might look odd, and it might look like trying to stack the deck with some convoluted street magicians level trick but I’m not trying to stack the deck. Anyone against me is more than welcome to cut. Mostly I don’t want to shuffle them like normal playing cards, and if the deck has sleeves it’s harder shuffle otherwise, mid game I’m not going through the whole thing it’ll just be a the chunk shuffle. (I don’t know if there is a word to that type shuffling, where you kinda shuffle by moving chunks of the deck around and slide them into the other parts of the deck. It’s that type of shuffling most people do)
Regarding shuffling to the top: You are not just allowed to cut, you’re also allowed to shuffle your opponents deck. In tournaments or at events where prizes are involved, you should absolutely do that. Just give it a few quick shuffles. It’s not much effort and you’re much safer from cheaters that use any kind of deck manipulation Also, regarding shuffles: Pile shuffling does not actually randomize the deck, the only thing it can be used for in a non-cheating way is counting out your deck after sideboarding. If your opponent exclusively pile shuffles, you have three options, in order of escalation: shuffle their deck very thoroughly, call them out or call a judge. Or combinations of these. To explain what pile shuffling is, just so everyone is aware of exactly the type of shuffle I mean, it is when you put cards into piles one at a time and then stack the piles. But as you guys said, people intentionally cheating are really rare. The thing about pile shuffling is that occasionally, new players will pick it up as a habit without realizing it is effectively cheating (because it does not sufficiently randomize your deck), so if you do encounter someone doing it, go easy on them unless you’re already certain from other things that they want to cheat.
Lot’s of players often do a small shuffle when offered a cut and usually I’m cool with that, it’s a lot easier to ensure the opponent couldn’t have cheated cards to the top however I had one guy attempt to bridge my cards then he tried to called a judge cause I was clearly being suspicious as I wouldn’t let him shuffle my legacy deck
Good timing. I’m entering an RCQ this Saturday and as someone who’s deaf I’m at a disadvantage in that some people don’t fully explain what they’re doing. The people that I regularly play against are great with it but at my last prerelease it was pretty bad and my wins mainly came down to good deck building and a fair bit of luck.
Hey guys, great article. As someone who plays in a lot of competitive events through the year I’m curious what your take is on speed of play. I’ve run into a handful of situations, especially with store championships and RCQs, where I notice players are intentionally slow-playing turns or stalling out matches by taking extra long turns in order to get more match draws or to avoid final game losses. What would be the appropriate response for someone in situations where they feel their opponent is either intentionally slow-playing or simply taking way too long for their turns? What should players do in situations where the event is not being monitored by a Judge? What would your take be on paper events giving players time banks to play their turns in a set, similar to Magic Arena and Magic Online?
Many years ago I looked into a good amount of cheating incidents. There are multiple times Alex Bertoncini would play a card he already played (I think he both drew from bin and just kept cards he played in hand). The other big thing I remember is Trevor Humphries, when he cut his opponents’ decks, he would shuffle his opponent’s deck instead of doing a simple cut and he would do the fake cut and either mana flood or mana screw them (I forget which)
the worst part of marked cards is how even factory sealed sleeves can end up being marked unintentionally. my dragon shield dual mattes have had little pock marks on a few sleeves in the pack for all the packs i’ve bought recently, and so i’ve had to start “deck checking” my own sleeves as soon as i put them on, lol.
i love that as an actual cheater (not really) i basically caught all the cheats, i did card tricks before i got into magic, making 2 cards look like 1, fake shuffles, forcing cards to the top, etc. i have purposefully told my group and i am basically the only one that gets their deck cut every time, when i feel someone used a shuffle that i would use to do it then i would ask to cut their deck, as a magician you always learn to look at peoples hands and not fall for some misdirection.
I remember an Fnm where I was playing boros midrange. There was was a guy to my left who kept trying to grab my library and graveyard with the intention of slipping in an extra boros reckoner into the mix so my opponent, his friend, could claim I was cheating and therefore should take a loss. After the Fnm, this guy and his friend tried to jump me outside but my friend was right there with me and we kicked the crap out of these guys. I played one more organized event after that with equally toxic participants. It was the last time I played organized magic ever, because I didn’t want to deal with the childish bs anymore.
There’s a variant of Cheat #1 that’s hard to protect against when your opponent intentionally shuffles a card (land/dead card, etc) to the top of your deck while they’re shuffling it. If that happens, you don’t have the option to cut it again since you aren’t allowed to shuffle/cut after your opponent does so. If you spot it, best thing to do is call a judge. The judge can shuffle your deck again and/or deal with any cheating that may or may not have occurred.
Only one time have I happened to catch a cheat. Some guy knocked his deck over “on accident”. It just slid down – no cards were revealed or anything, so normally nothing would have happened, guy even just used one finger to correct it(the other hand holding the base. Except I had JUST been counting his mana base to know if I could do something and wouldn’t you know – his deck just so happened to fall perfectly on top of a swamp…that wasn’t there before.
When I was in highschool, a guy in our “cafeteria playgroup” who marked all of his cards with a little symbol in a corner. After finding out, the guy just left embarrased and never returned. Also playing yu-gi-oh in my LGS, another guy pulled full Exodia in his initial hand (5 exact cards, one copy of each piece in a 40-card deck, initial hand size is five) TWICE the same day in a local tournament. Very suspicious, but he wasn’t never caught.
A good friend of mine always cheated with his shuffling when playing against me. I don’t know if he did other cheats. He would never admit it. I eventually had to stop playing against him. One time when I beat him he cried. I thought that was really pathetic. I can’t imagine being so invested in winning by any means that winning fairly would be meaningless to me. What a scumbag.
Well i got cheated on by a “pro” player many times, just kept drawing perfect draws with extended goblins on mirrodin era. He was later banned from playing the game on competitive level for some years for this. Respect the Judges work, since it could be the differenece between having a blast or getting really angry and smacking someone on the face.
Another way people cheat with “Marked Sleeves” is that over a few months the texture of the same exact sleeve set will change very slightly for example a brand new box of Matte Green Dragonshields will look very slightly different from Matte Green Dragonshields bought the previous month and people can often times get away with it by saying that they re sleeved a few of their cards due to a busted sleeve and thought because they were the exact same product they would be in the clear however I have seen multiple DQs for this with I suspect some were not intended so if you replace sleeves replace all of them at once or buy the replacements at the same time from the manufacturer. For standard luckily you have 75 cards and likely 100 sleeves so you can keep your extra 25 from the same box to be extra safe.
I feel pissed about that article. We had one dude in our groud and i felt betrayed because his startinghands all the games with fastmana and/or Divine top. So two other duded felt the same, ende up one was taken out and startet spying the dude. In the end we locked him out out the group. Now i always feel betrayed when ppl habe such good starthands. 🙁 (edh player)
This is a rule learned from Atlantic City kid: if you see someone shuffling with both their thumbs, they’re a fucking magician trying to screw you in poker. I’ve only seen this once in a casino and immediately every pro poker player just gets out of the table and talked to the pit boss your dealer is working a scam with that guy. Tropicana gave everyone at the table free hotel rooms and bribed the crap out of us to not make this a thing meanwhile I’m sure that dealer was not only fired but had an angry Italian man with a baseball bat intimidating him before the firing. I’m sure MTG tournaments aren’t as let’s say persuasive in their handling of cheaters. This article is fun to see MTG players perspective on poker cheating tactics.
9:00 I have alot of decks with unintentionally marked cards as we have two types of dark blue sleeves one type from ultra pro and one no name version and I can’t tell them apart without checking for the ultra pro symbol on the front or holding them in the light next to each other. (I only play with friends and family and without stakes so it isn’t really to important)
At an FNM, I once accidentally used two different colors of sleeves in the same deck. (Dragon Shield’s “Black” and “Jet”, both matte.) It took me half the night to even notice, since they’re very similar in the right lighting, and none of my opponents noticed. If someone wanted to cheat by doing that, I doubt it would go unnoticed at a high-level event, but it might go unnoticed at FNM or similar quasi-casual events. After that night, I made sure all my draft sleeves were the same color.
I play with quite a few newer players at FNM nights, and not surprisingly they aren’t well-versed in a lot of the regular actions you take when you aren’t playing kitchen table casual magic. Always cutting the opponents deck is chief among these, and what I like to tell them is: “Trust you opponent. But always cut their deck anyway.”
Back at a local gaming club, we had one player who was a very… aggressive personality. Disagreeing with him on anything often meant signing up for an escalating argument. This player also was a blatant cheater – during a game, he would randomly just look at his top card, without any effect allowing such an action. He would often try to be a little sly about it, doing it when he thought the opponent was otherwise not looking. Worst, he would do this regardless of whether the game was ‘important’ or not – casual games, playtesting decks for an event, whatever – and any attempt to call him out on it meant settling in for a round of “what does it matter? it isn’t changing anything” and then trying to patiently explain that it does, in fact, matter, because it is, in fact, cheating to gain information; followed, of course, by the inevitable escalation into argument in which all the stops would be pulled out to make the person calling him out seem like the unreasonable person for… y’know… wanting to play a card game fairly. It only took a couple iterations of this happening before I stopped playing with him entirely, and not much longer before he mostly stopped coming to club meetings (likely because people didn’t want to play with him). In short, sometimes cheating can be just as simple as your opponent thinking he can get away with something while you’re busy reading cards or making decisions. Not MtG, but I actually had an Aunt who did this all the time in board games (like Monopoly) when I was a kid; she would, as far as we could tell, never keep the benefits of cheating, but she would always be doing stuff like taking extra money from the bank, or pulling out an extra house to place, and just “waiting until someone noticed” (meanwhile, most of the rest of the players are busy dealing with their own money, property, and strategy, so aren’t accustomed to perusal other people whom they are ostensibly friends with to prevent cheating), getting more and more blatant over the course of a game until someone finally caught her out and she’d laugh it off and put things back proper.
This isn’t a deliberate cheating thing, but I’ve run into problems a couple of times in the past where a card is heavily pringled, which is effectively marking the card. It happened ten-ish years ago to me while playing with the cheap foil Emrakul (ROE prerelease wasn’t that far back so prerelease foils were cheaper than regular at the time) and it happened more recently with a really bent faerie conclave. The real problem with a single pringle in your deck is that it’s really easy for your opponent to cut straight to it. It’s always a problem but when it’s a core finisher or combo piece (yes, like Emrakul), then it’s really bad as you have a much higher chance to draw it after every shuffle & cut.
Missed all the fun ones. Cut my deck Ok Judge!! He’s messing with my deck! Or the sleeve one. If you have to replace a sleeve from damage etc. replace all of them because there could be slight shade or size/cut differences between sleeves even if it’s the exact same colour from the exact same brand. Or the I need to use the washroom during a draft and am gonna take my deck with me and somehow my deck mysteriously has a play set of every good card
Another thing to pay attention to is how much force your opponent is using while shuffling your deck. If you notice that your opponent is shuffling your deck with unnecessary force, notify a judge immediately. Your opponent could be trying to deliberately damage your cards in order to accuse you of playing with “marked” cards and get a free win.
If my opponent ever asks if they have already played a land and I honestly can’t remember if they can’t remember I tell them to not play anymore. A) If their land mattered they would most likely remember so they might be cheating. B) It is not illegal to miss a land drop, but it is illegal to play an extra. At that point if they insist just call a judge. if it’s a casual no stakes game I make my decision based on what I know about the person.
I been cheated on at FNM draft. Very experienced player lied to me, at the time a new player, about when I could and could not announce my triggers. He took a game action that triggered one of my creatures. He then took another game action. I announced my trigger, he said it was too late. I in no way had indicated that I had passed priority and I had taken no game actions, and I know he new the rule because he was a very accomplished tournament grinder.
6:35 so one of my weird talents is remembering things like that very well and we had a player at my lgs try to pull it during commander games. He rolls, passes the dice and so the dies go around and he states ” Okay I start” and I look at him “No not with a 12 he had a 15″ ” no you mixed that up” I proceed to tell him everyones rolls in order with what dice showed what and the rest of the table agrees and he looks miffed. I had no benefit from this It made it so that instead of going second after him I went last. That happened a few more times over a few months till the owner had a talk to him as several people called him out for different things and he never returned.
You ALWAYS have a final say in cutting and shuffling an opponents deck. Let me give a real-world example. If your opponent shuffles their deck and cuts the deck, you can shuffle the deck and cut it. You present the deck to the opponent. If opponent decides to RE-Cut the deck, you can shuffle and cut again and present the deck. Stay vigilant! We Thad a player who was cutting the deck and intentionally adding cards to the top of their deck and we had to make it very clear to them that the opponent had the final cut in their deck!
My most hated “cheating” that gets called out is people using proxies. I happen to think you are the scum of the earth if you call judges over on fake cards. I always have for decades now. I personally have never been in a professional settings, but the idea that you can live with yourself by using your wallet to win, disgusts me.
I was looking into the system in place for how to become a judge, and having taking a pretty big hiatus between 2015 and last year, I was absolutely astonished to learn that WotC has basically disavowed judging. Its crazy to me. This article has done more to help people learn to play the game fairly than WotC has in the last 5 years. That said, that dive also made me realize that a judge, especially at a local event, is probably not somebody I could trust to do more than make a basic ruling on board state interaction.
Ich habe auf einem großen Turnier gegen einen Gegner gespielt, der mein Deck nach mir immer nochmals gemischt hat, bevor ich meine 7 Karten gezogen habe. Danach hatte ich immer nur Länder oder gar keine Länder gezogen und musste somit mehrmals Mulligan nehmen. Er hat beim Mischen auch immer etwas nach unten geschaut und ich war ihm gegenüber schnell sehr misstrauisch. Klar, normal sollte man bei sowas den Judge rufen, aber mir viel das irgendwie schwer, weil ich die Chemie nicht ganz am Anfang des Matches zerstören wollte und ich Angst hatte, ihn ja vielleicht auch zu unrecht zu verdächtigen. Habe ich einen Anspruch darauf auch mein eigenes Deck zu cutten, wenn es mein Gegner als letztes gemischt hat?
But what about fudging the dice in order to stage a better article? 😅 Like in your recent article “Can a Magic Deck Ever Fairly Beat a Yu-Gi-Oh Deck?” (LgC6Jd4hFeI) Where one of Adam’s rolled dice clearly shows a three on the table in the article (at 5:44); but after a cut, the dice have been re-arranged and both players react as if Adam rolled double sixes.
The lucky thing about playing Yugioh primarily over Magic is the question of “Did I normal summon yet” can be answered very easily because your individual summons are all part of that turn’s combo, which is a lot easier to remember than in Magic just casually dropping a basic without even thinking about it and then later thinking wait did I actually play a land this turn?
So some thoughts based on comments. First off the rules (check description) specifically state that players are allowed to mana weave prior to sufficient randomization for the reason of COMFORT (psychologically). Not for any tactical ways to reduce bad luck. Remember your WHY. Still, I highly suggest you rid yourself of this behavior. Next, I think if you and your friends unanimously agree to mana weave for smoother games, then it’s acceptable so long as it’s in your playgroup and no harm done. Just understand that mana weaving is unethical outside your playgroup and strictly against the rules at tournaments.
I have never heard the term “mana weaving” before. I was actually taught by the people I learned Magic from that this is the proper way to shuffle and never thought any more of it. I have actually felt dumb at times because sometimes I just shuffle due to not feeling like going through all the effort….
Fun story: the friend that introduced me to MTG taught me mana weaving. He said at the time that it was to keep lands from clumping together, so I picked the habit of doing it before storing my deck. Years later, the same friend told me mana weaving was a cheat. The facepalm moment was epic. I have never done it since. BTW: I always shuffle like 30 or so times. Suffice to say, people get annoyed. The same friend taught me that xD.
100% agree with everything here – thought it was worth mentioning though a minor (but nonetheless interesting) difference between the coin toss analogy and MTG. The chances of a coin-toss being one vs. the other outcome is indeed 50%, but at any given point in a game of magic the odds of drawing specific cards like lands vs. spells changes with each draw, as the outcomes are coming from a fixed sample, i.e. every time you draw a land the odds of the next draw being a land go down slightly as there are fewer lands in the deck to choose from. After your first draw of 7 cards you might have 3 lands in hand. The odds of drawing a land on your first draw might be 21/53 or ~40%. If you draw a land, next turn your chances of drawing another are 20/52 or 38%. If you don’t draw a land, your next turn’s chances are 20/51 or 39%. Again, this isn’t any sort of criticism of anything in this article, just something I think folks might benefit from considering alongside everything you mentioned. Also, can you tell wizards that their shuffler is cheating…?
I usually pick up all the cards I used in a round (battlefield, graveyard, exile, and hand, including the lands) and quickly shuffle those 3 or 4 times to randomise it a bit, then combine them with the library and shuffle 7+ more times. Usually I drop a card as I finish shuffling and gotta shuffle again though lol.
I haven’t played MTG in many years, but back in the day I always mana shuffled (or mana weaved according to this article) and then shuffled afterwards, not even knowing it was wrong. All of my friends did it and it was just an accepted part of the game to us. But now, having seen this article, I can say that my mind is blown and it’s hard to believe that I never considered it cheating before.
I’ve always thought that in tournament settings, judges should have to randomize the decks for players. That way they can learn how to sufficiently randomize them and in an impartial way, which is (more or less, barring corruption) immune to any kind of favorable or unfavorable tricks players like to use. There’s probably money in inventing a reliable machine to shuffle sleeved decks quickly too.
As someone who only plays edh with one playgroup I would say it comes down more to pregame expectations. Myself and my friends would rather have a game where everyone is less likely to be mana screwed and so we all do it. Of course things are different when you are playing with randoms or in a tournament and it just comes down to the rules the group agrees on before the game.
I think a lot of it started back in the day when no one had sleeves. Most of us understood that riffle shuffling was hard on the cards, so we didn’t want to do that. So you would mana weave and then do some simple overhand shuffles to mix things up and minimize damage to the cards. This was with friends of course, not in a competitive environment (at least for me). Now with sleeves, it’s much easier to properly shuffle without damaging the cards. I continued to mana weave for a while, but only after I first built the deck. After that, I would just shuffle thoroughly. Eventually I realized I was just doing it out of habit/superstition and it was a waste of time since I could just skip straight to the thorough shuffle and end up with the same results.
i’m going to point out that after a game of magic during the clean up alk your lands tend to be in 1 spot on the table creating clumps and failure to properly shuffle will leave you with the opposite effect of this and as far as your definition of random there is no such thing as random in our universe the outcome is always predictable just sometimes more complicated than we can calculate
A good practice is to mana weave either when you’ve just finished BUILDING the deck, or after you’ve finished playing a series of games in sequence but after you’re finished playing for the day. The worst feeling in the game is building a fresh deck, shuffling for 5 minutes, then getting tons of cards that are all put together xD but outside of those times it’s pretty pointless.
I went thru the rules for competitive play and it requires sufficient randomization by both players thru shuffling prior to play. If the mana weaving player does it b4 a game starts and makes sufficient shuffling without delaying the game i.e. a slow play while time is already running in the clock, you cant actually call it a rule violation. If the player doesnt shuffle after the mana weave, you can actually totally screw ur opponent hand by a specific way of pile/side shuffling which ends up bunching up the lands. I think Nikachu has to expand on this article to point out the specific ways mana weaving is actually illegal, instead of giving a blanket statement as it will be factually irresponsible.
I think for some people it’s just psychological. It – feels – better mentally, especially if you are a high anxiety person, even if you shuffle for several minutes afterward. I stopped doing it for the reasons you mentioned – if you shuffle sufficiently, weaving is pointless – but mentally it’s honestly hard to break. EDIT: I think a better way of describing it is that I think for some people it’s like a superstition or a compulsive behavior: kind of like not stepping on sidewalk cracks, knocking on wood, carrying around a “lucky” object, or whatever else, at least in terms of intent. Again, I agree that people should stop doing it for all the reasons you mentioned, but I think it’s a plausible explanation (it was for me) and it’s worth understanding the why.
ive never thought to do this. Outside of the competitive realm it sounds like a good practice, fun games, no one wants to sit there and keep throwing away their hand or picking up clumps, you want to see the full potential of your deck, might be something to ask my friends to do with me so that we both have good plays throughout the game. instead of one of us having 7 mana while the other has none.
After constructing a deck I mana weave. Otherwise my entire deck is in order of CMC by type and lands are all in order as well since it is in the order to determine curve and helps me make cuts. Once I weave I shuffle 6 to 8 times to ensure it is sufficiently shuffled. This is for commander mind you. After so many games sometimes I have to mana weave after a big commander game when I have 25 lands clumped together. Last game I played, I had 2 lands in my opening hand and did not draw my third land till turn 9. When going through my deck after the game I had 18 lands clumped together. So, yeah, spreading out lands helps and keeps the game moving. My group, we all do this after enough games since commander feels bad when one person is just locked out to bad luck and has to wait 2 hrs to join the next game.
Technically having a clump of lands and shuffling is also knowing the order of the deck before hand too. People can and do put those clumps on the bottom of the pile when playing things like speed, or red deck wins that have very low curves. When you get into the nitty gritty of your arguments nothing before the shuffle would satisfy your requirements for randomness because its all in the shuffle afterwards, therefore mana weaving isnt really cheating if you shuffle enough and your opponent does too.
In our playgroup we always manaweaved, even in our draft tourneys. Then when I started playing in another playgroup, where it was highly frowned upon, I really had to stop that habit. To be fair, the games in the mana-weaving group were more fun because in the other group there was always 1 person at the table who got mana-screwed or flooded and it made the games less fun. Nothing more annoying than playing a 2HG with you vs the other 2 because your teammate is stuck at 3 mana for the entire game.
Best article yet! To add some more fun math to the context of the article, it takes roughly 2500 overhand shuffles to sufficiently randomize a 52 card deck, even more for 60 cards, but only 7 riffle shuffles to! I recommend always doing at least 8 riffle shuffles before a game, and ditto for your opponents’ decks.
The part that may interest you is; looking at it from a statistics perspective–just adequately shuffling your deck goes a LONG way to distributing lands. More shuffles = more entropy, more entropy = more equal distribution. And you won’t have people saying “you shuffling so much is trying to cheat” because nobody thinks of it that way. If you’re getting mana flooded or screwed, it’s probably because you didn’t shuffle ENOUGH (assuming you aren’t weaving). A deck of playing cards has 8 fewer cards than the average MTG deck, so if 5~12 shuffles (7 or 8 average) is enough for playing cards, I’d say 9~10 shuffles should be good enough for a 60-card MTG deck, and if your opponent shuffles it it should make very little difference. Many decks have about from 30% up to 45% lands (with the most common being about 40%, or 23~24 cards of a 60 card deck). Your chances of not getting at least two lands, and not getting more than four lands should be at least every other draw. So yeah, if you’re having these mana issues, shuffle more. A lot more. Maybe even shuffle a few different ways.
I’m an old school player, like 3rd/ 4th edition and back then it was called proportioning not mana weaving. So I do it cause I’ve always have and I shuffle afterwards. However, I must be the person that does actual shuffle afterwards cause I’m also the guy that is ALWAYS mana screwed. Like if I have a hand with 3 lands that is probably all I get, lol. I also only do it after a dozen or so games too.
If your opponent shuffles, even half-assed, and then you shuffle, but manaweaving still gives them some sort of advantage: your shuffling isn’t random enough. “You” are shuffle cheating. Why didn’t your shuffling produce random results? This is the same as setting a dice to a specific number before picking it up and rolling it. If your roll consistently gets the number, then it’s not the starting position that is the issue, it’s the rolling method. Your deck was organized during construction, then shuffled, is it an issue all lands were in a stack at one point, or did you shuffle? Even if you didn’t, your opponent is supposed to, and hands it back when they are satisfied. That stage is affirmative consent, you don’t get to cry foul after.
I mana weave, but only on the creation of the deck itself. I do this because it helps me figure out if I have a good mana-spell ratio. Afterwards I do the stacks, which helps me count if I have the right amount of cards in the deck. After this, I personally know this deck is not sufficiently shuffled, so I shuffle it close to 20 times before I even consider using it. The exact amount is unknown to me because as I do stuff on my computer, I do a lot of fidgeting by shuffling my deck. Sure, I COULD, in theory, count how many times I’ve shuffled, but I don’t care to count that. And even then, I shuffle my deck (was 3, will be 7 in the future after perusal your article on proper shuffling) times before allowing my opponent to shuffle as protocol dictates.
One of the few times I played magic non digitally I ended up mana weaving because my opponent did it and he argued it was the only way to get true randomness. After 1 or 2 matches I stopped as I found it was to much of a hassle to do so I just shuffled the deck normally. Never thought about it again, cool article and topic
Around when Return to Ravnica was the current block, my AP stats teacher had us all for homework flip a coin 300 times. He told us we could use an RNG generator, but we had to do the flips 1 at a time and log the results. He then basically shared all the results and clumped them in two groups without saying anything. and after telling us that the actual assignment was graded at 100% as long as you turned it in, asked us to admit if we cheated and just made it up or not. He told us we wouldn’t get in trouble and after about 10 of the 30 kids in class admitted to it, he pulled up the names on the assignments, and basically only one of students that cheated wasn’t in the second group. The second group was entirely composed of cheaters and one false positive, and the other group was everyone who didn’t cheat and one of the cheaters. The cheaters looked way more evenly distributed in heads or tails. Really cool blast from the past..
Very interesting article there 👍 But i wanna throw some ideas. 1-Since mana weaving is not considered cheating in the official MTG ruling (if you shuffled afterwards) 2-Since mana weaving helps a lot, like you said, to reduce the pourcentage of non-games starting hands (i mean by that, non-landers hands, or 5-6 landers hands) which are pretty frustrating to any mtg player, Why not just allow mana weaving for everyone and say you must shuffle your deck at least 7 times after that ? If both players benefit of such a thing, the odds would be the same for everyone and then no advantage to anyone. I know they try their best to avoid non-games with the ruling and new sets releases, so could it be a good idea to add ?
Wow, I never realized that I was cheating by doing this even though I do shuffle a ridiculous amount of times after I weave. I only mana weave though when I’m creating a new deck and don’t do that again after I start playing games. I’m definitely going to stop going forward because I don’t want to rob myself or my opponents a true victory.
After perusal this article, I feel that when I finish a game, if I don’t want to be tagged as a cheater, I need to put my 13 lands that I played this turn during this game in one huge pile on top of the deck. If spreading them through the deck isn’t random, well I don’t understand how leaving them clumped up together is defined as “more random” Even worse, I am building a new deck. I pull out 25 swamps, 4x of creature A, B, C, D, E, and 4x of spells F, G, H, I What you tell me, is that in order to have a random deck, I should leave these all neatly organised and shuffle for a true random? I disagree, I should mish mash the creatures, mish mash the spells through the creatures, mish mash the lands through the rest, and now I believe I’ve created a random after I’ve shuffled my deck sufficiently. I kinda feel like you are exagerating the situation. I will continu to do what I believe is right, and I will argue to anyone who calls me a cheater for it Don’t take it bad, I disagree with you, but I still respect your opinion.
I always weave my played cards at the end of a game and then interlace them back into the deck. Never thought it was cheating, just OCD, haha. I always shuffle at least 7-8 times, though both when stowing and retrieving a deck. Also, the only time I mana weave the entire deck is when it’s first built.
I actually used to do this when my friends and I first started playing Magic and didn’t know the proper way to build a deck to actually function and was tired of getting Mana screwed or only drawing lands and just wanted to keep learning to play. I did this in front of them and they were like “What are you doing?” And I explained it and they all did it too.
Mana weaving is for casual play, weave your mana, do a good amount of shuffling. Its the only way I found to reliably play MTG with my friends, But, they are all my decks, and they usually scoop all their lands up together and put them in the deck as a block. I always recommend: take your hand, graveyard, and all played cards and shuffle them first, then put them with your library and finish shuffling. This prevents the mana block from going in the deck that casual players struggle to shuffle effectively.
We used to do this as younger people because we had a friend that would consistently cheat with slight of hand stuff so we all agreed that doing so would put us on a level with him and it gave us a lot more consistently fun games rather than one getting screwed for a 20-30 minute game and they just sit and watch.
if you just clump all your lands together at the end of every game and then shuffle your going to have awful mana pockets that aren’t random. after multiple games this gets worse and worse no matter how much you shuffle there will be multiple mana pockets after multiple games. its not fun for anyone. if everyone just takes the time to de clump the mana pockets and then shuffles properly everyone gets a chance to actually play their deck. increasing everyone’s fun. It’s not all about tournaments either.
To be fair, when you build a deck, usually you have the cards completely sorted, by type, by converted mana cost, or however you sort while deck building. If you just grab the piles, stack them up, then start shuffling, it will be further from true random than if you start by mana weaving. Personally, when I finish deck building, I shuffle my spells together, then shuffle my lands together, then I shuffle the lands and spells.
I mostly play with my playgroup (who are mostly new players), and they mostly use my decks. My process when I make an EDH deck is I get everything sorted while building, then I will weave basically all of the piles together, give it a few shuffles, and then box it for play. From that point on, the deck only gets weaved back together if it gets rebuilt. I started really doing this because I handed a fresh and still sorted deck to a friend to play with, they didn’t shuffle nearly enough and had a miserable experience. My Modern and Standard decks usually stay organized until I bring them to an event, at which point, I just shuffle until my test hands stop feeling like shit. I never really sat down to think about the ethics of it because I just figured that I’m randomly distributing the deck together and that if I’m shuffling, there’s going to be no predetermined ordering or clumping of cards, and if my friends are getting handed a deck, it shouldn’t need a ton of shuffles when I know they have trouble shuffling 100-card double sleeved decks. Guess I had some lucky enough habits to not have that bleed into the more competitive formats xD Good to know what to avoid doing as I start getting more into competitive play though.
It is good to mana weave when you first put the deck together. No time after that. Of course, play test 10 plus times, with lots of shuffling each time, before ever facing an opponent. It gives you a feel how the deck will change over time. You don’t get any advantage once you play someone, but you can see how it would be when it’s at it’s best on the first play. Basically, if it stinks on game one of the play testing, or even games 2-5, you might want to scrap it and try something else. On games 6 – 10, if it does bad, you need to fix something. Anything after 10 it is more of the randomness and you might see some ways to improve, but it’s less likely to need it to be competitive.
To avoid this kind of cheating, when i play competitive tournaments i always separate my opponent deck in 3 piles, this way if your opponent did any kind of stacking like this you’re gonna catch them separating all his lands in one of the piles…gotcha cheaters! For this thing sometimes players were aggravated and called me cheater, but the truth is they’re were the cheaters i was just punishing them for doing so. If you don’t mana weave (aka cheating) there is nothing to fear about having your deck separated in 3 piles right? Me and my friends we do mana weaving on casual EDH to avoid boring matches with one of the players being mana screw/flood, but that’s different because you’re not competing, like you do on a competitive tournament where you paid an inscription and you’re opting for a prize. just my opinion.
I just got taught to mana weave when starting(didnt even know it was a named thing). Then just shuffle the hell out of it. When I build or change out high numbers of cards I also do it. Then shuffle the hell out of it. ( was taught to do it so I knew I had the right amount of lands for my decks. If it wasn’t make sure you fixed it between the two piles).
I wasn’t even aware this was considered cheating, I only play commander casually with friends but before every game I try to do a pre-shuffle shuffle faceup so I don’t just have all my same type cards together because they usually are sorted by card type when I’m editing the decks so a quick shuffle wouldn’t give me a healthy balance, then once things are distributed better for an actual game instead of editing I’ll do multiple reshuffles normally in different ways and let my friends cut.
Manaweaving does seem to be against the spirit of the game but if an opponent is allowed to shuffle the deck… it kind of seems up to them to prevent this from happening. As a player in a competitive environment you bear some responsibility to ensure rules are followed. Making sure a deck is sufficiently shuffled should just be a natural part of your game like making sure your opponent taps the correct amount of mana for a card.
I think there’s an inherent problem with Magic’s design. Of course, randomness is an essential aspect of any card game, but being locked out of playing anything due to bad luck seems a bit too unfair. It would be cool if land cards didn’t exist at all and instead you could use any card as a land. This would also add another layer of eecision-making to the game, because you’d have to ask yourself ” Do i wanna use this card for mana or save it for when i can actually cast it?”. And you can still have cards that gain unique effects when used as lands. Another idea would be to have a separate land pile that you can choose to draw from instead of your main deck.
I think when you’re first putting together a deck, going through it and mana weaving is fine (assuming you’ve shuffling several times between games) but if between gains or during side boarding, you’re rearranging the deck then it’s obviously an issue. I view it as basically the same as pile shuffling, if you pile shuffle, it helps stop lands from clumping. I haven’t heard many people have issues with pile shuffling despite it also being a way of shuffling that evenly mixes the cards in your deck. so i think there’s a difference between mana weaving to cheat (ie during side boarding) but if you mana weave a brand new deck, or shuffle your battlefield post-game before mixing it into your library so you don’t get 8 lands stuck together because you didn’t shuffle enough then that’s harmless.
after reading the official rules you presented in this article, I strongly disagree with you and here are the reasons why: 1. is not about what is right or wrong is about what is legal or not 2. in a competitive scenario anything that gives you an advantage will probably be exploit as long as it is legal 3. the rule explicit say that “Any manipulation, weaving, or stacking prior to randomization is acceptable”… 4. … as long as the deck is thoroughly shuffled afterwards – we need the definition of ” thoroughly shuffled” but I am assuming it means “the deck must be completely random when it is presented to an opponent” as shown in 3:33 5. the definition of random that should be consider is not what you think it should be neither what the consensus think it is. We should consider the definition of as presented in the rule, which is: 6. “Randomize is defined as putting the deck in a state in which no player can have information on the order or position of the cards anywhere in the deck” as shown in 5:44 7. so I would argue that: knowing that I have a better land distribution is not the same of knowing the order or position of the card. even if my deck have no manipulation at all, I still would know the probability of hitting a land each draw just by knowing how many lands I have in the deck- simply putting: knowing the probability of the cards to be drawn is not the same as knowing the order and position of the card – and argument number 3 already state that manipulating is acceptable.
Traditionally, based on the famous 1992 paper by Bayer and Diaconis based on work by Aldous, 7 riffle shuffles (3/2 log (base 2) n) is sufficient to produce randomness in a 52 card deck. A serious issue here is that many players use overhand shuffles, which are much less efficient at randomising. Even 100 overhand shuffles barely move the cards from their initial positions and estimates for randomness tend to come in the thousands. So yes, if you only use overhand shuffles, manaweaving is an issue. Instead use 8 good riffle shuffles (without looking at the cards!) before every game and the initial positions should be irrelevant.
I normally only mana weave a deck I just built (I play edh) so that the lands arent like 20 clumped together etc for instants etc. After the initial weave I pile shuffle 3 times normal shuffle a few times to randomize it. Note:I don’t play in competitive settings and everyone in the playgroup does the same to avoid someone getting locked out of a game.
I want to add, here, that putting piles together on your Deck is also a kind of sorting before shuffling. In this way, you might put a full combo next to each other on your deck. I also can look at my deck before shuffling (at least before the game starts) without any additional sorting, so I always can have the information about which card is on what position in the deck. In my opinion, is a Deck order never random before shuffling, so I can’t say anything against weaving. It seems that it is always cheating if you don’t shuffle your deck good. The better question here is, how much do you need to shuffle until the Deck is random again after a state of not being random.
Great article, and definitely something that needs more awareness in the community. Used to do it a lot in casual games with friend back when I first started since everyone else did it (we all normal shuffled quite a bit after) but realized it didn’t really help since I’d still consistently get screwed (then again I also usually ran too few lands and didn’t know the proper ratios for edh). Nowadays I really only do it when solitare testing to see how the deck would perform in terms of pace with optimal distribution, then do about 4 more tests with proper shuffles.