The original statement claimed that Saito had a marked change in pace after learning there was 3 minutes left on the clock. Even though Saito claims this was purely a coincidence, a change in play speed at a convenient time is pretty strong, objective, evidence that he had intent to stall. The Infraction Procedure Guide, which judges try to follow as closely as possible, explicitly lists change in play speed as a prime reason to suspect stalling.
Yes, it's theoretically possible that the game state suddenly got super complicated at exactly the same time Saito was informed of the the 3 minute mark. But what are the odds of that? The chances that events played out as Saito claimed they did are relatively small. And that's what goes through the Head Judge's mind - is it a significant possibility that cheating has occurred, and that the integrity of the event has been compromised? Even if we ignore Saito's history, the answer to that is yes, and thus the Head Judge is compelled to DQ. DQs don't have to be 100% certain guys - they just have to come from a likely suspicion.
I just got done recording Monday Night Magic with Chris Otwell and the gang. Saito has been Cut from the team pretty much because their hands were tied; he's been villianized (prehaps too strong a word) by the community, and team CFB had little choice. his old articles will be there, but he's been cut.
Oh, thanks Jack... appreciate that. Truly a sad story for Saito. I consider him a good guy from my experiences with him, but apparently he had some major issues being tracked by judges for his issues with slow play.
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I just wanna say that if we, the players, feel we cannot judge him, there are those that work very hard for the entitlement of Judging, and we should stand by their actions....sorry Pro Player, but thank you Judges.
Indeed. Probably pointless for anyway to spend time translating it now.
Yeah, I just finished reading his blog entry. Mostly, he just gives a few more details but not much and explains his feelings about the ruling against his repeal. It is definitely before he heard about the suspension.
Slow play sucks. Seriously, I hate it. Some people here don't seem to think its a big deal but they've probably never been forced to go 0-1 or 1-1 in a match because of it. I can understand to a certain extent why Saito kept looking at the Jace in Columbus. Thinking you know the exact wording is vastly different from actually knowing it and sometimes that makes a difference. But overall I feel Saito was suspended not specifically for the incident in Florence but for failing to recognize the pattern in his play style and altering it. He got those slow play warnings and its obvious he didn't heed them. I don't know how the DCI's infraction system handles simple warnings but even if they weren't documented they were noted by high level judges and Saito is a fool if he thought he wasn't being watched. In Magic the pros seem to think they're invincible. Magic is such a complex game that its harder to catch cheaters and they know that. In games like YGO(sadly all the cheaters got clean slates when Konami started managing OP) or Naruto the very gameplay mechanics seems to tempt people to cheat and so its alot easier to spot.
The other thread (in the rumor mill) was closed, and I don't want to have made this long post for nothing, so I'll add my reply here. Hope that's okay.
Quote from Valarin »
You can make $$ playing MTG professionally, but you're going to be bringing home about the same as the guy flipping burgers at McD's, and he doesn't need to fly to China and Australia and any other of the far flung places they hold events and then have to risk not getting paid at all.
"Need to"? You mean "get to"! Would you seriously rather flip burgers than get the opportunity to go to Australia or Puerto Rico or Hawaii (etc) to play Magic? Sure, it won't make you a millionaire, but travelling is awesome, and playing Magic is awesome.
@Cyan: Sure, I can try to figure out how much money Saito has made over the last few years, playing Magic. Just for the record. I am using the event coverage archive over at Magicthegathering.com.
GP Dallas - $700
GP Singapore - $1400
GP Amsterdam, Daytona Beach - $1000
GP Strasbourg - $3500
GP San Francisco, Florence, Bangkok, Kitakyuushuu - $900 each
GP Kyoto, Massachusetts, Stockholm, Montreal - $500 each
GP Brisbane - $650
GP Krakow - $800
2007 earnings from pro play alone: $48250
2008:
PT Kuala Lumpur - $2250
PT Hollywood - $2250
PT Berlin - $17250
Worlds - $2250
Japanese Nationals - $400
GP Stuttgart - $800
GP Vancouver, Shizuoka, Brussels, Birmingham, Madrid, Kobe, Manila, Paris, Okayama, Taipei, Auckland - $500 each
GP Vienna - $2000
GP Indianapolis, Buenos Aires - $1000 each
GP Denver - $750
GP Copenhagen - $3500
GP Rimini - $700
GP Atlanta - $1500
GP Los Angeles, Chicago, Barcelona, Brighton, Bangkok, Niigata, Prague - $500 each
GP Singapore, Kobe - $4000 each
GP Seattle, Minneapolis - $1000 each
GP Boston - $900
GP Melbourne - $2800
GP Tampa - $700
GP Kitakyushu - $1100
2009 earnings from pro play alone: $35300
Which means that over the past three whole seasons, he has made over $125k on pro Magic play, averaging almost $42k a year. In my book, that qualifies him as a pro, and I don't see how one can disagree with that. Although it is now pretty obvious that an amount of this can be attributed to cheating.
I personally think the Banning of him for a year and a half or even almost two years is horrible. It should not be May 2012. Ban him for a year and let him live his life, he can still play Magic Online and earn money.
I personally think the Banning of him for a year and a half or even almost two years is horrible. It should not be May 2012. Ban him for a year and let him live his life, he can still play Magic Online and earn money.
Face it, he cheated, its as simple as that. It wasnt one incident of cheating eithor, he was (from what Ive heard) continually warned about his slow play at tournament after tournament after tournament. He finally ran into a situation where he was DQ'd and now due to the accumulated history of warnings and his apparent unwillingness to adjust his play to stay within the rules of the game, he now finds himself with an 18-month ban. Once that 18 months is up, and he hopefully has learned his lesson, then he can rejoin the rest of the magic community and continue on from there, hopefully better for it.
I imagine the fact that he had some time away under another circumstance also may have been taken into consideration as well when determining the length. Its hard to say of course, but it would appear that there was enough reason to warrant some kind of a ban, and likely enough additional reason to potentially warrant a longer ban period.
Can someone please explain the difference between slow play and stalling for the people here.
every secound post is about his warnings for slow play. Please read the rules, bsides the fact the slow play rule is BS... which I dont say to cover saito because I believe he was stalling... it is completly different from the stalling rule.
You can slowplay every round in a hole tournament without even stall or cheat once...and this hate against slow players the last months makes me sick, some people playy careful, some people read cards... some people dont rush it. And thats there good right, they may get a warning if they overdo it but please go read the rules and stop call slow players cheaters... it is not the same as stalling.
The reason people hate slow players so much is that it ruins their chances of finishing well in a tournament. Many people think way too much in some situations. The general guideline is that you should not take more than 30 seconds on any individual decision. If the board is complicated and you are not good enough to figure out the perfect play in 30 seconds, you should choose whichever option you think is best at that point. Sometimes you will make a wrong decision sure, but that's life.
In the end it doesn't even stop there though. If you take 30 seconds on every single decision, you are also playing far too slowly and will cause matches to end in a draw frequently. You are expected to NOT take 30 seconds more than a few times per game when the situation is the most complicated. Both these types of slow play are typically very hard to punish since they more or less require a judge constantly watching the game. In addition, the first few times when the opponent thinks for too long he will typically get a caution and so on. The end result is often that in every third tournament, the slow player will be forced to play faster for half a game while the judge is watching.
As to the definitions:
Slow play: Playing slow on purpose in order to make better decisions.
Stalling: Playing slow on purpose in order to run out the clock.
Can someone please explain the difference between slow play and stalling for the people here.
every secound post is about his warnings for slow play. Please read the rules, bsides the fact the slow play rule is BS... which I dont say to cover saito because I believe he was stalling... it is completly different from the stalling rule.
You can slowplay every round in a hole tournament without even stall or cheat once...and this hate against slow players the last months makes me sick, some people playy careful, some people read cards... some people dont rush it. And thats there good right, they may get a warning if they overdo it but please go read the rules and stop call slow players cheaters... it is not the same as stalling.
Slow play is basically taking too long to think through a board situation. Stalling is doing so INTENTIONALLY. Say, you're 1-0 in your match, and there is 2 minutes left on the clock. You opponent casts a spell that will change the game, and you spend 2 minutes pretending you have a counterspell in hand just so you would win on time. That is STALLING.
Can someone please explain the difference between slow play and stalling for the people here.
every secound post is about his warnings for slow play. Please read the rules, bsides the fact the slow play rule is BS... which I dont say to cover saito because I believe he was stalling... it is completly different from the stalling rule.
You can slowplay every round in a hole tournament without even stall or cheat once...and this hate against slow players the last months makes me sick, some people playy careful, some people read cards... some people dont rush it. And thats there good right, they may get a warning if they overdo it but please go read the rules and stop call slow players cheaters... it is not the same as stalling.
4.3. Tournament Error — Slow Play
Definition Players who take longer than is reasonably required to complete game actions are engaging in Slow Play. If a judge believes a player is intentionally playing slowly to take advantage of a time limit, the infraction is Cheating — Stalling.
Examples A. A player repeatedly reviews his opponent’s graveyard without any significant change in game state. B. A player spends time writing down the contents of an opponent's deck while resolving Thought Hemorrhage. C. After 3 minutes into a round at a Pro Tour™ Qualifier, a player has not completed his shuffling. D. A player gets up from his seat to look at standings, or goes to the bathroom without permission of an official. Philosophy All players have the responsibility to play quickly enough so that their opponents are not at a significant disadvantage because of the time limit. A player may be playing slowly without realizing it. A comment of "I need you to play faster" is often appropriate and all that is needed. Further slow play should be penalized.
If Slow Play has significantly affected the result of the match, the Head Judge may upgrade the penalty.
6. CHEATING
This section deals with infractions that occur as the intended result of an action taken by a player. In some cases, it doesn’t matter if advantage was gained, only that the potential for advantage exists. The philosophy for all these infractions is the same – they are unwelcome behavior that undermines the integrity of the tournament.
6.1. Cheating — Stalling
Definition A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit. If the slow play is not intentional, please refer to Tournament Error — Slow Play instead.
Example A. A player has two lands in his hand, no options available to significantly affect the game, and spends excessive time "thinking" about what to do to eat up time on the clock. B. A player is ahead in games and significantly slows down his pace of play so the opponent has little chance to catch up. C. A player playing slowly appeals a warning in an attempt to gain advantage by having more time to make a decision. D. A player intentionally exceeds the pregame time limit before the third game in an attempt to make it harder for his opponent to win in time. E. A player losing a game starts slowing down the pace of play in an attempt to run out the clock.
The information above is straight from the Magic the Gathering Infraction Procedure Guide.
In the case of who we are talking about, he apparently was notorious for skirting the line between slow play and stalling. He received numerous warnings for slow play over a long period of time, and likely wasnt DQ'd before this because most people likely like to assume that people are generally honorable and thus would assume slow play and simply warn them for it, possibly more than once in a single tournament, unless they were regularly judging where the person was playing and had a better idea that the person had a history of such things. In this case, the judges saw and issue and kept a greater eye on it, and determined that to their satisfaction that he was in fact stalling due to the nature of how the slow play was occuring, and thus was cheating, and thus received the DQ.
His banning likely occured due to receiving as many warnings as he had over time for the slow playing, and then finally getting DQ'd, possibly leading to a decision that was based on the history of warnings and the DQ, that he had been potentially intentionally stalling for quite some time, even though he only got called on it once, and thus received the lengthy ban.
Anyhow, it doesnt matter what I think. The decision was made by those that make such decisions, he was found to be enough of a cheater in their eyes to warrant a banning.
Given that many of us were not at that event, I would personally leave the distinction of slow play and stalling to the learned judges at the event but that's probably just me.
Also as far as I remember DCI also says that Judges should NOT take into account warnings from other touzrnaments or penaltis recived before. This sayed I hope the go with their own rules and didnt track him down even if he is guilty (which is likely)
Can I have the source for this? I can't find this anywhere on the IPG. The closest I can find to this ruling is: -
Quote from Infarction Procedure Guideline »
Any penalty higher than a Caution is reported with the tournament report so that a permanent record can be kept in the DCI Penalty Database. Additionally, any penalty of Game Loss or higher should be reported to the Head Judge, and it is recommended that only the Head Judge issue penalties of this nature (with the exception of Tardiness and Deck Errors).
I am assuming that there is a reason for this "permanent record" rather than recording for recording sake?
thank you jeff I really felt like that difference needs to be pointed out.
Also as far as I remember DCI also says that Judges should NOT take into account warnings from other touzrnaments or penaltis recived before. This sayed I hope the go with their own rules and didnt track him down even if he is guilty (which is likely)
OK, so.
A player's status in the community or reputation or infraction history -- good or bad -- should not, in the vast majority of cases, be a factor; uniformity is a key part of the integrity of organized Magic. There are subjective areas in the infraction guide, of course, and there's no way to get rid of them, but the process should always be the same, and doesn't care whether you're Johnny Random or Famous McCheatyface. "Are these sleeves OK?" The IPG supports at least five different answers to that question, and if you showed the same set of sleeves to five different judges it's possible you'd get all five of those answers because there's plenty of subjectivity here. But they'll all be going through the same procedure and internally asking themselves the same questions, and that's incredibly important. It's true that multiple instances of the same infraction add up over the course of a single tournament, and can escalate penalties, but that's a whole 'nother thing.
Knowing the specific player's prior history really only comes into the picture during investigations. Not the ordinary, happens-on-every-judge-call investigation to determine specifics of the problem and work out the correct solution, but the capital-I Investigation: "is this guy cheating?" Cheating usually isn't obvious; every once in a while it'll be easy (for example, the infamous photo of a player peeking at his neighbor's cards in a draft), but in the vast majority of cases all you can do is ask careful questions and try to piece together the real story from the answers and the reactions. In those situations the process -- ask questions, pay attention, etc. -- is going to be the same either way, but when you're investigating McCheatyface with his well-known history of DQs and suspensions, the specific questions you ask, and the number of questions you ask, and how you weigh the responses to them, may not be exactly the same as in your investigation of a random unknown player.
Or, in fewer words: jumping to "he's cheated before, he's probably cheating again" and DQ'ing a player because he has a history is bad. But being aware of his history and bearing it in mind while investigating can be OK.
Given that many of us were not at that event, I would
Can I have the source for this? I can't find this anywhere on the IPG. The closest I can find to this ruling is: -
I am assuming that there is a reason for this "permanent record" rather than recording for recording sake?
The difference ist:
The accumulated warnings are irrelevant for the decision if someone commited an Infraction in a specific match.
But the accumulated warnings are relevant for decision to look in more detail. So if someone has got many Slow Play Warnings and perhaps some with comment that it could be stalling but the judge wasn't sure enough, than this is a reason to watch this person more closely. But you still have to find the proof in this match regardless of the warnings he got in other tournaments.
Read Saito's blog yesterday before he received the news about his banning. He basically still insists that he did not stall intentionally but he can understand in retrospect how it could be perceived as such. He goes over a lot of things he did during the game and what the judges had to say about it like looking over his opponent's graveyard twice when there was no need to. He regrets it in retrospect explaining that it's just part of his playstyle where it helps him think and find the right play. (For those who don't know, Saito slowed his play following an attack with ten creatures into his five, when there had been no attacking for several rounds previous. I think most people would stop to think there.)
He says he's thought a lot about why he was DQed and comes to the realization that he plays to slowly in general and that he tries too hard to find the perfect play. He says he's got plenty of slow play warnings during his career but he thought it was just a normal part of playing in lots of premier events. After having asked his fellow players though, he's found out that he has a lot more warnings than most players. He then goes on a bit of a tangent about what he can do to finish games faster, like being better prepared and making faster decisions.
I think the saddest thing of the whole affair is that he also mentioned that he momentarily thought of quitting the game upon receiving his DQ, but he soon realized he loves the game too much to quit and he almost gets a little upbeat about how he can improve his play from this. After receiving the news of his banning, I've only seen two short twitter posts from him, one of which gave a short statement of his banning and one cancelling the big magic-player gathering he usually hosts when the tour comes to Japan.
Say what you want about his intentions but 18 mounths is [b[harsh[/b] either way. He's the only one banned for stalling, and there's plenty of worse and much less subjective offenses on the list that only got 6 to 12 months.
The other thread (in the rumor mill) was closed, and I don't want to have made this long post for nothing, so I'll add my reply here. Hope that's okay.
"Need to"? You mean "get to"! Would you seriously rather flip burgers than get the opportunity to go to Australia or Puerto Rico or Hawaii (etc) to play Magic? Sure, it won't make you a millionaire, but travelling is awesome, and playing Magic is awesome.
@Cyan: Sure, I can try to figure out how much money Saito has made over the last few years, playing Magic. Just for the record. I am using the event coverage archive over at Magicthegathering.com.
GP Dallas - $700
GP Singapore - $1400
GP Amsterdam, Daytona Beach - $1000
GP Strasbourg - $3500
GP San Francisco, Florence, Bangkok, Kitakyuushuu - $900 each
GP Kyoto, Massachusetts, Stockholm, Montreal - $500 each
GP Brisbane - $650
GP Krakow - $800
2007 earnings from pro play alone: $48250
2008:
PT Kuala Lumpur - $2250
PT Hollywood - $2250
PT Berlin - $17250
Worlds - $2250
Japanese Nationals - $400
GP Stuttgart - $800
GP Vancouver, Shizuoka, Brussels, Birmingham, Madrid, Kobe, Manila, Paris, Okayama, Taipei, Auckland - $500 each
GP Vienna - $2000
GP Indianapolis, Buenos Aires - $1000 each
GP Denver - $750
GP Copenhagen - $3500
GP Rimini - $700
GP Atlanta - $1500
GP Los Angeles, Chicago, Barcelona, Brighton, Bangkok, Niigata, Prague - $500 each
GP Singapore, Kobe - $4000 each
GP Seattle, Minneapolis - $1000 each
GP Boston - $900
GP Melbourne - $2800
GP Tampa - $700
GP Kitakyushu - $1100
2009 earnings from pro play alone: $35300
Which means that over the past three whole seasons, he has made over $125k on pro Magic play, averaging almost $42k a year. In my book, that qualifies him as a pro, and I don't see how one can disagree with that. Although it is now pretty obvious that an amount of this can be attributed to cheating.
Saito also owns and runs a card shop.
Basically making almost 100% of his earnings on a game he likes to play
Understand, Dredge is not really a Magic: The Gathering deck. When a card is playable in it, it doesn't mean it's a tournament playable card. It means it's playable in whatever crazy fantasy world that Dredge operates in.
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These people are with little to no honor, either for the game or for their countries.
Yes, it's theoretically possible that the game state suddenly got super complicated at exactly the same time Saito was informed of the the 3 minute mark. But what are the odds of that? The chances that events played out as Saito claimed they did are relatively small. And that's what goes through the Head Judge's mind - is it a significant possibility that cheating has occurred, and that the integrity of the event has been compromised? Even if we ignore Saito's history, the answer to that is yes, and thus the Head Judge is compelled to DQ. DQs don't have to be 100% certain guys - they just have to come from a likely suspicion.
Oh, thanks Jack... appreciate that. Truly a sad story for Saito. I consider him a good guy from my experiences with him, but apparently he had some major issues being tracked by judges for his issues with slow play.
... in Japanese. Don't have a translator here. Anyone have one that can repost in English?
I am a little busy but I might be able to pull of an translation later on. Sorry.
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Indeed. Probably pointless for anyway to spend time translating it now.
Seems odd to me.
Anyone care to explain?
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Yeah, I just finished reading his blog entry. Mostly, he just gives a few more details but not much and explains his feelings about the ruling against his repeal. It is definitely before he heard about the suspension.
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"Need to"? You mean "get to"! Would you seriously rather flip burgers than get the opportunity to go to Australia or Puerto Rico or Hawaii (etc) to play Magic? Sure, it won't make you a millionaire, but travelling is awesome, and playing Magic is awesome.
@Cyan: Sure, I can try to figure out how much money Saito has made over the last few years, playing Magic. Just for the record. I am using the event coverage archive over at Magicthegathering.com.
2007:
PT Geneva - $5750
PT Yokohama - $16250
PT San Diego - $5750
PT Valencia - $2250
Worlds - $3200
Japanese Nationals - $400
GP Dallas - $700
GP Singapore - $1400
GP Amsterdam, Daytona Beach - $1000
GP Strasbourg - $3500
GP San Francisco, Florence, Bangkok, Kitakyuushuu - $900 each
GP Kyoto, Massachusetts, Stockholm, Montreal - $500 each
GP Brisbane - $650
GP Krakow - $800
2007 earnings from pro play alone: $48250
2008:
PT Kuala Lumpur - $2250
PT Hollywood - $2250
PT Berlin - $17250
Worlds - $2250
Japanese Nationals - $400
GP Stuttgart - $800
GP Vancouver, Shizuoka, Brussels, Birmingham, Madrid, Kobe, Manila, Paris, Okayama, Taipei, Auckland - $500 each
GP Vienna - $2000
GP Indianapolis, Buenos Aires - $1000 each
GP Denver - $750
GP Copenhagen - $3500
GP Rimini - $700
GP Atlanta - $1500
2008 earnings from pro play alone: $42150
2009:
PT Kyoto - $4150
PT Honolulu - $4150
PT Austin - $2250
Worlds - $5750
GP Los Angeles, Chicago, Barcelona, Brighton, Bangkok, Niigata, Prague - $500 each
GP Singapore, Kobe - $4000 each
GP Seattle, Minneapolis - $1000 each
GP Boston - $900
GP Melbourne - $2800
GP Tampa - $700
GP Kitakyushu - $1100
2009 earnings from pro play alone: $35300
Which means that over the past three whole seasons, he has made over $125k on pro Magic play, averaging almost $42k a year. In my book, that qualifies him as a pro, and I don't see how one can disagree with that. Although it is now pretty obvious that an amount of this can be attributed to cheating.
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Face it, he cheated, its as simple as that. It wasnt one incident of cheating eithor, he was (from what Ive heard) continually warned about his slow play at tournament after tournament after tournament. He finally ran into a situation where he was DQ'd and now due to the accumulated history of warnings and his apparent unwillingness to adjust his play to stay within the rules of the game, he now finds himself with an 18-month ban. Once that 18 months is up, and he hopefully has learned his lesson, then he can rejoin the rest of the magic community and continue on from there, hopefully better for it.
I imagine the fact that he had some time away under another circumstance also may have been taken into consideration as well when determining the length. Its hard to say of course, but it would appear that there was enough reason to warrant some kind of a ban, and likely enough additional reason to potentially warrant a longer ban period.
The reason people hate slow players so much is that it ruins their chances of finishing well in a tournament. Many people think way too much in some situations. The general guideline is that you should not take more than 30 seconds on any individual decision. If the board is complicated and you are not good enough to figure out the perfect play in 30 seconds, you should choose whichever option you think is best at that point. Sometimes you will make a wrong decision sure, but that's life.
In the end it doesn't even stop there though. If you take 30 seconds on every single decision, you are also playing far too slowly and will cause matches to end in a draw frequently. You are expected to NOT take 30 seconds more than a few times per game when the situation is the most complicated. Both these types of slow play are typically very hard to punish since they more or less require a judge constantly watching the game. In addition, the first few times when the opponent thinks for too long he will typically get a caution and so on. The end result is often that in every third tournament, the slow player will be forced to play faster for half a game while the judge is watching.
As to the definitions:
Slow play: Playing slow on purpose in order to make better decisions.
Stalling: Playing slow on purpose in order to run out the clock.
There's a quite borderline difference here.
Slow play is basically taking too long to think through a board situation. Stalling is doing so INTENTIONALLY. Say, you're 1-0 in your match, and there is 2 minutes left on the clock. You opponent casts a spell that will change the game, and you spend 2 minutes pretending you have a counterspell in hand just so you would win on time. That is STALLING.
Anyway, newest entry from Saito's blog
>僕は今回のこの裁定を受け入れています。僕は当然イカサマ師ではないし、イカサマもしていないけど、イカサマの一種「時間稼ぎ」の扱いで失格になってしまった。
He insists he is not a cheat, but has been DQ'd for "stalling", a method of cheating.
>ルールの改善等、今後のマジックがより良くなっていく事を切に願います。
He also wishes for the improvement of the rules/ruling of magic
>その上で、今回の件で僕が被害者だという事に変わりはないけど、間接的に僕にも非あったのは明確。
This is interesting. He says that the fact that he was a victim is unchanged, but was at fault indirectly.
4.3. Tournament Error — Slow Play
Definition
Players who take longer than is reasonably required to complete game actions are engaging in Slow Play. If a judge believes a player is intentionally playing slowly to take advantage of a time limit, the infraction is Cheating — Stalling.
Examples
A. A player repeatedly reviews his opponent’s graveyard without any significant change in game state.
B. A player spends time writing down the contents of an opponent's deck while resolving Thought Hemorrhage.
C. After 3 minutes into a round at a Pro Tour™ Qualifier, a player has not completed his shuffling.
D. A player gets up from his seat to look at standings, or goes to the bathroom without permission of an official.
Philosophy
All players have the responsibility to play quickly enough so that their opponents are not at a significant disadvantage because of the time limit. A player may be playing slowly without realizing it. A comment of "I need you to play faster" is often appropriate and all that is needed. Further slow play should be penalized.
If Slow Play has significantly affected the result of the match, the Head Judge may upgrade the penalty.
6. CHEATING
This section deals with infractions that occur as the intended result of an action taken by a player. In some cases, it doesn’t matter if advantage was gained, only that the potential for advantage exists. The philosophy for all these infractions is the same – they are unwelcome behavior that undermines the integrity of the tournament.
6.1. Cheating — Stalling
Definition
A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit. If the slow play is not intentional, please refer to Tournament Error — Slow Play instead.
Example
A. A player has two lands in his hand, no options available to significantly affect the game, and spends excessive time "thinking" about what to do to eat up time on the clock.
B. A player is ahead in games and significantly slows down his pace of play so the opponent has little chance to catch up.
C. A player playing slowly appeals a warning in an attempt to gain advantage by having more time to make a decision.
D. A player intentionally exceeds the pregame time limit before the third game in an attempt to make it harder for his opponent to win in time.
E. A player losing a game starts slowing down the pace of play in an attempt to run out the clock.
The information above is straight from the Magic the Gathering Infraction Procedure Guide.
In the case of who we are talking about, he apparently was notorious for skirting the line between slow play and stalling. He received numerous warnings for slow play over a long period of time, and likely wasnt DQ'd before this because most people likely like to assume that people are generally honorable and thus would assume slow play and simply warn them for it, possibly more than once in a single tournament, unless they were regularly judging where the person was playing and had a better idea that the person had a history of such things. In this case, the judges saw and issue and kept a greater eye on it, and determined that to their satisfaction that he was in fact stalling due to the nature of how the slow play was occuring, and thus was cheating, and thus received the DQ.
His banning likely occured due to receiving as many warnings as he had over time for the slow playing, and then finally getting DQ'd, possibly leading to a decision that was based on the history of warnings and the DQ, that he had been potentially intentionally stalling for quite some time, even though he only got called on it once, and thus received the lengthy ban.
Anyhow, it doesnt matter what I think. The decision was made by those that make such decisions, he was found to be enough of a cheater in their eyes to warrant a banning.
Can I have the source for this? I can't find this anywhere on the IPG. The closest I can find to this ruling is: -
I am assuming that there is a reason for this "permanent record" rather than recording for recording sake?
OK, so.
A player's status in the community or reputation or infraction history -- good or bad -- should not, in the vast majority of cases, be a factor; uniformity is a key part of the integrity of organized Magic. There are subjective areas in the infraction guide, of course, and there's no way to get rid of them, but the process should always be the same, and doesn't care whether you're Johnny Random or Famous McCheatyface. "Are these sleeves OK?" The IPG supports at least five different answers to that question, and if you showed the same set of sleeves to five different judges it's possible you'd get all five of those answers because there's plenty of subjectivity here. But they'll all be going through the same procedure and internally asking themselves the same questions, and that's incredibly important. It's true that multiple instances of the same infraction add up over the course of a single tournament, and can escalate penalties, but that's a whole 'nother thing.
Knowing the specific player's prior history really only comes into the picture during investigations. Not the ordinary, happens-on-every-judge-call investigation to determine specifics of the problem and work out the correct solution, but the capital-I Investigation: "is this guy cheating?" Cheating usually isn't obvious; every once in a while it'll be easy (for example, the infamous photo of a player peeking at his neighbor's cards in a draft), but in the vast majority of cases all you can do is ask careful questions and try to piece together the real story from the answers and the reactions. In those situations the process -- ask questions, pay attention, etc. -- is going to be the same either way, but when you're investigating McCheatyface with his well-known history of DQs and suspensions, the specific questions you ask, and the number of questions you ask, and how you weigh the responses to them, may not be exactly the same as in your investigation of a random unknown player.
Or, in fewer words: jumping to "he's cheated before, he's probably cheating again" and DQ'ing a player because he has a history is bad. But being aware of his history and bearing it in mind while investigating can be OK.
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Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
The difference ist:
The accumulated warnings are irrelevant for the decision if someone commited an Infraction in a specific match.
But the accumulated warnings are relevant for decision to look in more detail. So if someone has got many Slow Play Warnings and perhaps some with comment that it could be stalling but the judge wasn't sure enough, than this is a reason to watch this person more closely. But you still have to find the proof in this match regardless of the warnings he got in other tournaments.
He says he's thought a lot about why he was DQed and comes to the realization that he plays to slowly in general and that he tries too hard to find the perfect play. He says he's got plenty of slow play warnings during his career but he thought it was just a normal part of playing in lots of premier events. After having asked his fellow players though, he's found out that he has a lot more warnings than most players. He then goes on a bit of a tangent about what he can do to finish games faster, like being better prepared and making faster decisions.
I think the saddest thing of the whole affair is that he also mentioned that he momentarily thought of quitting the game upon receiving his DQ, but he soon realized he loves the game too much to quit and he almost gets a little upbeat about how he can improve his play from this. After receiving the news of his banning, I've only seen two short twitter posts from him, one of which gave a short statement of his banning and one cancelling the big magic-player gathering he usually hosts when the tour comes to Japan.
Say what you want about his intentions but 18 mounths is [b[harsh[/b] either way. He's the only one banned for stalling, and there's plenty of worse and much less subjective offenses on the list that only got 6 to 12 months.
Well ☺☺☺☺, looks like I need to stop playing then. I'm a slow shuffler, due to disability, but I can finish a 3 game match within the limited time.
If you are in a situation where you can't suffle well enough, you are within the rules to request a judge to shuffle for you.
I have seen players at GP's who could not shuffle who had an assistant who was not participating in the tournament, or got a judge to help.
Saito also owns and runs a card shop.
Basically making almost 100% of his earnings on a game he likes to play
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