Soft Cheating

[ihop]

So there are essentially two different types of cheating in Yugioh and other card games. Straight-up cheating, such as drawing too few cards and claiming your opponent drew too many or stacking your opponent's deck is actually pretty rare - 9 times out of 10 it's just someone blaming their opponent for their bad luck. Far more common is "soft cheating" which is essentially making illegal plays knowingly and then, if the opponent notices, claiming it was an unintentional oversight. It's never really been that big a deal, when you consider Konami have banned the majority of top players at one stage for "marked sleeves" or other unprovable offences, until recently where there's been a lot of drama over the winner of YCS Prague, Urh Kovacic, repeatedly making illegal plays during feature matches, so often that it looks an awful lot like he was doing it intentionally. This video has more details -

 

 

It's always really tempting to soft cheat because of how low the risk is - even if you are caught you can just claim it was an honest mistake and people will assume your innocence, and the worst case scenario is a warning. Even I've soft cheated a few times, and I've always been very honest while playing Yugioh, whereas some of my less honest friends have literally set out plans for poorly-known rulings to exploit and stuff like that before going to events.

 

What I'm getting at here is that soft cheating, because of its innocent-seeming nature, has never been particularly relevant until now where a YCS winner has been heavily accused of it, and there's really very little to be done about it. It's very hard to pin it upon someone because they can just claim innocence, so at what point should people be punished for making illegal plays? How can soft cheating be dealt with effectively? I'd be interested to hear how other games deal with it and how relevant it is there, too. 

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Don't blame him, who wants to lose after god knows how much $ and 10+ rounds of swiss

 

That Minerva is too fine to pass up meng

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

This is a really big deal in the realm of competitive mtg. With huge cash prizes, the incentive to cheat is much higher, to the point where some examples have been immortalized.

Though this was actually at a Starcitygames event, rather than the official magic circuit, it is a well known example of cheating. The spectator explains the issue fairly well. See, the basis of this cheat was that the one who committed it was very well known, and very popular, so people kinda just assumed he wouldn't cheat because he is such a nice guy. Combined with how nonchalantly he pulls it off, it actually results in his opponent defending him, assuring the spectator that there was no cheat, when in fact there was. This video was instrumental in the "big reveal" of Bertoncini as a constant cheater.

 

Most of what he did was simple stuff, such as drawing an extra card, etc, but whenever he was caught, he insisted it was an accident, apologized profusely, and requested a warning rather than a citation (warnings were not recorded in the permanent record). Through this, he managed to cheat for a very long time, without much of anyone actually realizing it.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I get why people would do it, especially when it comes to bigger tournaments. It's a really tricky thing to call someone out on at times, though. Especially seeing as if you make a mistake later, after accusing someone of cheating, it looks even worse.

 

I dislike cheating a lot, really, despite understanding the why. It just ruins things for me and makes me leery about playing people I don't know.

 

Though I did have a legendary game where I cheated in. But it was a casual game with a friend and for fun.

I managed to take half of his deck without him realizing it. I don't even know how I pulled it off. But I did it. And the reveal was glorious.

[Blake]

Meanwhile, I still feel terrible about accidentally cheating Saber during the YCMCS where I was using Seraphclown.

 

I used Trapeze T2 to pop his mathman without giving him the float, while also having a floater on my board.

 

The rulings later clarified that, despite the text not specifying it, it can't target a monster that isn't owned by the turn player.

 

I told Kook when I found out after the fact, but ;_;

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Answering the stuff that was asked in the OP (and I'll write this as if said things happened in a tournament setting, which this certainly was). 

 

1. Personally, I believe that the player should be punished if they did so intentionally and there is evidence that they had cheated. (Though, soft cheating like this should warrant some form of consequence, even if it's accidental or not, though the punishment should depend on this circumstance.)

 

Given the video provided, putting Sorcerer in the Graveyard in place of the ED where it should've gone was intentional (especially since he conveniently had Instant Fusion + Noden ready to make Rafflesia). He had also Synchro Summoned earlier with a Pendulum Monster and that went to the ED like it's supposed to, so it shouldn't have been an accident. Regarding the illegal NSing in the first two, maybe it was an accident and he was tired from the previous matches (or forgot that he had already done so), or perhaps he willingly did it and wanted to see if the opponent actually paid attention. I cannot say if he was intentionally doing this, or simply forgot. 

 

2. Regarding "soft cheating", it will require that the opponent be keeping a close eye on what they are doing and spot out illegal plays if they come around. That, and any judges who come around to watch the match in this case (and know what the rulings on certain cards is, in the event that the opponent had indeed made an illegal play). In this case, the camera had caught several instances of this (the NS ones appear to have been caught by the opponent, so those moves were taken back; however the 3rd one with Sorcerer appeared not to be)

 

In short, make sure that you, as a player, spectator or even a judge, are watching what the opponent is doing and make sure they play a clean game. I will say that rulings don't exist for all cards (or at least not publicized as much as others), so those kinds of things may pose a problem. 

 

As I do not compete in tournaments due to geographical location, time and/or money; I don't know if all matches at venues are viewed via closed-circuit TV or just feature ones like the finals. Please excuse me if I am out of line speaking of the matter from this perspective.

 

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I don't like cheating either, even though the circumstances are understandable (lot of money spent on the Deck and transportation to the venue / entry + time used to participate, plus the prize). Accidental cheating happens (like with rulings and other things) and though the final result may be irreversible at that point, just admit that you made a mistake. 

 

If you're going to play, at least make an attempt to play fairly (and if you accidentally make an illegal move, just take it back and remember to not do it again). 

 

Accidents can be excusable (depending on circumstances, and if you admit your mistake in the end); intentional cheating isn't (which I don't know if this was the case here or not). 

[Tesability Black]

Unfortunately, due to the huge number of times I end up forgetting stuff, there's been several times when I would unintentionally soft-cheat in MTG and Yugioh. However, I'm also often against players much better than myself, so when I do make those kinds of goof-ups, it's often caught almost immediately. I've also been given a little bit of breathing room in regards to that after the shop owners discovered (the hard way) that I do have seizures, so I do have 'half-an-excuse' to completely space on random rulings, even though it's fairly obvious that I'm trying not to forget.

 

One person, however, tried to take advantage of my forgetfulness to try to use an effect to kick my Obelisk off the field after I had managed to Normal Summon him for once. (I was using a Skill Drain deck way back when, and had a way for Obelisk to be on the field without it kissing itself goodbye after a Special Summon.) He had all his plans screwed and I slammed his face in with the big guy, when later after 3-trib-normal-summoning Barboros to kiss what remained of his field, and later his life points, goodbye.