Not even told he can't "play" just he can't play at official sanctioned events for cash and prizes, since he's a cheater. He can play against his friends in casual matches all the fucking wants to. Also: "Boo hoo I'm gonna' sell my entire collection 'cause they won't let me cheat at sanctioned events for 4 years [shoulda' been indefinite!]."
@@Unforgiven11 It's probably the "high" feeling they'll get when they can pull it off without getting caught that motivates them in doing stuff like that.
had an odd shuffle the other night. Somehow ended up with roughly even clumps of lands then nonlands and repeat for the whole deck. So I'd pull nothing but land for several turns (well after when I didn't need any more) before I could start getting anything to play.
And then getting mad when you get banned for cheating in a sanctioned event, like wtf you think is going to happen you are scamming the event organizers and the participants out of prizes
Yeah, stacking the deck is not something one can just learn to do on the fly. What he did, took a lot of practice so this was not the first time he had done this, for sure.
Yeah... right... "Gave in to temptation [30 games in a row]." Sorry, but a **pattern of obvious bad behavior** is not "giving in to temptation [once, even twice]," it's a "lifestyle choice..." You got spanked for it, move on, apologize or make amends; don't be an whiny crybaby asshole about it.
Same, though it helps to know that it was coming, but goddam. How do the judges sitting table side or the commentators not see that? Granted, he was presenting his deck while tapping his lands and equipping a sword, but goddam. As a comment about the first two. That's part of why I absolutely hate that kind of shuffling. It's the perfect shuffling technique for preserving the top card(s). Then all you need is a smooth motion to get the card(s) you want on top, and BOOM! Free win. I shamelessly riffle shuffle my decks at tournaments, just to make sure crap like this can't happen, as well as facing away from it like our protagonist at 3:15.
I spotted it and didnt even know which person was the cheater. But maybe thats just my deck watching habit i picked up from ygo, given a lot of searching happens in that game nowadays
A million years ago, when I played competitive Magic, I was playing against an opponent who was using a Prosperous Bloom deck. He used colored beads to represent the mana he was generating: green beads for green mana, black beads for black mana, etc....He forgot to get blue mana however, and I just watched him go through all of the motions. When he went to cast Prosperity, I said "Where are you getting the blue mana from?" He just folded his cards on the table and said, "I concede." At that moment, I realized that many players will cheat as far as other players will allow them to do so. If you see something suspicious when you are playing, don't be afraid to call your opponent out.
First guy: Anyone who holds onto your deck that long is doing something shady. Even ignoring the times he manipulated cards, he shuffled the deck 19 times. An opponent handling your or their own deck that long should be an indicator that something fishy is going on.
The problem is that honest people are often naive to immoral acts. Similarly if you survey thieves about what % of the population shoplifts, they will give a way higher number than is reasonable. People tend to think that other people are like them, good or bad. This is especially true in a setting where there's an implied comradery - like a social event where everyone is playing the same game.
That's what I'm thinking. Like my guy my deck doesn't consent so stop fondling it. I cant believe these tournaments dont use auto shufflers, or have the judges shuffle
As a judge for my lgs I caught 3 people trying to shuffle cheat. Then got super defensive when I could name the top card of the deck and forced a game loss.
It's not hard to shuffle cheat and it's really easy if you can watch the cards. It's a great trick to amaze kids and a better trick to know as a judge.
I gotta ask, wtf is up with these people? To go to your local game store and cheat seems mind blowing to me. Are they really just totally losers looking for a win? I don’t understand
I remember watching Jared Boettcher do this live and was pissed that it wasn't caught, and I remember the fallout of Humphries doing it. It was so smooth considering he was on camera, there were table judges, and he TALKED to the judge whilst doing it. He was such a whiny baby about it. I ask people to cut if they shuffle. I've explained it, and a lot of the player in my area understand it. I don't present back without cutting. It's a red flag.
Talking (and making eye contact) is part of the misdirection. It keeps their eyes off his hands and it also alleviates suspicion as to “Why is this guy shuffling forever?” Just seems like he’s enjoying the conversation.
I never play tournaments but I'm shocked anyone lets the other play completely take their deck and shuffle and then slide it across the table. I'd be tempted to cut my own deck for them. And for me.
@@42k78 unfortunately cutting your own deck constitutes a reshuffle by the opponent. But it's what the rules say. You present your deck, the opponent shuffles if they so choose, and then gives it back. They don't even have to shuffle if they don't want to and believe you've thoroughly randomized. I haven't had to call anyone on their shuffles yet thankfully, but I've had a guy booted from my LGS because he was shuffle stacking his opponent's deck and got caught. He then proceeded to whine about it, got banned from our store, and then went to another store and OPENLY trashed us. All because he got busted cheating.
The second one gave me flashbacks. When I was 14 with a 40$ infect with only basic lands I played modern tournaments in a local shop (small thing with a maximum winning of 15$). There was this 50 years old dude with a 3000$ jund that felt the need to cheat against me to win. I remember a really odd feeling when he shuffled my deck, I've never seen anyone do it the same way, and now I know exactly what happened. He also complained about anything i did in a way that still makes me suffer. He was one of the most vicious persons I have ever seen.
The dude wasn't cheating but they where so pissed that their $4k+ edh deck lost to my Draconic Rage structure deck that I've done some changes to... and my budget Rielle deck.
I love how Trevor deflects to "it's just a card game, I can't believe you care this much about punishing cheaters" But if it was as unimportant as he claimed, why would he cheat?
He's right, the card game doesn't matter. He's not even banned from the card game, he can play with his friends any time he likes. The tournaments are what people care about in this circumstance, and that's what he's banned from.
For the same reason his profile image prominently displays who I can only assume was his girlfriend. He cares about his image and ego, so being banned for cheating bruised that. He's not the "chad MTG player" he wanted people to think he was.
As someone that used to be obsessed with card tricks and slight of hand, it's really obvious to notice when a player is fake shuffling, the most blatant thing is pulling cards to the top and then shuffling the bottom to avoid mixing the top. Glad tournaments have up close shots of them mixing the cards to catch this kind of stuff
Don't need to be obsessed with sleight of hand to spot it.... if your opponent takes more than 5 seconds to shuffle and doesn't either cut himself or has opponent cut, he's cheating.
During a game I'd just think he left it because he already knows it's not what he's looking for. I can definitely see myself forgetting that the card on the table is in his library, not his hand.
I would never spot something like that in a competitive game. I'm a simple man, I'm constantly thinking about naked women and how to not mess up with my gameplay.
I would notice something was up because I have played cards my entire life with family. Shuffling etiquette rule 1, never see the cards you are shuffling. That is the biggest red flag, especially in organized play!
I remember watching Jared Boettcher during an Open once and noticing how frequently his opponents got mana screwed. One interesting thing about that open was he still couldn't beat Tom Ross playing aggro who knows how to pilot an aggro deck with one land.
Fun fact. Tom went to my high school. Is still one of my brother's best friends and he taught us both how to play magic at major league card shop in Pineville, La. I quit playing magic years ago but was blown away when I found out how far he had come in the game. The dude had tokens made with his likeness?? I should've kept riding his coattails.... just sayin
this thing happens too often. they should introduce the rule that if the opponent does not cut the deck, but decides to shuffle it, the player should have the opportunity to cut before picking it up again.
That lets the player potentially manipulate their own deck though before drawing. Not as much as shuffling it for a minute, but they could possibly put a card on top that they palmed or some other nonsense.
Doing sleight of hand card tricks before play mtg has given me the ability to spot someone manipulating cards pretty easily. Judges should get a class on deck manipulation techniques so they can pick up on them.
it was probably an SCG open back when they had 500 players and ran them nearly every weekend. The total prizes would be a tiny fraction of what you would need to pay even the cheapest workers imaginable if you needed 250 of them.
i totally agree with this when it comes down to semi- finals and finals when it comes ot big tourneys it would be hard to have a judge shuffling at every table... maybe a shuffle machine ? but idk if that damages cards.
@@joshnorton6655 Without having players shuffling their own decks in on camera matches, most cheaters (of those who have been caught) wouldn't have been caught. I don't believe a shuffling machine would be viable because cards are far too valuable and sleeves are far too inconsistent between decks.
@@DarkZerol I don't know what the cards end up like after a days use at a casino but I would imagine the difficulty of making a machine shuffle $1000 worth of cardboard is considerable. Add in the varying sleeves and I think the problem is too hard to be worth solving
When you justify your cheating, because there are worse people out there, cheating is more likely a means to an end for you, and you most likely cheat on other things in life. Giving into temptation, basically means you thought about it, and you refused the moral choice. That's what happens when you think you are winner, instead of becoming one.
Criminals will always minimize the crime before confessing to it. It's also an interrogation technique. "Man, who WOULDN'T smack somebody for doing that? How could you know he'd fall and hit his head on the table?"
@@LionEagleOx Yup. When Lebron James was playing for the Miami Heat he had a move where he would drive then deliberately stumble away holding the ball to force the ref to call a foul on the defender. On replay no one touched him, he actually had to have practiced that by himself beforehand. Really gross and exposed what a douche he is.
Oh wow, Trevor Humphries. Went to my high school, actually played with him. Yeah, he was known as a big cheater, and not just shuffling. Sometimes he'd draw cards or put down lands when you weren't paying attention, lol.
@@Neelo5000 For sure. We’ve ghosted three players at our LGS for cheating in freaking non EDH league games. We gave them multiple warnings. I don’t care if it’s casual or competitive. Don’t cheat. Have fun and play.
Yep had to deal with them constantly cheating against me in semifinal and final rounds at our LGS. I knew they were doing it too but with them being good friends with the shop owners and not having solid proof, I could never call them out on it. I figured that if this occurrence was that common at pro-level, I couldn't afford to try and go bigger just to be cheated out like that.
Man reminds me of lunch during high school. It was chaos, had to keep your eye on everyone. This was in 1990s so not really internet . Dark dank Dusty backrooms of card shops anything could happen
I have watched many magicians who can manipulate decks and have tried to learn some slight of hand myself false shuffles take days of practice to look legit. Forcing cards to specific locations while holding conversations take weeks or years. These guys probably spent more time learning to cheat than playing the game
Wow that Batterskull was ridiculously brave. I understood what happened when I first watched it, but it was such an obvious cheat that I couldn’t believe he just left one card from his deck there and just yoinked it.
If he would've flung that card just a little bit to mix into his hand he would've gotten away with it for sure. Should gave it a little push toward himself
I wouldn't even let my opponent shuffle my deck. They cut the deck. I can't stack crap. Best a player can do is separate lands and non lands so its an even balance and I honestly believe you should be allowed to do that in the first place. I really like online card games where your resources are increased each round and separate from your hand.
@@jfast8256 _"Best a player can do is separate lands and non lands so its an even balance and I honestly believe you should be allowed to do that in the first place."_ That's the silliest thing I have ever heard. Manaweaving should be allowed? And how exactly do you suggest this to work in a fair and balanced way? How exactly would you suggest being able to mana-weave? Allow players to place land cards at any position in the deck they want? How? They take all the lands out of the deck, and then start counting cards from the remaining deck and start placing lands in the positions they want? Or what exactly is it that you are suggesting? Changing the rules of the game drastically to have lands and non-lands in separate decks, pretty much requiring the rewrite the entire rules of the game, and thus creating an entirely new game? (There are tons and tons of cards and rules that would become unfeasible if players had two decks.) Or are you, perhaps, suggesting that players shouldn't be penalized if they deliberately manaweave during shuffling? And how exactly do you suggest watching out for them to not abuse this permission to stack their deck with other non-land cards that they want? How exactly would you enforce that only land cards are being manaweaved evenly into the deck, and not some other cards? This would also make it a game of skill: Those most skilled at manaweaving would be advantaged over those who don't have the same skill. Are you seriously suggesting that this should become a game of hand dexterity and deck manipulation? The player with the best manaweaving skills should win? Seriously, that's the silliest (and I'm using the mildest adjective I can come up with) thing I have ever heard. If you don't like land randomness, then go play some other card game that has no land randomness. It's that simple.
@@DjVortex-w Edit: cutting the deck fixes problems with stacking the deck with specific cards. Most online card games you get 1 mana per turn added to your total. Since I play recreationally, I personally don't mind if my opponent has two stacks, 1 nothing but land and the other everything else. Shuffle each separately and when you're done shuffling, bridge shuffle them together. No reason to mulligan or get stuck with 0 or 7 lands. Either way doing that is way less punishing silly than letting a cheater who is literally stacking your cards so you get 0 lands. The point is, MTG has a resource vs utility card problem. There is an easy fix to it and I don't mind people using it. I'm not saying stack the deck with other useful cards. I expect the deck to be cut, even double cut if the player likes. But I like for BOTH players to not be mana fucked for no reason other than "RNG" or "bad luck". yes I know it's part of the game, but I prefer the game to be more skill based on how well you can build the deck to work with itself vs "well I got mana fucked, so you win. Yep, I got 2 lands out, you have 5, but your hand wasn't flooded with lands" It's not my fault, you can't imagine a way to shuffle that is both fair and weaves mana in uniformly.
@@jfast8256 You might not mind it, but it just breaks the game, and makes the rules impossible in many regards. It also breaks many cards such as Aven Mindcensor (which main idea is that it hinders the ability to search lands from your library). The very idea of making MtG a game of dexterity, where your manual skills determine how well you can play, is absolutely ludicrous. You are not talking about MtG anymore. You are talking about something else. Manaweaving is cheating, plain and simple. When your deck should be shuffled, manipulating its contents in any way, shape or form, in a manner that reduces randomness and affects where particular cards end up, is cheating. It's no different than doing the same eg. in poker. (If you did that in poker you would probably be taken to the back alley and beaten up.) If you manaweave, then you are a cheater, plain and simple.
@@DjVortex-w I play D&D far more than I play MtG. We have a lot of house rule that make the game less "not fun". I assure you, everyone I play with that plays MtG, literally does not care about mana weaving. If both sides of the equation are okay with it, it is not cheating. When I allow my players to use homebrew in D&D, they are not cheating. So I will concede this. Tournaments, perhaps I shouldn't have a say in it. But in non tournament settings where I play, it's it's far from cheating to shuffle your own deck, because everyone prefers it that way. I don't want to play a person who gets 1 land only or nothing but lands. I WANT them to manaweave. They aren't cheating when they do it. But I will concede the fact that okay, in these tournaments, it is.
First really was smooth with it. But it wouldn't work if someone simply made him cut the deck. What kind of professional setting doesn't enforce that? The guy is looking at him like he knows he's cheating but doesn't ask him to cut? Why?
Not only cut, but don't let the guy shuffling do the cut! A good card mechanic can stack the deck and know EXACTLY where to cut it for the desired outcome. "You cut. I pick." That's the rule for splitting a treat. "You shuffle. I cut." is the rule in cards. At least it is in poker and every other card game I've ever played.
i don't know much about this game or this type of card game but i had always thought it was a pretty big deal. but if they don't enforce very simple cutting, wow kind of a joke.
Hey man I just have shaky hands lol. I've been called out for looking at the deck while I shuffle. The only answer I can give them is that I don't want to drop their deck on the table and floor. Even tho the deck is orientated so I can only look at sleeves, people still think I'm cheating.
From watching the footage, I'm amazed Boettcher didn't get caught earlier. Those blatantly fake cuts he does near the end of each shuffle are the closest you can get to holding up a giant sign saying "Look over here, I'm stacking the deck".
"Cards in hand?" Is always a valid question. My LGS had a cheater/stealer. He would do a lot of hand motions with his cards and sneak extra cards off his deck. A real shame because he really needs therapy but will end up in jail one day.
Did he just equate his getting suspended from mtg to being sentenced to prison? Also, you obviously found the game important enough to learn it, play a lot, and learn how to shuffle cheat in order to win so… you clearly take the fake seriously 😂
Yeah, It's always great when people care about a game sufficiently to rant about it big time, forget midway through what they're doing and toss in the "It's just a game" real quick. Like mate, to you it clearly isn't.
@@Krunschy Yeah exactly, also I would love to see what his collection looked like that he supposedly sold. Besides that, if you’re into the game enough that you travel to SCG tournaments to compete the. you take it even more seriously than many others that play casually lol
Yeah he is treating it as if he walked down to the local game store and did a pick-up game. He participated in a Tournament a sanctioned tournament where there are judges at every table. People take tournaments very seriously.
That last one was CLEAN. Its one of those plays where even if you were his opponent and saw that, you might doubt yourself on whether you should call it or not. It was that smooth.
Well it should be called considering he didn't draw after the shuffle therefore it would have been impossible for the bottom card to be in his hand. Though i could see someone overlooking it
How could he had "naturally drawn" the batterskull? It was on the bottom, and he did not shuffle before drawing for turn. He also did not draw after shuffling for the fetchland. So, if it really was a one-of in the deck, it was impossible that he could have drawn it. What am I missing here?
I saw the same thing. He made it more obvious of cheating by making it less of an actual chance of getting the card. I don't know the rules as I only read the cards while my friends played back in the late 90's early 00's 😆. But if he would have drawn after the shuffle it would have been less obvious
Actual magician should be included as the judge in these games i think. These moves are among the most beginner sleights in magic but is always the most effective and deceptive that most card magicians do this every time. As a magician myself i can say these moves are executed pretty well
I must say the first one was the most impressive to me because how greedy must you be to stack one whole opponent's hand consistently xD I love love LOVE this format. To my knowledge you're the only Mtg TH-camr delving into these "video archives", congrats on finding a really sweet concept.
I know nothing about MTG (except that the cards are too expensive to bother getting into the hobby) but I am living for this content. Watching cheaters get caught in any game is cathartic as hell. Also interesting to see card forces being used in competition, I wondered how this community would stop card sharps wrecking everyone.
Magic only gets super expensive if you really want a specific deck or specific cards. If you just get your boxes of cards and make decks with what you have it's way less expensive
@@phaeste kinda bad advice imo it's more cost effective to buy singles tbh and it really depends on their goal like if they play commander buying a precon and upgrading them with some singles is the best way imo
or if you really wanna cheap out, is playable forever, and doesnt need to be updated feequently like standard play Pauper. Literally a format where you only play with common cards
I won a PTQ back in the day in Albany, NY where my opponent put a card from his graveyard and played it again. It was a Rochester draft format and I knew he only had one copy. We got mutual warnings for disagreeing about the game state despite me being able to explain exactly what happened and many witnesses who could confirm the card had already been played and wasn't in the graveyard anymore, clearly. He was a notorious cheater too. Pretty sure he got banned for life eventually!
@@SpitefulAZ As a Yugioh player, 1 thing I do while shuffling their deck is to lock eyes with them. Pay attention to the eyes. Something else I will pay attention to is how they are shuffling my deck. If cards are not being shuffled face down I ask them politely to do so. Adds a little negativity but I ain't going to let a potential cheater brick my hand.
nah, it's shit lmao. I like sleight of hand for magic (not the card game lmao), and this is such basic shit that it's super obvious to anyone who has a passing interest in magic
Fun fact: doing this sort of cheat and topdecking lands when playing against my EDH Sliver Overlord commander deck would actually help me a ton because all the lands in it are either dual, tri-color or all color chromatic :D
Just got back into MTG this year after about 10 years or more away. Loving these videos. I used to play with a guy that often had 2 cards in a sleeve and during play would remove the front card leaving the card behind it in the sleeve. It took awhile but we figured it out. This was also back when we played for cards (aka the old antie up rule).
just a few questions.....first of all, i also played back then, and like....NOBODY sleeved cards, it was against the rules anyway. and second of all, how do you not see somebody literally pulling a card out of a sleeve mid game.....
@@johnlowe1255 We played 5-6 player multi games. We weren't always paying attention to that player. I started sleeving cards at either 7th or 8th edition. Edit: We still played antie, even after it was removed from the rules.
@@Choom89 I think playmat rule are in order. Solid color and distinctly different from your sleeve color. Basically a mandatory high contrast setting. Or if playmats are provided, a list of banned sleeve colors needs to happen. Light blue, light grey, and white should all be banned for the batterskull playmat. It blends in too much.
@@louisstabile1182 It seemed pretty blatant to me just from the overhead camera. Definitely the most obvious of all three. If you're sitting across from him, it might be a lot harder to notice. But it was really dumb to try to cheat that way while on camera.
Watched a guy meticulously riffle shuffle my deck 7 times in a row and I asked him if he knew that just put everything back where it was. He then he did it 4 more times and handed it back. Game 2 I called a judge to watch.
the problem at that point is i could bribe you the judge with ether a rare card or two if you played the game or money or something else in order to get you to shuffle a poor hand for my opponent
At the very least, a judge should be required to cut a deck after it has been shuffled and then present it back to the player. No deck cutting is a major red flag. Personally, I would say that the decks should be shuffled with all the cards facing down to also help prevent repeats of the first two alongside a judge cut. just did a quick little search for some of the shuffle rules, these would have been good to know back then. "Players may request to have a judge shuffle their cards rather than the opponent; this request will be honored only at a judge’s discretion." "If a player has had the opportunity to see any of the card faces of the deck being shuffled, the deck is no longer considered randomized and must be randomized again." Something makes me think these came around partly due to the people in the video, if they weren't around previously.
The fact the guy was able to always shuffle the deck except the top card, that is very slick, that would have never got caught if there was no cameras and there was ALWAYS lands being drawn, after 3 to 5 times of drawing a land like that, I would have called a judge.
Omg i had i guy try this to me like 10 years ago and i looked at him and cut my own deck. He started to come unglued and i said you do that again and I’m going to knock the sht out of you. The judge came over watch our game then watch his next game. He got pulled. It totally messed up our fnm scores that night.
That's what my comment of "not better!" Was at the end of my response. Lol. I have 24+ lands, and say 12 5-drops. I draw a hand full of 5-drops but only 1 land? Shuffler is busted. Its consistent too. Like, come on man...
@@MurpheeLaw dude, I just spent 6 hours getting fecked on the mtga algorithm -- and when I checked out the mtga discord it was unprofessional and mod abuse was rampant (watch out for mods Rubix and Snerf -- they think they own the internet and all opinions!!) think i'll go back to paper magic and just do arena every 3 days for the quests.
@@MurpheeLaw Aaron -- I have literally noticed on platinum rank tier that the number of board clears alone determines what deck you will face. Give it a try -- play with a few Crippling Fears (-3/-3 all) and notice suddenly you will be getting hit with the 4+ defense creatures. Take it out and replace it with a Blood on the Snow -- suddenly every game is against aggro red. It's busted, and the land draw is definitely rigged. I should not be drawing 2 lands EVERY GAME for 18 out of 20 games with 24-25 lands in deck. Solution: play paper.
Honestly, I noticed the batterskull one right away. It's probably just because I've gotten used to constantly looking at everything going on around me, but I can see how someone might miss what happened if they're focused on what the other person is doing to the rest of their deck.
As an amateur magician myself, these were all really easy to spot, especially the batterskull one at the end. But these all show why you should pay attention when your opponent shuffles a deck, yours or theirs. The first method doesn't even shuffle the top bit of the deck, far more than the first six cards or so, probably to ensure the entire chosen hand is safe. Second one, while very similar, makes it a bit less obvious because only the first card doesn't get shuffled, except the first time in this video where half of the deck doesn't get shuffled when he keeps cutting the bottom half. But that last one is all about how little people pay attention to what's going on. Anyone actually paying attention and watching would notice his hand size before and after shuffling as well as him miss a card when he picks up the deck. But everyone ends up focusing elsewhere instead. Would be perfect for non-competitive play with an Un set and that Cheaterface card though.
The trick where you shuffle the bottoms card sneakily to the top is the oldest trick in the book.. we did it on our old kitchen table magic when we thought our friends were cheating as well.
What made it worse for Jareds is he shuffled his own deck the same way. Because he knew the other guy would shuffle his deck normally, and it helped sell that how he was shuffling was how he always does it!
That "picking up your entire deck minus 1" was slick. I'm going to put together a "here's how to spot cheating" series, and this is coming from a successful cheater.
I played against Trevor twice. He used to play in Brooklyn. He's a nice smooth talker. He almost got his ass whooped the 2nd time around. He hangs with another dude which is pretty cool . He never came back
I love watching Dylan, sitting there, staring at his deck being shuffled for an eternity, he even laughs at one point, a part of me thinks he knew what was going on
See I caught that one quickly. I’d ask him why do you keep peaking down while shuffling? Especially when the cards are being shuffled at an angle and not flat facedown (which should be a rule in competitive mtg). But then again I work at a casino and I’ve been playing cards for almost 40 years lol.
It's been a while since I played MtG and stumbled upon this series of videos. I'm glad I watched this video in particular because I remember yelling at my screen in the library on campus when I saw the batterskull cheat happen. Even 12 years later, I yelled at my screen the same way that I did back then 😂
I am clueless about magic the gathering. I've always known about the cards and loved the artwork. But when it comes to playing the game. Its a foreign language to me. Despite all of that. I've somehow found your channel and I absolutely love your content. Breaking it all down and simplifying it for your audience is very helpful and appreciated.
Why I don't entirely disagree with opponents only being allowed to cut, it does have the downside of making mana weaving (another form of shuffle cheating) a lot more effective, and therefore tempting to potential cheaters.
I stumbled upon this randomly and I had no idea I’d see one of my high school classmates in here. Lol I went to high school with Kent. I always thought he was bigger into paintball than Magic. He disappeared off of social media…turns out he had a bunch of drama surrounding him. Very sad. Played a lot a Halo CE with him at LAN parties.
Honestly, I used to try play competitive Magic hoping to one day make a name for myself by grinding countless events. While I never made it big, my friends and I spent so much time play testing against the format and learning all angles of our decks. If I learned that I missed out on a top 8 due to smooth cheaters like these, I would be so pissed. This kind of stuff literally makes me blood boil because while some people like Trevor just see it as a silly card game, my friends and I took the game deathly seriously; we lived and breathed Magic and spent so much time, energy, and money preparing for tournaments.
I hate to twist the knife but that is extremely likely. I do close up card tricks as a hobby. I've done a bunch of these tricks for judges "trained" to spot card manipulation. I even told them what the result was going to be. Such as stacking a god hand, loading a mana vein, weaving, or stacking an opponents wincons to the bottom. Even though they knew I was cheating and what the result would be ahead of time most of them couldn't figure out how I was doing it until I told them. So especially if these were not recorded or live streamed events you were playing in, it's pretty much a guarantee you got screwed by a card sharp. Likely multiple times in competitive circles.
So at my school I used to host a magic club. Very casual games, no prizes for winning, no one was particularly good. Then in the middle of a match, someone there just told everyone to shuffle their decks. he did this right after playing something, so I kinda figured it was on the card. Then a few turns later I asked to see the card he had played. He showed it to me and there was nothing about shuffling anywhere on the card. I asked why he told everyone to shuffle and he replied with "I dunno, I wanted to shuffle." I DQ'd him from the match and he got super pissed and knocked everyone's cards on the floor before stomping off.
"a four year sentence, it's a freaking card game" You cheated at a thing and got punished in that thing, that's how the world works, if you cheat in life, you get restricted from participating in life, aka prison, if you cheat in a game, you get restricted from participating in that game, aka banned
I find this really strange, how is everyone handing their deck to their opponent and just trusting the shuffle? I thought it was normal for one player to shuffle and the other to cut it. That's how we've played in our own since the beginning, and we trust each other.
i remember watching yugioh back in like 2004 and thats how THEY WOULD PLAY like in the show. how can yugioh in the show get it right and magic a game that has existed far longer than it has still doesnt have one person does x and the other does y
That's how I've always played, both at home and in LGS tournaments. You shuffle your own deck and your opponent gets to cut it however they want, or shuffle if they're feeling picky or buying some extra seconds to think. I'm guessing they're doing it this way to speed things up, but I'd expect they'd at least allow the deck's owner to cut it after it's shuffled. It's awkward too because you can request a judge to shuffle if you feel uncomfortable, but they're not going to have time to babysit your table and you're going to frustrate the judge real fast hassling them over a suspicion, so they might just call you for Slow Play. I can say there's a lot of pressure in tournaments to show good sportsmanship, play your games fast and maintain a good atmosphere so it can suck to have to call someone out.
1:55 You missed the fact that he's not even shuffling the top half of the deck, peaking at the bottom card for that bit is just extra. I caught both right away(Spent too much time doing tournaments for other card games over webcam during covid) 12:59 smooth as sandpaper, I'm surprised that wasn't caught right away. In the group I play with, that kinda cheap move would've been foiled before you even started shuffling. The way we play, your hand is never near where your deck is on the table, and we'll always mention if someone missed a card.
7:20 used to do this for a magic trick pretty easy to do not too impressive but fun, here are the steps in anyone is interested. First put top 15 cards within order you learn, go to friend and show you are shuffle the deck but like the cheater and not change the top 15 cards of the deck, next fan out the deck only offering the top 15, with the cards you don’t know on the bottom person picks a card and you know what card is. If they want a card from the bottom of the deck the trick has failed
Bro I don't understand cheating. It doesn't matter the game, I just hate people that feel the need to supplement any deficits they might have with cheap tricks. It's icky.
LIKE if you think the rules should be updated to force players to cut the deck after shuffling!
Banish them all to the shadow realm
Absolutely. It’d make cheating harder
Wrote my comment then saw this lol. Such a easy way to combat these scummy players.
The Master has spoken!
WotC: Make it happen!!
I thought that was always the courtesy
Lol at the first guy- “Why does everyone care so much? It’s a card game!”
(Cares enough to cheat at a card game)
Also he's acting like he was sent to prison
I got told not to play my card game :((((((((((( noooooo
Not even told he can't "play" just he can't play at official sanctioned events for cash and prizes, since he's a cheater. He can play against his friends in casual matches all the fucking wants to.
Also: "Boo hoo I'm gonna' sell my entire collection 'cause they won't let me cheat at sanctioned events for 4 years [shoulda' been indefinite!]."
@@MGmirkin I know ! right?!
guess he didn´t want to play if he couldn´t cheat on official tournaments :)
I just don't understand the mentality of cheaters like this.
@@Unforgiven11 It's probably the "high" feeling they'll get when they can pull it off without getting caught that motivates them in doing stuff like that.
I have mastered the art of shuffling my lands to one side and creatures to another. Drives me crazy.
Hahaha yep me too
Sme. This skill even translate when i played online
had an odd shuffle the other night. Somehow ended up with roughly even clumps of lands then nonlands and repeat for the whole deck. So I'd pull nothing but land for several turns (well after when I didn't need any more) before I could start getting anything to play.
In multi color decks, i mastered the art of drawing the exact opposite color lands of the cards i have. It takes true skill
@@anthonymarinucci325 or having something like boros deck and somehow get an opening that make you feel like playing mono red
"I gave in to temptation"
Like it was an impulse decision, and not something he probably practiced and premeditated...
And then getting mad when you get banned for cheating in a sanctioned event, like wtf you think is going to happen you are scamming the event organizers and the participants out of prizes
Yeah, stacking the deck is not something one can just learn to do on the fly. What he did, took a lot of practice so this was not the first time he had done this, for sure.
Yeah... right...
"Gave in to temptation [30 games in a row]."
Sorry, but a **pattern of obvious bad behavior** is not "giving in to temptation [once, even twice]," it's a "lifestyle choice..."
You got spanked for it, move on, apologize or make amends; don't be an whiny crybaby asshole about it.
I can barely shuffle a deck normally lmfao, I dont play tho...it must take time to learn tho bc most of these guys are brazen and shit
“Four year sentence, it’s just a card game”
You’re banned from tournaments, not the card game bud.
Dude, he's banned from pro-Magic the CARD GAME, not LIFE itself. He's not ACTUALLY going to prison like a murderer...
@@JJEMTT I can't tell if you're adding to their comment, or trying to correct them? Because.. They said that
"Its just a card game." You decided it was important enough to cheat, so you just played yourself with that statement.
See if poker players would be as nice.
He talks like it's a four year sentence to JAIL lmfao
I saw the batterskull one immediately, and I actually audibly laughed at how brazen it was
Me too .. it was glorious.
nice placement of the hand, next to the deck, the one card left behind ... the speed at which it happens. its perfect~
Same, though it helps to know that it was coming, but goddam. How do the judges sitting table side or the commentators not see that? Granted, he was presenting his deck while tapping his lands and equipping a sword, but goddam.
As a comment about the first two. That's part of why I absolutely hate that kind of shuffling. It's the perfect shuffling technique for preserving the top card(s). Then all you need is a smooth motion to get the card(s) you want on top, and BOOM! Free win. I shamelessly riffle shuffle my decks at tournaments, just to make sure crap like this can't happen, as well as facing away from it like our protagonist at 3:15.
I spotted it and didnt even know which person was the cheater. But maybe thats just my deck watching habit i picked up from ygo, given a lot of searching happens in that game nowadays
Batterskull was to obvious. What would've made it slick. If he picked up his library and slide the card closer to his hand.
You could say even say he was a........Brazen Borrower
A million years ago, when I played competitive Magic, I was playing against an opponent who was using a Prosperous Bloom deck. He used colored beads to represent the mana he was generating: green beads for green mana, black beads for black mana, etc....He forgot to get blue mana however, and I just watched him go through all of the motions. When he went to cast Prosperity, I said "Where are you getting the blue mana from?" He just folded his cards on the table and said, "I concede." At that moment, I realized that many players will cheat as far as other players will allow them to do so. If you see something suspicious when you are playing, don't be afraid to call your opponent out.
I like how much the Magic community despise cheaters and are always willing to give out bans quickly.
First guy: Anyone who holds onto your deck that long is doing something shady. Even ignoring the times he manipulated cards, he shuffled the deck 19 times. An opponent handling your or their own deck that long should be an indicator that something fishy is going on.
The problem is that honest people are often naive to immoral acts. Similarly if you survey thieves about what % of the population shoplifts, they will give a way higher number than is reasonable. People tend to think that other people are like them, good or bad. This is especially true in a setting where there's an implied comradery - like a social event where everyone is playing the same game.
That's what I'm thinking. Like my guy my deck doesn't consent so stop fondling it. I cant believe these tournaments dont use auto shufflers, or have the judges shuffle
Yeah anyone holding my deck for that long instantly will get me telling them to cut it.
As a judge for my lgs I caught 3 people trying to shuffle cheat. Then got super defensive when I could name the top card of the deck and forced a game loss.
you're a hero
I'd love to see footage from that savage.
It's not hard to shuffle cheat and it's really easy if you can watch the cards. It's a great trick to amaze kids and a better trick to know as a judge.
I gotta ask, wtf is up with these people? To go to your local game store and cheat seems mind blowing to me. Are they really just totally losers looking for a win? I don’t understand
Damn, got any footage of it? Would love to fucking see that lol Good shit man
I remember watching Jared Boettcher do this live and was pissed that it wasn't caught, and I remember the fallout of Humphries doing it. It was so smooth considering he was on camera, there were table judges, and he TALKED to the judge whilst doing it. He was such a whiny baby about it. I ask people to cut if they shuffle. I've explained it, and a lot of the player in my area understand it. I don't present back without cutting. It's a red flag.
Talking (and making eye contact) is part of the misdirection. It keeps their eyes off his hands and it also alleviates suspicion as to “Why is this guy shuffling forever?” Just seems like he’s enjoying the conversation.
I never play tournaments but I'm shocked anyone lets the other play completely take their deck and shuffle and then slide it across the table. I'd be tempted to cut my own deck for them. And for me.
@@42k78 unfortunately cutting your own deck constitutes a reshuffle by the opponent. But it's what the rules say. You present your deck, the opponent shuffles if they so choose, and then gives it back. They don't even have to shuffle if they don't want to and believe you've thoroughly randomized. I haven't had to call anyone on their shuffles yet thankfully, but I've had a guy booted from my LGS because he was shuffle stacking his opponent's deck and got caught. He then proceeded to whine about it, got banned from our store, and then went to another store and OPENLY trashed us. All because he got busted cheating.
The second one gave me flashbacks.
When I was 14 with a 40$ infect with only basic lands I played modern tournaments in a local shop (small thing with a maximum winning of 15$). There was this 50 years old dude with a 3000$ jund that felt the need to cheat against me to win.
I remember a really odd feeling when he shuffled my deck, I've never seen anyone do it the same way, and now I know exactly what happened.
He also complained about anything i did in a way that still makes me suffer. He was one of the most vicious persons I have ever seen.
Jund players amirite?
🤢 gross
The dude wasn't cheating but they where so pissed that their $4k+ edh deck lost to my Draconic Rage structure deck that I've done some changes to... and my budget Rielle deck.
I love how Trevor deflects to "it's just a card game, I can't believe you care this much about punishing cheaters"
But if it was as unimportant as he claimed, why would he cheat?
Even more, if it's just a card game, then what does it matter if you get suspended from it?
He's right, the card game doesn't matter. He's not even banned from the card game, he can play with his friends any time he likes.
The tournaments are what people care about in this circumstance, and that's what he's banned from.
the thrill of getting caught is exciting, i think,
isn't that why people mostly cheats in the relationship. it's for excitement of course
For the same reason his profile image prominently displays who I can only assume was his girlfriend. He cares about his image and ego, so being banned for cheating bruised that. He's not the "chad MTG player" he wanted people to think he was.
Anyone that has to cheat at any game is a complete loser and scum.
As someone that used to be obsessed with card tricks and slight of hand, it's really obvious to notice when a player is fake shuffling, the most blatant thing is pulling cards to the top and then shuffling the bottom to avoid mixing the top. Glad tournaments have up close shots of them mixing the cards to catch this kind of stuff
Don't need to be obsessed with sleight of hand to spot it.... if your opponent takes more than 5 seconds to shuffle and doesn't either cut himself or has opponent cut, he's cheating.
1st was the most impressive, but most obvious. Shaping an entire hand takes balls.
Third one was most obvious to me. Like, I can't believe no one called a judge over that.
During a game I'd just think he left it because he already knows it's not what he's looking for. I can definitely see myself forgetting that the card on the table is in his library, not his hand.
The first one was impressive since he did it while having a conversation, meaning he has a lot of experience with it
He seemed like a typical Chad so no surprise he tried that around a couple of ”four eyes”
No, it's just easy to do without them
The first dude blew me away with how brazen he was. To keep looking at the deck while talking to the official....savage
He also won 2 events that weekend if I recall correctly.
@@corycook9355 it seemed like he knew his opponent would be timid to say something so he acted very in control of what was going on
Brazen Shuffler - stole that game like he was committing a Petty Theft!
He is pretending to be distracted. He is also putting the focus on the conversation not the shuffling.
If the official is looking into your eyes they aren't looking at you shuffle. Solid misdirection.
I would never spot something like that in a competitive game. I'm a simple man, I'm constantly thinking about naked women and how to not mess up with my gameplay.
Glad to know I'm not the only one.
How do you find the time to think of naked women? I can never seem to manage beyond not messing up.
@@joshuaneuhauser you have to set priorities, haha
I would notice something was up because I have played cards my entire life with family. Shuffling etiquette rule 1, never see the cards you are shuffling. That is the biggest red flag, especially in organized play!
I remember watching Jared Boettcher during an Open once and noticing how frequently his opponents got mana screwed. One interesting thing about that open was he still couldn't beat Tom Ross playing aggro who knows how to pilot an aggro deck with one land.
I didn’t show the rest of the Tom Ross clip, but the extra mana helped him cast all his spells to kill Jared that turn 😂
@@NikachuMTG lmao
@@NikachuMTG Truly aggro infects are the hero we need, not the one we deserve.
Tom Ross is awesome
Fun fact. Tom went to my high school. Is still one of my brother's best friends and he taught us both how to play magic at major league card shop in Pineville, La. I quit playing magic years ago but was blown away when I found out how far he had come in the game. The dude had tokens made with his likeness?? I should've kept riding his coattails.... just sayin
this thing happens too often. they should introduce the rule that if the opponent does not cut the deck, but decides to shuffle it, the player should have the opportunity to cut before picking it up again.
That lets the player potentially manipulate their own deck though before drawing. Not as much as shuffling it for a minute, but they could possibly put a card on top that they palmed or some other nonsense.
I thought that was a rule, along with getting the judge to have the final shuffle and cut
Doing sleight of hand card tricks before play mtg has given me the ability to spot someone manipulating cards pretty easily. Judges should get a class on deck manipulation techniques so they can pick up on them.
In this high profile tournaments judges should double as croupiers and deal the cards/shuffle the decks.
it was probably an SCG open back when they had 500 players and ran them nearly every weekend. The total prizes would be a tiny fraction of what you would need to pay even the cheapest workers imaginable if you needed 250 of them.
i totally agree with this when it comes down to semi- finals and finals when it comes ot big tourneys it would be hard to have a judge shuffling at every table... maybe a shuffle machine ? but idk if that damages cards.
@@joshnorton6655 Without having players shuffling their own decks in on camera matches, most cheaters (of those who have been caught) wouldn't have been caught.
I don't believe a shuffling machine would be viable because cards are far too valuable and sleeves are far too inconsistent between decks.
Why isn't a friggin MTG shuffling machine existing yet?
@@DarkZerol I don't know what the cards end up like after a days use at a casino but I would imagine the difficulty of making a machine shuffle $1000 worth of cardboard is considerable. Add in the varying sleeves and I think the problem is too hard to be worth solving
When you justify your cheating, because there are worse people out there, cheating is more likely a means to an end for you, and you most likely cheat on other things in life. Giving into temptation, basically means you thought about it, and you refused the moral choice. That's what happens when you think you are winner, instead of becoming one.
To quote Waluigi: "Waahhh, everybody cheater! Next time _I_ cheat!"
ngl though I wouldn't even be mad for how smooth that was.
@@NoneNullAnd0 Which makes it worse, now that I think about it. He practiced cheating that much.
Criminals will always minimize the crime before confessing to it. It's also an interrogation technique. "Man, who WOULDN'T smack somebody for doing that? How could you know he'd fall and hit his head on the table?"
@@LionEagleOx Yup. When Lebron James was playing for the Miami Heat he had a move where he would drive then deliberately stumble away holding the ball to force the ref to call a foul on the defender. On replay no one touched him, he actually had to have practiced that by himself beforehand. Really gross and exposed what a douche he is.
Oh wow, Trevor Humphries. Went to my high school, actually played with him. Yeah, he was known as a big cheater, and not just shuffling. Sometimes he'd draw cards or put down lands when you weren't paying attention, lol.
The guy cheated in casual games? What a loser. haha
@@Neelo5000 For sure. We’ve ghosted three players at our LGS for cheating in freaking non EDH league games. We gave them multiple warnings. I don’t care if it’s casual or competitive. Don’t cheat. Have fun and play.
Yep had to deal with them constantly cheating against me in semifinal and final rounds at our LGS. I knew they were doing it too but with them being good friends with the shop owners and not having solid proof, I could never call them out on it.
I figured that if this occurrence was that common at pro-level, I couldn't afford to try and go bigger just to be cheated out like that.
Based
Man reminds me of lunch during high school. It was chaos, had to keep your eye on everyone. This was in 1990s so not really internet . Dark dank Dusty backrooms of card shops anything could happen
Its not just cheating for trevor he spent likely hours and hours practicing that with the intention to screw others over, its beyond premeditated
I have watched many magicians who can manipulate decks and have tried to learn some slight of hand myself false shuffles take days of practice to look legit. Forcing cards to specific locations while holding conversations take weeks or years.
These guys probably spent more time learning to cheat than playing the game
Wow that Batterskull was ridiculously brave. I understood what happened when I first watched it, but it was such an obvious cheat that I couldn’t believe he just left one card from his deck there and just yoinked it.
That's something I always keep an eye out for; new players do it all the time by accident
If he would've flung that card just a little bit to mix into his hand he would've gotten away with it for sure. Should gave it a little push toward himself
Mtg should adopt the same rule as Pokemon. You opponent shuffles your deck? You get 1 cut.
I wouldn't even let my opponent shuffle my deck. They cut the deck. I can't stack crap. Best a player can do is separate lands and non lands so its an even balance and I honestly believe you should be allowed to do that in the first place. I really like online card games where your resources are increased each round and separate from your hand.
@@jfast8256 _"Best a player can do is separate lands and non lands so its an even balance and I honestly believe you should be allowed to do that in the first place."_
That's the silliest thing I have ever heard. Manaweaving should be allowed? And how exactly do you suggest this to work in a fair and balanced way? How exactly would you suggest being able to mana-weave? Allow players to place land cards at any position in the deck they want? How? They take all the lands out of the deck, and then start counting cards from the remaining deck and start placing lands in the positions they want? Or what exactly is it that you are suggesting? Changing the rules of the game drastically to have lands and non-lands in separate decks, pretty much requiring the rewrite the entire rules of the game, and thus creating an entirely new game? (There are tons and tons of cards and rules that would become unfeasible if players had two decks.)
Or are you, perhaps, suggesting that players shouldn't be penalized if they deliberately manaweave during shuffling? And how exactly do you suggest watching out for them to not abuse this permission to stack their deck with other non-land cards that they want? How exactly would you enforce that only land cards are being manaweaved evenly into the deck, and not some other cards? This would also make it a game of skill: Those most skilled at manaweaving would be advantaged over those who don't have the same skill. Are you seriously suggesting that this should become a game of hand dexterity and deck manipulation? The player with the best manaweaving skills should win?
Seriously, that's the silliest (and I'm using the mildest adjective I can come up with) thing I have ever heard. If you don't like land randomness, then go play some other card game that has no land randomness. It's that simple.
@@DjVortex-w Edit: cutting the deck fixes problems with stacking the deck with specific cards.
Most online card games you get 1 mana per turn added to your total. Since I play recreationally, I personally don't mind if my opponent has two stacks, 1 nothing but land and the other everything else. Shuffle each separately and when you're done shuffling, bridge shuffle them together. No reason to mulligan or get stuck with 0 or 7 lands.
Either way doing that is way less punishing silly than letting a cheater who is literally stacking your cards so you get 0 lands.
The point is, MTG has a resource vs utility card problem. There is an easy fix to it and I don't mind people using it.
I'm not saying stack the deck with other useful cards. I expect the deck to be cut, even double cut if the player likes. But I like for BOTH players to not be mana fucked for no reason other than "RNG" or "bad luck". yes I know it's part of the game, but I prefer the game to be more skill based on how well you can build the deck to work with itself vs "well I got mana fucked, so you win. Yep, I got 2 lands out, you have 5, but your hand wasn't flooded with lands"
It's not my fault, you can't imagine a way to shuffle that is both fair and weaves mana in uniformly.
@@jfast8256 You might not mind it, but it just breaks the game, and makes the rules impossible in many regards. It also breaks many cards such as Aven Mindcensor (which main idea is that it hinders the ability to search lands from your library).
The very idea of making MtG a game of dexterity, where your manual skills determine how well you can play, is absolutely ludicrous. You are not talking about MtG anymore. You are talking about something else. Manaweaving is cheating, plain and simple. When your deck should be shuffled, manipulating its contents in any way, shape or form, in a manner that reduces randomness and affects where particular cards end up, is cheating. It's no different than doing the same eg. in poker. (If you did that in poker you would probably be taken to the back alley and beaten up.) If you manaweave, then you are a cheater, plain and simple.
@@DjVortex-w I play D&D far more than I play MtG. We have a lot of house rule that make the game less "not fun". I assure you, everyone I play with that plays MtG, literally does not care about mana weaving. If both sides of the equation are okay with it, it is not cheating. When I allow my players to use homebrew in D&D, they are not cheating.
So I will concede this. Tournaments, perhaps I shouldn't have a say in it. But in non tournament settings where I play, it's it's far from cheating to shuffle your own deck, because everyone prefers it that way. I don't want to play a person who gets 1 land only or nothing but lands. I WANT them to manaweave. They aren't cheating when they do it. But I will concede the fact that okay, in these tournaments, it is.
"I guess im just as bad as the nasty criminals of the world."
You got banned from a card game lol. What did this guy think happens to felons?
First really was smooth with it. But it wouldn't work if someone simply made him cut the deck. What kind of professional setting doesn't enforce that? The guy is looking at him like he knows he's cheating but doesn't ask him to cut? Why?
Not only cut, but don't let the guy shuffling do the cut! A good card mechanic can stack the deck and know EXACTLY where to cut it for the desired outcome. "You cut. I pick." That's the rule for splitting a treat. "You shuffle. I cut." is the rule in cards. At least it is in poker and every other card game I've ever played.
@@harrymills2770 no game has the shuffler cutting the deck. that defeats the entire point of cutting the deck.
i don't know much about this game or this type of card game but i had always thought it was a pretty big deal. but if they don't enforce very simple cutting, wow kind of a joke.
@@jp-sn6si because they all are using this trick some way or the other
I hate playing with ppl who are constantly fidgety with their hands and cards.
Agreed. However, that is almost everyone in every game I have ever played be it Magic, Yugioh, etc.
Just play 8 Rack. Problem solved!
Hey man I just have shaky hands lol. I've been called out for looking at the deck while I shuffle. The only answer I can give them is that I don't want to drop their deck on the table and floor. Even tho the deck is orientated so I can only look at sleeves, people still think I'm cheating.
From watching the footage, I'm amazed Boettcher didn't get caught earlier. Those blatantly fake cuts he does near the end of each shuffle are the closest you can get to holding up a giant sign saying "Look over here, I'm stacking the deck".
"Cards in hand?" Is always a valid question.
My LGS had a cheater/stealer. He would do a lot of hand motions with his cards and sneak extra cards off his deck. A real shame because he really needs therapy but will end up in jail one day.
Did he just equate his getting suspended from mtg to being sentenced to prison? Also, you obviously found the game important enough to learn it, play a lot, and learn how to shuffle cheat in order to win so… you clearly take the fake seriously 😂
Yeah, It's always great when people care about a game sufficiently to rant about it big time, forget midway through what they're doing and toss in the "It's just a game" real quick. Like mate, to you it clearly isn't.
@@Krunschy Yeah exactly, also I would love to see what his collection looked like that he supposedly sold. Besides that, if you’re into the game enough that you travel to SCG tournaments to compete the. you take it even more seriously than many others that play casually lol
I guess as long as you're not a rapist or murderer you can do whatever you want 🤷
@@I43573 lol that does seem to be his logic I suppose
Yeah he is treating it as if he walked down to the local game store and did a pick-up game. He participated in a Tournament a sanctioned tournament where there are judges at every table. People take tournaments very seriously.
That last one was CLEAN. Its one of those plays where even if you were his opponent and saw that, you might doubt yourself on whether you should call it or not. It was that smooth.
i can see how that is hard to see when you are playing but it was super obvious from the topdown view though
Well it should be called considering he didn't draw after the shuffle therefore it would have been impossible for the bottom card to be in his hand. Though i could see someone overlooking it
That wasn't CLEAN at all 😂 ray Charles could see that bullshit... How the hell do u not notice an entire card not being picked up?? Smh
How could he had "naturally drawn" the batterskull? It was on the bottom, and he did not shuffle before drawing for turn. He also did not draw after shuffling for the fetchland. So, if it really was a one-of in the deck, it was impossible that he could have drawn it.
What am I missing here?
I saw the same thing. He made it more obvious of cheating by making it less of an actual chance of getting the card. I don't know the rules as I only read the cards while my friends played back in the late 90's early 00's 😆. But if he would have drawn after the shuffle it would have been less obvious
Actual magician should be included as the judge in these games i think. These moves are among the most beginner sleights in magic but is always the most effective and deceptive that most card magicians do this every time. As a magician myself i can say these moves are executed pretty well
I must say the first one was the most impressive to me because how greedy must you be to stack one whole opponent's hand consistently xD
I love love LOVE this format. To my knowledge you're the only Mtg TH-camr delving into these "video archives", congrats on finding a really sweet concept.
Ah yes, the good old "Underground dojo keyboard cage fighters" guy. I remember him.
I had a brief stint in that career!
I would like to thank the maker of this video for highlighting this term for me, as its my new google name.
Don't need to cheat while shuffling with Boros Blitz.
Every hand is absolutely gold.
I know nothing about MTG (except that the cards are too expensive to bother getting into the hobby) but I am living for this content. Watching cheaters get caught in any game is cathartic as hell. Also interesting to see card forces being used in competition, I wondered how this community would stop card sharps wrecking everyone.
Magic only gets super expensive if you really want a specific deck or specific cards. If you just get your boxes of cards and make decks with what you have it's way less expensive
@@phaeste can you win tournaments like that or is having a specific set of cards mandated (by the meta) if you want to go far?
@@phaeste kinda bad advice imo it's more cost effective to buy singles tbh and it really depends on their goal like if they play commander buying a precon and upgrading them with some singles is the best way imo
or if you really wanna cheap out, is playable forever, and doesnt need to be updated feequently like standard play Pauper. Literally a format where you only play with common cards
I won a PTQ back in the day in Albany, NY where my opponent put a card from his graveyard and played it again. It was a Rochester draft format and I knew he only had one copy. We got mutual warnings for disagreeing about the game state despite me being able to explain exactly what happened and many witnesses who could confirm the card had already been played and wasn't in the graveyard anymore, clearly. He was a notorious cheater too. Pretty sure he got banned for life eventually!
I feel bad for the people who get cheated like that :(
Makes me wonder what we can do to not be a victim.
@@SpitefulAZ pay very close attention when your opponent touches their deck always
@Bo Harris we can't control other people's actions, only our own.
@@SpitefulAZ As a Yugioh player, 1 thing I do while shuffling their deck is to lock eyes with them. Pay attention to the eyes. Something else I will pay attention to is how they are shuffling my deck. If cards are not being shuffled face down I ask them politely to do so. Adds a little negativity but I ain't going to let a potential cheater brick my hand.
i feel bad for the cheaters, imagine having a self-esteem so low you can't do anything without trying to get some kind of advantage.
Forgot who it was but back in the Summer Bloom days there was a guy who would have insane wins with hive mind by stacking the deck.
Stephen Speck! I know because that’s how he beat me deep in a GP on day 2 😂
@@NikachuMTG That's super unfortunate, I'm sorry dude!
Wasn't that the one palming extra cards?
@@dave3823 yeah he wasn't too tricky the shuffling he aways had the hand he wanted set aside as far as I can remember.
Lmao. You gotta recognize the skill of sleigh of hand that goes into this. He should take up a career as an illusionist.
Considering how he gives the illusion of being an honest player, he's on his way already.
nah, it's shit lmao. I like sleight of hand for magic (not the card game lmao), and this is such basic shit that it's super obvious to anyone who has a passing interest in magic
@@AnthonyVanGansen I was about to say the same damn shit, tbh.
Yeah, as a magician I could see what they were doing because I was looking for it, but it's all very convincing to a spectator
Or an opponent
Fun fact: doing this sort of cheat and topdecking lands when playing against my EDH Sliver Overlord commander deck would actually help me a ton because all the lands in it are either dual, tri-color or all color chromatic :D
Just got back into MTG this year after about 10 years or more away. Loving these videos.
I used to play with a guy that often had 2 cards in a sleeve and during play would remove the front card leaving the card behind it in the sleeve. It took awhile but we figured it out. This was also back when we played for cards (aka the old antie up rule).
just a few questions.....first of all, i also played back then, and like....NOBODY sleeved cards, it was against the rules anyway. and second of all, how do you not see somebody literally pulling a card out of a sleeve mid game.....
@@johnlowe1255 We played 5-6 player multi games. We weren't always paying attention to that player.
I started sleeving cards at either 7th or 8th edition.
Edit: We still played antie, even after it was removed from the rules.
The batterskull was pretty blatant and I'm shocked it wasn't caught then and there
Play mat camouflage
@@Choom89 I think playmat rule are in order. Solid color and distinctly different from your sleeve color. Basically a mandatory high contrast setting. Or if playmats are provided, a list of banned sleeve colors needs to happen. Light blue, light grey, and white should all be banned for the batterskull playmat. It blends in too much.
It's blatant when you already know he cheats and you know what to look for. If you're there or you have a moment of looking at something else.
@@louisstabile1182 It seemed pretty blatant to me just from the overhead camera. Definitely the most obvious of all three.
If you're sitting across from him, it might be a lot harder to notice. But it was really dumb to try to cheat that way while on camera.
I would be suspicious if someone shuffled my deck for a solid minute.
That's what I was thinking. The opponent even looked like he was confused about what was happening because the cheater was shuffling for so long.
I make them cut.
@@icebergslim1872 same. I rarely have to say anything, most do it instinctively.
@@butteryfriedwizard2219 I also ask them for what reason are you shuffling my cards face up? Please shuffle face down as I'm doing.
Watched a guy meticulously riffle shuffle my deck 7 times in a row and I asked him if he knew that just put everything back where it was. He then he did it 4 more times and handed it back. Game 2 I called a judge to watch.
When it comes to comp mtg, since the judges have to watch anyways, they mid as well shuffle for them haha
I heard something about mtg closing off comp play mostly because cheaters .... That's what people are saying at my lgs
the problem at that point is i could bribe you the judge with ether a rare card or two if you played the game or money or something else in order to get you to shuffle a poor hand for my opponent
Or (when possible) just play on Arena. I know, it's less sexy to paper purists, but it just ends this problem.
At the very least, a judge should be required to cut a deck after it has been shuffled and then present it back to the player.
No deck cutting is a major red flag.
Personally, I would say that the decks should be shuffled with all the cards facing down to also help prevent repeats of the first two alongside a judge cut.
just did a quick little search for some of the shuffle rules, these would have been good to know back then.
"Players may request to have a judge shuffle their cards rather than the opponent; this request will be honored only at a judge’s discretion."
"If a player has had the opportunity to see any of the card faces of the deck being shuffled, the deck is no longer considered randomized and must be randomized again."
Something makes me think these came around partly due to the people in the video, if they weren't around previously.
@@Adam27X arena shuffler is worse than any sleight of hand paper cheat, my god have you even played that game?
The fact the guy was able to always shuffle the deck except the top card, that is very slick, that would have never got caught if there was no cameras and there was ALWAYS lands being drawn, after 3 to 5 times of drawing a land like that, I would have called a judge.
Weird, I must play against Jared often on arena
Omg i had i guy try this to me like 10 years ago and i looked at him and cut my own deck. He started to come unglued and i said you do that again and I’m going to knock the sht out of you. The judge came over watch our game then watch his next game. He got pulled. It totally messed up our fnm scores that night.
Not a single mention of MTG Arena Shuffler still getting away with today. XD
yep there is definitely a huge disparity between mtga ranked draws and what you draw in nonranked
That's what my comment of "not better!" Was at the end of my response. Lol.
I have 24+ lands, and say 12 5-drops. I draw a hand full of 5-drops but only 1 land?
Shuffler is busted. Its consistent too. Like, come on man...
@@JB-mm5ff I thought I had noticed that as well. Ranked being "better" than non ranked. I would have to test this more tho.
@@MurpheeLaw dude, I just spent 6 hours getting fecked on the mtga algorithm -- and when I checked out the mtga discord it was unprofessional and mod abuse was rampant (watch out for mods Rubix and Snerf -- they think they own the internet and all opinions!!)
think i'll go back to paper magic and just do arena every 3 days for the quests.
@@MurpheeLaw Aaron -- I have literally noticed on platinum rank tier that the number of board clears alone determines what deck you will face. Give it a try -- play with a few Crippling Fears (-3/-3 all) and notice suddenly you will be getting hit with the 4+ defense creatures. Take it out and replace it with a Blood on the Snow -- suddenly every game is against aggro red. It's busted, and the land draw is definitely rigged. I should not be drawing 2 lands EVERY GAME for 18 out of 20 games with 24-25 lands in deck.
Solution: play paper.
That last one was dirty! I noticed he left it immediately, and can’t believe he got away with it!
Honestly, I noticed the batterskull one right away. It's probably just because I've gotten used to constantly looking at everything going on around me, but I can see how someone might miss what happened if they're focused on what the other person is doing to the rest of their deck.
Opponent: "Man! Why am I drawing so many lands!?!" Trevor Humphries: "Two Explores."
As an amateur magician myself, these were all really easy to spot, especially the batterskull one at the end. But these all show why you should pay attention when your opponent shuffles a deck, yours or theirs.
The first method doesn't even shuffle the top bit of the deck, far more than the first six cards or so, probably to ensure the entire chosen hand is safe. Second one, while very similar, makes it a bit less obvious because only the first card doesn't get shuffled, except the first time in this video where half of the deck doesn't get shuffled when he keeps cutting the bottom half.
But that last one is all about how little people pay attention to what's going on. Anyone actually paying attention and watching would notice his hand size before and after shuffling as well as him miss a card when he picks up the deck. But everyone ends up focusing elsewhere instead. Would be perfect for non-competitive play with an Un set and that Cheaterface card though.
The trick where you shuffle the bottoms card sneakily to the top is the oldest trick in the book.. we did it on our old kitchen table magic when we thought our friends were cheating as well.
What made it worse for Jareds is he shuffled his own deck the same way. Because he knew the other guy would shuffle his deck normally, and it helped sell that how he was shuffling was how he always does it!
Trevor: Magic isn’t serious enough for a 4 year ban
Also Trevor: Takes it seriously enough to cheat
That "picking up your entire deck minus 1" was slick.
I'm going to put together a "here's how to spot cheating" series, and this is coming from a successful cheater.
yup, this is why i do not agree with players shuffling and damaging MY CARDS
I will prove how good I am at this children’s card game by cheating, then everyone will love me
Do you love me now daddy? [cries on magic cards]
In what universe is MTG children's card game
"Children's game"
man childrens*
@@oORoOFLOo well on packaging it’s says 8+
Never have I seen a more shameless batterskull, holy shit
Trade a board away was the chant a palm a day song 😂😂😂
@10:24 - is that commentator chanting “Trade the board away” in the stylings of Peaches song, F*ck the Pain Away? LOL
I played against Trevor twice. He used to play in Brooklyn. He's a nice smooth talker. He almost got his ass whooped the 2nd time around. He hangs with another dude which is pretty cool . He never came back
Judging by looks is not okay, but Jared Boettcher looks like someone you should watch like a hawk.
its so greedy for him to do that when they have courser to reveal the top card.
What's the name of the song used at the Jared Boettcher montage? I know I've heard it before.
Dutty Moonshine, Takin’ it Back
@@NikachuMTG Great song, good choice.
I love watching Dylan, sitting there, staring at his deck being shuffled for an eternity, he even laughs at one point, a part of me thinks he knew what was going on
My friend admitted to learning how to and actually mana weaving during competitive play, and I've never played him again since.
What's mana weaving?
I caught the third one easily on the first watch. The first one was the most impressive in my opinion.
See I caught that one quickly. I’d ask him why do you keep peaking down while shuffling? Especially when the cards are being shuffled at an angle and not flat facedown (which should be a rule in competitive mtg). But then again I work at a casino and I’ve been playing cards for almost 40 years lol.
And him fidgeting and moving his land was a clear sign of something suspicious going on.
The nerve of that guy to use a clearly well practiced cheat, and then to act as if he was somehow the victim.
It's been a while since I played MtG and stumbled upon this series of videos. I'm glad I watched this video in particular because I remember yelling at my screen in the library on campus when I saw the batterskull cheat happen. Even 12 years later, I yelled at my screen the same way that I did back then 😂
I am clueless about magic the gathering. I've always known about the cards and loved the artwork. But when it comes to playing the game. Its a foreign language to me. Despite all of that. I've somehow found your channel and I absolutely love your content. Breaking it all down and simplifying it for your audience is very helpful and appreciated.
Thanks for watching!
I am gonna give this round to Jon. That was fearless with the topdown camera going
Yeah, I saw the extra card and thought it was odd but it didn't click what was going on at first. That was indeed, ballsy.
Tbh never was a fan of giving my deck to op's to shuffle, but with that being said I don't mind them cutting it.
Agree, op should only be allowed to cut.
I hate when they shuffle my deck. Cards are expensive and most don't have the same love for cardboard that I do.
Agreed, opponent should be able to cut only
Why I don't entirely disagree with opponents only being allowed to cut, it does have the downside of making mana weaving (another form of shuffle cheating) a lot more effective, and therefore tempting to potential cheaters.
@@ArdRhys I actually hope that they make mana weaving legal
Jokes on you, im playing oops all lands and i wanted to draw the land.
I stumbled upon this randomly and I had no idea I’d see one of my high school classmates in here. Lol I went to high school with Kent. I always thought he was bigger into paintball than Magic. He disappeared off of social media…turns out he had a bunch of drama surrounding him. Very sad. Played a lot a Halo CE with him at LAN parties.
The last one was the most obvious to me. Maybe because I was looking for it, but when he left that card there I immediately saw it. Nice video.
YOU ALWAYS CUT THE DECK NO MATTER WHAT
Mad props to Dillan! Honest players deserve Mad respect! Should be standard tbh.
Honestly, I used to try play competitive Magic hoping to one day make a name for myself by grinding countless events. While I never made it big, my friends and I spent so much time play testing against the format and learning all angles of our decks. If I learned that I missed out on a top 8 due to smooth cheaters like these, I would be so pissed. This kind of stuff literally makes me blood boil because while some people like Trevor just see it as a silly card game, my friends and I took the game deathly seriously; we lived and breathed Magic and spent so much time, energy, and money preparing for tournaments.
I hate to twist the knife but that is extremely likely. I do close up card tricks as a hobby. I've done a bunch of these tricks for judges "trained" to spot card manipulation. I even told them what the result was going to be. Such as stacking a god hand, loading a mana vein, weaving, or stacking an opponents wincons to the bottom.
Even though they knew I was cheating and what the result would be ahead of time most of them couldn't figure out how I was doing it until I told them. So especially if these were not recorded or live streamed events you were playing in, it's pretty much a guarantee you got screwed by a card sharp. Likely multiple times in competitive circles.
So at my school I used to host a magic club. Very casual games, no prizes for winning, no one was particularly good. Then in the middle of a match, someone there just told everyone to shuffle their decks. he did this right after playing something, so I kinda figured it was on the card. Then a few turns later I asked to see the card he had played. He showed it to me and there was nothing about shuffling anywhere on the card. I asked why he told everyone to shuffle and he replied with "I dunno, I wanted to shuffle." I DQ'd him from the match and he got super pissed and knocked everyone's cards on the floor before stomping off.
This was my favourite video of yours!! It earned a join button click!
Wow, thanks! 😊
"a four year sentence, it's a freaking card game"
You cheated at a thing and got punished in that thing, that's how the world works, if you cheat in life, you get restricted from participating in life, aka prison, if you cheat in a game, you get restricted from participating in that game, aka banned
I find this really strange, how is everyone handing their deck to their opponent and just trusting the shuffle? I thought it was normal for one player to shuffle and the other to cut it. That's how we've played in our own since the beginning, and we trust each other.
i remember watching yugioh back in like 2004 and thats how THEY WOULD PLAY like in the show. how can yugioh in the show get it right and magic a game that has existed far longer than it has still doesnt have one person does x and the other does y
That's how I've always played, both at home and in LGS tournaments. You shuffle your own deck and your opponent gets to cut it however they want, or shuffle if they're feeling picky or buying some extra seconds to think. I'm guessing they're doing it this way to speed things up, but I'd expect they'd at least allow the deck's owner to cut it after it's shuffled. It's awkward too because you can request a judge to shuffle if you feel uncomfortable, but they're not going to have time to babysit your table and you're going to frustrate the judge real fast hassling them over a suspicion, so they might just call you for Slow Play. I can say there's a lot of pressure in tournaments to show good sportsmanship, play your games fast and maintain a good atmosphere so it can suck to have to call someone out.
Bet you 20 bucks people at fnm’s do this 24/7
1:55 You missed the fact that he's not even shuffling the top half of the deck, peaking at the bottom card for that bit is just extra. I caught both right away(Spent too much time doing tournaments for other card games over webcam during covid)
12:59 smooth as sandpaper, I'm surprised that wasn't caught right away. In the group I play with, that kinda cheap move would've been foiled before you even started shuffling. The way we play, your hand is never near where your deck is on the table, and we'll always mention if someone missed a card.
7:20 used to do this for a magic trick pretty easy to do not too impressive but fun, here are the steps in anyone is interested. First put top 15 cards within order you learn, go to friend and show you are shuffle the deck but like the cheater and not change the top 15 cards of the deck, next fan out the deck only offering the top 15, with the cards you don’t know on the bottom person picks a card and you know what card is. If they want a card from the bottom of the deck the trick has failed
I fooking hate people that shuffle my deck to cut it. It's lowkey insulting. Highkey frustrating.
Bro I don't understand cheating. It doesn't matter the game, I just hate people that feel the need to supplement any deficits they might have with cheap tricks. It's icky.
New to mtg, is it acceptable to seed prior to a tournament?
What is seeding?
You mean getting high? Go for it. There are currently no rules against it.
@@NikachuMTG Rofl, I meant placing a land spaced after every 2nd non land card. 🤷♀️ Thats what ive been verbally told its called lmao
I am never going to feel awkward asking for someone to cut my deck again 😂
Check out how much John Eldon's hand is shaking as he plays batterskull for the second time. That adrenaline was pumping!!!!
Amazing. This is so funny, also like the music 👍
I wonder why the tournament hosts haven’t bothered investing in automatic shufflers, so they wouldn’t know how to properly cheat.
Is there card sleeves that change colors when a deck is not shuffled properly? 🤔 Or even a shuffle time limit?
Just found this channel the other day love it!
Welcome aboard!
That last one was the most obvious cheat I have seen in my life. The judges who missed that must have been half asleep or something.