DylanGregory

❗️Cheating attempts among Pro Tour level players at the Spiderman Spotlight ❗️ Please repost if you read it all. I understand that Magic is a complicated game and sometimes people make mistakes, but with many recent cheating attempts on coverage and reports from other players, I feel obliged to share just a few stories which I witnessed playing and spectating at top tables last weekend in Liverpool. As a spectator of one of the Vivi mirrors in Round 14, one player cast Cauldron targeting Vivi in HIS own graveyard and immediately started resolving his Duelist trigger. There is a judge sitting next to his opponent, there are people watching, and I am sitting next to the bad guy. He drew a Mountain from the top of the deck, shuffled it into his hand, and then his opponent pointed that out. The guy started to act stupid that he did not know and called a judge sitting next to his opponent. He took the Mountain and put it back on top of his deck (I wonder what he would have put if I was not sitting next to him, as he did not have a second land in hand). The judge asked him if he saw a card and if he put that card in his hand. He responded NO to those questions. I told the judge that I clearly saw what the card was, as well as his opponent pointing out that in his opinion it was shuffled into his hand. But the ruling was just to shuffle the library. This is just crazy that a very accomplished player on the Pro Tour stage, after playing 13 rounds of a Vivi deck and a bunch of mirrors, does not know how Duelist works. I wonder how many times he did such things in previous rounds when nobody was watching. Another situation I witnessed while I was playing one of my mirrors: my opponent cast Stories, discarding two types and attacking with Fomo, saying it triggers and already updating my life total as if he had attacked twice already. I stopped him and asked if he had delirium. He replied, “Of course I have.” I told him to check, and there were 3 types in the yard. He asked me to go back so he could discard a fourth type with Stories. I said no, so he called a judge, then appealed to the head judge who he KNEW and asked if I do not mind if he speaks with him quickly in their language I could not understand which to me sounds absurd. My opponent clearly made a mistake, but was very persistent to take it back, however, in the end the ruling was correct. But I bet that some people, under the influence of their opponents, would let them go back or do shady things. I feel very concerned that judges do not react in a proper way to obvious cheating attempts among top players who were still playing for Pro Tour spots in the late rounds of the tournament… @fireshoes