One of my favorite stories like this is some guy played a pithing needle and their opponent had 3 polluted deltas in play and the guy with the needle called for a judge and asked if he could name griselbrand with the needle, judge said yes, he plays the Needle and after his opponent lets it resolve he names polluted delta.

I feel like one of the problems with calling what LSV and this yugioh player did cheating or even unsporting is that it only works because your opponent is actively trying to gain information outside of what is available based on the rules of the game which is arguably the same thing.

Every time I play legacy, I use a notepad that says "Manaless Dredge Chronicles" at the top. At an event once, my opponent sat down and their Deckbox had "Manaless Dredge" written on it. He saw my paper and said "oh I see we are doing the same thing?" And I said "Lying about our decks and hoping the opponent puts us on the play?" Yep. Respect the hustle.😊

Reminds me of the guy who kept calling a judge over bc he said he didn’t have any tokens and the judge would give him a handful of coins to use. Whenever the judge would leave he’d look at his opponent, pull like a fistful of quarters out of his pocket and say “I don’t actually need the tokens, I’ve made $14 so far today.”

To explain the switch off to the side: Due to Yugioh not having cash prizing winners of major tournaments like a YCS are given physical goods in the form of a prize card that represents the events season, a playmat with the cards art, a deck box, and a Nintendo Switch… for some reason.

This actually reminds me of a similar story from a different era of yugioh. There was a deck called Monarchs that played zero cards in the extra deck, and got a benefit from having it empty. So to misdirect people into not realizing they were playing Monarchs, players would sleeve 15 tokens and leave them in their deckbox to be visible as if they were an extra deck. A couple of people got Disqualified for that one at a large event.

I’d be interested in a video about Chalice Checking (when you cast into a chalice of the void, knowing your spell should get countered by it, but not mentioning that trigger to see if your opponent forgets it), and how that practice compares to normal bluffs.

There was a guy who did this in Pokemon. When Megas were popular in the video game, he bought a plushie for the wrong Mega Charizard, making opponents think he was bringing the plushed one, leading to normally bad decisions for the one actually brought.

As a former Ygo judge Konami cracks down on all forms of misdirection. There was a big issue pre covid when a player would point at on of his card and say this is Mirror Force (same as saying i have doom blade in hand to your opponent). It was just bluffing but Konami views it as misrepresenting the board state as well as making games go longer as it makes your opponent rethink what they are doing. Konami is so bad about streamlining time of the game do to the amount of shuffling and search that we cant even write down what in opponent hand if u use an effect to look at it nor are you allowed to confirm your opponents hand if use a name jammer effect that destroys all copies of a card on field and hand, because they just want the game to keep going without pause. The other issue was Konami got some bad press after a format pro players were making gentlemen's agreements not to use a certain card because it made matches 1 sided only for a pro to agree and not follow through after all there was no rule that could enforce it.

I remember LSV saying that at that moment, regardless of Settle being a possibility, the best play is to attack with the crew. Of course what he did made the moment exciting and memorable but it didn't really change anything.

Yugioh has such strange rules when it comes to competitive. One that always makes me laugh is that whenever your opponent searches their deck for a card and adds it to their hand; you as the opponent are not allowed to write down what card they added because it is only considered public information the turn its been added to hand. It goes back to being private in the end phase.

I really thought you were going to bring up that legacy tournament where LSV won by doing some lines of play that had their opponents concede thinking he had a tendrils of agony in the sideboard. He was supposed to have it but messed up and forgot it, so he had to buff the whole tournament.

This has to be one of my favorite videos you’ve done. A walk through history with great storytelling and anecdotes to talk about events in a different game, and a well thought out discussion on its implications in card games and what card games are about in general. Well done

Hi YGO player here. 1. The Switch was there because it's one of the prizes you get for winning the event. 2. The reason this bluff was deemed suspension worthy is because his intention was to reveal private information, which in YGO is against the rules. That includes any private information, including what you are or aren't playing. Lying about it included as well. Telling your opponent what deck you play, showing your cards, etc. while you're paired up with someone for a match is deemed illegal. What he did was not illegal in the sense of "Oh he used a token of an archetype" because a lot of players use tokens from different archetypes because not everything that can make a token, has an official token release (wild from a MTG perspective). If he didn't publicly state "I did this make my opponent think I was playing a specific strategy so they would optimize their plays around it" is what got him in trouble, because he publicly admitted to cheating.

The real ygo bluff is seting a monster in infernity, and then scooping after they mst the set

Protip: If you're getting information for free, be careful that it's not misinformation. This applies to card games but it also applies to life.

My favorite way to bluff in arena is to use manual tapping sometimes to bluff holding up something, or mouse over cards they play as if I’m unfamiliar or concerned by their cards. Pro tip: On desktop if you want to see how many cards are in their library/graveyard/exile without them seeing you poke around in it, highlight your own library. It’ll pop up their info as well without tipping them off. I do this all the time when I have Sheoldred out, in case they forgot what she can do when there’s 20 cards in their graveyard… can’t have them being reminded by me highlighting it!

One of the main differences being that Yu-Gi-Oh has very elaborate turn 1 setups that can be customized to beat what your opponent is doing exactly. If you know your opponent is on Tearlaments before your match starts, you can focus on making Abyss Dweller turn 1, a card that essentially says "you win the game" in the matchup. We also have arguably more turn 1 card selection and tutoring than Legacy in smaller decks, so while the decision making doesn't impact mulligan decisions, it very much impacts Pot of Prosperity decisions. In the context of the format that happened in, there were three major decks around (Branded Despia, Floowandereeze and Swordsoul). He was on Branded Despia. On the Floowandereeze matchup the token stuff doesn't matter because they're the Moon Stompy of the format and Chalice on 1 is effective against everything but Chalice on 1 decks (the mirror) But in the Swordsoul matchup, there is one decision that was important. Against the mirror, if you got wyrm-locked early, you want to end on Qixing Longyuan, while against Despia you wanted to end on Chengying because they can play through Qixing way easier. So by feigning he was on Swordsoul, he was getting a definite advantage when he lost the die roll against Swordsoul. Obviously this is very arguable, but not completely negligible.

As someone that has both played and been a judge for both games, I feel the distinction isn't even about the games themselves, but the culture around them. While both player bases will do some really sweaty, toxic crap, the community and culture that the makers themselves try to foster aren't the same at all. Yu-Gi-Oh markets itself as a game for children that adults happen to play. At the end of the day, it's a "family" game, and this can be seen in a number of rules and guidelines that they enforce. This is the same company that will say, "You're playing Unity and Yu-Jo Friendship? Okay, while the card technically says you have to shake their hand, you can just acknowledge it instead." because of both COVID and some players literally licking, spitting, sneezing or otherwise doing something to make the experience as unpleasant and off-putting as possible. They literally had to make a rule that says, "If we feel you haven't bathed adequately, you can be removed from the venue and/or tournament". Konami treats the player base like children because that is who they expect to play. The approach for MTG is far different. It's generally marketed as a more broadly open, even somewhat mature, game by comparison. It also means that they handle the community differently. People are expected to be mature adults... doesn't mean they always are, of course, but the expectations aren't the same. I've been to FNMs and PTQs where people are stanky as fuck, where the entire venue was musty as hell, and nobody said a thing. Nobody was getting kicked out because they didn't wear enough deodorant or whatever... because the people aren't children and WotC isn't treating them like they are.

I mean this is just basic level 1 stuff. When I play monored on Arena, you can bet I have a Jace avatar and Cryptic Command sleeves

Something I didn't even notice until the clip came up again, Dezani put his Boros aggro deck in Golgari sleeves, which I think is a closer analogy to the Andres token issue than a Settle misdirection

It used to be allowed, but they kinda cracked down on it after Monarchs, when people would be playing "Extra deck monarch" but misrepresent the gamestate by not putting their extra deck on the board, which mattered for some of the monarch floodgates that were only active if you had no extra deck. So that's kinda the first instance of konami giving warnings for it back in 2015

As a.. well former competitive Yugioh player, the Infect comparison was spot on. In Yugioh, if Andres was going first, he'd either automatically reveal what deck he was playing, or if he's going 2nd, the deck he's bluffing (Swordsoul) is infamously "fair" and does everything pretty well and nothing overwhelming, so youre unlikely to steer too far from your regular combo line. UNIRONICALLY, some of the most interesting Yugioh games are when the first turn player sets up an unbreakable board and the turn 2 player scoops before getting a turn, so then the turn 1 player has no idea what he's siding against. But that's not allowed in feature matches :/ and gives you WAY more concealment than the stupid token did

I have a gameplay habit that my opponents always misread: whenever I draw a cantrip, I have a tendency to get overly excited. (nothing better than drawing even more cards) but my opponents usually mistake this for drawing a bomb. ive gotten comments from other players like "great draw, eh" and then i realize they have no clue and say "uh, yeah"

This is sooooo goofy. If I'm playing a mono-red deck, and I put all my cards in art sleeves featuring [insert basic Island here], that's not cheating, that's meta-gaming. I whole heartedly think LYING to your opponent is cheating, but letting your opponent make false assumptions about you is THEIR fault, not yours. :)

I used to do a lot of the misdirection stuff when I was grinding tournaments. I'd sleeve up in elspeth sleeves with a matching playmat and deck box. And then be playing burn or gruul aggro. Or the reverse. I'd sleeve up my control deck in red sleeves and wear a Metallica shirt with a fireball on it. I got known for running elves in green sleeves when I first got into playing legacy, because I was burrowing someone's deck. So when I bought my own Omnitell deck I also bought the same sleeves. I always felt these types of bluffs were a part of magic.

I 100% thought this was gonna be about him casting "Burning Wish" [for tendrils] when he forgot to put Tendrils of Agony in his sideboard.

A key aspect for this in LSV's case is that attacking, even if the percentage chance for Settle was high (and it really wasn't), was 100% the correct play with the information given. Not attacking meant having 1/1 Vanguard and the 2/5 Aurelia (plus two 1/1s if he wanted to get absolutely no attacking value from Reinforcements, an on its face bad play) facing down two 4/3 vigilant knights in Luis' next turn, plus giving him a free turn of vampire production. Dezani just thought about it a lot because of the pressure of it being a pro tour semifinal and the open decklist, but I'm sure that he's making the exact same choice even if LSV doesn't do any shennanigans. His position was also almost completely lost at that point even if Settle wasn't on Luis' hand.

As a Yugioh Player, I would like to give a little bit more context for the Andres case, as I find it fascinating. In Yugioh, we have an "Extra Deck" which is the Magic Equivalent to having 15 Campanions that you can bring out if your meet the certain summoning condition, almost like a side deck of monsters. Basically, in Yugioh, every deck runs an extra deck, because its a toolbox we can go into to summon monsters for a variety of scenarios. A few years ago, a deck called Monarchs came out, and one of their cards basically said, "negate all extra deck monsters if you don't control an extra deck." This was a varriant of the deck, some played with the extra deck, others did not, but players were faking an extra deck by sleeving tokens, placing them on the table, then when they activate the card, they reveal that the stacks of cards were tokens, not an actual extra deck. Konami then made it policy to not use tokens to decieve your opponent/misrepresent what you are playing. When Andres says, "to the top," what he means is when he is preseting his deck and extra deck, he is revealing the token to his opponent, deliberatly placing it where his opponent is going to look and draw their eye to it. Its almost like a reverse angleshoot in poker. Its sorta like showing your opponent a sleeved card from your deckbox, thats not in your side, misrepresenting your color in magic before the game starts. Like if you pull out a Duress thats not in your side, showing it to your opponent, and then not even being on black. Is it scummy, yes. Is it genius, also yes. I think the fact that he deliberatly puts it on top of his extra deck, is what makes it more unnaceptable in this case, because it is occuring before the game even begins with a card that isn't in play. Granted, tokens can represent anything, the choice of this specific token is meant to decieve. LSV's I find totally acceptable, maybe bordering on a slow roll, but making that token is a line of play he can go down. I think the difference in the two examples is that LSV's chance to bluff was created by the gamestate itself, he had the ability to make tokens. Andres' bluff occurs before the game, he didnt try to decieve you within the confines of the game, but by blatently showing you something you probably shouldn't even have seen.

I did this on Arena, to great succes a few years ago, hovering my mouse over my Castle Ardenvale as if I was planning to create a token, and then blowing them out with Settle once they attacked. The opponent can see the cards you hover your mouse over highlighted on their end, making it the Arena equivalent of this bluff.

I always threw an infect token in my deck box in the old days of modern, if for nothing else it covered up my faerie tokens to hide that I was playing a weird Tier 2 deck. I know for a fact it won me at least one game.

Theres an additonal piece of information here that is missing: the swordsoul token isnt an official token. Its a custom-made game piece used to represent the token that is made specifically by swordsoul of mo ye. In addition to this, yugioh tokens are encouraged to be used to represent any token that can be made in the game. Because there is no official token card for the swordsoul token, and this token was hand-crafted to represent the swordsoul token, this constitutes an intentional, pre-game signal to the opponent that the player is running swordsoul, which falters at specific combo chokepoints that other decks don't.

One of my favorite paper magic moments was in a cardmarket video where Frank Karston bluffs being sad with his hand when in reality he drew his one of Orvar against creativity. It was a massive blow out and im not stull not sure if Mengu has recovered

Yu-Gi-Oh player here, to explain Torres’ controversial banning and my thoughts on it. Torres wasn’t banned because he bluffed, because you can bluff to an extent in Yu-Gi-Oh!, but because he attempted to purposely mislead his opponent with knowledge that should not be shared, is not within the confines of the game, in the attempt at creating a misrepresented gamestate that creates an unfair advantage. For some context, Yu-Gi-Oh! Does not operate the same as Magic. What PleasantKenobi describes as “opening play patterns of his deck” is actually the bulk of the game itself. Yu-Gi-Oh!, with its lack of a mana system and diversity defined by naming conventions to xenolock what cards can be efficiently played in a deck plays at a much faster speed and variety than magic. There isn’t “Rakdos Midrange” or “Red Aggro”, there is “Swordsoul who does X unique things” and “Rescue Ace who does Y unique things”, most of which occurs all in just one turn. Most games end within the first…3ish turns and that largely in part due to the fact that there is no resource limiting the number of game actions you can use outside of the ones uniquely defined by the archetype the deck falls under. I’m not saying magic doesn’t have similar things but the buildup within the first few turns usually gives players time to figure out what they’re up against and play accordingly to the progressive development of the game. With Yu-Gi-Oh!, that begins the minute a player plays any card and has both players attempting to map out the entirety of a deck’s full functionality in the scope of the current turn. Combine that with the amount of silver bullet cards included in every deck to answer the most general of game actions(we call them hand traps, think of them as a variety of Force of Wills that answer a variety of actions) and you have a game of “gotta have it when it happens”. With that being explained, you can understand why having foresight knowledge is so impactful in a game of Yu-Gi-Oh!. In a game where everything happens immediately, using the limited amount of interactions a deck gives you when you have to deal with the entirety of a deck’s strategy means it's incredibly hard to pivot from incorrect plays and suboptimal setup. And if you incorrectly play your cards, it very likely means you lose the game right then and there(or to put into perspective, you’re insanely off tempo). So to be incorrectly informed about what you are up against is a fatal error in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Now that’s not to say that this can’t happen naturally. Yu-Gi-Oh! Has a history of decks built to smokescreen players into making incorrect assessments. Decks like Tearlaments plays very much like Magic decks with branching techs that can very much change how the entire deck plays. And hybridized decks exist purely to bait out an opposing player’s interactions via one aspect to then win with the other aspect. But those are all examples of misdirection via the game play itself. What Torres did was mislead his opponent PRIOR to the game. According to Konami rules, players cannot misrepresent the gamestate which includes knowledge of private area zones like the deck, the hand, and face down cards. A player cannot tell an opponent what he has in hand, what he has in deck, or what he has set. Doing so is actually a penalty on both ends. And they certainly cannot do so before the game has even started. Usually this is just a penalty, but it becomes cheating when intent is then proven that the goal was the purposely do this, which Torres unfortunately directly admits in his deck profile (kinda hard to refute this with that kind of admission). The issue with PleasentKenobi’s comparison of what Torres did versus with LSV did is that two are not equivocal. LSV attempts to present his decisions which are perfectly legal within the confines of the game whereas Torres is attempted to present his deck outside the confines of the actual game being played. A better comparison to what Torres did in Magic is attempting to reveal a card prior to the start of the game that isn’t in your deck to trick your opponent into using a Pithing needle on that card name. With what happened with Borbarygmos, I understand that doing stuff like that is a bit controversial from Magic. A better comparison of what LSV did in Yugioh is if I opt to use the Torrential my opponent does not know I have while telegraphing that I could always use the Bottomless Trap hole that my opponent knew I had. One has me outplaying my opponent within the confines of the game utilizing the private knowledge the game allows me to have while the other is about setting a trap with factors that neither player should know. Now, one may argue that you should use every advantage provided, but Yu-Gi-Oh! Simply does not want to foster that kind of mentality (I think it may have something to do with how the creator of the game wanted thins to go or something, hell if I know the full reason). Now it's hard to say how many people actually fell for Torres’ trick and fault does fall on his opponent for acting on that knowledge but it ultimately comes down to the fact that Torres admits he did this to maliciously create an advantage which is often seen as a violation of the rules by Konami.

A friend of mine at the time was playing in a locals and got matched up in a mirror match. I don't remember the exact deck he was playing (I wanna say Masterpiece), but the first game goes to him and in his sideboard is Cranial Extraction. In the other guys sideboard, he assumed, also had Cranial Extraction. So my friend makes a show of going through his sideboard, moving cards in and out, making sure the counts are good. They play, the other guy goes first. Goes to turn four, the guy slams down his Cranial and names my friend's Cranial. My friend had the widest smile, "I don't have any. Check for yourself." He made all of us think he had side boarded it in on the sheer bluff of trying to get this man to waste his turn four. It was wild.

I think what makes it not scummy is had LSVs opponent not attacked he would have made the token. It was a play line that had a legitimate likelygood to be correct

I don't even consider what LSV did here to be a bluff. Settle and Adanto were both valid plays for him to think through and making a token might have been better than Settle depending on the attacks. You can also see Jeremy moving potential blockers before declaring attackers to plan what he wanted to do. Both of them were working with hypothetical game states.

I personally have a pretty clear line between scummy and genius, and it's something you touched on, known information. I think LSVs bluff was genius. As an example of scummy, I specifically asked and opponent a while back for a reminder of what buffs they had on board before combat. They purposely omitted an item and it cost me my commander. Lying is what I consider scummy.

0:50 The nintendo switch is part of the prizing.

I like to set out my storm count token when i play. They never know if im about to start counting.

I think bluffing is a part of in person play and is a big distinguishing element from Arena. Also I'd say what LSV did is akin (in terms of fairness) to any blue player leaving up two blue mana whether they have a counterspell or not. Sign posting you have mana to pay a very specific cost

While your examples are similar, there is one big distinction between yugioh and magic in terms of tokens. And that is magic is a game designed to use tokens for everything. Pretty much everything makes a token, so honestly the specific tokens are somewhat irrelevant. You're trained to just treat them and interchangeable purely for conveniences sake. Yugioh however, rarely uses tokens. And when they do, they rarely have any defining elements put on them on purpose, beyond art. An exception to that however, is the swordsoul tokens. They are completely unique in yugioh mechanically, because they are considered tuner cards, and have that printed onto the token itself, along with their level. Swordsoul tokens can't be used for generic tokens because of this, and there is no card in the game that can create them outside of swordsoul cards. The only reason you would ever have swordsoul tokens, and you're not playing mind games, is if you are playing swordsoul. Now, do I think he should have been banned for this? No, I don't. A warning? Maybe, but an outright ban, absolutely not. But I think it is worth noting that particularly unique element to it, because it is something that does significantly delineate between magic and yugioh for this example.

I love hearing about these moments in gaming and talking about them. ty for the video! xD

there's a card in yugioh called Nibiru, the primal being. basically to convert it to mtg language it says if your opponent has cast 5 spells this turn you can wipe their board. I've heard of yugioh players getting warned or banned for visibly counting the amount of summons their opponent has done in a turn to bluff nibiru if they don't have it

To be fair, as LSV notes, while it was a bit of showmanship, Dezani was basically priced in to attacking anyway.

Yugioh doesn't have cash prizing. The switch was what he won at the tournament.

I'm in the boat of this being one of the best plays on coverage. Absolutely phenomenal, more players should play the player to win, best wins.

An anecdote about your Warhammer example - in earlier days Warhammer Fantasy had hidden information in the form of the magic items your army contained. Playing around the possibility that your opponent still had a spare "counterspell" scroll was kind of a similar experience to the same possibility in MtG.

By the same logic, would taking unsummonable monsters in your extra deck (unsummonable using your deck) be cheating using konamis ruling?

There's a friend I have who always holds up 7 mana whenever he's in blue to threaten to rift your board if you attack into him. Funny thing there is, though, I ALWAYS attack into him when he does specifically to bait it out, especially if I have my own wrath effect in hand. Everyone else gets their stuff bounced when that works, and he gets his board destroyed.

Great deep dive on this. I've always likened Magic to a mix of poker and chess so I love the bluffs and the mental games for competitive 1v1.

LSV's bluff was fantastic, and while I get why people think it was scummy I think it was perfectly fine. If you choose to act on a hint/tell your opponent is showing you in any competitive game, you always do so knowing that they might be bluffing. Especially when didn't have to give you any information in that situation. In my view it's no different from saying "that resolves" after your opponent casts a spell to bluff a having a counterspell, or checking your sideboard between games even when you know you don't have anything for the matchup.

Konami banning people for weird stuff isn't that uncommon. They ban people if they openly say they're adding cards to their deck purely because it can make them win if they stall for time in the round - what would make sense if it wasn't so poorly enforced that stalling for time is still a viable strategy. Also reminder that during remote duels we had literal recordings of people cheating, moving cards, or straight up running 14/15 cards on their side deck as a tech to have the last card be anything still go unpunished, while the person who recorded the cheat get punished.

As a judge for yugioh, stuff like this is clearly outlined in the policy as a UC-Cheating infraction. In this game, intentional misrepresentation of the game state is not allowed. It is not considered cheating to walk around an event and spectate on going matches even to gain information. This is just for clarification for the comment section who may not be familiar with the actual policy documents.

I dont like that people bring up the Settle the Wreckage play as a great bluff. It was great showmanship and a great showing of "the pen trick" but there was no other play for Dezani than to attack and hope LSV doesnt have it.

Most yugioh players think Andres Shouldnt have been banned, i among them. He def shouldnt have said why he had the Taia Token but regardless he wasnt doing anything that gave him a measurable advantage. Playing that format, it isnt even that big of an advantage unless he scoops game 1 without playing and the opponent sides for that matchup thats completely on the opponent. I also dont think LSVs is cheating considering he never tapped for mana.

In eternal formats you can also bring a stickers extra deck even tho you don't play any stickers making cards, perfectly legal bluff as to what you're playing !

I'm not sure how this would have been enforced by Konami, but the thing that always stuck with me about this is "technically" LSV isn't misrepresenting the game state. Making the token is always an option, so even if it isn't the option he's going to take, it is still something his opponent should consider. Yeah he made it look like more of a real thing than it was but it was still a real option. Saying flat out in a video that "I do this to mislead my opponents on what deck I'm playing" Is a different thing than "Visibly considering a valid option during the game that I'm not going to take." Konami treating this more like the Dryad Arbor controversy in MTG than the LSV one (which i agree shouldn't even be a controversy, it is was just smart play).

I used to play a single mountain in my monoblack aggro deck and everytime that came out, my opponents were always scared of lightning bolt which led them making misplays and boarding Hydroblasts LOL

its definitely not cheating, but it for sure feels like slow rolling in poker

As someone who's been playing YuGiOh for most of my life, I can confirm that bluffing is basically non-existent at higher tiers of play. Essentially the games go too quickly for me to worry about if my opponent has a battle trap (something like settle the wreckage). The mentality you go in with is generally "I will kill them now because if I don't they'll kill me next turn." If it turns out my opponent has something like settle the wreckage and I can't negate (counter) it, oh well, gg, go next. Could I set a card face down and hope it scares my opponent into not attacking? Sure. But if they're any good, they'll attack anyway.

always remeber to bring your poison counter, dungeons AND sticker sheets to every game

The copy of Dualist #5 I have sitting on the shelf right here-released between Fourth Edition and Ice Age-has an article on bluffing in Magic. It's mainly talking about the sort of buffing you can do in play, but it's still clear that everything from "accidentally" dropping cards to verbal fake-outs and the like were not only allowed but encouraged by official publications. That being said, it did warn that if you tried some of the tactics at a tournament in front of "the people who run the Duelists' Convocation," they will kill you. So not everyone was on board. . . .

Yeah Yugioh's bluffing rules are kinda strict, for example there's a card called Nibiru that has an effect that can only be used if your opponent summons a monster 5 times in one turn, such a common occurrence that many decks try to have a plan to play without getting hit by it, either by only summoning 4 times or getting a card that can counter Nibiru's effect within 5 summons, and even the act of asking to confirm that 5 summons have taken place can get you a warning if you don't have it (and just to be clear there is a reason to ask, because against some decks they can manage to summon 5 times before actually commiting to a play and can still pivot if you drop it immediately)

i think most magic players consider what LSV did one of the greatest bluffs of all time.

In duel commander I had a moment a little like this with my Octavia against a jeskai superfriend (Octavia is basically a mono blue tempo self mill deck that wants to hit you with a ward 8 8/8), had a bit of a slow start with card selection but no real mill nor counters but had a stifle. Oppo played around spellpierce the whole game and managed to drop a teferi master of time. He got it to 10 loyalty after a bit of a counter war that I lost on a proliferate because I wanted to keep mana for brainfreeze and stifle. When he was going to end step I brain freezed myself, making me able to cast Octavia and in response he cashed in his teferi for the extra turns, that stifle was glorious, especially with a counterspell backup on Octavia lol.

The nintendo switch is there because that's the prizing for wining a YCS Official YuGiOh events are not allowed to hand out cash prizing, because the game's creator, KAzuki Takahashi, said he didn't want his game to be played for money

I guess no bluffing does fit the game style of Yugioh a bit more than it would in Magic, with trap cards being a hint as well compared to instants coming out of nowhere (the only hint you get in mtg is open mana)

Absolutely insane to ban a player for one year over that. There weren't any judges to say "hey. You can't do that, remove those tokens from your deck box"? They just go straight to a ONE YEAR BAN? Man, no one hates Yugioh players like Konami does.

In Yugioh event prizing ranges from a bunch of packs, trophies, and if you reached first place a switch. Great video!!

I can kinda understand Konami saying the deckbox trick "Misrepresented the Game State" even though the game hadn't started since everyone knows that the first turn of a Yugi-Oh game is the dice roll for player one, lol.

This is has been an interesting conversation point in Magic: the Gathering over the years. Generally the idea of misleading an opponent has traditionally been thought of as almost morally justified because the opponent shouldn't have been angling for a win with information from outside the game anyway. If that information lead them to a wrong conclusion, well that's what a person gets by trying for an edge by focusing on something besides playing cards. Perhaps the popular viewpoint will change here as time passes: I can see both approaches having advantages. As a side note, it was nice to see Brian David-Marshall on coverage, as well as Andrew Elenbogen (who is a local that sometimes played around me at Friday Night Magic events or Prereleases).

No clue about yugioh, so I can't comment on that. About the Magic part: Great, something you can only do with paper magic. It just adds another layer of complexity to watch your opponent(s) and try to read what they got. It gets a lot more like other card games, Poker being a famous example, which is entertaining to watch - and play as well.

The thing with banning over this kind of thing in Yugioh is weird because it largely only works if the player admits that was their intent -- people do this kind of "silent bluff" in Yugioh too but how they go about talking about doing it is the difference between whether they get away with it -- the only known examples of people getting banned over this kind of bluff are when the players admits to it themselves. Obviously it would create a huge problem if you're not allowed to have elements from outside the game suggesting something about your deck that isn't true(i.e. using a themed deck box/sleeves that doesn't actually match any cards in your deck, using a certain playmat, discussing your matchups, etc)

One of the most common pre-game bluffs on the Pokémon online client is to use sleeves with art for a Pokémon that's central to a totally different deck or archetype. It's the same kind of pre-game mindgame that isn't actually affecting the game state but might have a player going first question their setup and turn 1 plays, especially if the other player's setup hasn't explicity broadcast what deck they're on

I like mind games.. I don't really see it as cheating ; however, it would be cheating if you were misleading on what your cards do. Guess it's a gray line konami doesn't want to even approach

Surely the "can i name dark confidant with my pithing needle" bluff is more emblematic of the kind of shit we magic players do

There's another similar event in yugioh as well, someone whos actions literally forced konami to change the rules of the game. There's a player named Patrick hoban, one of the best players of his era and during an event there was a very commonly played card that most players considered so annoying a lot of people would offer to side them out for games two and three as long as the other player did as well. It was standard to max it out in their deck but Patrick didn't, he only played 2 in his main and the rest in his side so when his opponent made this offer he said "of course!" And proceeded to side them out... Then sided the other one that was in his side back to his deck. When Patrick drew the card his opponent accused him of cheating, they had a deal, Patrick explained to him that he didn't lie or cheat, he followed their deal exactly to the Tee. When judges were called they couldn't do anything, Patrick technically didn't cheat. Many players accused him of poor sportsmanship, many players applauded him, but ultimately konami let everyone know what they thought by changing the rules. Players are no longer allowed to make any sort of deals with your opponent, you're not even allowed to make a deal to give your opponent the win. If you surrender you better not discuss it with your opponent before hand, judges will give you a game loss lol

I've heard whisperings about bringing a sticker deck to a legacy tournament as you don't need any cards that use it to take one, but you can then bluff "_____ goblin" and that you are playing turbo goblins

also controlling what someone does or does not choose to do outside of the very specific confines of the game is rly scary and uncool. like the player wearing the i love burn shirt, if they specifically do it to trick an opponent are they not allowed to wear it???. simply look at the mtg rules for establishing cheating: you need to know that a rule was broken, it was broken intentionally, and it was broke to gain an advantage. in these outside of game bluff cases was it intentional and to gain an advantage? sure! but breaking any rules??? unless you want to make it an official rule in the rules of magic the gathering that you "cant wear too much red if your playing blue" or "arent allowed to share a deckbox with a deck that uses a different kind of tokens? like what are we doing he the rules of the game are the rules of the GAME NOTHING else.

I would like to mention that you are allowed to analyze possible board states. You are not allowed to misrepresent the current board state. What lsv did was fine because it is a possible board state. In a world where Jeremy chooses not to attack with everything, LSV now needs to do his analysis on whether or not to make the token. What the Yugioh player did was closer to a different problem that magic had, the Dryad Arbor problem in which people would mislead how many creatures you had because dryad arbor was also a land.

I think there's a couple big differences: 1) Yugioh largely considers itself a children's game first, hence the anime tie ins. They don't even have money prizing (or didnt for the longest time) because they consider it too close to "gambling". So I can see them being overprotective of the idea of sportsmanship. 2) The MTG example he didnt bluff with the token per se but that he was threatening with on on board ability. In Yugioh you can see this by pointing to a monster with some disruptive effect when you also have a powerful trap that can blow them out, which is fine to do as well. In Yugioh there is a monster called Nibiru which has a powerful board clear ability and can be played as a trap if an opponent has summoned 5 or more times that turn, and it used to not be rare to have them go "what number summon was that?" and they aren't even playing Nibiru 3) Yugioh is incredibly fast, like "the game ends on turn 1" fast. In MTG, that guy wearing all red with red sleeves would look like much more of an asshole if you playing the wrong 1 drop because of it lost you the match. Like imagine something stupid like "Oh Ill fetch a BG land not a GU one, play something proactive" because of an outside the game bluff and that singular mistake cost you the game immediately.

I'd be fucking embarrassed if I won a high-stakes, competitive sport by tricking my opponent.

As a new player, I had never heard of the LSV story. Thanks for sharing it and providing your perspective! I’m a big fan of bluffing in games like MTG

I feel like bluffing in card games is an important part of the game. I'm absolutely shit at it, but the whole reason we have private information is so that your opponent doesn't know what you have or can do. I think it's a fully reasonable thing to do. If you want to have a card game without bluffing, you'd need to have open information, like deck lists and hands revealed, which could work as a game, but it would be really different.

The reason having the wrong token is a big deal in yugioh Is that the rules say that you are not allowed to use yugioh cards as tokens, Unless they are made specifically to represent the token you summon Or a (mostly) correct or blank token you could add the correct effects to. At the lower levels they aren't very strict on this, But when it comes to high level players and influencers Konami would rather have you use pokémon cards than the wrong tokens. It's similar to when people were running a handshake deck so they could force their opponent to shake their purposely disgusting hand Konami changed the rules of the game to make sure that this would never be an issue again, because it was considered unsportsmanlike. MtG has a history of being more open to what in YuGiOh is considered deception, "combat" vs "start of combat" comes to mind as another thing that wouldn't fly in YuGiOh, Especially since the rules for repairing game states make it literally impossible to pull off in YuGiOh.

I mean isn't this number one rule you learn as a player. Whenever they cast something, attack or do anything impactful you tell them to hold on for a sec make sure you want to let it happen. You do that a few times having the counter ,removal or protection spell and people will start to perk up and question their actions. Giving you an edge

I love these plays in Flesh and Blood. You over pay and bluff an attack reaction, or you keep your hand on the arsenal card in front of you and just wait, while giving a hard stare.

The only thing I thing I think was a little scummy was the whole grabbing a token. Other than that I think it was fine. Imo you shouldn't be able to prematurely go to grab something like a token or if you do you should have to commit to that line of play.

Don't remember when or what tournament, but I remember someone tapping four mana but then change his mind in a deck where the only card that could be played for four mana was chalice on 2. The other one Cabal Therapy him naming chalice, hitting two of them. It was awesome.

I remember a story that I think i read in the Duelist about a high level match during Tempest standard days. A player, one turn removed from winning, at 5 life, opponent an empty hand but with a Cursed Scroll in play. He passed the turn, the opponent draws his card, smiles, taps his Cursed Scroll, names Lightning Bolt. The player extends his hand and scoops. The opponent then drops the Mountain they drew on to the table. Fantastic bluff.

Yugioh judge (and occasional Head Judge) here. One major thing about the swordsoul token: that token doesnt exist as printed, so Torres had a custom made token that he used to missrepresent the gamestate. Which in itself speaks towards the possibility of intent to misslead the opponent. As for missrepresent the gamestate, anything from when the players sit down can be included. Claim that you are playing a different deck? Missrepresenting the gamestate. Count number summons out loud? Missrepresenting the gamestate. Take out a token from deckbox during gameplay when no effect have been used that summons tokens? Missrepresenting the gamestate. Basically any action taken by a player that isnt part of the actual gameplay that is made in any way to try and influence your opponents decision making can be considered missrepresenting the gamestate if a judge determines it was done with intent. Part of this strictness is that players once upon a time took inspiration from magic and tried to pull off a lot of questionable stuff, which over time made the policy stricter and stricter on these kinds of behaviour.

It's not, since the only way it works is if your opponent is looking at your deck trying to guess what it is giving them an advantage. It's more like an anti cheat tbh.

My biggest bluff was on a pauper tournament. My opponent cast a spell and I thought for a second, picked up an Island back to my hand, said "maybe not" and put it back. My opponent played around daze for the rest of the match.

Konami is very strict regarding bluffing and misdirection. Of course, this is often ambiguous and dependent on intention, so most of the time no action is taken, in the end what got Andres suspended was admitting he did it with the intention to mislead his opponents, if he didn't there wouldn't have been any grounds to sanction him. As a yugioh player, I consider this to be complete bullshit. I think the rules that forbid you from revealing or asking to be revealed hidden information and from hiding known information are good, but something like this is going overboard, there's a difference between carrying a Swordsoul token and explicitly telling your opponent "I'm playing Swordsoul".

I have always loved/hate the LSV story, I love how he played his opponent like a fiddle, one of the best bluffs in magic in all time, but i would definitely hate it if it would had happened to me, but I would never consider it as cheating, or unsportsmanship conduct

constantly saying "i know these sitautions arent exactly the same isnt necessary bc if a magic player admitted they were doing the same exact thing in mtg they wouldnt be banned lol, maybe ppl would look sideways at them but no shot they would face literally any rules mention or notice

sleeve colors of different colors, pull out an infect count card, accidently drop an emblem card of a Planeswalker not in your deck. these are just some of the ways you mess with opponent that just feels satisfying when they ask tf are you playing

Sometimes I'll put a dice on top of my library as a 'mental reminder' that I have an action on my/their upkeep or to keep a storm count or track 'floating' mana. Considering Arena lets you set stops to signal intent or you can see what your opponent is highlighting over, this feels like something lots of players do.

Didn't LSV also top 8 in a vintage tournament playing storm but he forgot to put his wincon in the deck?