Yeah there are definite upsides to playing a digital version of the game. The original post implied that Arena was a viable replacement for the physical game though, and I don’t agree with that. At least not yet.

Cheating is purposefully violating the rules of the game or the tournament with the intent to gain an advantage.

How am I way off? Is there a robust secondary market for MtG:A cards? Can I go down to my local shop and trade with someone for the cards I need? Can I go to a convention like GenCon and enter a room with a hundred dealers offering to sell me cards for competitive prices?

If I tap a land, there isn’t a 1.5 second delay before the mana ends up in my pool.

The short time frame actually makes it more likely he’s cheating, not less.

I was a TCG judge for 10 years. When I was reading the original description of what happened I was skeptical too. But after seeing the pictures... nope... he did it. He gone now.

On the other hand in-person games don’t suffer from lag or bugs. You don’t have to be an expert at operating an interface to play with real cards. And real cards can be traded and sold, making collecting the ones you need significantly easier and cheaper.

And this is why the judges at these events DO look at the evidence. Because the integrity of the tournament has to be preserved. If this guy is a cheater, he needs to go. That’s true whether we’re talking about Friday Night Magic at your local shop with 12 people playing, or a mythic championship with tens of…

Sorry no, if this marking were caused by normal wear, the entire deck would have similar markings in roughly the same place. It didn’t. The only cards that were marked were the urzatron lands. Decisions were made based on where those lands were. He cheated.

Yeah I just went and looked it up myself and it sounds like you’re right. That isn’t super appealing to me, nor is waiting a full year.

Yeah I just went and looked it up myself and it sounds like you’re right. That isn’t super appealing to me, nor is…

Is that what it is? See here’s my thing, every time (EVERY. DAMN. TIME.) Nintendo has released a handheld console, they’ve released a strictly better version of it a few years later. Game Boy Color, GBA SP, DS Lite, 3DS XL...

Is that what it is? See here’s my thing, every time (EVERY. DAMN. TIME.) Nintendo has released a handheld console,…

That’s what I’m waiting for. I want a Switch but if there’s a new model coming out later this year, I feel like I’m better off waiting for that.

That’s what I’m waiting for. I want a Switch but if there’s a new model coming out later this year, I feel like I’m…

Just looked it up myself, holy crap this person is incredibly talented.

Listen, I’m all about the PC Master Race over here, but even I think this thing is excessively expensive. Even at $800. The price/performance ratio on the x80 nVidia cards is completely wacky.

Listen, I’m all about the PC Master Race over here, but even I think this thing is excessively expensive. Even at…

It’s the ground type. There’s no rock type here. Also while Obsideon is a good name, it’s a little too similar to Obliveon, which I feel is a much better name especially for a ghost type.

So my first impression of the damage shown here was that this was normal wear from shuffling a deck a bunch of times (corners tend to get bent up when you do that a lot).

To be fair, I think they teach you how to do that in high school.

I tried it a couple months ago just to see.

Yeah but so what? Even if they migrated some character concepts over from Titan, that was years ago. Time to put on their big boy pants, stop making excuses, and make a real game.

Not being able to ride the motorcycle is just the latest in a long string of Disappointing Overwatch Things.