How To Stop MTG Shuffle Cheaters 

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As a former [L2], I can definitively say that judges are there to help you. We can't play the game for you or advise you on your best outs, but we can certainly shuffle decks when under suspicion of dubious scenarios. You are allowed to ask a judge to shuffle and cut your deck if you believe your opponent isn't doing an adequate job. Once a judge has shuffled, it cannot be touched by another player, unless it needs to be shuffled again. I was called two or three times during an event where we had someone suspected of deck manipulation. It was always my experience that when players DID ask for a judge's intervention, it really struck the fear of god into people who either tried to be disingenuous, were unintentionally doing a poor job, or were leveraging advantage. Please note, sometimes it's late in an event and people are tired. I read once that at a ten round eternal format event, the number of shuffles a player could see can be in the hundreds.

You know, I'm really glad that you're actually furthering the discourse on cheating. It makes the game and community better as a whole. Thanks Vince

Back when I played on the pro tour our testing group all learnt card shark and magic card tricks for the exact purpose of knowing what could be done and what to watch out for. People can't be trusted when money is on the line, if your not sure, always have a judge shuffle decks for you in full view of both players.

I've worked in the casino business in table games for over 20 years. I played magic pretty competitively back in the 90s. Mechanics like this guy are pretty rare but the problem i see the most in magic events is angle shooting or shot taking. People who ask questions trying to get wrong answers or calling judges over things they know the answer to but are trying to get a wrong answer or take game actions they know aren't legal but play it off as a mistake if they are called out. An example of this i saw recently was a guy who wasn't clearly tapping his lands. More than once he tried to cast spells he didn't have the mana for. There is almost nothing i can do about this. If i call a judge he hasn't been watching the game most he's going to do is tell the guy to turn his lands more than 5 degrees and he would probably roll his eyes at me. You can't expect some unpaid volunteer to care and even if he did its my word against my opponents. There is too much money wrapped up in this hobby but not enough for good game security so its always going to attract these types.

Thank you for posting this, now that you have highlighted this, there is definitely a guy at my LGS that comes to play the more "competitive" events that is 100% guilty of this every time I play him and it never even really occurred to me the amount of advantage it gives him. Also, looking forward to meeting you at CommandFest Orlando next week!

Being a pretty casual player I sometimes found myself catching a glance at the bottom of my opponents deck. Completely unintentional, the cards just drew my eyes. I had to actively change the way I shuffled to prevent this. I definitely always knew you’re not supposed to do it, I was just being too casual/lazy about it.

worth noting people can use this chest while also cutting your deck after 'shuffling' it. its more subtle in its effects, and the cut after shuffling can help remove suspicion, but if they know certain cards will be very important to your deck, or help you against yours specifically, they move as many copies as they can to the top, then cut it into the middle. everything up til choosing to cut looks the same tho, so all of that stands the same as far as catching someone, but just because they cut after doesn't mean they're definitely not cheating, so if they raised a red flag before that, you're still totally justified in calling a judge

I agree that cheating should result in a lifetime ban from competitive play. 4years isn’t enough, and a lifetime ban would be much bigger deterrent from cheating.

Ive seen this story about 10 times, but Vince's take is always worth the 11th

I know personally I have been told my shuffling looks extremely suspicious simply cause i look down some times since i drop cards so often. But all of my opponents have told me that they know i wasnt cheating simply cause i would cut the deck multiple times and ask them to do the same. Being honest and upfront helps alot for us that are just bad with shuffling.

I have caught a few people cheating and stacking their deck and refusing to present

That was fascinating. I've played against some weird shuffling over the years. I didn't suspect anything at the time and still don't, I play super low sakes, but I'll try to remember and keep an eye out. Now if you can do a video about how I get screwed on shuffle in Arena...

Another thing while mash shuffling is it's easy to accidentally not randomize the top/bottom. As a rule I try to make sure each shuffle that as I split and then mash the deck that the top and bottom card are changing. Not saying that's what happened in the video but a tip for new players

I caught a player stacking their deck with all the lands in their sleeves left at the top of the sleeves and all non lands placed deep in the sleeves. That way when the deck was placed on the table with the open end of the sleeves towards them, they could easily see where the lands were. Making it super easy to decide if they wanted to keep a draw. The edges of the cards are easy to see when they are not deep in the sleeves

During an original Theros pre release many moons ago now I suspect I was shuffle cheated. Sure it was just a pre release but there was a difference in prizes between 1st 2nd and 3rd. I didn't suspect anything at the time as I wasn't into playing the game competitively and didn't think anyone would feel the need to cheat at a pre release. It later turned out my opponent was suspected to cheat in a variety of ways and was finally caught and subsequently banned from the major LGS's in the city at some point after the Theros set released.

Honestly one of the most awkward things is when your opponent is shuffling in a way such that you can see all of the cards, whether its your deck or theirs. It's like, do I look away? Do I tell them to shuffle it differently? Do I just take in the information they're giving me for free? Always kind of awkward.

I was one of the traders at Command Fest and only recognised you a bit to late carrying round the Giant Card xD was so cool to see you

Technically, best practice for proper randomization is a riffle shuffle-strip combo. Unfortunately, everyone gets a little upset when you riffle a couple thousand dollars.

Learning magic tricks in general helps you pick out people who know these tricks as well. I ask competitive players to watch Chris Ramsey in particular, he’s very experienced in slight of hand and shows a lot of tricks in slow motion to break it down.

This is wild to me as an EDH player. Being a singleton casual format my friends / playgroup got into a whacky habit of grabbing each others decks and showing off the bottom card to the rest of the table just to goof around. We all did it and no hard feelings were had. Being a casual player that I am the levels people go to in order to cheat is wild.

This was a really interesting and unique video. Really appreciate the content here.

There was a game, can't remember the name, that came out on steam where the central mechanic is being a cheat at card games in the Victorian era. I watched a whole playthrough of it and was astounded how many real techniques (with silly names) they employed to demonstrate how one can actually stack decks, palm cards, etc., etc.

In Monopoly: Deal, I’ve stack the deck before. I also once accidentally stacked the deck against myself and still won. Deal is the card game form of Monopoly, but without the trading.

Thanks PK, I’m an MtG noob, so this kind of info is super helpful 🤩👏

So what I get from this is that when I shuffle I should look directly into my opponent's eyes. Making intense, intimate eye contact. Glaring directly into their soul.

Seems like an appropriate place to also say: if you “pile shuffle” to “distribute” lands evenly, you’re stacking your deck illegally. If you shuffle afterwards in such a way that the pile shuffle affected the final position of the cards, you didn’t shuffle properly. So there’s no point “pile shuffling” your lands. Thanks for coming to my TED talk

In my experience the most common cheats are misunderstanding cheats. Just the other week I was playing at a new store and I played against a player who would shuffle for a while then he flicked through his deck to make sure the land and spells were well distributed before mash shuffling it once and presenting it to be cut. Had to explain to him why this was super iffy. Another I remember from years ago at a prerelease when a super new player would manaweave straight up after every game before mash shuffling, though at least he did it a few times. Struggled a lot more to explain to him why this wasn’t okay as he thought it was fine so long as he randomised it afterwards.

"Underground dojo keyboard cagefighters" is an ICONIC post in magic history

Pretty good tips. I'll have to try this one out

This is CRAZY! But I guess it makes sense when money & prizes are on the line. *Thanks for the Content* !

Meanwhile, I'm so clumsy at FNM, I end up accidently revealing my own deck, cutting weirdly (e.g., two on bottom only), or momentarily dropping cards. My opponents think I'm up to something with slight of hand, but I'm actually just derping it.

General Kenobi, you are wise beyond your years. I really like this video

I’ve definitely “noticed” cards from my own deck when shuffling, but not intentionally, and I always look away and reshuffle any time I catch a glimpse of a card. I’ve only ever been a casual magic player, though.

Nice vid. I prefer a single cut in the dead center after shuffling. Just as people can, with practice, move known cards to the top they can also move them to the bottom. If the cards are on the bottom that 4th or 5th cut can move the whole stack to the top. With a single cut in the center you'd have to be Ricky Jay to cheat something to the top.

Oh yeah, I've been wise to this for a while. Now I can show this to friends who are new to the game! Newbies are really susceptible to this kind of cheat.

Woah, just realized that I've been glancing at my cards since I shuffle the same way. I never thought it'd be a huge deal since I mainly play commander and that it wouldn't matter much in a 100 card format, but I will definitely start shuffling at an angle so that my cards arn't visible. I usually play commander but I do play sealed and draft at my LGS from time to time so I will make sure to change the way I shuffle so I don't get suspected of cheating lol thanks for the heads up on this!

I remember when this happened and was blown away by how subtle it was

Thanks Vince!

I never understood why a judge isnt at the table with the players and have the judge shuffle the decks if it's high stakes to avoid this sort of cheating.. is there just not enough judges around?

I remember in my first GP I got top 8 in, Everyone was paranoid from the Jared Betcher scandal and we were all paranoid about shuffling. So Many dropped decks in shuffling trying not to look down at opponents deck

I had someone do this to me at the KTK prerelease at my LGS, where the store was giving away an Unlimited Mox Jet plus boxes to the winner. I mulled to 4, 3, and 4 hitting zero lands before those keeps. I'd have probably been suspicious, but this was a midnight prerelease and I'd won a Modern FNM and worked a full day prior to the event; I was exhausted. We were in like round 6 or 7 of Swiss and we were nearing 6 AM (the finals didn't end until after 10 AM). I still took him down on both mulls to 4, as his deck wasn't very well built or powerful and I just had a reasonable curve out both games (which, in fairness, is what I build my deck to do as opposed to running a higher curve). Had my semifinals and finals opponents at that tournament somewhat hint that they thought I was shuffle cheating. "Your opponents seem to flood a lot." Well, yeah, you're all playing the 19 lands and 1+ Dorks/Banners in a 40 card deck that the pros recommended for sealed. You've got roughly a 50% chance on any given turn to draw a mana source in that situation; of course you're flooding. I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard, because I certainly wasn't cheating. Of course, my finals opponent that said it was probably just salty because I was his only two GAME losses of the 11 round tournament... and I 2-0'd him.

Wow 😳 I've never seen anyone shuffle my deck when cutting nor have I ever done it. I'll just simply cut the deck into different halves or multiple stacks then re-stack it. If I ever saw someone actually shuffle my deck I'd have gotten suspicious without ever knowing about this trick. Glad you made a video like this.

Literally getting an ad every 90 seconds, sometimes even more often. This is the only channel where this happens to me.

Upside with Pokémon, if an opponent shuffles you deck without doing a cut and the end you are allowed to cut it yourself!

"you f*cking doughnut" that killed me💀💀💀🤣🤣🤣

People always look at me like a monster when I am playing in modern/legacy events because I bridge shuffle my deck. I will not bridge an opponent’s deck, generally I just do a cut when my opponent presents, but I bridge shuffle my deck. If you do it correctly, you won’t bend it damage your expensive cards. Plus, I do enjoy seeing the look of horror in the faces of my opponents when I’m playing Ice Station Zebra in legacy.

If I ask my opponent to cut my deck, and they start vigorously shuffling it instead, that’s already incredibly suspicious

The background music had me thinking a cat was in a nearby room.

Over the last 10ish years I've had people do things like this, and others like a random scry out of nowhere. (Where there was no instance of scrying_ When I called judge the store owner just shrugged and said that everyone was super casual and people thought I was an asshole. That store is no longer running,

Great topic

When you cut as well you could always cut into at least 3 piles and make sure a middle pile ends up on top as the middle as the top and bottom are the easiest areas to manipulate.

Honestly, when I first got into MTG a couple of years ago I didn't realize that I was shuffling at a kind of weird angle and sometimes could see the bottom card of my library, stuff like that. Especially since I stared down and don't make eye contact with people, happened a fair amount lol. I got started playing during lockdown, and it wasn't until I'd been playing like a year and went to my first in-person event that it clicked for me that it was a problem. Still occasionally fall into that, and I found the best thing to do is just call myself out on it. I'd hate for an opponent to even think I was trying to get an advantage like that just because I'm awkward and don't know how my body works sometimes

Pretty funny story here. I used practice magic tricks and sleight of hand a lot, so one card slips like this got very smooth very quickly. I got into magic when I was 13, and eventually got my friends into it at 15. My friend - now wife - Sadie had just built her first deck and could not for the life of her shyffle into a fair hand to play. She got so discouraged about it that she was about to quit on the spot, until I offered to shuffle for her. I did a couple of splits, riffle shuffled a foothills (yikes), and thumbed two lands to the top for her. She finally got a hand to play with and was so excited! I, however, got my ass kicked haha. Her and I have been playing magic since that day and I still haven't told her about it. Every now and then I might stack a hand for her just to make her smile haha.

One of the things I like about Flesh and Blood is you know what your opponent is on before the game starts so the advantage of getting a peak at an opponents deck is marginal.

I'm no expert but I would recommend that no matter who shuffles the deck the final action should be a random cut.

huh i just realized i do the "don't look at the deck while shuffling" without ever realizing. Didn't even know that was proper form

Appreciate this. Pretty sure I was cheated at Standard event a few years ago. Long story short, game three, I had stomped the guy game one, game two he barely squeaked by as I was a land short, I literally had him sweating (it was the final round of the event). He side in 4 cards, he had been 2 colors the entire round. Right out the gate Game 3, he finds his sided in third color source and the two back to back bullets to my deck, which were also in a third color he hadn't been playing all round. He blew me out in 4 turns. The guy went from literally talking mad shit pregame, to stressing and sweating as I had him by the balls game 1 and 2 and then suddenly game 3 he just bulldozed me out of nowhere and back to being cocky. He even got up immediately after I conceded, scooped up everything, grabbed his prize and bolted out of the store

When I started playing the game more competitively, I noticed I shuffled in a way I always accidentally see the bottom card. I changed it to looking around and not seeing the deck OR just cutting the deck.

I'm puzzled as I only play online... Why in important events isn't some judge/third party doing this sort of thing instead of your opponent? Wouldn't that be safer? Or would it take too much time/not enough judges available?

Aaaand this is why I feel like high-end competitive paper Magic is, ultimately, kinda borked. The advantages to be gained from card manipulation are *so* huge, and can be *so* hard to detect (there's over a century of deck manipulation techniques to draw from!) that I don't see how you stop it short of making every judge an expert in card sleight of hand.

When you're shuffling, just give your opponent the death stare. Put the fear in them. Seriously, money makes people do terrible things. For the purposes of MTG, it not only is unfair but it takes the magic (pun intended) out of it. MTG is meant to be fun and if someone is making it where their opponent can't have fun, that's just shitty. Even when I'm playing commander, I have to look away to make sure I'm not glancing at my cards. If I do accidentally see a card, more shuffling happens. Cheating in a professional setting should be an automatic life ban. There's a time and a place for second chances but, if we look back at cheaters in MTG, they will just do so again.

Would love to see your FAB deck list in a video sometime 👀

I occasionally look down because I sometimes struggle aligning the cards even when actively trying to look away - so I always offer the cut to players.

SCG Indianapolis 2013 (maybe 2014), I was X-3 going into the last round of swiss (maybe X-4, we weren't in top 8 contention, but contention for a chunk of money break point). We shuffle/present our decks, and I see them shuffling my deck real weird, of note they piled shuffled their own deck, as did I so when presented to me, I did the same. They did not pile shuffle my deck. When they returned my deck I picked it up and just gave it a few riffle shuffles before presenting it back. Confused they picked up my deck and repeated their odd shuffling of my deck; I locked eye contact the whole time. They gave my deck back and I riffle shuffled again, now their face was wrought with confusion. I put my deck back down and just said, "would you like me to call a judge?" They were so clearly shaken and tilted that the match was almost like playing Timmy at an FNM (they kept a poor hand game 1, and ran a whip of erebos out into my on-board Whip with keening apparition in grave game 2). I'm not sure how I 100% KNEW they were cheating, but sometimes calling out the cheater just gets them so off their own game.

I play pretty casual with the same group, I like to play the same deck more than once a night. After the first game is done, I will make sure my lands are more or less dispersed evenly, I do this by making 6 or 8 stacks faced up and trying to even out card types as well, after which I shuffle a few times and cut. Would this be alright for your group? I tend to have better land draw than my friends, but I am just curious, thanks

Holy cow that was difficult to see that cheat. It’s no wonder he was able to get away with that.

When I was brand new, I used to peek by accident because I was bad at shuffling. It's something that, as silly as it sounds, practicing your shuffle can completely eliminate. Now this never resulted in free information that I could do anything with, at the time, because I was altogether kind of bad at the game back then, but it's something I'm very glad I practiced out of.

Out of curiosity in a tournament environment if you ask your opponent to cut your deck after shuffling it can they refuse? I assume if someone is potentially stacking your deck they will not be very happy about it

I just play casual commander and I’m fairly new, so whenever I accidentally see a card in my deck while shuffling, I just give it a few more shuffles, because i’m playing a casual game and what’s the point of cheating when I’m testing my deck building skills and other magic/tcg skills?

L1 here, as someone who judges 40+ player FNMs, stepping away from the table makes communication infinatly easier. You avoid the vague wording players use to not give away information.

To be fair to the casual commander players, shuffling 100 double sleeved cards and not seeing any can be hard

Is it acceptable at a tournament to cut the deck after your opponent hands it back to you? Not re-shuffle it of course, just a 2-3 way cut. That seems like it would remedy this particular problem.

I got a person disqualified from a Dominaria pre-release not for shuffle cheating but for having an impossible pool... every creature in his deck was a wizard and there were 3 of and 4 of copies of uncommon wizards and even duplicate rares in the deck, it was the 3rd event of the weekend and this was a guy who had been known in previous to have possibly brought outside cards into pre-release events from previous events. He got banned, and I havent seen him back at the LGS since then.

My brother and I reshuffle if we accidentally see a card - be it for fun or tuning what is the point in playing if the game is compromised?

For integrity's sake, I always do the things you mentioned I love learning about how to cheat so that I can spot these things out and ensure to my opp that I'm not I always look away, I always cut

Vince san, there be reason why I use the term "neck, not stomach" in my in-person gameplay. They no do, officer of tournament get summoned.

There was this guy at a friend's LGS who would put a card on top every time he fetched, then shuffle while leaving the card there (taking advantage of the fact that no one ever cut decks at FNM)

the shots of that cheaters hands shuffling infuriates me

Theres some people at my fnm that definitely do this , but I only just started going there and there's no judge at the store so I'm not sure how to prove it, but I saw them do it a few times during the baulders gate prerelease so I dont play events there anymore and just play commander where I can choose who I play against

I caught a guy putting random cards face down as morphs because he didn’t know you had to reveal when the game is over.

The only time I would look at the cards in my opponents deck is I have a bad habit of glancing at the bottom card to make sure I am handing the deck back facing the right side. I had a friend who was VERY particular about how his deck was oriented. So I got used to looking at the bottom card to make sure I was giving him his deck back properly. I'm trying to get away from it but that's one habit I have had trouble breaking

We need official shuffle rules to require a hard cut of 2 or 3 timea that moves a significant chunk of the deck around after any mashing or riffling.

While not intentionally cheating, I was garbage at shuffling when I was younger. It took way longer than necessary and I had to actively watch the deck and my hands to not accidentally make the deck fly everywhere. My brother sat me down and taught me how to actually shuffle after our first game of commander together.

That little tidbit about Trevor's meltdown is important. The next step after calling out a cheater is dealing with their shameless and manipulative behaviour. They WILL try to gaslight you, make you feel bad/guilty, and use their charisma to take advantage of them. Don't let them. I've had to deal with it in person, and it sucks. It takes a lot of confidence to work through their BS, but you must keep at it. If they're cheating you, they've 100% cheated someone else.

Yugioh has the "final cut" rule where if your opponent opts to shuffle your deck, you're allowed to perform a final cut after that shuffle we should really get that

I saw another hard to spot shuffle cheat primarily for limited. it might have been nikachu's video. primarily for limited but probably also works for 60 card formats it is pile shuffling with 5 piles and done twice. beforehand you have to have your lands and other cards seperated and then one put on top of the other. The benefit is that if you do that, your deck will have a really good distribution of lands throughout your deck. the distribution is so good that you will have to mash-shuffle 20+ times in order to break the "sorting" you have done. basicly if I see my opponent do 5 piles I will mash-shuffle 25 times just to be sure. the video also shoved how to reverse the process as long as no further tampering have been made after the two 5 pile shufflings have been made. BTW: great video and I think it is very important that content creators put the spotlight on the shady side of card games once in a while.

Trying to give yourself an unkeepable hand and accidently dealing a banger lol

I have always been under the impression that if your opponent shuffles your deck but doesn’t cut it you can cut it yourself. I personally do this and it helps against people trying to stack the top cards of your deck.

There is a guy in the town I live in that I constantly catch looking at his cards when he shuffles. I just move my hand in-between his deck and him.

Little do they know I bought David Blaine’s masterclass and have 5 jewled lotuses hidden inside my mouth

what about mana weaving before you shuffle or while you yourself are shuffling see a big clump of lands?

Is it allowed to simple cut (halves inverted) your own deck after your opponent did a shuffle cut?

Does Skillshare have a class on pulling out? Really looking to take my skills to the next level.

Admittedly I haven't checked the tournament rules in quite a while, but I recall that you are allowed on final cut after your opponent shuffles your deck. Is that no longer the case?

Exactly why i don’t play tournaments or even FNM (got a lot of try hards in my area) don’t wanna have to look for shuffle cheating. Playing home tournaments with friends has been a much better experience for me at least.

What is the term for shuffling an opponent's deck after splitting and reversing 1/2 the split, so almost every other card is upside down?

Thank you papa Kenobi

As kids we used to compare CMC of the bottom card of our decks to decide who went first. Mutual cheating technically, but one of our friends stopped playing with us when he started running 4x Tunnel vision when most of us were running singleton decks. We would just let him go first without looking at deck bottoms and he suddenly stopped coming around

I played at the cappenna prerelease at an LGS a little bit back, and had an opponent who was around 16-17, kind of seemed like a knowitall and had two ledger shredders in his deck. it’s low stakes, prerelease, so i let him shuffle up and draw his hand game one, when he drew both of his ledger shredders. then again in game two, he drew both his ledger shredders again! what incredible luck! we went to game three and he started to draw his hand quickly before i was done shuffling and i said loudly i’d like to cut his deck, made him put his hand back on his deck and cut. and he drew 0 ledger shredders and i stomped him. moral of the story, speak up, make sure you cut decks, especially if you think someone’s playing fishy