who gets the last shuffle?

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

One of the voices in my head - or was it Hylander? - just said...
> If a hard says for me to shuffle the library afterwards but the
> opponent wants to cut or even shuffle the deck after that. Who gets to
> do it last? It seems pretty nasty that one person gets to shuffle if
> the card basically grants it to the other. The idea that the player who
> is shuffling in a tricky way is moot because it's just as easy for an
> opponent to purposely misshuffle.

Well, the comprules have this to say:

Shuffle
To shuffle a deck, library, or pile is to make the order of that deck,
library, or pile random. After a player shuffles a deck, library, or
pile, he or she owns, the opponent has the option to shuffle or cut that
pile. See rule 101.1.

(Useless trivia: to my considerable surprise, that glossary entry
appears to be the ONLY occurrence of the word "cut" in the entire
document.)

It seems to me the rules used to actually say what could count as a
shuffle and what could count as a cut, but apparently they don't at the
moment.

> Also, what happens if the opponent
> shuffles sloppily and sees a few cards you your library. Doesn't this
> violate the privacy of your deck?...a kind of privilege only granted by
> certain well costed (cc) cards in Magic? I think perhaps a judge could
> easily disqualify a sloppy shuffler....even if it was an "accident".
> What do you think?

Well, I don't think either player would bother calling a judge over if
it's clear it's an accident. In my experience most people go out of
their way to make it clear they're NOT looking at their opponent's deck
when they shuffle it (I usually look at the ceiling, personally).

In a tournament, this is an infraction:

122. Card Drawing - Looking at Extra Cards

Definition
Players are considered to have looked at a card when the card is moved
any significant amount from their decks. This could include dropping
cards on the floor, turning a card over while shuffling their
opponents' decks, or revealing cards from their decks in the act of
misplaying a card. This penalty also applies when a player has looked at
a card in an opponent's deck or hand in the course of a game (such as
turning over an extra card while resolving a random discard effect).

The penalty is a caution or warning, depending on the rules enforcement
level. That escalates if the same person is caught doing it more than
once in the same tournament; I'll just copy the example since it uses
this very infraction.

******
For example, at REL 1 a player's penalty for the first offense of Card
Drawing-Looking at Extra Cards would be a caution. The player's penalty
for a second offense would be the next highest, which is a warning. His
or her third offense would result in a game loss, fourth offense a match
loss, and fifth offense would result in the player's disqualification.
******

> Also, if you are about ready to play a permanent and your hand doesn't
> leave the card and they see it...and you've tapped mana for like a 2cc
> creature but then notice another untapped mana and decide to go for a
> 3cc creature instead...can you do that? If the other player sees the
> 2cc creature, can they demand it gets played instead of the 3cc which
> they would prefer not to see?

It seems to me that you'd have to be having a pretty bad day for that to
happen, but in any event, there is no formal rule for this. Personally,
if I were the judge, it would depend very much on exactly what had been
said and done. If the player actually said "I play a Spineless Thug
(actually puts it on the table and waits a moment) - no, wait a minute,
I want to play a Serpent Warrior instead", I can't see that going over
very well. On the other hand, if he stops himself before the cards have
actually left his hand, I'd probably let it go. Possibly there'd be a
Procedural Error - Minor penalty in there.

> Is it a matter of having your hand still
> on the card like a chess piece? ie: hand still touching rule?

There is no such formal rule as this, but...

> Once you
> "drop" a card, then it's "in play"?

.... this makes a great deal of sense to me.

> Also, assume in this case that they
> haven't "responded" with anything. Therefore, it's not seemingly any
> different than when you accidently have a card slip from the hand and
> into view on the table. What are the rules on all these little things?

Well, that certainly makes things less complicated. The most relevant
bits of the penalty guidelines seem to be the one on showing extra
cards, which I quoted in part already, and maybe the catch-all
Procedural Error - Minor in some cases.