Drawing extra cards. Playing an extra land. Putting a card into your hand from somewhere other than the top of your deck. Manipulating your draw through skilled shuffling. These are just a few things people think of when you mention cheating. This Extended season has brought a new scoundrel to the forefront, and that scoundrel is stalling.

Ben Bleiweiss posted an interesting forum question on the topic of stalling that sparked a lot of debate here on Star City Games. I feel the most important point of this discussion was missed. The question was whether a player under a soft lock should be forced to concede because they do not have a way to win left in their deck. I would like to take a second to flashback to a few games I witnessed at a Grand Prix a few weeks ago.

A player piloting the Life deck gained an arbitrarily large amount of life. A player using the Pirates deck had no outs left in his deck, and he would have been decked before his opponent. The Pirates player proceeded to bounce all of the Life player's permanents. The Blue mage then proceeded to take his turns, making sure to attack each turn. The Life player called the judge, because he felt his opponent was stalling. The judge ruled that the Pirates player is playing the game, and that gaining infinite life is not a win condition in and of itself. Therefore, the game would continue going at its current pace. The Judge also ruled that the Life player must keep track of the damage that he is being dealt each turn. The Pirates player took this as an opportunity to record each any every point of damage possible, including making notes about the source of the damage. The game ended in a draw since neither player could actually win before time was called. The match ended in a 1-0-1 win in favor of the Pirates player. The Life player then stormed off, and dropped from the tournament in disgust.

Did the player with Pirates break the rules?

I also saw the following at Grand Prix Boston: The Rock was facing Mind's Desire, and the first game ended in a win for the combo deck. Game two was underway, and there were around twenty minutes remaining in the round. The Rock player successfully resolved three consecutive Cranial Extractions, removing Mind's Desire, Brain Freeze, and Cunning Wish from his opponent's game. However, the Rock player had yet to draw a source of damage other than Eternal Witness, which was being held at bay by a Sunscape Familiar. At last, the Rock player drew a second Witness, and uses it to return a Cranial Extraction, naming Cloud of Faeries. This left the Desire player with literally no win conditions left in their deck. He couldn't go off and win with Brain Freeze, he wasn't able to attack with Cloud of Faeries, and he's already too far behind the card count to be able to deck his opponent with the two remaining Deep Analysis in his deck. The Rock player called a judge with fifteen minutes left in the round, explained the game state to the official, and asked that the game be watched for stalling. The Judge stated that the Desire player is playing cards and resolving their effects in a reasonable time frame, and there was no stall in effect. The Desire player proceeded to use Snap on Kokusho on consecutive turns, began taking up to three minutes to shuffle his deck during shuffle effects, and took as much time as allowed to decide what to get after casting Intuition - which ended up being for three lands. With four minutes left in the round, the Desire player finally scooped.

Because the second game took so long, the Desire player put himself in position to be the only person able to win the game. He carefully shuffles his deck, and doesn't present it to be cut by the Rock player until there is one minute left in the round. This ensured that he would have approximately five full turns, and he would be the only one of the two who could win in that time frame.

Is this skillful time manipulation, or is this stalling?

In the next game I saw, a Rock deck was playing against a Reanimator deck. The first game ended in a Sickening Dreams-fuelled draw, but that game took thirty minutes to complete. Game two proceeded for another twenty minutes, at which point the Reanimator player only had Show and Tell left in his deck as a win card, and the Rock player was tapped out. The Reanimator started playing slowly, and after about three minutes into a particular turn, the Rock player called for a judge. The Reanimator player only needed to show a Show and Tell, and a creature for the win. Both players stood at two life, and the Rock player had a next-turn win on the board. The Rock player requested that the judge just tell him if his opponent had the ability to put a hasted creature into play for the win. The judge obviously did not divulge this information, but watched as the Reanimator player took a ten-minute turn ended with Show and Tell for Akroma (and the win). This effectively ended the match, as the Rock player can't win in two turns.

Did the Reanimator player stall the game to ensure a victory, should the Rock player have just conceded, or was the Reanimator player justified in thinking through the game-winning turn?

The last scenario I have today is Scepter Chant versus Blue/Green Madness. The Scepter Player had won the first game in thirty minutes. The Madness got the upper hand in game two, but began holding back the win to kill time off the clock. Instead of doing lethal damage, the U/G player began casting extraneous creatures, allowed the Scepter player to get a Scepter out with Orim's Chant, and did not go for the win until there were only five minutes left in the round - despite having a hand of three Stifles and three Circular Logics at the time the Scepter was played. Game three begins, and the Madness deck came out swinging. There was left than a minute left in the round when the Scepter player began to take his turn. He proceeds to sacrifice a Flooded Strand, takes a while to decide whether to get a Plains or an Island from his deck, and then passes the turn after time in the round had run out. Turn zero became his current turn, and left the Madness player with three attack phases to deal eighteen damage. On the fifth (and last) extra turn, the Scepter player cast a Chant with kicker in order to stop the U/G madness player from swinging for lethal damage. Both players had plenty of responses, when the dust settled, the Scepter player had no cards in hand, but had resolved the Chant, keeping the U/G player from swinging for the win. However, the Madness player successfully cast Seedtime, which would have allowed him to win the next turn - if the Chant player hadn't had time run out on his turn during the one-minute search for a Plains/Island earlier. A Judge was called over, and the game/match declared a draw.

Should the Scepter player have gotten the draw? Should the Madness player have called a judge during the final minute of regulation play?

A big problem with the current state of Extended is the slow roll, or slow play. Certain decks, such as Desire and Reanimator, have the ability to explode and win in just a couple of turns. Other decks, like Rock, take a little while longer to get their victory condition into play. The decks are evenly matched on paper, but the quicker decks are winning more events. The quick-deck players are winning game one on turn three or four, and then are dragging out the second game as long as possible. They put themselves into a win-win situation - either game two never ends, or they are the only one who can win an abbreviated game three. To further kill the clock, a Desire or Reanimator player can and will mulligan their hands to kill more time off the clock, which can eat another 2-5 minutes depending on number of mulligans taken. Even if you call a judge to get a three minute extension, you might still find yourself one Brainstorm or Careful Study away from a draw.

What should you do as a player? If you speed your game up too much past your usual playing speed, you will begin to make play mistakes. If you play slowly you put yourself into a draw situation. The explosive decks in the field are at an extreme advantage in the current Extended metagame, more so than ever before. Desire can frequently take ten to fifteen minute turns, and the opposing player has to wait it out. All the opposing player can do is hope that their game-winning Stifle will resolve - otherwise they are helpless to let their opponent go through the machinations. If the Desire player uses Cunning Wish to get Mana Leak or Memory Lapse, their opponent finds they have wasted ten to fifteen minutes sitting on that Stifle, when they might have conceded to save time otherwise. The Desire/Reanimator deck is given a huge advantage through situations such as these.

Is my favorite environment polluted with bad sportsmanship, or are players just using good time management? You make the call!