Hi; my name is Kyle Olson, and I am a cheater. Or a scumbag. Or a winner. I've been a this way since about 1:30 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, and I'm not sure which.

Here's my story: I'm in the third game of a first round match in a 7^th edition draft on Magic Online. The game has gone on long and moved into a standstill. The important parts are his Sunweb holding back my Vigilant Drake and Fighting Drake and lots of insignificant dorks holding each other back. And my Looming Shade.

Remember him; he's an enabler.

I've only got a few cards in my deck. My opponent has six more cards than I do. I'm going to be decked.

Except for the damn timer.

While I've got a comfortable five minutes left, my opponent has only 1:30. I was going to play fair this wouldn't matter. Instead, at the end of every one of my opponent's turns I repeatedly pumped and resolved my Looming Shade. My opponent cannot click OK fast enough and runs out of time just before I would lose.

The victory propelled my lousy cheating self into the second round and eventually to the third where I lost. I walked away with four 7^th packs. I haven't been able to get the question off my mind:

Was what I did wrong?

I am violating the spirit of the game. In a perfect world, there would be infinite time to play every match. The person whose deck played the best would win. This is not a perfect world but that does not excuse me from doing my part. I should have let myself be decked. I should have let the better player win. I should buy the world a Coke that we can drink in perfect harmony.

Maybe I am the better player. The timer is a part of the game, and all players have an equal amount of time. If my opponent had used the timer more efficiently, he would have more of it left. It takes me more time to pump my shade than it takes my opponent to click OK. If he even had just as much time as me, my tactic would have failed. Therefore, I just played the extra element of the game, the clock, in a superior fashion to my opponent.

Unless the clock wasn't meant to be used this way. Programmers of online games are frequently fighting exploits. The ability to use a side effect of the game's design to get additional benefit is an exploit. Using the timer this way is an exploit that the programmers should remove.

I was just using the tool that was placed in front of me. I didn't cheat. My actions were at most unethical.

I've been told there are no ethics in poker. A Prize tournament is much like poker in that there is something of monetary value to be won. We aren't playing only for fun. In a fun game, I would never have done what I did to win that game, if there was a timer. I couldn't have been doing anything unethical as there are no ethics.

This logic does not soothe my guilty conscience. I don't know if I was cheating. I don't know if I would take the same action again. I don't know if I am a bad person or not. I do know I won the game.

Anyway thanks for hearing my confession. I've got to get back to drafting. I may avoid picking any Shades, Regenerators, or Circles of Protection so I don't have to look into the abyss again.