This weekend there was an announcement from Wizards of the Coast that the Myr Superion bug should not be abused during MOCS Monthly Event. This once again raised quite some uproar among Magic Online players. It is not for the first time and probably not for the last time either.
There are two things discussed concerning bugs on Magic Online - ethics and legality (probably a strong word?).
When we download and want to use Magic Online (almost each week) we have to accept Terms of Use and Code of Conduct. It is here that it should be stated what we can do and what we canno dot. Some time ago when my account was terminated so I read those documents very carefully to find if there is anything I can do to get my account back. I came to the conclusion that practically there is nothing I can do even though my account was terminated on a wrong assumption. So when it comes to bugs I wouldn't pay much attention to it either since it won't matter much anyway. On the other hand these two documents should be clear about what they say so people wouldn't have even the slightest idea to abuse Magic Online and thus not be surprised when they are banned after they exploited a bug/cheated.
When talking about ethics it usually relates to Magic Online's clock. If we manage to have Melira combo in play, should our opponent concede if we are running out of time and we don't have the time to win? I personally concede when I have no way of winning the game. Some people just press F6 and wait till they die (or don't). With this I don't really have problems much but I often see people just abuse some triggers just to time someone out and that is something I would consider unethical and cheating. Pressing F6 usually helps to prevent from timing out (or setting Always Yield triggers for that) but I guess not all the players actually use those and thus can lose a game just because of it. Did the player abusing the triggers cheated? Was it ethical? There is nothing that states that you cannot do this. Even stalling does not have a explanation anywhere related to Magic Online (it is defined in IPG but that is also not meant for Magic Online. Only the Unsporting Conduct part of the IPG could be effective for Online play since game play errors won't most probably happen and tournament errors neither). Anyway for me abusing some zero cost triggers or any other kind of triggers to time your opponent would for me go under the 'stalling' unsporting conduct infraction (and it obviously does for WotC as well). It would be nice to have some kind 'Stalling' definition though in the Code of Conduct because Magic Online play is different than paper Magic play.
Code of Conduct only states (something that could be related to exploiting bugs or timer on modo):
- 9. Do not attempt to artificially alter the outcome of a league, sanctioned event, or organized game. For example:
Bribing or offering compensation in order to change the game outcome; or
Stalling, spamming, harassing, or behaving in any unsportsmanlike manner that affects the game.
12. DO NOT CHEAT, STEAL OR DEFRAUD WIZARDS OR OTHER PLAYERS!
This certainly is not clear and each of us can have a different view on what this means. Even though Bribing, Stalling and Unsporting Conduct is described in Infraction Procedure Guide there is no definition of it in any of the documents concerning Magic Online not even a word about the fact that 'Magic: The Gathering rules (including the IPG)' should be followed. The Magic Online client is actually here to enforce the Magic: The Gathering rules and should do that flawlessly. The problem is that it does not always do it. In this case I think it would be good if Wizards of the Coast would actually prepare some kind of document with what is considered 'legal' and 'illegal' play. They give warnings to players or ban them when the players exploit bugs so WotC should be able clear some things up to some extent that are related to stalling and exploiting bugs. Even though for me what exploiting a bug is clear and I guess for many other players as well. It is not only on Magic Online that this happens and in other games such thing leads to ban. I still would expect WotC to give players a more clear description of what it is rather than just saying 'Do not cheat, steal or defraud Wizards or other players'.
DO NOT CHEAT, STEAL OR DEFRAUD WIZARDS OR OTHER PLAYERS
Because of these reports we have decided to suspend the corresponding user accounts. This behavior is a violation of the Wizards of the Coast Code of Conduct (http://company.wizards.com/conduct) and the Magic Online User Agreement and Software License.
This account has been disabled for:
30 days
Sometimes WotC bans a card to prevent users from exploiting it, sometimes they actually produce a hotfix (thanks so much for Containment Priest fix!) and sometimes we just have to live with it and wait till it gets fixed. We all assume that fixing something is easy and should be done immediately. In some cases it certainly should be fixed as soon as possible and we all experienced extended downtimes lasting 11 hours and more because something went seriously wrong. Those of us who played after the colorless mana was introduced experienced a wide range of mana problems (including the Myr) and many of those were not fixed yet. But it is your own decision if you want to play on Magic Online or not. If you can't live with all those bugs and WotC's way dealing with them, don't play. It does not help anyone to complain all the time. If you want to complain there is Wizards of the Coast Customer Support. You will receive a more or less automated message but be assured they actually really read those mails you send them and deal with the problems later.
I have a rather clear vision what I would want others to do or not to do when it comes to bugs on modo (or in paper Magic). But I can see that this is something personal and that is why there is a wide range of opinions on this matter which I personally find very strange. But since there are people who cheat on daily basis I guess I shouldn't be surprised...
The primary problem is that we play a game of Magic that alone ends when one player wins the game (winning the game is what matters in a tournament if one wants to place well). Even in real life many players do all they can within the 'rules and IPG' to win and some of those actions are on a border line of cheating/unsporting conduct. This includes tilting players for example or scouting or other means of finding more information about ones deck/the player or stalling and slow play (there are players that stall intentionally but were never sanctioned for it). Even here we can debate whether such behavior is ethical or not and when it comes to Magic Online things are even more unclear.
So where does exploiting a bug fall? For me it falls under the 'Do not cheat' part since the point 9 has a bit of explanation and does not talk about bugs at all. Exploiting a bug for me equals to cheating in paper Magic.
Wizards of the Coast wrote this on their site, Magic Online and tumblr:
For the MOCS Monthly event this weekend, if you believe your opponent is abusing this or any other card bug, please notify the Digital Event Coordinator who is supporting the event. For other events, please contact Game Support.
What they wrote clearly shows that they consider playing Myr Superior for non-creature generated mana cheating.
If I see a player in Modern MOCS Monthly event play Myr Superion for 2 mana that come from non-creature permanents I would consider it cheating myself. Why? Because when entering this tournament I as a player should be aware what cards I have in my deck and what they do and I should know the most played cards in the format anyway. Myr Superion is one of those cards. Especially when the card is in your deck and you are the one playing it you should know its mana restriction! So playing the card for two (land) mana is obviously cheating to me. You wouldn't normally even try that, would you? Because IRL your opponent would most probably stop you from doing that. Magic Online fails in this unfortunately but that does not mean it should be abused!
The same goes to Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Hallowed Moonlight example that was given by Matt Sperling on Channel Fireball. If one players loots with Jace flipping it and the other player plays Hallowed Moonlight in response it does not seem right to me. If there would be something else happening except this interaction to justify it (for example CoCo on the stack) I wouldn't have problem with it. If there would be only the Jace trigger and Moonlight I would see my opponent as cheating because he obviously is aware that Hallowed Moonlight effect removes Jace from the game (rather does not let Jace come back as Planeswalker).
When playing against someone who taps their Eldrazi Scion/Spawn for Convoke and sacrifice it to get one more mana does not necessarily need to be aware that this is not possible in paper Magic but there are certainly players that do it intentionally. There is no way figuring out who does that intentionally and who doesn't though. In the Jace example it is easier to figure out.
But there are cases which are not that clear at all and most situations for me would not pass as 'exploiting a bug' (and already the Jace example does not need to be so clear under certain circumstances). For example, as someone noted on pureMTGO, what happens if my opponent has Soulflayer that is supposed to have Deathtouch and Flying and I have a 5/5 Flyer that would kill him next turn? Should I attack or not?
I would attack (and that's what I did when I was in the very same spot) because we play to win the game and if the software does not allow us to play the cards correctly or take the correct action there is nothing we can do. If my only chance to deal with Soulflayer is to kill it in combat (the Soulflayer would have to chump my 5/5 Flyer) the game state is already altered for me as well. There is no reason to stay back and wait for my opponent to ran into my 5/5 Flyer. But I guess it does not stop there. When a card is bugged and it is a known bug I would consider the players to acknowledge that. For me it means not picking the card in FRF/DTK draft. And if I pick it I should not expect the card to gain the abilities since I know it is bugged in this way. Yes, sure I might not be aware of this the first time it happens. The second time I might say to myself that it was a coincidence but a third time? That's certainly a bug! Not to mention that this is something we can find out at the Bug Blog on Wizards of the Coast page (if I'm not mistaken it is even linked from the client itself). And if it is not listed I would report this as a bug. I feel strange after filing such a report but without this sometimes WotC won't even find out about some bugs. I don't know how many reports they need to amass till they start to investigate or deal with it.
Some people might find this approach unethical but both players are in a situation they can't really affect and make it 'right'. All they can do is play the game as the client allows them and that is why I wouldn't say this would be considered as 'exploiting a bug'. On the other hand if the player who picked Soulflayer does this several times in a row and asks for reimbursement several times because the card was bugged I would also consider this as 'cheating' or some other kind of infraction (fraud in this case). The bug is there for eternity...
I don't know why there is something like a Bug Blog, it is something I'd rather read when launching a newly downloaded version of Magic Online. Reading that is something that can help avoid strange situations from happening. We are not obliged to read it but if players would read it it would be better because some of the bugs or glitches can be avoided and it would allow us to actually deal with some of those (for example I was locked out of a tournament, but if I would have known about this issue I would probably manage to deal with it in those 10 minutes I have before it would drop me). In one week I managed to be a victim of all of the bugs listed on the blog. It was a very frustrating week^_^. If I would have read the blog though I could have avoided half of the bugs and my tournaments did not need to go awry.
You can blame Wizards of the Coast as you want but sometimes it would be nice if you could try to avoid crashing the client yourself. Many send me angered messages because they got the 'MainNavigation has stopped working' error which can be easily avoided.
Just my two cents about a relatively hot topic now...cheating makes me upset very much. I'd like to play a game I like and not need to deal with people who cheat. I don't like calling a judge, I don't like reporting people. Be nice to each other, play fair and help WotC find out about all the bugs there are.
Here is latest known issue I encountered^_^.
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