Tourniment Rules

[Klaxas]

lol the video tape thing would be interesting except maybe only for the last round or two of a tourny and if someone cheats they forefit.  maybe just have judges available whos job it is to verify if an enchantment is mandatory or not.  that might be the simplest without altering the rules or balance.

[jcbbjjttt]

I think one thing that might help is to place some kind of marker on face down enchantments after an incantation or enchantment is played on the target and another when an attack is made. This way, you will be reminded to flip them face up if they are triggered and later, you will have evidence that the chance for trigger has passed if they attempt to reveal it later.

Of course, this is not fool proof as someone wishing to cheat could tell the judge that whatever they are claiming is false. This is something that is unavoidable. If someone wants to lie, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

[Vadi88]

First I was going to say recording is the best, but it's probably very expensive. Maybe with webcams and a computer you can build a cheaper system (I don't know how it works or is it working), players can use their too.

And I saw the token system. First I thought it's good, cheapest but I find problems: If you have multiple hidden enchantments you have to put tokens for all of them.
My resolve: with sleeves you can put in, at the front of the card the "attacked" or "used incantation/enchantment" tokens (papers).

[piousflea]

I think one thing that might help is to place some kind of marker on face down enchantments after an incantation or enchantment is played on the target and another when an attack is made. This way, you will be reminded to flip them face up if they are triggered and later, you will have evidence that the chance for trigger has passed if they attempt to reveal it later.

Of course, this is not fool proof as someone wishing to cheat could tell the judge that whatever they are claiming is false. This is something that is unavoidable. If someone wants to lie, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

I like this. A token system could be foolproof and isn't as difficult as it sounds

Keep two piles of paperclips, one red and one blue. Whenever a unit is affected by an Attack, clip a red paperclip to all facedowns enchantments on it. When it is affected by a hostile nonattack spell, clip a blue paperclip to the enchantments. Or if you only have plain paperclips, make a difference between left sided and right sided paperclips.

Voila. Any non revealed enchant with a blue paperclip CANNOT legally be a Nullify or Reflect Magic. If its revealed later, destroy it without effect.

Also, the paperclip solution would help to convey information. If my opponent Mage has two facedown enchants, and then I fireball him and he flips neither, I know that neither of those two enchants are a Block or Reverse Attack. By papercliping it, I won't forget that information later in te game, and my opponent knows that I have that information.

[ringkichard]

Part of the way WotC handles this is by tracking warnings and penalties through the DCI number/registration that all players use to register for tournaments. If a player accumulates too many warnings, he or she can be disqualified or sanctioned. This helps prevent the "two free cheats" otherwise inherent in the warning system.  

The way to handle a disagreement about a face down enchantment is to give both players a "disputed playstate" warning and then track those warnings across tournaments. Everyone will get a few, but cheaters will get more. So will sloppy players, but the system will probably help them tighten up their play, so that may be a feature, not a bug.

--
If technical solutions are an option, we might be able to borrow a trick from Warmachine: you can write on gloss card sleeves with a dry erase marker.  Just make a dot of the appropriate color on the back of the enchantment's sleeve: red for attack, purple for incantation, etc.

Alternately, records could be kept on pre-printed pads of paper with pre-printed checkboxes for each enchantment.

--EDIT--
If we're feeling really snazzy, we could pre-print those checkboxes right on the back of the card-sleeves.