Earlier today I accused fellow magic player Seth Manfield of stalling on twitter. In this post I will recount both stories I mentioned in my tweet. I’d also like to apologize as I should have had this article ready to go as soon as the ballots were sent out, but I was busy with real life. Still I felt the information was relevant to the people voting so I wanted to share it with the world ASAP. Anyway let’s dive in.
I first faced Seth Manfield in round 15 of PT Dragons of Tharkir. I haven’t heard much of him prior to that, I just knew he finished in top 8 of the previous PT in Washington D.C. We sit down for the match and he asks me if I would concede. This is a pretty common question as I was already locked for top 8 and I don’t mind him asking. I refuse to concede because a) pairings could go wrong and I can theoretically miss b) more importantly I am playing for seating, which determines play/draw in top 8 . Instead of just accepting the fact, Seth tries to convince me to concede, telling me I have a good matchup against him and that I am locked no matter what. Then he asks me: “How would you feel in my shoes?”, I reply that I just was in his shoes in the previous round vs Martin Dang, I asked for concession, he refused, I shuffled up and won my match. I then proceed to ask him: “What would you do in my shoes?” He replies: “You seem like a nice guy, so I would concede.” I don’t think much of it, refuse to concede one last time and we play out the match. I win and I go to my Czech friends and I tell them the story. They inform me that Seth was actually in my shoes at the last PT where he had not one, but three opportunities to concede to someone and he didn’t.
I first faced Seth Manfield in round 15 of PT Dragons of Tharkir. I haven’t heard much of him prior to that, I just knew he finished in top 8 of the previous PT in Washington D.C. We sit down for the match and he asks me if I would concede. This is a pretty common question as I was already locked for top 8 and I don’t mind him asking. I refuse to concede because a) pairings could go wrong and I can theoretically miss b) more importantly I am playing for seating, which determines play/draw in top 8 . Instead of just accepting the fact, Seth tries to convince me to concede, telling me I have a good matchup against him and that I am locked no matter what. Then he asks me: “How would you feel in my shoes?”, I reply that I just was in his shoes in the previous round vs Martin Dang, I asked for concession, he refused, I shuffled up and won my match. I then proceed to ask him: “What would you do in my shoes?” He replies: “You seem like a nice guy, so I would concede.” I don’t think much of it, refuse to concede one last time and we play out the match. I win and I go to my Czech friends and I tell them the story. They inform me that Seth was actually in my shoes at the last PT where he had not one, but three opportunities to concede to someone and he didn’t.
This story doesn’t bother me as much as I can handle someone being dishonest and lying to me. Personally I wouldn’t go to such lengths while asking for concessions, but it’s fine. The 2nd time I faced Seth in final rounds of PT wasn’t that pleasant though.
It’s PT Shadows over Innistrad and I get paired against Seth in the last round. My record is 11-3-1, while Seth's is 12-3. That means if he gets a draw he would be 100% in. I sit down for the match at the feature match table. I shuffle my deck for a while and then call a judge as I need to use the restroom. Seth is already at the table. I go use the restroom and I come back. At this point the match clock in feature match area which is different from the tournament clock starts. I shuffle my deck bit more and present it to my opponent. Seth now does 2 pile-shuffles even though he was at the table the whole time I was using the restroom, then does some riffle shuffles and presents to me. Then he proceeds to pile shuffle my deck, which is something no one ever does to me. At this point I realize that he’s in with a draw and what’s going on. I call the judge to inform him of this and if he could watch our match for slowplay. We start the games and Seth is playing at his usual slow pace, which is something I’m actually kind of fine with. I think his pace of play is borderline, but it’s at least consistently slow, I wish the judges were harder on him, but there isn’t much I can do about that. It does mean that I’m forced to play faster than I’d ideally like. What I’m not okay with is what happened after game 1. Seth takes *forever* to sideboard. After like 5 minutes and him being nowhere near finished, I ask the judge, if it’s okay. The judges tell him to hurry up, so after another minute he finally starts shuffling his deck. He pile shuffles 3 times and when he does the third one he drops a card so he pile shuffles again to check if he has 60 cards. At this point I’m tilting off, because the judges aren’t doing anything about it. I lose close game 2 and I get crushed in a quick game 3 where I skip some land drops. I go tilt off into the corner of the venue and I cry a little bit.
It’s pretty easy to just chalk it all up to Seth always plays and shuffles slow so he wasn’t trying to scum you, but I’ve never felt more hopeless in my Magic career and I still feel the same way. Seth knows I’ve had this issue for a while and he never once came to me to apologize or clear the situation up. I think at some point in our Magic careers we’ve all been cheated against once or twice and it’s just an awful feeling. I take my HoF voting pretty seriously, so I’ve decided to write this up to give all the voters the same information I have. I don’t really benefit from doing this, I’ve already got some pretty mean comments on social media about trying to throw shade on Seth. Obviously I still respect for Seth for his ability to play Magic. I think he’s fantastic player, but I also think he bends the rules his way from time to time and therefore he will not be on my HoF ballot. However this is my point of view, I believe Seth might feel differently and it’s up to you, the voters, to decide how to act.
I’ll be back next week with my detailed Humans primer.
Thanks for reading.
Ondrej
It’s PT Shadows over Innistrad and I get paired against Seth in the last round. My record is 11-3-1, while Seth's is 12-3. That means if he gets a draw he would be 100% in. I sit down for the match at the feature match table. I shuffle my deck for a while and then call a judge as I need to use the restroom. Seth is already at the table. I go use the restroom and I come back. At this point the match clock in feature match area which is different from the tournament clock starts. I shuffle my deck bit more and present it to my opponent. Seth now does 2 pile-shuffles even though he was at the table the whole time I was using the restroom, then does some riffle shuffles and presents to me. Then he proceeds to pile shuffle my deck, which is something no one ever does to me. At this point I realize that he’s in with a draw and what’s going on. I call the judge to inform him of this and if he could watch our match for slowplay. We start the games and Seth is playing at his usual slow pace, which is something I’m actually kind of fine with. I think his pace of play is borderline, but it’s at least consistently slow, I wish the judges were harder on him, but there isn’t much I can do about that. It does mean that I’m forced to play faster than I’d ideally like. What I’m not okay with is what happened after game 1. Seth takes *forever* to sideboard. After like 5 minutes and him being nowhere near finished, I ask the judge, if it’s okay. The judges tell him to hurry up, so after another minute he finally starts shuffling his deck. He pile shuffles 3 times and when he does the third one he drops a card so he pile shuffles again to check if he has 60 cards. At this point I’m tilting off, because the judges aren’t doing anything about it. I lose close game 2 and I get crushed in a quick game 3 where I skip some land drops. I go tilt off into the corner of the venue and I cry a little bit.
It’s pretty easy to just chalk it all up to Seth always plays and shuffles slow so he wasn’t trying to scum you, but I’ve never felt more hopeless in my Magic career and I still feel the same way. Seth knows I’ve had this issue for a while and he never once came to me to apologize or clear the situation up. I think at some point in our Magic careers we’ve all been cheated against once or twice and it’s just an awful feeling. I take my HoF voting pretty seriously, so I’ve decided to write this up to give all the voters the same information I have. I don’t really benefit from doing this, I’ve already got some pretty mean comments on social media about trying to throw shade on Seth. Obviously I still respect for Seth for his ability to play Magic. I think he’s fantastic player, but I also think he bends the rules his way from time to time and therefore he will not be on my HoF ballot. However this is my point of view, I believe Seth might feel differently and it’s up to you, the voters, to decide how to act.
I’ll be back next week with my detailed Humans primer.
Thanks for reading.
Ondrej
