Limited(sealed) formats and fair gameplay suggestion

[Tocasia]

I noticed when playing sealed, a MTG format where you open a set number of packs and build a 40 card minimum deck from it, there is no way to know if you opponent is playing honestly, like:  adding cards to the pool, opening more than the set number of packs, etc.  I also noticed that there is verify deck button that lights red when your deck is containing cards that were not in your pool. Is it possible for the the log to state to all players if the deck is verified upon loading the deck? Also, is it possible for the log to show when a player opens a pack and the amount of packs that were opened? I think this would be the best way to ensure honest game play and it even opens the door for more serious sealed tournaments, as well as a higher standard of competitive sealed play on lackey.

[Trevor]

In order to have actual security with that sort of thing, I will need to create a very complicated system. It's a lot more complicated than it seems. Until then, you will need to trust your opponents. Playing with real cards, there are also lots of ways to cheat, so needing a bit of trust is nothing new.

[Saethori]

Possible option: Deck checksums.

Obviously, any limited deck has to be saved to a deck file in order to be played. So the same deck will have the same checksum in any game (unless modified by sideboarding, anyways). So all that would be required, to curb cheating, is a "report checksum" command that reports your current deck's file checksum to the game log... the same checksum algorithm Lackey already uses for plugin updates. That way, the players can report the checksums to whoever is organizing the limited event, and those organizers will be able to determine if someone's deck checksum is different for any given game (thus indicating they're not using the same deck).

A similar mechanism was used back for Apprentice, back when it was the only online TCG-playing program, and it seemed to work well.

[Trevor]

A person could always make multiple card pools, and pick the one they like. The only way I can think to do it is to use a website like people use for drafting, one that will manage and limit people and handle various things so people can't circumvent the various security measures.

There are a lot of things that can be done, but almost all of them can be thwarted in some way. This is true in real life too.

[Nava]

Running sealed tournaments is quite easy with LackeyCCG.  We do run quite a few Sealed Deck tournaments in Startrek CCG 1E and we have found that this works best: One person volunteers as a "TD" and does not play in that specific tournament.  This TD generates and distributes all card pools and can theoretically check (by players request, but that hasn't happened till now) if a contestants deck is built from a "legal" card pool.

Nava

[Trevor]

Running sealed tournaments is quite easy with LackeyCCG.  We do run quite a few Sealed Deck tournaments in Startrek CCG 1E and we have found that this works best: One person volunteers as a "TD" and does not play in that specific tournament.  This TD generates and distributes all card pools and can theoretically check (by players request, but that hasn't happened till now) if a contestants deck is built from a "legal" card pool.

Nava

Well, if you are going to assume players are going to build their decks right there, then I could make things more cheat proof. I will have each pack added to the pool be reflected in the log. I will also display the opponent's card pool count and checksum and verify the cards haven't changed.

[Tocasia]

I could make things more cheat proof. I will have each pack added to the pool be reflected in the log. I will also display the opponent's card pool count and checksum and verify the cards haven't changed.

^^ This is what Im talking about. Next update?

[Trevor]

I could make things more cheat proof. I will have each pack added to the pool be reflected in the log. I will also display the opponent's card pool count and checksum and verify the cards haven't changed.

^^ This is what Im talking about. Next update?

I just added the log message, including how many packs and what kind were added, including the total in the pool as a result. I haven't implemented checksums, but that can wait for later.