New Tournament Policy Confusion (Tournament Policy: Card Verification)

[Atypical-Abbie]

I just read Konami's recent article on card verification, and it kind of irks me the wrong way, because it feels like it's messing with a system in a way that doesn't really solve anything. I suggest you read the article and policy documents for yourselves, but I'll explain it as I have read in, because I may have misunderstood something, and I'm just trying to figure out what they intend.

 

Article: https://yugiohblog.konami.com/articles/?p=9880

Policy Document: https://img.yugioh-card.com/en/gameplay/penalty_guide/Official_KDE-US_YGO_TCG_Tournament_Policy_v2.pdf

 

So, what basically this article states is that you can no longer check your opponent's private card information, except when a card effect specifically allows you to. This means that a card like Mind Crush will work differently, should the opponent not have the declared card in their hand, as now you may no longer look at your opponent's hand to verify this.

 

The same goes for the Deck, like using Reinforcement of the Army, but your opponent realizes that they have no Warrior monster they can add, but you no longer are allowed to check their Deck to verify this.

 

The idea of the change is to avoid confusion, since the cards don't state your opponent may check, and that cards such as Mind Crush cannot be used for alternate means, by simply naming a card that they most likely don't have, so that you can get a look at your opponent's hand. This, I can understand, it is odd that you would be allowed to do this when the card never states you can look at their hand, but the problem in this is that you now have to rely on your opponent telling the truth. In fact, you may not even ask a judge to verify this check, as seen in the example from the policy document below:

 

"Duelist A activates Mind Crush, and declares Effect Veiler. Duelist B says she does not have Effect Veiler in her hand. Duelist A does not get to see Duelist B’s hand to verify. Duelist A cannot call a judge to verify Duelist B’s hand unless there is supportable evidence that your opponent may be cheating or that there may be a valid Deck-related issue."

 

There is an exception here, as you can see, that is in cases of cheating or Deck-related issues, whatever that means is anyone's guess, since they don't seem to specify what a Deck-related issue is, but they do state that a case where the Mind Crush player would know that a card would be in their hand, as seen below:

 

Duelist A activates Pot of Duality and adds a revealed Effect Veiler to her hand. The game continues for several turns, and Duelist A does not use Effect Veiler. Duelist B activates Mind Crush and declares Effect Veiler. Duelist A states there is no Effect Veiler in her hand. Duelist B knows that Effect Veiler was added to Duelist A’s hand and knows it has not been played. It is acceptable to call a judge to investigate.

 

While it makes sense to verify when you know that your opponent is lying to you, you now have to trust your opponent is telling the truth should you not know the card. This to me doesn't work, as a player would always want to confirm that Mind Crush didn't actually hit anything, and previously this was very simple, you just look at what they have. So calling a judge to verify isn't allowed, except when you know what they have, making your opponent easily able to cheat in other cases, and I simply do not understand how this would solve anything, it just created a whole other problem.

 

But that's just my opinion, what do you think of this, and is my understanding of this even correct in the first place? Please let me know, as this is quite a big change, as it is something that is likely to happen a lot, since players make mistakes often, and even if they don't, there are cards and situations that will cause something like this to happen, even if they didn't intend for it to.