Stalling, is it the same as good clock management?
by Arie Fachrisal

Gendruw has brought up an interesting subject in the forums. You can directly check the article mentioned in the link below.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8977

Basically the article is all about questioning the true definition of stalling. The author supplied us with some reasonable and valid examples to prove his point. Let's take a further look at the whole stalling thing, shall we? And see if we can define the true definition of “stalling”.

The following four examples were supplied by John Davis, you can read the in-depth situations through the link above. I feel that there's no need to further re-explain the whole situation but only in the shortest form.

Situation 1:

A Life player playing against a Pirate player. The Pirate player won 1 st game. The Life player managed to pull off his combo and get infinite amount of life. For the sake of the game, a number must be chosen, usually at insanely high number. Despite the no-win situation for the Pirate player, the Pirate player still continue to play normally. He continously atacked each turn and keep track of the life. The Life player was reported to be disgusted by this act and called for a judge for possible stalling. The game ended in a draw and since Pirate won 1 st game, the Pirate player won the match.

Was the Pirate player stalling?

To some people, it can be seen as stalling but to others, it's a legitimate way to play. The judge is correct on that situation, despite having infinite life, the Life player hasn't shown any of his game-winning cards. The main objective in Magic is to beat your opponent's life to zero. Gaining tons of life for oneself is NOT a way to win (unless you have Test of Endurance in play).

The Pirate player might be seem stalling the game. But if the Life player can't provide a sure-game-winning situation, the game should be continued as normal and the Pirate player can't be forced to concede just because he's out of winning options.

Situation 2:

The Rock deck against Mind's Desire deck. Mind's Desire won 1 st game. The Rock stabilize itself in game 2 and made sure that the Mind's Desire deck was out of winning options. Despite that, the Mind's Desire player still continue to play as normal, playing unnecessary spells and so on. The Rock player called judge to watch for stalling. The judge said there's no stalling in effect since the spells are being played at reasonable time. The Mind's Desire player did however use full 3-minute restrictions to shuffle his deck, and also spend a lot of time to decide the cards for Intuition which ended in 3 lands. Then with 4 minutes left in the game, Mind's Desire deck scooped. With so little time, Mind's Desire player put himself in a position where he was the only one who can win the 3 rd game. He then carefully shuffles his deck and doesn't present the deck to be cut by Rock player until there's 1 minute left in the clock.

Stalling or good clock time management?

My verdict: definitely stalling. When he played out all his spells, it is natural that he wants to waste time but he did it within reasons as long as the Rock player hasn't put his life down to zero yet. But to use every shuffle effects to full 3-minute shuffles *and* took a lot of time to intuition for 3 lands, it is obviously an act of stalling. With 4 minutes left, he again used up all 3 minute to shuffle. Though it's strictly legal by current rules, I can safely say that he's not the kind of opponent I'd want to play against.

Situation 3:

Rock deck vs. Reanimator deck. 1 st game victory for The Rock. The 1 st game lasted for 30 minutes. Game 2 proceeded for another twenty minutes, at which point the Reanimator player only had Show and Tell left in his deck as a win card, and the Rock player was tapped out. Here's the kicker. The Reanimator started playing slowly, and after 3 minutes into a particular turn, the Rock player called for a judge. The Rock player had a next-turn win on the board. The Reanimator took a 10-minute turn ended with Show and Tell for Akroma (and win the game). The round ended with a draw as there's very little remaining time for game 3.

The questions posed were: did the Reanimator stall the game to ensure a victory? Should the Rock player have just conceded? Was the Reanimator player justified in thinking through the game-winning turn?

Let's be sure in one thing before I answer these provocative questions: there's a HUGE difference between stalling and slow thinking. In my point of view, the Reanimator player definitely stalled the game. The Rock player shouldn't concede since he never have any knowledge whether or not the game-winning card was in Reanimator's hand all along or not. And the Reanimator should NOT be justified to get a 10-minute game-winning turn.

Situation 4:

Scepter Chant vs. UG Madness. Scepter Chant won 1 st game in 30 minutes. UG Madness won board control in game 2 but began holding back the win to kill time off the clock. UG Madness player went for the win when there were only 5 minutes left in the round. Pre-game shuffles and stuffs, there's only 1 minute left in the round when the Scepter player began to take his turn. Scepter player sacrifice a Flooded Strand, then took a minute to decide whether to fetch for a Plains or an Island from his deck. Due to end of round time, the 5-turn clock is initiated in effect. Situations happenned and when it resolves, the UG Madness could've win the game if he gets another turn.

The questions were if the Scepter player deserves the draw and if the Madness player should've called for a judge during the 1-minute fetchland situation? I'd say that the Scepter Chant player was definitely stalling and a minute to decide for a Plains or an Island is outrageous.

Okay, now we got that over with, you as a reader must be curious on what base do I use to define which is stalling and which is not. Heck, I'm also curious.

First, we need to know that Magic is NOT a game like chess. Chess clock in Magic might never be used due to the complicated nature of Magic's turns of effects/priorities. In Chess, a player can use his own time in his turns. In Magic, there are things caled “respond” or “counter” or stuffs like that. It will be a hassle to pinch back the clock forth and back to supply the required time for the change of priorities. Thus we must accept that Magic players have to share the time clock together. Note the word “share”. That's the key in understanding fully when one's stalling and when one's not.

Usually there are 40-60 minutes for each round, depending on the format you play. This equal roughly to 20-30 minutes for each player to use in the game to think, call for play, shuffle, etc. Let's say it's a 60-minute round. Then each player is entitled to have roughly 30 minutes in their disposal for their own personal use. Right? Wrong.

The fact remains that shared clock can never be used to quantify which player's using up the most time. Shared clock means that whenever a player took a longer time to think, he's eating up the time off his opponent. Doing it consecutively within several turns, that means he'll use up double time than the opponent can use. Ridicilous? Not really. When you begin to purposely take longer time than needed to decide your next move and conciously aware that the opponent will run out of the shared time that you're selfishly hoarding, you are definitely stalling. Unfortunately, it's all in the state of your mind. Noone can actually prove nor provide a secured definition of stalling due to this situation. And bad examples of stalling or killing off clock time WILL still happen from time to time.

But I'm playing slow deck…

Sure, slow decks required more precise decision and sharp analysis of board situation. Combo decks such as Mind's Desire also took a lot of time to resolve all the spells and combo before the actual game-winning card might even show up. But is it a fair excuse that slow deck or combo deck player is allowed more time to use than the other player? If you're playing a combo/slow deck, then you should be able to think quicker how to play the deck. You are NOT entitled to use up 45 minutes of 60-minute round just because you're using 1-minute to fetch a land, using 3-10 minute turn to decide whether it's time to try to pull off your combo. Again, sadly it's legal but you won't make a very good competitor. You basically have a sore loser attitude or a bad winner attitude, which one is it depends on the outcome of your games.

Contrary to the Bill Gates' Operating Softwares, human brains CAN actually multi-task. When it's opponent's turn, you should be doing analysis on board, decide what to do if you don't draw the card you needed in the next turn and whether to block or not. You shouldn't be start thinking about what to do *after* you draw the card.

True story: a fellow player told me this. In a Champions of Kamigawa limited tourney, he played against a player. He used his creatures to attack. The defending player had no blockers and was all tapped out. The defending player was asking to respond and took some time to think before actually letting the damage assigned and dealt. If you are not familiar with CoK cards, let me assure you that if you're tapped out, you don't have the luxury to play anything. Shoals are in Betrayers, not CoK. Was it necessary to ask for time to think like that? It would be different if the defending player has at least a blocker and he hesitates to block and which one to block. But tapped out and no blocker, stalling or good time management? Or just plain stupid?

Some players have made crude remarks to my extreme hate for stalling. They said if my principle is correct then players are encouraged to play decks with lower difficulty curve, such as sligh and such. My response in this article is, choose a deck you're familiar and can play good in. Just because your opponent is playing a sligh deck, it doesn't mean that you expect him to be only entitled for 20 minutes off the 60-minute round. Though there's no way for any of us to quantify the time being taken by a certain player, as humans, we can sense when and if a player is trying to taking advantage of the time to his favor.

But I'm a slow and precise player…

This is a true-life situation that I personally have encounter. I'm playing against an opponent known for his “slow play” yet this is one of the best players in the place I hang out. We're playing booster draft and I was paired against him. It was the 1 st game, we played out the several beginning turns normally. Then after turn 5 or turn 6, he began to take 1-2 minute per turn consecutively. The board position was to his favor. Whenever I'm done, he'll ask for response, then think for another minute before finally use the Journeyer's Kite effect to search for a land. Things went forth and back like that. I somehow got to play out my cards and managed to turn things around to my favor. Here's where things get interesting. He still use 1-2 minute per turn. But when it's my turn to attack, he use another minute to think whether to block and which creatures will block. Then whenever I'm playing a spell, he'll ask for response time, which will take roughly half a minute. Since it's a small game and it's only 40-minute round, I asked for judge to watch the game as I can't afford a 0-0 situation in limited where my board is winning. He scooped several turns after that.

In a recent tourney, I've seen the same player played with 0-0 result in a 45-minute round (also in limited) but he was playing against another player. Is it mere coincidence? Is he a slow thinker? Could be. But the real question: is “slow thinking” justifiable to eat up the time clock? I don't think so. We're all entitled to share the clock time but within reasonable measures.

So stalling is…

Basically Magic is a game that was meant to be played without time limitation. The best games of Magic is where you play the games without having to fear losing time and ended up in 1-0 situation where you needed the extra turn to get the 1-1 draw.

I find myself playing the best games of Magic against people who plays normally. By what I mean playing normally is they don't worry about the round time and use their time to think and play normally. I also play normally. If time ran out during our unfinished games regardless of our score, we'd end it within 5-turn rules and call it a good game. If a player (either me or opponent) started to stall after a 1 st game win, it's no longer a good game of Magic that I enjoy. It's a good strategical part of a player but not that strategic that it fits the true fun spirit of Magic games.

Conciously eating up the clock for unneeded decisions/thinking/bluffs is definitely an act of stalling in my dictionary. Some arrogant selfish fools will camouflage their act of stalling in the name of “good clock management” to make themselves sound so profesional and elite.

Good clock management

What I call a good clock management is when you play the games of Magic using considerable and reasonable amount of time to think and play and not wasting the precious shared round time. Whenever people are playing against me, they sometimes complained that I play too fast. I am a fast thinker and player, I dislike wasting time. Whenever I'm in tough spot, I'd use a healthy 3-4 minute turn to truly think how to turn things around. But they can't complain because I played out my previous turns with such speed that practically I was using my fair share of the time. Now that's what I called as a good clock management.

Conclusion

In big tournaments, there will be people who will practice good clock management in order to seal up the victory and deny thinking time to the opponent. Heck, the stake are high in big tournaments and all legal stuffs are made to be bent. So what are we as players ought to do? I can't say that we should play normally while others are taking advantage of the so-called “good clock management” technique and leave you with very few minutes with critical decisions to make. Unfortunately, it all depends on you and the persons you will be playing against. In big tournaments, the stakes are high, stalling will be a luxury service made available to those who can get the 1 st win. Big tournaments will provide stronger temptation to stall in order to eat up the time clock and deny your opponent the precious time he need to use. In the end, it all depends on you whether to stall or not. It's definitely NOT a very sportsman thing to do but hey, it's legal and can easily be camouflaged as “good clock management” and “just using my fair share of 3-minute shuffle”. But you won't make a very good person to play with and I'm sure your charm will get you around with so many new friends who adores you for your L33T skills of good clock management.

Just keep in mind, a minute is a very long time. Don't believe me? Try ask your friend would he like a vanilla or chocolate ice cream and he waits for a minute before he responds. 3-minute intuition for 3 lands, 1-minute fetchland, and so on and so on are forms of so-called good clock management techniques to some of you who favors such thing. All I can say is whoever you are, let me know about it when I'm playing against you and I'll give you a taste of your own medicine. Some people will never learn unless they've been on the other end of the stick.

Bottomline, remember these when you're playing in a tournament-level game:

•  You're playing on a shared time clock

•  Take your time to think but don't take forever

•  Always think how would you feel if you're in your opponent's position and he's in your position. Would you appreciate and kiss him for stalling the game? Would you give your opponent a pat in the back and a good ol' handshake for masterfully stall the second game to ensure 1-0 victory?

•  No such thing as good time clock management.

Keep in mind that all the things written here are the sole opinions of mine and mine only, it has nothing to do with www.kartumagic.com, except that they host this article but it doesn't mean that they actually agree or disagree with this article. I hope you enjoy this random act of babbling.

Post your arguments, feedbacks, critics, and comments here.