It was the Watergate hotel.

That why things are, incorrectly, called something-gate.

Dezani probably shouldn’t have taken the information offered to him (if you were really hyperbolic, you could say it was fruit of the poisonous tree but whatever). I agree that the majority of the fault lies with the sleazy dealer who offered him the information in the first place.

And you are also dead on with the point about scouting, there is nothing wrong with it. Scouting is used in sports all across the world. I don’t know of a football club worth its salt that doesn’t have a raft of scouts on the payroll. E-sports teams (specifically League of Legends) will scout their opponents to know what to pick and ban against them. Is that unjust? No, of course not.

If Dezani get’s sanctioned for this then I think Wizards need to ease off with the banhammer a bit. The better course would be to find this dealer and put him out of commission.

Ah, the old ‘What I did was not explicitly dis-allowed by existing regulations!’ defense. Always convincing. Now, how one gets from ‘I did nothing specifically designated as wrong’ to ‘I did something commendable’ is a mystery to me – it seems like there would be a wide distance between the two, no?

As for your other points: it was not a false dichotomy, it was a joke at his expense. Re; the ‘ethics of standing there’ or whatever – Given what PV has said, it seems clear to any rationally minded person that PV would not have continued with his purchases with Dezani, or any other of his competitors, standing right there while he did it. This one is not hard to puzzle out for yourself.

The fact that Dezani’s story on this has shifted around to something approximating ‘the dealer came to me with the information and I had to stop him’ is, in my opinion, a clear demonstration that he himself understands that he did something untoward. Why shouldn’t he be boasting about this commendable, virtuous act to all who would hear? Dezani, the paragon of humility.

If you actually believe that this behavior is ‘commendable’, I would suggest you go defend said commendable behavior against PV’s attacks on his twitter feed. Because if you honestly believe what you claim to believe, PV is doing something approaching the slander of an upstanding citizen and you should feel obligated to stand up for Dezani’s righteous action.

If you can’t tell already, I think your position is laughably absurd, and I have doubted many times over the course of writing this comment whether you actually hold these opinions or if I am just feeding a troll.

Just playing the devil’s advocate.

I’m fairly certain that is a false dichotomy at the beginning of your statement. I understand your view point however but consider this, this is a competitive event and he broke no rules, in my opinion this is something everyone should have been doing not just him. Is it wrong to stand by a vendor as someone make a purchase? Then why should it be morally or explicitly wrong to do this, where should the line be drawn? The only real thing that could be done about this is vendors adopting a privacy policy, till then I commend his innovation.

“I honestly think his behavior is not only fine but commendable and should set an example”

Are you trolling me right now?

The reason he’s not just some random grinder is because he goes above and beyond. I honestly think his behavior is not only fine but commendable and should set an example. If it makes you win and its not against the rules you have all the reasons in the world to go for it.

As for the vendors I could see peaple being a bit angry about this but having a few vendor friends of my own I know this happens quite often at lower levels and is fine because nothing is at stake, but hey if you want to risk buisnes by being ‘that guy’ who’s gonna tell the tournament what deck your on then more power to ya.

If it’s unacceptable behavior then it should be codified in the rules as such.

Until it is, then while it’s completely understandable for people to disagree with certain behavior, those are just opinions and not something on which to actually sanction a player.

If Dezani is comfortable with accepting the prestige of being the ‘player of the year’ or whatever, I think it is perfectly reasonable that we, as an mtg community, ask him to be a model of sportsmanship. He is not just some random grinder trying to eke out percentages wherever they can as long as it is not formally dis-allowed. He is a professional, a notable and prominent member of a community, and has been formally honored by that community for his excellence.

We should be holding him to a higher standard. If other prominent members of the community state unequivocally that this is not acceptable behavior, I feel confident that this is not too onerous of a demand.

None of the defenses offered for Dezani are convincing to me. PV’s contention is that this is distinct from scouting because a) it was before deck submission, not after, and b) it involved uncovering private information about purchases, rather than public information. The effects are compounded for this event specifically by the fact that this tournament is c) abnormally small, and d) teams cluster around the same list. PV is especially upset because e) a large part of his personal contribution was in the manner of a transformational SB Gifts package, which is uniquely vulnerable to this sort of spying.

I don’t see how general statements of ‘people scout all the time!’ are responsive to these particular points.

I agree w/ this expectation — but that’s not on Dezani if a specific vendor is willing to give that vendor up.

The vendors should be called out here, not the player that’s taking freely-given information.

So from this perspective, I believe it is nobody’s business what I or anyone else bought from a specific vendor. If I wish to disclose what I bought from where that’s perfectly fine. But I don’t need a vendor advertising what I’m buying from them. It’s just not professional.

Think about that for a minute.

Scouting, in all of its forms, has always been completely legal even if people do get butthurt about it. If anyone wants to get worked up, I think it should be at dealers who are sharing the information.

Why? Because players clearly have some expectation that their transaction would be private (else why the outrage?). That’s the core of the issue … but it seems like the anger is misplaced (probably because they don’t feel like they can effectively go after the vendor).

There’s never anything wrong to ask for information though and Dezani’s just shooting an angle that seems fine here.