Chapter 181. Yu-Gi-Oh Cheating-by-Mouth Exposed! Counter-Stealing and "Clear Conscience"!
On the 5D's side, Kalin Kessler fell into an awkward silence.
Thankfully, Yusei Fudo teased him a bit.
Everyone relaxed.
Kalin definitely isn't that kind of person!
How could he possibly be using an Infernity Deck and Set a monster from his hand into the Spell & Trap Zone?
Over at GX's Duel Academy—
Professor Vellian Crowler drew plenty of attention.
After all, the Ancient Gear archetype's Field Spell, Geartown, was also included in the "cheating-by-mouth" talk!
"Mamma mia! Don't look at me!"
"I, Professor Vellian Crowler, always duel aboveboard!"
"I would never use such despicable means!"
Crowler shouted a few times.
Only then did the students withdraw their stares.
Right!
What kind of person is Professor Crowler?
Don't they know by now?
Besides!
In the freshman tournament,
Crowler lost to Jaden Yuki.
In fact,
at Duel Academy,
Crowler isn't at the very top level.
There's no reason to talk about him cheating.
In the short video,
the progress bar had only reached two-thirds.
Which meant—
there were still three minutes left of "cheating-by-mouth" methods!
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "Alright, having watched the methods above!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "I believe you now have a preliminary idea of 'cheating' and 'cheating-by-mouth'!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "It's all just using improper means to obtain victory!"
"The remaining methods are the same!"
"Let's continue!"
"Cheating method! [Counter-Steal Cards]!"
"This targets the Bathroom OTK!"
"Why?"
"First, a quick recap: Bathroom OTK is an offline trick where, within the 40-minute round, you spend about 39 minutes in the bathroom and then come back to run out the clock to win."
"At first glance it seems unbeatable, but there are many counters."
"For example, start with your opponent's Deck count—Yu-Gi-Oh requires at least 40 cards in the Deck. That's the rule!"
"If you enter a tournament with fewer than 40, it's a violation!"
"So here's your chance: you like going to the bathroom?"
"You want to take a half-hour number two?"
"No problem. While you're gone, 'steal' one or even a dozen cards from your Deck—sounds reasonable, right?"
"When you come back and try to perform Bathroom OTK!"
"The counter player can call a judge to count the Deck. If it's under 40, you lose for an illegal Deck!"
"Of course, this isn't foolproof!"
"To counter the counter-steal, Bathroom OTK duelists found an answer!"
"They pretend to go to the bathroom but actually hide among spectators to watch their table!"
"If the opponent steals, they jump out and call the judge to get them penalized for theft."
"But the counter-steal duelists devised a new tactic!"
"They pretend to steal a card to lure the 'bathroom' player into revealing themselves, either to force play to continue or to prove the Bathroom OTK scheme."
"As the saying goes, the higher the road, the higher the trick—these two playstyles keep outdoing each other."
"And so, Bathroom OTK and Counter-Steal split into two factions, and tournament duelists began a fierce battle of wits!"
"One side exhausts every effort to spend 39 minutes in the bathroom without fail!"
"The other side uses every method to drag them back to the table."
"At this point, I have to complain!"
"Did you forget this is a card game?!"
"Do you really need to make it so convoluted and troublesome?"
"So scheming that, if I didn't know better, I'd think I was in a royal harem!"
"I don't get it. What do you card sharks think?"
Numb!
Totally numb!
After hearing this wave of antics,
duelists from every world were speechless.
Seriously?
Who remembers this is a card game?
All that just to win—
that's something!
In the DM world—
even Solomon Muto, who rarely spoke, couldn't stand it anymore!
"Ah! Young people these days!"
"How can you become so ruthless just to win a Duel!"
"This isn't a Shadow Game!"
"The loser won't have their soul dragged into a TV like me!"
"Is it worth it?"
Solomon's remarks left Maximillion Pegasus awkward.
Right.
These aren't Shadow Games.
There's no need to make victory this complicated!
They understood the high-tier offline scene less and less.
If everyone is that dirty,
might as well play boxing Duels!
In ARC-V's world—
even they couldn't hold back their emotions!
What is all this?
Dueling!
This is Dueling!
Do you need to make it this troublesome?
I'm convinced!
Truly convinced!
Yuya Sakaki, Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri were all slack-jawed!
Even they
had never heard of a major tournament
that was all dirty tricks!
Why even hold such tournaments?
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "Of course, just when you think this is the bottom line."
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "Offline duelists will show you a lower one!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "For example, [Team-Up Cheating]!"
"This doesn't mean official 2-on-2 Tag Duels!"
"It means people outside the match send signals or reveal info like the opponent's hand or Set cards!"
"Where there are tournaments, there are spectators. Between 2008 and 2012, there was even a case of emailing an opponent's hand to the player during a match!"
"There were also cases of handing needed cards to a participant from behind mid-match."
"So if your opponent suddenly puts a hand behind their back, be careful!"
"They might be about to palm a card!"
"Some duelists also use misdirection!"
"Distract the opponent to sneak in small moves!"
"Slip a card from the Graveyard into the hand, or send a card from the hand to the Graveyard!"
"Some even use active diversion."
"One duelist Xyz Summoned Number 100: Numeron Dragon, then politely asked whether the opponent knew its effect."
"When the opponent said no, he handed over the card for 'effect checking'!"
"Then he peeked at the top card of his own Deck—and quietly placed it on the bottom!"
"He secretly changed what he would draw next turn!"
"These are all ways to cheat—or to palm/swap cards!"
By this point—
duelists from every world could no longer sit still!
That was it!
The more they watched, the more helpless offline Dueling felt!
It's like hiding cards in your waistband—
but the clever part here is scattering the opponent's attention!
If you pull it off, it just might work!
In the DM world—
after hearing about this "team-up" cheat,
every duelist
turned to look at Esper Roba.
Esper Roba was so embarrassed he wanted to curl his toes into a three-bedroom apartment.
"Yes, yes! That's him! Esper Roba! I know him! He used this method to cheat!"
"Oh! I remember! In Battle City he said he had psychic powers to know the opponent's hand!"
"Tch! It was an earpiece feeding him tips! Disgusting! Who knew our world had a duelist like that!"
"Luckily, with advancing tech, these little tricks have mostly disappeared, right?"
With the old guard chatting,
Esper Roba, well, caught fire again.
Black fire is still fire!
He immediately replaced Weevil Underwood as the next target of… greetings.
Duelists from other worlds all twitched at the corners of their mouths!
Why does the DM world keep producing talent like this?
Another Esper Roba!
Looks like the DM scene needs improvement!
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "Alright, let's continue with the next topic!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "The next one is called ['Clear Conscience']!"
"Simply put—"
"Yu-Gi-Oh matches are Best-of-Three, so there is a Side Deck!"
"After each game, you can swap a certain number of cards between the Main Deck and the Side Deck—"
"to adapt to different situations. If the opponent is a combo swarm deck, put in Nibiru, the Primal Being."
"If the opponent is a stun/control pile, Side in back-row removal!"
"This system was meant to make construction more flexible, but it inspired some duelists' new ideas."
"For example, in Game 1 against Zoodiac, a player pulled out Dinowrestler Pankratops and suppressed the opponent smoothly."
"But when the decklists were later published, Pankratops wasn't in their Main Deck at all—it was in the Side Deck!"
"This kind of change must be reported; you can't alter the configuration at will!"
"Doing so is a violation."
"Here's the kicker: when the opponent learned of it and protested!"
"That duelist righteously argued, 'It was just an operational mistake. I have a clear conscience,' and so on!"
"Like, 'Putting aside the facts, even if I'm 99% at fault, isn't the organizer 1% at fault too?'"
"With that shameless 'clear conscience'—"
"the phrase quickly became a meme throughout Duel circles!"
"As for me, I've never seen such a face-less duelist!"
"How about you card sharks?"
Never!
Truly never!
After hearing this description of cheating, duelists everywhere were stunned!
They basically understood the purpose of the Side Deck!
Which is to say—
that duelist swapped without reporting!
That's clearly a violation—no question!
But that last bit…
even the old guard were left dumbfounded!
Yugi Muto slowly took a deep breath, trying to convince himself that most duelists are still normal.
Jaden Yuki exhaled, even more certain of the righteousness of using HERO.
Yusei Fudo let out a heavy sigh—he had seen duelists like that, but had never heard speeches like that.
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "Think that's all for 'clear conscience'?"
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "No, no, no!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Classic Collection: "There are more cases!"
"Because each printed Yu-Gi-Oh card differs and the stock varies, the stiffness can be different!"
"Which means an experienced duelist can lightly press a card and roughly judge its rarity!"
"Therefore, touching an opponent's cards is a serious violation."
"Yet there was a player who kept feeling cards during a Duel to gauge thickness!"
"Or, while shuffling, he touched the opponent's card and deliberately dropped it before continuing; he even tried to snatch a card from the opponent's hand."
"That snatch was recorded on tournament footage and was dubbed the 'Clear-Conscience Magician's Hand.'"
"Also, trying to take back declared steps isn't allowed by tournament policy!"
"But some duelists exploit ambiguous wording to 'rewind time.'"
"For example, after an opponent uses a card, they tell the judge the opponent drew without declaring they'd entered the Main Phase, to time-rewind them!"
"Technically, if they didn't declare entry, they're still in Draw/Standby!"
"Another case: an Infernity player showed the opponent that they had drawn Infernity Archfiend!"
"The opponent immediately flipped Royal Oppression, a Continuous Trap!"
"Its effect lets either player pay 800 Life Points to negate a Special Summon or an effect that would Special Summon, and destroy it."
"Obviously, that was meant to counter Infernity Archfiend!"
"But the player said, 'I haven't declared any effect yet—I only showed you what I drew. Don't activate things on your own, okay?'"
"So he called for a rollback, then activated Giant Trunade to bounce all Set cards to the hand—"
Yu-Gi-Oh!
"and only then continued his play."
"Of course… all with a 'clear conscience.'"
"As for me—no way I could do that."
…What?!
You can do that?
Wow!
Must be a Millennium Key—
rewind time, huh?
The key point!
That duelist acted completely justified!
As if it were totally normal!
Duelists across the worlds were speechless!
In VRAINS—
they "learned a lot," to say the least.
It was their first time seeing
duelists commit violations so righteously.
"As expected! Our Link-era world!"
"Our duelists don't mess with cheating!"
Takeru Homura spoke lazily.
After hearing all this, he had a good laugh.
So many cheating incidents—
that's… educational.
"Mm. Where there's competition, there will be cheating."
"It can't be avoided."
"What surprised me most is still Bathroom OTK."
"As for the person who invented it… I don't know whether to call them smart or call them…"
Yusaku Fujiki watched as the short video ended.
He was thoughtful.
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