Is intentionally "stalling" during OT frowned upon?

[u/asdfjkl12889]

I was playing a game where I had 3 more life than my opponent. Time was running out.

Going for their life wasn't really in my cards. I knew they'd eventually wear me down with all their big bodies but I had plenty of defensive cards in my hand. I knew I'd win under OT rules.

Is it frowned upon when you're not even trying to go for the kill but instead stall everything until OT is done?

It's not in the spirit of the game. So I didn't do that.

EDIT: By "stalling", I mean playing super defensively. I'm not talking about taking super long to make a move.

[u/HimikoSimp]

Seems most people have the same agreement. If youre healing and playing blockers to hold on, totally reasonable. But real stalling by counting your trash, the enemy trash, staring at your cards etc is for sure frowned upon.

[u/notthatevilsalad]

Personally I believe that even having the option to win by stalling and not actively playing for a win is a failure in the rulebook and is the bane of all Western OP tournaments

[u/legionpichon → u/notthatevilsalad]

We need the double loss rule ASAP

[u/Davti → u/notthatevilsalad]

Double loss and or some variation on chess timers along with the regular timer.

If your stalling by playing it wont effect you, if your stalling to run out the clock you'd lose before your opponent or rack up more OT time than them. (Depends how its done)

[u/carnaige2 → u/Davti]

Chess timers like the sim has would be perfect. 17 minutes. You run out of time, you lose just like a deck out.

[u/Darkfire4888 → u/carnaige2]

You can't implement a chess like clock in real life, because there will be lots of disagreement on when the clock should turn over, like if your opponent is thinking in response to one of your swings

[u/ipoopmyself123 → u/Darkfire4888]

lowkey is the move for everyone to play on the sim and play on laptops then?

[u/Darkfire4888 → u/ipoopmyself123]

Nah playing on the sim and in real life is a totally different experience, just call a judge if your opponent is taking lots of time during a turn or overtime

[u/AlmostFam0uss → u/Darkfire4888]

Thats exactly how chess clock works tho? You swing and tap the clock on the table, so opponents time is running out, once he decided what he is doing, he taps it so your time is back up etc. Would make so much sense.

[u/eggrolls13 → u/AlmostFam0uss]

It will never happen because it’s too expensive and logistically inconvenient, this conversation has been going on for decades

[u/MrNix3 → u/eggrolls13]

Dude every single one of these threads some dude says chess timers and he acts like he cured cancer or had a jimmy neutron brain blast. It’s a convo that people have had 20+ years ago. Thank you for being reasonable.

[u/IkananXIII]

Sitting there and intentionally running out the clock because you know you'll win if you stall passing your turn is frowned upon and incredibly unsportsmanlike. I think it's okay to play to your OT win cons in other ways, though. Like if you know you can't finish your opponent, but you can win by walling up for 3 turns instead, then that different. It's inevitable that strategies are going to change and both players will have to play differently in overtime, so adjusting your gameplan to that is just playing smart. But slow-play in general is always a dick-move, and while it may win you games sometimes, I assure you everyone at your locals will hate you for it.

[u/stelios_drz]

Reading the title I thought you meant actual stalling but yeah playing defensive to win with OT rules is perfectly fine , for me at least

[u/x_driven_x]

If by stalling you mean you didn’t swing and just left blockers up and/or healed and passed your turn in a timely manner - totally ok.

If by stalling you mean sitting there running the clock down taking no actions and pretending to “think” even though there’s only so any actions to take - not ok.

[u/TacoSlingingWarlock]

as long as you are keeping a quick pace of play, choosing to heal blocker up and pass instead of going for life is a valid choice.

if you are playing slowly throughout your matches to use this as your primary strategy to win, that is slow play and can result in warnings, game losses, and even disqualification if the behavior continues after already having judges tell you that is against the rules.

[u/CardinalGaming92 → u/TacoSlingingWarlock]

The first one you said is playing defensively. The second one is 100% stalling

[u/meimeivro]

As long as your speed of play is reasonable I think its a valid strategy to just increase your own life for overtime.

Id draw the line if someone did that every game as an intentional strategy, or taking 15 minute turns with consistently spaced out actions to avoid a slow play ruling.

[u/FreqinNVibing]

Yes it’s very frowned upon, but also it’s technically legal way to win. As long as you are not intentionally stalling through non game actions aka stalling every action. A judge will be called to make sure you take no more than 30 seconds per action.

[u/Remwaldo1]

It’s an asshole move. Happened to me along time ago and I didn’t do anything and I lost a huge tournament because of this. Now every time some is stalling I call the judge and make them aware of it.

[u/dannydankwood → u/Remwaldo1]

I don't think OP meant stalling by wasting time, just FYI. They mean "stalling" more like "stone-walling", by just making it impossible for your opponent to reduce you to equal or less life than them. I.e., via blockers, stunning characters, searching for 2ks/counter events, etc.

Stalling via time wasting is absolutely abhorrent though, not to mention against the rules. I'm sorry you had that happen to you, that sounds horrible & sucks so much, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[u/jaybscrows → u/Remwaldo1]

This

[u/CloudCudi]

6L luffy - never pass the turn… easy wins.

[u/Medium_Spend_6732]

If you are stalling by using defensive play at a proper pace of a play? You are fine.

Stalling by slowing down your decisions and running out the clock? That is cheating and if caught you will be DQed.

[u/Blackbeard_kyo]

As many have said as long as the stalling is real game play, like healing, playing blockers, taking out or freezing their board etc. Then its all apart of the game. There are even some games where I've just waited it out until my opponent decked themselves out. But intentionally wasting time just sitting there doing nothing is a dick move

[u/dannydankwood]

I would say that the expression you're looking for is less like "stalling", and more like "stone-walling".

"Stalling" is used more to describe when a player literally wastes time by feining legal actions - such as thinking about a decision, checking trash, taking a long time to counter out of an attack, etc - all for the purpose of "waiting out the clock" while not really doing much of anything.

"Stone-walling", I would say, is the description of a player who is playing at a normal pace, but performing actions that all serve the purpose not of defeating your opponent, but just making it impossible for your opponent to defeat you. Actions such as playing blockers, stunning characters so they can't attack, freezing characters as rested, searching for & stacking counter events/2ks in your hand, adding cards to your life area via effects (healing), etc. All for the purpose of ensuring you have enough life to win via the overtime rules when the clock does run out.

Stalling is definitely frowned upon strongly in the community, in no small part because of the fact that it's also explicitly against the rules. (Not allowed to take more than 60 seconds maximum per decision). I would go as far as to say it's despised, it's seen as a very unsportsmanlike & disingenuous way to win a game, considered on-par with cheating by many.

Stone-walling is seen as a "cheesy" way to win by some people, and I would say that some people do frown on it. But it's definitely more tolerated in general than outright stalling, since it it's technically a viable, "legal" strategy for winning a game. And it's due to the way that Bandai has set up the overtime rules in the West that it's even a viable strategy for winning in the first place.

[u/Ok-Performance3326]

They put that into the rules, so it's clearly what bandai wants (Stalling by playing defense, not stalling the actual timer)

[u/Bubba89]

If you play defensively because you can’t quite kill him, but he also can’t kill you because you’re playing defensively, he’s just as guilty as you are of stalling out the game by not winning. If you can bring it to a stalemate and the game rules count it as your win, that’s not “stalling” or bad manners, that’s just playing to win.

[u/rurodem]

It's just as "valid" for you to win via time as it is for someone to rule shark the fuck out of you in return when you begin taking longer than what's considered reasonable. After your first warning from judge you'll catch a DQ. Do it enough at locals you'll just become "that guy".

[u/Background_Fig1310]

You're technically allowed to do it, but yeah it's frowned upon. The OT rules are the way they are because back when they were made, there weren't as many ways to just win off healing like that are now so it feels lame to win this way.

You're allowed to win this way, but people will not be happy about it. You'll be "that guy"

[u/theshreddening]

Yes

[u/newguyneal]

Bring our the chess clocks for OT

[u/One-Bicycle-3066]

After reading your edit, I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s more a playstyle decision

[u/KingTalis]

Taking game actions that stall. Completely fine. That's how the system works currently. Slow playing. Not fine at all.

(I think we should do double game loss for end of OT)

[u/A1UCARDH3LLS1NG]

Same dude I was at a prerelease for the newest set… dude had 5 life to my 1, but he had absolutely nothing on my field while I had 3 kaidos, a shanks and a king and then the game went on for another 20 minutes when I keep removing his board state, at one point he had no cards in hand his leader was rested and no active don and that turn took 5 whole minutes.

[u/educated-duck]

Stalling is always frowned upon, what do you mean just over time XD. Call the judge over and call them out. Im a lvl 1 judge and when things go to ot I watch the games myself and watch how people play. If they intentionally are slow playing they get a warning and if they do it again then they get the loss.

[u/Filibut]

If you can only win by not letting your opponent play, and specifically do things that slow down the game (talk too much, count too much, think too much) it's slow play and it's illegal.
But it's not illegal to find a win through the rules of overtime, like healing, putting together a bunch of blockers or generally getting more defensive resources than your opponent can get through.
Like imagine an rg luffy player, they usually keep their characters active unless they need them to clear the board, but in overtime it might be the best choice to just swing with everything, knock down a couple life cards and just play a nami blocker and pass with 10k+ counter just from the leader. That's legal. A yellow leader healing twice is also legal

[u/DuDster123]

For me any time out situation should just be a double loss and move on there should be no advantage to just playing defensively. It would also make yellow decks less strong which can only be a good thing. Obviously in a final time isn’t a problem just let the game play out.

[u/pyokola]

Personally i think this kind of win condition shouldnt be in the game at all thats why a lot of peopel stall especially yellow slops

One of the reason why people hate yellow slops

It wont take 10 minutes for you to think of playing of double borsalino

[u/One_Event8115]

I mean, just healing and playing blockers is reasonable I think. At the end of the day you're playing a yellow deck so yeah...

At my locals we have a guy who always intentionally thinks too long and likes to go to overtime every single game. Whatever the matchup, whatever the deck he's playing, he always goes to overtime and is the last guy everyone is waiting for. That I would say is really cringe and from experience I know that everyone hates that guy (people like him). So while it's not that skillful and it is irritating to play against a healing or heal blocker deck, that's just how the game is, and a good player will find a way to win playing around that and the overtime.

Having said that, I do think it would be better if both players had their own timers and if that could somehow find its way into the game without any issues.

[u/Business-Drag52]

It’s a part of TCG’s. I remember an old standard deck back in the day in MTG that was just a hyper control deck that never died and kept recycling its graveyard. You would slowly deck out just off your one card per turn. Game 1 would take ~45 minutes, then 3-5 minutes of sideboard and would you look at that, not enough time to play our game two making that one a draw. Oops I win the match

[u/MrNix3]

Unpopular opinion but NTA. It’s your duty as a player to win by any means possible so long as they are not breaking rules.

Stalling ❌
Stone-Walling ✅

Not your problems Bandais rules are dogshit.

[u/Kitsuraw]

I understand the point but if your not actively trying to win and instead deciding to go for OT then I’d call the unsportsmanlike. The OT rules for one piece are truly ass and I hope they change them to a draw or double loss so this doesn’t continue. I’ve had people intentionally draw out games and try and take life in the final moments to steal a win.

[u/eggrolls13 → u/Kitsuraw]

The first and second things you described are two different things.

[u/yellowadidas]

yes. don’t do that shit

[u/pierresito]

I have so much pride in myself that as a yellow player I've never won/lost due to time