After all, nothing is completely random.

I notice that most of your examples of why pile shuffling is bad revolve around starting with a known deck, but how about if you just scoop up your cards riffle once or twice and then pile shuffle? this is in terms of you randomizing your deck (since you’re taking an “unknown” quantity and messing it around more? no idea on this one). Not in terms of catching a cheater who will be starting with a stacked deck.

second
“Because as we saw with the marbles, the more you randomize, the more mixed the cards become. If you randomize really, really, well… No land clumps. Spells are distributed. Et cetera.”

is not random, it’s an even distribution (though to be fair, most magic things mean some kind of pseudo randomness that is close enough) . While not impossible proper randomization can in fact produce large land clumps etc. taking your marble example only with an infinite number of them and equal probability. just because it’s 50/50 doesn’t mean that after some kind of equivalent sample that mirrors 6-7 riffles you won’t have huge clumps.

This is probably a huge problem for judges and probably why it is hard to catch cheaters (unless they are blatantly doing stacking/pile shuffling tricks… then umm… watch them or something…) as unless the judges are deck checking them regularly there is not a reasonable way to tell if the even distribution/clumps is a fluke.

“simply riffling enough will get you to the point that you are nearly stacked”
If riffling does in fact get you to the point where you are basically stacked I’d say it is stacking… but I suspect that it just gives you basically randomness and that will gives you “normal” draws with regular probability.

not harshing… big fan. It’s just the even distribution = randomness that bothers me

People piling in even numbered piles, or fives, are the ones who are most apt to be doing something dodgy. The reason I’d recommend seven piling if you are looking to pile is that it is the lowest convenient number which is very difficult to create a stacking pattern around.

While I know that it is quite common, it is a *very very* bad idea to ever do riffle shuffles face up. If you can riffle properly, it shouldn’t produce significant wear on cards, such that they need to be bent back into shape. Effectively, one face up riffle completely invalidates all shuffling that happened prior to it, as it leaves you aware of the location of specific cards in your deck. There have already been high profile game losses on this, and they are one of the few areas where judges seem confident in handing out shuffling penalties.

While shuffling it is considered good courtesy to look away from the deck you are shuffling slightly (so that you can demonstrate that you aren’t running the peeks). Learn to riffle such that this isn’t a problem, and then spend your time shuffling your opponent’s deck shuffling your own.

Over the course of a match, it is easy to get a feel for the rhythm of your opponent’s shuffling. If that rhythm breaks, it will normally be for a reason. I am very wary of opponents whose shuffling routine is different from game to game. Most obviously, some players will be looking for a nice even spread of land and spells for game 1, while in games 2 and 3 they will be trying to control for sideboarded cards.

When shuffling an opponent’s deck, it is worth it giving the deck a few cuts, both at the start and the end of the shuffling process. These are the easiest way of feeling for marked cards, and by finishing on a cut, you deny your opponent the opportunity to cut their deck after you have shuffled it - just in case they know something you don’t.

Granted, if they 5 pile shuffled (with no riffling) and you 3 piled shuffled in response, the only way they could possible call you out would be by implicating themselves, at which point it all depends on the judge/opponent.