Hi everyone!

quick question: we all know that it's allowed to drop from a tournament anytime, even during a deck swap.
But, if the deck swap is still not ended, wich pool am I going to retain?

Have a nice day! :D

J.

MTR 2.10: Players who drop during limited events own the cards that they correctly have in their possession at that time. This includes any unopened or partially drafted boosters.

It doesn't specify deck swaps but since you can drop even mit partially drafted pools there is no reason to believe it should be any different during a swap. So even when the HJ wants to further swap you should be allowed to drop with whichever pool you have in your hands at the moment.

Originally posted by Christian Genz:

It doesn't specify deck swaps but since you can drop even mit partially drafted pools there is no reason to believe it should be any different during a swap

I would disagree. There is a big difference between dropping and taking the picks from a partial draft and dropping during a deck swap. The same reasoning applies to when you check your opponents deck just before the deck swap.

The deck you are moving around is not yours, same with the deck you are checking (still your opponent's). From my point of view, you are in the possession of exactly 2 decks at competitive. The deck you register and the deck you play. You can drop with either one of those but after passing your deck and until the HJ says “This is your deck”, all the deck you have in your hand are not yours. This is just a way for the HJ to randomize the decks. Another method is to take all the decks and redistribute them but that method doesn't scale very well.

Jeremie

I agree with Jeremie.

Please also note that, if you accept the “what is in my hands is mine” philosopy, you are introducing a difference between tournament A (where HJ uses the “big box” method) and tournament B (where HJ uses “pass left, pass left, pass in front” method). No good.

Relevant quotes from MTR 2.10:

Players may drop from a tournament at any time.

Players who drop during limited events own the cards that they correctly have in their possession at that time. This includes any unopened or partially drafted boosters.

There is no specific rule about dropping DURING the swap, so we have to use our judgement to use the rules we have on this situation.

When asked to use our judgement over rules we should questions oureselves and find our solution guaranteeing that:

1. The applied solution is not detrimental to our tournament flow
2. The applied solution is not detrimental to players experience
3. The applied solution is not in contrast to the rules we actually have

So:

- When doing the “knight move” swap any player always has a correct deck in his/her hand and they should take it if dropping now.
- When doing the “big box” swap we can just give them one of those pools to bring home.

The difference highlighted by Francesco is in the swap method, but the two aforementioned solutions address both.

I want to stress here that the “knight's move” swap suffers from the same problem pile shuffling suffers: it is not random. And MTR ask us to do it randomly at 7.5:

Tournament officials then collect the recorded card pools and redistribute them randomly.

So, if we can accept a clear violation of that rule to let a GP flow I think we can accept to interpolate the rules to let anyone go with the correctly possessed pool at any moment (interpolating point A - you possess the pool you listed - and point B - you possess the pool you received to play), as this glitch comes from a previous violation: incorrectly swapping pools.

TL;DR: use the “big box” method to avoid this mess.

I don't like tournament policy that requires physical force to enforce. If
a player stands up mid-swap and tries to leave, I'm not going to tackle
them, I'd rather focus on the other N-1 players still involved in the
event.

Also, I know we all love discussing weird scenarios but has this actually
ever happened?

I haven't seen it - but I don't think it's implausible to see an Expedition Scalding Tarn opened beside you, and then know you have it when it's passed left. While players know they get to keep the pool they play with, and many know they can keep the pool they open if they drop, it's not implausible to wonder if you can keep the pool you're passed mid deck swap.

I've had players ask me if they could drop with a pool being passed through
them - they saw a really shiny card opened and wanted to know if it did get
passed through them if they could drop. So it has come up in the real
world as a relevant player question for me.


—
Rob McKenzie
Magic Judge Level III
Minnesota

I politely remind the players that mid pass they are not holding cards that
have been assigned to them in any way. That usually clears things up
before they happen.

Well, your personal interpretation seems based more on processing the TR word by word rather than simply applying common sense.

Originally posted by Andrea Mondani:

When doing the “knight move” swap any player always has a correct deck in his/her hand and they should take it if dropping now.

I can easily object that during a “knight” swap you don't correctly have a deck in your possession. You will have correctly received one when the tournament procedure assigns you one (so either to register it or to build with it). The fact that you have a deck in your hand doesn't make it correctly in your possession, I'm using you to have it reach e.g. the guy on your front-left.

Originally posted by Andrea Mondani:

I want to stress here that the “knight's move” swap suffers from the same problem pile shuffling suffers: it is not random.

The method is random, in the sense that people are given the original pools randomly, seated randomly (or semi-randomly) and do not know which knight move we will apply. If you at any point before actually hearing “this is your pool” have any exact clue of your pool, good job at chiromancy.

However if I let you go in the middle of such a swap because you have selected a pool to drop, you definitely don't have a received a random one, so you're actually violating the 7.5!

Originally posted by Andrea Mondani:

1. The applied solution is not detrimental to our tournament flow
2. The applied solution is not detrimental to players experience

Having you leave in the middle of a “knight” swap violates both of these principles, since I'd have to take track of who left in the middle of the procedure, you'd create a hole in the table (so the poor guy in front of you can't finish the swap), and you'd give players the feel they can do whatever, including scouting to find whether there's a good pool in reach.

Originally posted by Andrea Mondani:

TL;DR: use the “big box” method to avoid this mess.

This also violatesb your Rule 1. A “box” method with 100+ players is already a mess, unless you're very nicely staffed (or want to delay the tournament… violating also Rule 2!).

That said, we're also overanalyzing a very minor concern. We'll get soon directions to handle this at GPs, and at local tournaments I'd simply tell the player “wait to receive your pool if you want to drop”. The probability of someone refusing to follow such a simple instructions at a Competitive tournament is surely fairly limited and will easily fall more in the Serious Problem camp (and/or TO/store handled issues) than these rules lawyering concerns. (Go figure the even more corner case of an actual emergency for that player!).

-Will

Originally posted by Federico Donner:

I don't like tournament policy that requires physical force to enforce. If
a player stands up mid-swap and tries to leave, I'm not going to tackle
them, I'd rather focus on the other N-1 players still involved in the
event.

I wouldn't tackle them either, but if they are doing so WITHOUT calling a Judge? That's now Theft of Tournament Material, and we have a very clear way to deal with that (it involves the Head Judge, a DQ, and a mountain of paperwork).

Seth Black wrote:
>
>
>
That's now Theft of Tournament Material, and we have a very clear way to
> deal with that (it involves the Head Judge, a DQ, and a mountain of
> paperwork).


Or we let them walk away happily with their product. I don't believe in
creating policy violators just because some players don't behave to our
expectations. Do I like that a player walks away mid-swap? Of course not.
But they are not harming anyone and are already dropping from the event, I
don't see any benefit in prosecuting them.

Seth, the general consensus has been that it is NOT theft of tournament materials to walk away with your draft or sealed pool, even in the middle of the draft. It's not much of a reach to extend that philosophy to this (highly unusual) circumstance.

As Federico said - let them walk away.

And, as I noted in another thread - Wizards is considering all of these various factors to see if a policy change or update is appropriate. Further speculation on this, prior to any ‘O’fficial announcement, is really just more noise for everyone's Inbox. I'll close this thread, too.

d:^D