Just a quick reminder - there were two limited GPs this past weekend, so I'm sure we will soon have some actual experiences to share and learn from. Imagining “what-if” scenarios might keep your local judges busy, but I'm much more interested in the news from those events…

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

(…)I'm much more interested in the news from those events…

I saw this procedure four times this weekend at GP Madison (three LCTs and the main event). Overall, it was pretty smooth - the biggest issue I saw was the massive amount of borderline (which I'm sure in some cases crossed that line) Outside Assistance.

We used to not care that much about players chatting during pool registration because they were shipping their pool in an unknown direction, but now that they know who's getting it, we should probably train them to avoid commenting on what's being opened and registered by their neighbors. We should probably discourage talking about Magic at all during pool reg, as it's not hard to go from “Congrats on the expedition” to “Wow, sorry about opening a Prism Array” to “White is looking really strong.”

The other issue I witnessed, especially during LCTs, was that players wanted to use their pack-cracking time to start building their decks. I watched a number of players sort by color as they were cracking, others going at a very leisurely pace through each pack to evaluate it, and one player who separated the cards into “playable” and “not” as he opened them. I think we can get around this by telling players to open pack 1, open pack 2, etc, to set a rapid pace so players understand that they're just confirming that they have correct product and so nothing valuable disappears.

Edit: one more note from this weekend: on Saturday, another judge told me that he got called to a table 3x in about 2 minutes near the end of build -both players did a terrible job registering each other's pools, and there were tons of cards that the player could confirm he saw, but didn't list. The judge corrected the errors and reminded them to be more careful, until the third call when the judge investigated and discovered that while the players swapped pools back, they didn't swap lists with them.

The best practice I'll recommend here is that when a player finished registration, everything goes back in the box, including the list. That keeps it together (especially relevant in triangle swaps or in case of a spill), and also gives you the ability to see who's still going by how many bright white sheets are on your table. I used this during my second and third LCTs, and it sped things up as I could see who still needed help. As a bonus, you don't get players swapping lists while waiting so they can start thinking about their decks.

Edited John Brian McCarthy (Oct. 12, 2015 10:43:43 PM)

Sounds like at my next limited PPTQ I should just make a few announcements during the process:

0) “If you wish to drop with your pool, please do so now.”
1) “Player facing the front of the store, please open your packs and put the contents face down in front of the person across from you.”
2) “Player facing the back of the store, do the same.”
3) “Players, you will now register the sealed pool for the player across from you.”
3a) “This is not your card pool and you may not drop and retain these cards. Any attempt to do so will be considered Theft of Tournament Materials and be handled accordingly, both within the tournament and without.”
3b) “There is to be no talking during the registration portion. Any audible speaking will be considered Outside Assistance and handled accordingly.”
4) “When you are finished, wrap the deck list around the card pool and wait for all other players to finish. If you need assistance, please call for a judge.”

I understood that the boosters are opened face up, allowing the person opposite to verify them (I.e. That they have rares etc)

3a is not necessary if you just add, “these are now your cards, congratulations on your expeditions” to #1. This should also eliminate #0.

Sent from my iPhone

Originally posted by Michael Anderson:

Any audible speaking will be considered Outside Assistance and handled accordingly.

That seems harsh, and that's how the players will hear it. Perhaps a gentler reminder: “Outside Assistance is a Match Loss, so please don't say anything that might be overheard & misunderstood; best to not say anything at all.”

d:^D

Originally posted by Mark Mc Govern:

I understood that the boosters are opened face up, allowing the person opposite to verify them (I.e. That they have rares etc)

Indeed, I would ask players to check for the correctness of packs (one rare, three uncommons) while opening.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (Oct. 13, 2015 07:03:13 PM)

Being one of the people who was first in the world to instruct players in the process (many, many grinders and a very large warm-up sealed on the Friday for GP Sydney), I found it to be relatively painless.
Basically: the players get it.

My biggest issues were:

• potential OA (in general I found I had to remind people to be quiet, but this was also an issue previously);

• the actual instruction of “open your pack & reveal them to the player sitting opposite you for verification” - this is open to a lot of different interpretation. In the end I think I settled on something like “open your pack, quickly fan the cards so the player opposite you can see that the product you have opened is correct, then place them face down in a single pile on your sheet. You will have approximately 2 minutes to complete this.” Without the suggested time limit you have players slowly flicking through the cards one by one, or sorting, or spreading the entire pack out across their space, all of which are unnecessary. “Fan” is still not my favourite term, as that can be interpreted to mean spread across your play space, but I haven't discovered a better one. I can't recall what Alderfer used in the main event.
  

• 3-way swaps work (and I can't think of a better method), but do take a bit of judge-power from your floor staff to co-ordinate;

• players who don't follow instructions can lead to dumb situations where they end up registering their own pool. This was sufficiently annoying.
  

Initially we had players filling their name out in “Player registering deck” as that's what so many of them are used to. John changed this for the main event and got them to pass the sheet along with the pool, which worked great.
If anyone has any specific questions about the Sydney Swap, please feel free to fire them in my direction.

In IPG Section 3.2:
“…These criteria also apply to any deck construction and draft portions of a limited tournament…”

This seems does not cover deck registration portion, which OA now becomes an issue when the deck user is sitting right in front of the registrant. Hope that IPG would change to reflect the new sealed deck procedure.

Personally what I encountered in last weekend's PPTQ is, a player who registered very fast, started to build a deck using that pool (which belonged to the player sitting in front of him) and the two player, although seated randomly by WER, clearly knew each other well. Although the conversation is non-verbal, the OA is clearly given.

I think that may be an issue especially in PPTQ that have fewer players, when players has a much higher probability to know each other and tendency to give OA.

Originally posted by Hao Du:

In IPG Section 3.2:
“…These criteria also apply to any deck construction and draft portions of a limited tournament…”

This seems does not cover deck registration portion, which OA now becomes an issue when the deck user is sitting right in front of the registrant. Hope that IPG would change to reflect the new sealed deck procedure.

Personally what I encountered in last weekend's PPTQ is, a player who registered very fast, started to build a deck using that pool (which belonged to the player sitting in front of him) and the two player, although seated randomly by WER, clearly knew each other well. Although the conversation is non-verbal, the OA is clearly given.

I think that may be an issue especially in PPTQ that have fewer players, when players has a much higher probability to know each other and tendency to give OA.

The simple solution there is to instruct players that when they have finished registering the pool, to place it face down in a single pile on the registration sheet.

All they are “allowed” to do in the registration period is sort the cards correctly, register the pool, and double check their registration. Reminding them that doing anything else is USC and is going to lead to them having a bad time should fix that problem.

IPG 4.1, example F: “A player fails to follow the request of a tournament official, such as being asked to leave the play area”

Originally posted by Paul Johnson:

The simple solution there is to instruct players that when they have finished registering the pool, to place it face down in a single pile on the registration sheet.

My experience:
- I asked players to put both cards and registration sheet face down when finished.
- player A had finished, player B in front of him was still registering. Player A was clearly peeking his own deck while player B was registering it.
I asked player B to register one card at a time, and put it immediately face down, without leaving batches of cards face up, and I reminded player A he would eventually have 30 minutes to build his deck, as all players have.