My local store is holding a sealed PPTQ on Sunday with Amonkhet. They had a less than expected turnout on the weekend and have 50+ left over.

So presuming they have enough for everyone, they wanted to use those and have the promos just be a nice bonus for everyone.

Is there anything against this? I know that a lot of people think the Pre-Release kits are “better” than regular packs but idk if thats actually true or just results based bias.

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this.

I've done it before. As long as every player participating receives a prerelease-pack and you clearly state during opening announcements that the promocard is NOT allowed in deck construction, I see no harm in it.

At least I can't find anything in the MTR that says you can not do it.

It is basically the same as if the store would open the pack, gave each player their 6 boosters and then gave each participant the remaining contents of the pack (promo and dice) as a welcome gift. Indeed, the promo can't be used in the deck.

If you end up doing this, keep in mind the Prerelease packs have a small
leaflet that provides instructions for building your deck at the
Prerelease. Those instructions are not correct for competitive events.
Especially those about continuous construction and asking for help and
advice when building your deck.

It might be a good idea to remind players the instructions in that leaflet
are not valid for your PPTQ.


Alejandro Raggio
araggio@gmail.com

What the others have said, plus I strongly encourage any store to contact their WPN rep ahead of time, before running a premier event with even slight variations, like this.

d:^D

Even if there were any variations between prerelease boosters and regular ones, I'm fairly sure it'd be fine as long as every player gets a sealed prerelease pack and there's no bizarre split where some get prerelease packs and others get normal boosters.

The MTR states that each player must be given the same type and quantity of boosters, but in general there is no obligation for that product to be of any particular sort. You could theoretically run a sealed event consisting of Amonkhet, Shadows over Innistrad, Born of the Gods, Revised, Conspiracy and one of those foil Alara block boosters, as long as every player gets that exact product mix (though Wizards specifies PPTQs have to be the latest set, but for any other event you could do this. There's very little chance that format would in any way resemble a fun time for anyone, and players would probably expect to be warned well in advance before they give over their hard-earned money for that trainwreck, but the MTR technically allows it).

One thing that can detract from a PPTQ experience if you do this; the prerelease kits do not follow the normal collation rules which keep regular sealed pools “in check”. Duplicates of rares, multiple mythics, or 4x of the same uncommon print run are much more common, and lead to higher variance that competitive Magic players may not expect. Wizard's collation of boxes helps prevent this factor, but it goes by the wayside during prereleases.

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 7:53 PM, Milan Majerčík
<forum-34979-e57e@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> It is basically the same as if the store would open the pack, gave each
> player their 6 boosters and then gave each participant the remaining
> contents of the pack (promo and dice) as a welcome gift.
I know it'd be some labour, but actually doing that may be a good
option if the PPTQ has a chance of being 1+ player over the number of
PR packs they have left over.



–
Gareth Pye - chatterof.mtgjudg.es
Level 2 MTG Judge, Melbourne, Australia