Hi David!

This is an excelent question! I have discussed this a little bit with one of my mentors.

Leaving it at 62/13 is a feelbad for an honest mistake the player has made while registering and building their deck. Letting the Decklist and Deck getting canged might appear for other players as allowing players to alter their decks over the tournament. We would need to communicate very clearly about the Situation. I believe that Cheating is not the case and the player made a honest mistake so I would allow the player to alter their deck according to what they intendet to play and register after but failed to do so.

However I would tell the player that they should play with the currently legal deck this match. Altering the deck and decklist now would be very disruptive for the match. They can Sideboard to 60/15 and we have no evidence that the current deck/-list is illegal. If I was the Head Judge I would alter the decklist after match and inform the player they would get a Game Loss for altering the Deck list to what they intended to play.

This might not be the by the book fixing but with the correct communication there should not be any player in the tournament who feels bad about that. We as judges are there to fix mistakes players have made. This is a mistake and providing the Costumer Service to give that player the Tournament Experience they wanted when entering the tournament seems more important.

Also I would tell the player to always doublecheck the list and deck before entering the tournament to prevent mistakes like this.


And now i am interested in what other judges say! :)

Best Greetings,
Eser

I second that.
the full text is “The decklist is illegal, doesn’t match what the player intended to play, or needs to be modified due to card loss over the course of the tournament.”
Due to the “or”, these are alternatives to each other, so there is no need for the deck to be illegal AND not what the player intended to play.
So I'd go with Eser's fix.

Edited Michael Schöttke (May 7, 2019 12:13:30 PM)

Of course we would apply the fix only if the player wants it after they get the information that they would get a game loss since the deck is legal.

Remember that the IPG is not a fully comprehensive document that you can analyse small sections or individual words. You need to take into account whole paragraphs and sometimes other infraction definitions and philosophies.
The Decklist Problem infraction covers three things -

Illegal Decklist - not legal in the format, not enough cards, too many of a specific card etc.

Lost cards - if they can't find replacements and the decklist needs to be altered to remove those lost cards.

Decklist Not Matching Deck being played but the player wants the decklist to be fixed to match the deck. rather than fixing the deck to match the decklist.

The definition of the Deck Problem infraction is - “The contents of a deck or sideboard do not match the decklist registered and the decklist represents what the player intended to play.”

So when assessing a deck not matching a decklist the infraction is determined by which one the player considers the “correct” one.

If the player is playing a deck that matches the decklist there are no remedies in the IPG to “fix” the situation that the player wants to change the main deck and move 2 cards into the sideboard. It's not a significant or exceptional situation.

Would you allow a player that is playing 60/15 and registered the same 60/15 to switch 2 cards from main deck to library because they forgot to desideboard and a friend wrote out the decklist based on the 60/15 in the deck/sideboard?

I am with mark in this situation. These seem like a series of irresponsible
decisions on the players part rather than extenuating circumstances. In an
event where you need a deck list is at least run at competitive and in that
regard the player is held to that level of responsibility. Finally while
the player may say it is an unintentional mistake. regardless of whether or
not it was, no infraction has been committed here.

On Tue, May 7, 2019, 8:56 PM Mark Brown <

For me, these sort of situations are the essential difference between regular and competitive. Doing something stupid but not illegal does not qualify as a situation where I would like to step in.

Situation: player presents a 56/15 decklist.
Problem: you are playing 4 unknown cards, and you might even change those cards, until discovered.
Remedy: we fix your decklist. You tell us now which are the unknown cards. A GL penalty counterbalances the potential advantage.

Situation: player presents a 62/13 decklist.
Problem: you are playing 2 cards in your main that should be in your sideboard. Identity of these two cards is unknown.
Remedy: we fix your decklist to 60/15. You tell us now which two cards belong to your sideboard. A GL penalty counterbalances the potential advantage (choosing now two cards to move from main to side).

Is there any fault in this analogy?

Originally posted by IPG:

3.4 Tournament Error — Decklist Problem

Definition
The decklist is illegal, doesn’t match what the player intended to play, or needs to be modified due to card loss over the course of the tournament.

I'd believe the player intended to play a 60 card deck, and have a 15 card sideboard. So this infraction is spot-on, and applicable.
The player never intended to play a 62 card deck, even though he shuffled it up and presented it. Yes, this can happen by accident. I'd read the remedy section:

Originally posted by IPG:

Alter the decklist to match the deck the player is actually playing.

as

Originally posted by IPG:

Alter the decklist to match the deck the player intended to play.

If you catch this error during a game 2 (perhaps with a mid-round deck check), no sane Judge would record the decklist as the sideboarded version for game 2, even though that is what the player is playing at that moment.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

However, policy allows a player to “trade” a Game Loss for changes to their list, enabling them to play with what they intended. We don't have a reliable mechanism for determining what they actually intended - instead, we just ask them “what should your list look like?”, and if that's different than what they submitted, they get a Game Loss.

Your first sentence and your second seem to be at odds. Does the player have the option to play on with 62 main and no penalty? Or do they have to play what they originally intended, and if they meant to have 60, then they get a penalty like it or not?

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Your first sentence and your second seem to be at odds. Does the player have the option to play on with 62 main and no penalty? Or do they have to play what they originally intended, and if they meant to have 60, then they get a penalty like it or not?

I'm interested in this as well, but the distinction feels mainly academic. I think you would be hard pressed to find a comp REL player that would choose to play with a 62 card main for all of day one, instead of taking a single game loss.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Does the player have the option to play on with 62 main and no penalty?

Sure - the rules for Constructed allow for at least 60 maindeck cards, not exactly 60, and up to 15 in the side. 62/13 is legal, and if they want to avoid the Game Loss that goes with changing their list, they can just keep presenting those same 62 for game one of each match.

Note that this scenario is an outlier; what's much more common is the limited decklist where the player comes to us and says “I meant to mark 8 Forests, not 7!” We confirm what they registered, and if it's different from what they “intended” to play - i.e., what they are now telling us they intended - we allow them to accept a Game Loss and change their list.

The other common occurence is when we do a game one deck check, and see that they presented a slightly different deck than they registered; we investigate, conclude it was an honest mistake, and that they presented the deck they intended to play - but made an error when registering their intentions. We correct the list to match their actual deck, and award a Game Loss.

d:^D

In the days of Combo Winter, we had someone who was heavily influenced by
the Jamie Wakefield school of deckbuilding (he thought 62 cards with 26
land was the perfect deck ratio for a midrange deck). He also only thought
he needed 14 sideboard cards, so he put a Grizzly Bear in as the 15th
sideboard card (back when you had to have 15). So he was effectively a
62/14 build by today's standards. We can't know if that's what is intended
until we ask.

Dominick Riesland, aka Rabbitball
Creator of the Cosmversal Grimoire
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then
their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to
destroy.”
– Christopher Dawson


On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 1:18 PM Scott Marshall <
forum-50022-984b@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> *Eli Meyer*
> Does the player have the option to play on with 62 main and no penalty?
>
> Sure - the rules for Constructed allow for *at least* 60 maindeck cards,
> not exactly 60, and *up to* 15 in the side. 62/13 is legal, and if they
> want to avoid the Game Loss that goes with changing their list, they can
> just keep presenting those same 62 for game one of each match.
>
>
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