Hi Everyone!

Interested to see what opinions others have about this scenario.

Playing at an RC, Adam sits down for his match against Nelly. The Judge announces to exchange decklists, which the players do. Then, Adam writes down on his notepaper "Boros Energy, 4x pyro 2x blood moon". Adam then passes the decklist back.

Is Adam permitted to refer to the note he wrote down above during a game? 

What if he writes the note during sideboarding after G1 instead, does that change anything?

This is one of many spots where the current policy is lacking in clarity, and we all wish wotc would more directly address open decklist events. Grumbling aside:

TLDR: Writing notes while still holding the decklist is not allowed, passing the decklist back and then writing notes down from memory is ok.

More nuanced: If you want to get pedantic, you can go down a rabbit hole and decide this is partially going to depend on what the event is doing with clocks, and when the event is considering the match to begin.

Some relevant text from the docs:
MTR 2.11 Taking Notes: 
Players are allowed to take written notes during a match and may refer to those notes while that match is in progress. At the beginning of a match, each player’s note sheet must be empty and must remain visible throughout the match. Players do not have to explain or reveal notes to other players. Judges may ask to see a player’s notes and/or request that the player explain their notes.

Players may not refer to other notes, including notes from previous matches, during games.

One of the examples in IPG 3.2 Outside Assistance is: During a game, refers to notes (other than Oracle™ pages) made before the official beginning of the current match.

Clearly, players can't look at notes they took before the match started.

Now to the clocks: most open decklist events give additional time on the clock, for reviewing the decklists. Some events start a timer of 2 or 3ish minutes for decklist swap, then tell players to put lists away and start a normal 50 minute clock. The standard practice in the USA/Canada at the moment seems to be to have a single clock of 52 minutes, and let players begin play as soon as they are done with the lists.

I've also seen some disagreement on how to handle tardiness at these events. Some HJs have given instructions to begin tardiness as soon as the (first) clock begins, and others have said that tardiness begins when the 50minute clock begins - if a player arrives when the clock has started but before the normal 50 minute timer begins, that simply means that player gets less time to review the decklist.

All of this somewhat muddies the water about when we consider a match to have officially begun, and thus when the players notes need to be blank/when they can start writing.

However, I think this gets easier to parse if we zoom out a lot, instead of trying to get pedantic about the exact wording of the docs. Instead of going down the rabbit hole of questioning exactly when the match begins, I would consider what players would do and what behavior we want to incentivize. If players were allowed to write "Boros Energy, 4x pyro 2x blood moon" before passing the list back, what would stop them from writing "Boros Energy, 4x pyro 2x blood moon 4 this 3 that 4 the other"? Assuming they were able to do so in a reasonable amount of time, what would stop them from writing the entire list down?
If we were to allow players to write down all kinds of notes while still looking at the decklist, every open decklist event would effectively allow players access to the list throughout the entire match. We know that's not the intent because we make players trade the list back / hide it away before beginning gameplay, so it must follow that taking notes before passing the list back is not allowed.
We can't reasonably police players passing the list back and then making any notes they would like to, so: Writing notes while still holding the decklist is not allowed, passing the decklist back and then writing notes down from memory is ok.

I believe referring to those notes during the game would be TE - Outside Assistance with a penalty of Game Loss.

Outside Assistance includes "During a game, refers to notes (other than Oracle™ pages) made before the official beginning of the current match." While the default penalty for Outside Assistance is Match loss, there is a downgrade path: "Downgrade: If the information acquired is information that the player would have access to between games, the penalty is a Game Loss." 

Here, Adam must start the match with an empty sheet of notes (MTR 2.11). During the game, he is not allowed to refer to notes made before the match. Doing so is Outside Assistance. The match had not yet begun when Adam made those notes during the decklist exchange. The match does not begin until the players complete Mulligans (MTR 2.3). Because Adam may consult notes made prior to the match while he is sideboarding a/k/a between games, this conduct qualifies for the Downgrade to Game Loss.

I have seen judges at many RCs remind players not to take notes during the decklist exchange prior to the beginning of the match to help avoid OA infractions.

A couple of things/

1. I'm not sure MTR 2.3 says the match begins once Mulligans are complete. Are you sure? 2.3 tells us the game begins after Mulligans but makes no reference to the Match.
2. It seems the consensus so far is that taking notes prior to match time being started is not allowed - but what about during sideboarding? We are certainly inside the match at that point.
3. Noting that the rabbit hole of "what stops them from transcribing the decklist" is directly addressed by 2.11, which expressly forbids it. 

It seems the consensus so far is that taking notes prior to match time being started is not allowed

Just a nitpick - but it could be important! - you can take all the notes you want prior to the match; you just can't refer to those notes DURING the match.

d:^D

The MTR allows for pre-game procedure to happen before the match clock starts for a round. - MTR 2.3 Pregame Procedures
"The game is considered to have begun once all players have completed taking mulligans. Pregame procedures
may be performed before time for the match has officially begun."

There are things we don't allow players to do when they have "sat for their match".

So we really do not have a specific point where a match begins.  We could argue it begins when both players have sat for their match.

If we are allowing players to take notes on what they can remember and use those in game, why not consider the decklist review part of the match and allow them to take brief notes they can use in game?  All we are doing is penalising players that have a slightly worse recall of what they have just reviewed.

Originally posted by Brook Gardner-Durbin:

We know that's not the intent because we make players trade the list back / hide it away before beginning gameplay, so it must follow that taking notes before passing the list back is not allowed.

I disagree that handing back decklists necessarily means that players are precluded from taking notes. They aren't allowed to have access to the entirety of their opponent's list, however I believe this is more for logistical reasons than any others - the MTR disallows the transcription of the entire list, but if partial transcription was similarly disallowed then surely it would be simpler to explicitly ban any-and-all note-taking. 

Originally posted by Brook Gardner-Durbin:

We can't reasonably police players passing the list back and then making any notes they would like to, so: Writing notes while still holding the decklist is not allowed, passing the decklist back and then writing notes down from memory is ok.

This feels contrary to the spirit of the policy. If players are allowed to continue to refer to notes, but have to memorise the information in order to take those notes in the first place, then why bother with allowing notes at all? Even with the required time being as short as "hand back list, make notes," there's been a general movement of Magic away from memory- and word-games; you can see this in the evolution of Missed Trigger policy, for example.
It's especially an issue for individuals with working memory struggles such as ADHD.

Just a quick question since I have never been doing anything related with open decklists.

MTR 2.11 (taking notes) has an excerpt stating the following:

"In tournaments where opponents’ decklists are provided to players, players are not permitted to transcribe their opponent’s entire decklist as part of their notes for the match."

To me this reads like it is okay to quickly write down some of the opponents decks contents. Because if it was not allowed wouldn't it be better to write something like "players are not permitted to transcribe anything while looking at the opposing decklist"? 

Assuming that the policy is written for lots of people and not the few that are capable of looking for a couple of seconds at a decklist and are able to write it down completely from memory it sounds to me like it's okay to take some quick notes while looking at the decklist. 

Also one quick question regarding the beginning of a match, why is it not outside assistance when I ask a friend on my way to the table regarding play advice/ask them if they know what my opponent is playing, but once I sat for my match it's considered outside assistance? From what I read my match has not yet begun (according to posts above) and I am basically in the same position as I was while walking there. 

Talk about a topic that needs some clarity/update in the rules! Like Tristan said, in MTR 2.11 the word "entire" seems important. Leaving out one card is not the entire decklist if we want to be honest. Also, when the match begins it needs to be further clarified/updated in the rules. Lots of "pregame" procedures. Well, it is talking about the game and not the match IMO. I don't see "prematch" procedures talked about. Maybe the amount of time given to review decklists needs to be added. Perhaps 2-3 minutes? Also, something that states that notes can't be taken during that time. 

Noting that carving out just the decklist review period doesn't fix the policy here, because we give decklists back during sideboarding.

If we just fix the initial review period, then we leave open a weird case where you can take notes about decklists during sideboarding but not pre game 1

It also appears that Judges across the world have been ruling assuming that the policy precludes taking notes during these periods (and then referring to them) - so it sounds to me like we just need some adjustment to the language in the document.

Originally posted by Daniel Crabtree:

Talk about a topic that needs some clarity/update in the rules! Like Tristan said, in MTR 2.11 the word "entire" seems important. Leaving out one card is not the entire decklist if we want to be honest. Also, when the match begins it needs to be further clarified/updated in the rules. Lots of "pregame" procedures. Well, it is talking about the game and not the match IMO. I don't see "prematch" procedures talked about. Maybe the amount of time given to review decklists needs to be added. Perhaps 2-3 minutes? Also, something that states that notes can't be taken during that time. 

 

If I remember correctly the spirit behind the rule having the word "entire" was to ensure that any notes that were made during the match were done in a timely fashion. Yes, by the letter of the rules a player could write out the decklist but leave off a single land and be complying but this was likely to take quite a while, but the spirit was that the expectation would be they make notes on the key cards that were relevant for the first game that could be done in a minute or two.