Even at REL Competetive, very often players do not have chosen a Deck to play the second they entered. Example one would be a limited tournament, even though that example is kind of lame. Example two would be any constructed event where I go to and do not have the exact 75 cards with my that I want to play - I will probably register and THEN go around asking friends for the missing cards. Heck, I might've even told someone ‘I wanna play this tournament, you have decks for that format, surprise me with one please’ and register not knowing even one of my 75 cards to play.

Originally posted by Samuel Tremblay:

Shouldn't you have chose your deck at the second you're registered in a tournament? In any ways, if this behavior is perfectly legal and can't me considered as cheating or a serious problem under JAR, would the best way just to talk with him and ask him to have a conduct a little more “sporting” since this is Regular REL?

Forgive my abstract humor, but when you're required to bring a pencil to take a test, do you show your pencil to the proctor at the door? :)

Realistically, we expect players to be ready with their supplies (dice, deck, a means of tracking life totals) when the time comes that they're needed. They need a deck at the beginning of Round 1, which for all intents and purposes is when they sit for their match and get ready to play.

When the player presents their deck, they are agreeing that their deck is legal for the format and that is the deck they are playing. I think the majority opinion here is that until they've presented for their first match, they're not married to their exact decklist.

As long as they're not going to great lengths to alter their deck/decklist and stranding their opponent from getting started in Round 1, I see no textbook reason to get involved other than to suggest that it's not very sporting and isn't received well by the opponent/TO/judge.

I also want to add that at CompREL we often get decklist DURING (as in “at the very beginnning of”) round1, so this behaviour seems perfectly legal even at that REL.

I certainly don't find anything wrong with his behavior, however if its upsetting the crowd and you feel personally that he does this to get an “unfair” advantage, a good talk could do wonders. Specially if the player doesn't feel he's being unsportsmanslike, and he doesn't know his behavior is making the game less enjoyable for everyone. If he does know and does not care, then he's not very kind, but he's not doing anything wrong (certainly nothing in DQ-able). you could try to enforce decklist prior pairings, but that's a hassle on everyone and it's just not realistic specially for a Regular REL Event.