Hello all,

A little background first: here in Brasil we have an independent tournament that happens 2 times a year, where players need to qualify from a store to play in the finals(which have a good prize pool), usually on the finals we have more than 200 players so its a decent-sized tournament.
For the last 3 finals, they have started using a site where you can submit your decklist online(something like the pro tour have started doing, we just started a little sooner) and its been a great sucess, in the last final we had more than 90% adoption of this system.

Now for the real question: For the next final in February, they are aiming for a 100% usage of the system, but instead of forbidding those that dont use the site from playing, they want to be a little more soft and just give a game loss for those that didnt used the site and allow them to submit a hand written decklist, is this possible? Can this be enforced by the judges at the tournament? For this scenario we would make sure that all players are well aware of this before the tournament, to avoid any problem.

I wasnt sure where to post it(since its not exactly about REL) so i posted here, feel free to move it to the appropriate place if you believe so.

Thanks in advance for the responses, sorry for any english mistakes,
Eder Carvalho

Originally posted by Eder Carvalho:

Hello all,

Now for the real question: For the next final in February, they are aiming for a 100% usage of the system, but instead of forbidding those that dont use the site from playing, they want to be a little more soft and just give a game loss for those that didnt used the site and allow them to submit a hand written decklist, is this possible? Can this be enforced by the judges at the tournament? For this scenario we would make sure that all players are well aware of this before the tournament, to avoid any problem.

Set aside an official response, bad player experience IMO.

I would try and encourage players to submit their decklist online (ex. “free tokens if you hand your decklist online”), rather than punish those who don't.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (Dec. 1, 2016 05:11:44 AM)

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Set aside an official response, bad player experience IMO.

I would try and encourage players to submit their decklist online (ex. “free tokens if you hand your decklist online”), rather than punish those who don't.

While i understand your point, Game Loss is still less than prohibbiting the player from playing the tournament(but we are still looking at better ways to approach it), but first they are looking how much can they enforce this system of decklist submitting, so that is the main focus of the question

I don't see how you can punish people for not submitting the decklist online. It is not a part of the rules on how players must submit decklists and I think that punishing players will lead to many complaints and maybe even a query from WoTC.

Hi all,

I will lock this thread until we have an Official answer (so we know what we are talking about). We will then reopen it for further discussions :)

Also, I moved this thread to competitive because it is not a question about “online decklist - good or bad?” but more “GL for not submitting your decklist online - yes or no?”

Greets
jeremie

Edited Jeremie Granat (Dec. 1, 2016 05:51:44 AM)

Technically, it's tardiness. They have failed to comply with a timed request - submit something electronically by a certain time. So yes, from a rules standpoint, you can give a GL here, just as you would for not handing in a paper decklist at the start of a round.

Edited Toby Elliott (Dec. 1, 2016 09:35:25 AM)

At the WMC, Wizards provided workstations on site for players to (re)submit lists, up until the deadline (player meeting, day one). I highly recommend this level of customer service, to minimize player dissatisfaction.

d:^D

Thank you for the confirmation

Yes, we are planning to maximize customer service for this, to Ensure that all players have enough time for last minute changes and everyone is well aware that its going to be mandatory(thats why we made 3 trial runs with very good resultados)

At GP Chiba, basically all players were asked to submit their decklist until 8AM on Saturday ( meeting time is 9AM ).
However, we accepted paper decklist on Saturday morning and issued no penalty at that case.
It caused some logistic nightmare for DL team though…

What if you applied the inverse? Instead of GL for those who submit via paper, grant a round one bye to all those who submit online?

Ah, David makes an excellent point.

Tell me I need to do something that's out of the norm or I'll be penalized? That's annoying.
Tell me I can get a round one bye just for submitting my decklist online? Done.

Even assuming the software can handle that, including adjusting the number of rounds, that means the majority of players have to wait around for a handful to play their matches. Some of those players will win those matches, thereby negating the “penalty”. And half the time there will be an odd number of players so one non-submitter gets a bye anyway.

Assuming there's an online registration for the event, automated reminders should do the trick.

Well, the posted start time for online and paper would be different—say, 90 minutes to ensure the online registrants don't wait at all.

Then again, the extra staff hours required to make this happen might negate the attempt at customer service for the <20% who don't submit online.

A Pokemon TCG Organizer took a different approach on this issue. There was a hefty surcharge for those that did not register online.

All “punish” systems of encouragement are going to generate negative feedback and not only from those affected.