Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool. The scenario this week is Silver, so L2s should wait until after their FNM before joining the discussion.


You are judging at a standard PPTQ. While performing a beginning of round deck check, you see that Osiris is playing with 59 cards in his main deck and 16 in his sideboard. Upon counting his decklist, you read there are actually 59 main deck and 16 sideboard registered. His sideboard lists the following:

3 Never // Return
2 Insult // Injury
3 By Force
4 Magma Spray
2 Harsh Mentor
2 Cut // Ribbons

You bring Osiris to the deck check table and ask him about the problem. He tells you he thought he registered 60 cards main deck and 15 sideboard. He quickly gathered 75 cards last minute before the tournament started and mistakenly classified one maindeck card as sideboard while writing his decklist.

What do you do?

Hi Eric!

In this scenario the “old” IPG is still legal or do we have to use its latest version?

Thanks!

Edited Jacopo Strati (April 26, 2017 06:46:08 PM)

Originally posted by Jacopo Strati:

Hi Eric!

In this scenario the “old” IPG is still legal or do we have to use the latest version?

Thanks!

Please refer to the latest version of the IPG which becomes effective as of April 28!

So it appears that the deck matches the list. This appears to be a DLP error. While the deck is illegal, it is true to the list submitted for it, which to moves it to a list problem.
Additionally, Deck List Problem's Definition reads: (emphasis mine)

The decklist is illegal, doesn’t match what the player intended to play

As this version of the IPG does not have an specific Additional Remedy for this scenario, we break the fix into two parts.
First remove cards form the sideboard starting at the bottom, in this case Cut///Ribbons from the sideboard
Then add a basic land (Plains, Forest, Island, Mountain, or Swamp) to the main board
Correct the decklist to reflect these changes.

TE-DLP-GL illegal deck list

Just had a read of the IPG linked on the Judge Apps here.

To me this is a game loss as there are too many cards in his sideboard and fewer than 60 in the main.

I would issue the game loss and since all 75 on the list match the 75 in the deck/side I would allow the player the opportunity to amend the registration.

Edited Bryon Boyes (April 26, 2017 11:14:44 PM)

Great question! Here is my take:
TE-DLP would be issued with a Game Loss for the too few cards in main deck and too many cards in sideboard. Correct the issue by adding one of the basic land (but, not Wastes or Snow-Covered Lands) to the mainboard and removing the bottom card listed on the deck list under sideboard, (Cut//Ribbons in this case). I would alter the deck list accordingly.
TE-DP would not be issued because the deck matches what Osiris intended to play and the deck list registered.

Without looking at other answers :

Game Loss for TE - DLP
Remove the last card listed in the sideboard (1 Cut//Ribbons).
Add a basic land of the player's choice.
Edit the decklist to match the changes.

Edit:
Seems most people agree with this. Where does it say the player can't add a Wastes? I'm pretty sure that's true but I don't know where to find this information.

Edited Jaurès Chabalier (April 28, 2017 04:32:59 AM)

Originally posted by Jaurès Chabalier:

Where does it say the player can't add a Wastes? I'm pretty sure that's true but I don't know where to find this information.

In the additional remedy for Decklist Problem:

If the deck contains too few cards, add basic lands (but, not Wastes or Snow-Covered Lands) of the player’s choice to reach the minimum number and alter the decklist to reflect this

Edited Isaac King (April 28, 2017 06:41:26 AM)

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Originally posted by Jaurès Chabalier:

Where does it say the player can't add a Wastes? I'm pretty sure that's true but I don't know where to find this information.

In the additional remedy for Decklist Problem:

If the deck contains too few cards, add basic lands (but, not Wastes or Snow-Covered Lands) of the player’s choice to reach the minimum number and alter the decklist to reflect this

Oh seems I was not using the last IPG then :(

Edited Jaurès Chabalier (April 30, 2017 04:15:52 AM)

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

I would allow the player the opportunity to amend the registration.

What exactly do you mean by “amend the registration?” Would you allow the player to pick one of the 16 cards in the sideboard to be the 60th main deck card?

I agree with the general consensus that this should be a GL for TE-DLP, as well as the “add a basic land to main, cut bottom card from side” additional remedy.

I think it's worth examining why we can't just move a sideboard card to the main deck though. If the player had been playing with 60 all day and simply registered it incorrectly, that's exactly what I would do. However, there is an additional advantage gained both from playing with a smaller list AND from having a larger sideboard. The player said that he wrote the decklist down wrong, but the problem is actually more serious than that, because he has been playing with 59 cards for some time. Finally, by allowing him to amend the list in that way at the beginning of a round, we would have actually allowed him to pre-sideboard for this specific matchup.

Originally posted by Matt Braddock:

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

I would allow the player the opportunity to amend the registration.

What exactly do you mean by “amend the registration?” Would you allow the player to pick one of the 16 cards in the sideboard to be the 60th main deck card?

It seemed reasonable to me but apparently I am far too lenient!

A similar issue happened at GP Vancouver this year. A friend had mis-clicked in his online registration ending up with Silhana Starfletcher rather than Silhana Ledgewalker in his Boggles. A judge met him at his table for a deck check. As his deck was wrong according to the list he was given a Game Loss for the infraction but as it was clear his intent was to have the Ledgewalkers on the list his list was amended and he went on from there. So this was the basis for my decision as clearly the player has all 75 according to the list so there was clear intent on playing those 75.

Unfortunately for my buddy there was also an issue with the judge leaving his deck list in the play area for his opponent to read and discussing specific cards for his deck in from of his opponent. This obviously led to specific information being known by his opponent which could have affected game play. :/ but c'est la vie!

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

Originally posted by Matt Braddock:

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

I would allow the player the opportunity to amend the registration.

What exactly do you mean by “amend the registration?” Would you allow the player to pick one of the 16 cards in the sideboard to be the 60th main deck card?

It seemed reasonable to me but apparently I am far too lenient!

I asked because, if this deck check occurs in round 4, do you think it is fair for this player to choose one of the 16 sideboard cards into the main board? Or do they now have an advantage having played against 3 opponents and seen some/most of what the other players are playing?

Originally posted by Matt Braddock:

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

Originally posted by Matt Braddock:

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

I would allow the player the opportunity to amend the registration.

What exactly do you mean by “amend the registration?” Would you allow the player to pick one of the 16 cards in the sideboard to be the 60th main deck card?

It seemed reasonable to me but apparently I am far too lenient!

I asked because, if this deck check occurs in round 4, do you think it is fair for this player to choose one of the 16 sideboard cards into the main board? Or do they now have an advantage having played against 3 opponents and seen some/most of what the other players are playing?

I was taking my example from a player who had 2 byes at GP Van. We didn't start playing until round 3 so had significant time to wander the hall and to check out some other decks but it was indeed a deck check before the player's first round of play.

I suppose it will take some investigation at this point. Was he playing with 59/16 throughout or was it a error in deboarding between rounds that lead to the 59/16 during the check? Was he playing with 60/15 and simply made a clerical error?

It seems reading the other posts that my solution was lenient as it seemed to me to be a simple clerical error with no malicious intent.

Thank you, Judges, for your participation in this week's scenario. Below is our final answer.

Osiris has committed two separate tournament error infractions. One is Decklist Problem for submitting an illegal decklist, the penalty for which is a game loss right off the bat. The other is Deck Problem for presenting an illegal deck and sideboard to the opponent at the beginning of a game. The penalty for this infraction is generally a warning, however there is a particular upgrade path outlined in section 3.4 of the MTR…

“If the deck is discovered to be incorrect during the presentation period, and the missing cards are not in the opponent’s deck, the penalty is a Game Loss.”

Thus the Deck Problem infraction yields another Game Loss for Osiris. Although both penalties will be recorded, only one will affect his match score. In other words, the double game loss doesn’t technically become a match loss for Osiris. Section 1.2 of the IPG:

“Infractions with the same root cause, or multiple instances of the same infraction that are discovered at the same time, are treated as a single infraction.”

To remedy the main deck problem, have Osiris choose one basic land card that is not a ‘Wastes’ nor a ‘Snow-covered’ to be added as the sixtieth card. As for the sideboard, remove one Cut // Ribbons. Annotate the decklist to reflect the changes. The match will continue starting from the second game and Osiris has the choice for the play/draw rule.

Edited Eric Paré (May 2, 2017 03:05:11 AM)