Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week we have a Silver scenario, so L2s should wait until after all the American judges have finished their Thanksgiving food comas to join in. (That's Friday for those who are confused)

You are head judge of an Ixalan sealed PPTQ. At the end of round 2, a player turns in an Adanto Vanguard in a matte black sleeve that he found it on the floor. He has no idea whose it is, and there are a couple dozen players with matte black sleeves. When you announce the card has been found, nobody comes to claim it.

During round 5, you discover its owner, Peter. Peter confirms that the card is his, but he didn't realize it was missing. That card is registered in the “played” column on Peter's deck list. Peter is currently in game 2 of round 5 and his deck for the current game is 40 cards.

What do you do?

This is an interesting scenario. I'll bite.

So, the first thing that comes to mind is that we're in game two, which means that the deck isn't necessarily in its original configuration (side-boarded), but the contents of the deck and sideboard do have to be accurate. Assuming no cheating and that investigation rules out that Peter knew the card was missing, if the player has only one Vanguard listed on the sheet under total, and zero currently in the pool after checking, then the infraction would be a Tournament Error - Deck Problem. This would fall under the second upgrade path is in effect here - the incorrect (missing) card was discovered and confirmed by a judge, so the Warning would get upgraded to a Game Loss. Per the following:

Originally posted by IPG 3.5 Upgrade Path B:

If an incorrect card becomes or is about to become visible to an opponent (for example due to it being revealed or put into a graveyard) or is discovered by a judge, the penalty is a Game Loss.

But, what if the player meant to mark this as total and not played? If this is the case, and the deck list needs to be corrected, then this would be a Tournament Error: Decklist problem, which also carries a game loss.

Investigation should reveal which path we would take, but this would be my thought process for determining which one to take.

Edited Bernie Hoelschen (Nov. 22, 2017 11:42:35 AM)

Originally posted by Bernie Hoelschen:

But, what if the player meant to mark this as total and not played?

This is very unlikely. Since this is a sealed PPTQ, the player would not be the one that entered the quantities in the “total” column (because of cross registeration) and should have been picked up during deck registeration as he registered his main deck.

Furthermore… under IPG 3.5…. we have “If a player is unable to locate cards (or identical equivalents) from their main deck, treat it as a Decklist Problem.”

I think this is exactly what the situation refers to. Because when you approach him, he is unable to locate cards from his main deck. Losing a card from your sideboard is not as prevelant, because it only affect your ability to sideboard. This affect every game 1 played.

The investigation part of this will be a good deal. Because you specifically announced that the card is missing and no one bother to claim it… I would surely ask some questions along the line of “did you remember registering a Adanto Vanguard” / “When is the last time you did a pile shuffle” / “Describe how you sideboarded for this game” in order to get a better grasp on the situation.

assuming the investigation turns out a non-cheating result
Issue a game loss for Peter, under the 2nd upgrade path stated above by Bernie.

Edited Maxime Emond (Nov. 22, 2017 02:35:59 PM)

Peter has presented a 40 card deck, that is legal for the game currently ongoing. The Adanto Vanguard that is found is not in his deck, but is on his decklist, so for this game it's a sideboard card.

If a player is unable to locate cards (or identical equivalents) from their main deck, treat it as a Decklist Problem. If sideboard cards are missing, make a note of this, but issue no penalty.

Since this is a sideboard card that was missing and there is no advantage to be gained by having access to fewer sideboard cards, there is no infraction.

Of course, the usual caveat of first determining there is no cheating applies. After that, Peter got ‘lucky’ this was not found during game 1 of his match.

Thanks everyone for the responses this week. Quinten pointed out the correct answer here.

When we discover that Peter does not have an Adanto Vanguard in his deck, we can say that the contents of the presented deck and sideboard do not match the decklist registered. However, as Quinten pointed out, Deck Problem says:

If sideboard cards are missing, make a note of this, but issue no penalty.

Because we are in game 2 of the match, the Adanto Vanguard is considered to be part of his sideboard along with all other cards that he opened and is not currently playing in his presented deck. This means that no penalty will be issued based on the current game.

However, we also have to contend with the issue of the previous games in which we know he was playing without Adanto Vanguard even though it was required to be there because he had marked it in his “played” column. This is resolved by looking at the language of the IPG: “the contents of the presented deck and sideboard do not match the decklist.“ Notably, this sentence doesn't say ”did not.” A Deck Problem can only be assigned based on the currently presented deck in a currently ongoing game. Currently, there is no infraction, so we issue no infraction.

Return Peter's Adanto Vanguard to him. Remind him to check the play area carefully when he stands up. Issue the appropriate extension, and have the players continue their match.

Edited Joe Klopchic (Nov. 27, 2017 02:10:48 PM)