The Problem
Following GP Liverpool me and the Deck Checks team have identified a couple of issues with the way decklists are handled for the limited events. I am enlisting your help in testing a possible solution which we'll hopefully use at the next limited event – GP Utrecht.

First, let me give you some background. At GP Liverpool we had about 1800 players, which meant collecting, sorting and counting most of 1800 lists. We had a number of problems with this task, but the most important two were the following:
* inconsistent Master List, because of printing issues from the scorekeeping team
* inability to account for all the decklists, because of illegible, misnumbered or outright missing decklists

To give you a sense of the magnitude of the problem, we've been working very hard the whole morning and by 3pm we still had about 200 lists (roughly 10%) unaccounted for, no lists counted and we were unaware of which lists we were missing.

A Proposed Solution
I'll start with the latter issue: It's very common for sleepy players to misunderstand directions from the Head Judge about correctly writing down on the decklist the table number at which the decklist is registered, and we've found some players' handwriting to be illegible. To address these problems, we can issue players pre-printed labels which they will stick to their sheets. For the easiest application, these should be pre-fab labels on A4 paper, which is easy to print on and can be cut and distributed the same way as result slips. (See link below for an idea.) The judges' job will be as easy as distributing results slips, and we already do that well.
http://www.amazon.it/A4-Labels-com-Ltd-fogli-etichette/dp/B006DEMPUK/ref=sr_1_12?s=office&ie=UTF8&qid=1431090980&sr=1-12

For the former issue, I would like to take the process of printing the master list out of the archaic software DCIv3.

I have written a small piece of software to help with this. It can:
* generate a PDF with a master list
* generate a PDF with the labels to be printed

https://mihaibirsan.github.io/SealedDeckLabels/

Sample files (exported from DCIv3 1.1)
https://mihaibirsan.github.io/SealedDeckLabels/sample-data/dciv3-team-12/TXBB302.dat
https://mihaibirsan.github.io/SealedDeckLabels/sample-data/dciv3-team-12/TXBB307.dat

Running this at GP Florence
Like I said before, it may be too late for GP Florence. The solution really depends on finding the labels to print on. The Amazon link above doesn't ship items in less than 8 days (I tried to buy them myself on Wednesday.) There is still hope, though: if someone can find a place to buy these labels in Florence! I'm sure there must be a copy shop somewhere. If you find a different layout of labels I will update the distribution algorithm to accommodate.

Note that I'm assuming we're using 4 sheets in a decklists set: 1 for the pool and one for each players (A, B and C). See the “Information for players” section below about how these are used. Each label sheet as linked above is 4 by 10, so that's 10 teams per sheet.

Information for Players
Similar to result slips, we are distributing a slip with 8 stickers on them, 4 for each team. Each team has one “REGISTERING” sticker and 3 “PLAYING” stickers, one for each player. During pool registration, each team takes their “REGISTERING” sticker and applies it to the first decklist, the one they register the pool on. During deck building, each player take their own “PLAYING” sticker and applies it to the decklist they register their deck on. Judges collecting decklists should make sure there's one sticker on each page.

Note that if the labels don't work (for one reason or another) the system can easily fall back to players writing down their name on each decklist, as they normally would.

Let me know what you think!

(I was starting to send this to too many people via Judge Apps messages and it doesn't scale. I'll keep the information updated here as I engage more people. Currently I'm working to get this working for GP Florence, but I realize I'm waaaay too late. Hopefully there's an adventurer outhere who's able to help. :D)

After having proposed this to Head Judge Kim Warren for GP Utrecht, she has shared her concerns with running this for the first time on a large Grand Prix setting, and suggested we test it out on a smaller scale event first. She suggested we run this at a large Sealed event on Sunday (Super Sunday Series Sealed) and see how it goes.

I brought labels to Utrecht and I'm excited to test this out, provided I get the judges responsible for the event to adopt this. I am at GP Utrecht and hope we can meet to discuss this!

(I have contacted the Public Events Leads for Sunday and hope to meet with one or more of them.)

Edited Mihai Bîrsan (May 29, 2015 10:21:47 AM)

Edit: Oops… I just realized I posted the previous contents of this post in the wrong thread. :D Darned multi-tasking and multiple tabs!!!

Edited Mihai Bîrsan (June 6, 2015 11:33:01 AM)

Was there a test run at Utrecht and if so, how did it work out?

No, we haven't tested it at GP Utrecht… There wasn't enough time to get the HJ involved and I didn't press the matter since everyone was already busy enough. :) I'll try again in Copenhagen.

I have updated the app for use at individual tournaments and have at least one HJ willing to use it this coming weekend at GP Copehagen 2015! (Thank you, Toby Hazes!)

Here's a quick walk through the process, with pictures.


1. Players receive a regular deck checklist as usual.


2. Before deck registration, we print the label slips, just like we would print result slips before round 1.


3. Label slips are cut just like result slips.


4. We distribute label slips to all tables.
(Note: The numbering is wrong in this picture. Each label slip will have the same table number printed sideways.)


5. Before opening packs, players use the “PLAYER REGISTERING DECK” sticker on the sheet in front of them. The sticker goes on top of the are with the same name, on the left side of the sheet.

Then, players open the product and register the pool as usual.


6. After deck swap, before building their decks, players use the “PLAYER USING DECK” sticker on the sheet they received with the pool. This sticker goes on top of the area with the same name, on the right side of the sheet.

So I never got to see this in Copenhagen so I'm now updating myself via this thread instead :).

It looks interesting, did Toby try it out or was the vast increase of players into his tournament too much to also try new technology? If he did, how did it go?

How cutter-friendly is this paper when we're talking scales of a GP? Are they easy to miscut? How much time would we estimate that it would take to add this procedure to our toolbox?

Thanks for a good weekend again, I'll now stop procrastinating and get back to writing your review ;)!