Finished floor judging a Comp rel event today and had heard a few players refering to a player who had restarted playing at Comp rel recently.

Apparently back in the days of PPTQs, he had a habit of Sitting down for the player meet and if he knew what deck his opponent (sat across the table) was playing… He would tweek his deck before deck sheets are collected/ handed in to make his round 1 easier…

Didn't spot it today… But also curious if it does come up… Is there an infraction and if so what

Well it depends… If he's changing his decklist before judges had the time to collect them, nothing is wrong as long as he sticks to this decklist throughout the day, although arguably not “good sport”.

If the player is sideboarding for game 1, that's at best a TE - Deckproblem (with a warning and a fix)… and at worst a disqualification for Cheating (if he realises what he's doing is against the rules).

If the player is adding cards that aren't in their sideboard nor in their list that's a TE - Decklist problem with a Game Loss. And once again that's best case scenario, but it's more likely that it's a Cheating disqualification (once again if the judge believes the player knows what they're doing is against the rules).

As Are mentioned, adjusting your decklist before it is collected by the judge staff is allowed. There needs to be a line as to when the decklist is considered final, and the line that we as a program try to adhere to is (approximately) when the physical list is collected by the judges, with some amount of “grace” extended before the beginning of round 1. If the player doesn't provide the final list by the beginning of round 1 due to their adjustments delaying the collection of their decklist, then it's considered Tardiness.

I will mention that, for competitive events, this is an argument in favor of seating the player's meeting alphabetically rather than across from their round 1 opponent. There is a minor time loss involved since players would then need to re-seat for round 1, but the gain is the “fairness” of not having players worry about their opponents knowing their decklist for round 1 and potentially being able to adjust or mulligan against it.

In case you have a bigger event, where seat-all player meeting may pose a bigger delay, it may also be an option to gather decklists during registration. That effectively negates such situation where players know each other and could try such “trick”. However, it requires more staff involved in the registration process and more advance communication towards the players. Moreover, you will not be able to have easily indexed decklist and would need to have resources for decklist sorting.

Edited Milan Majerčík (Aug. 5, 2019 01:52:01 PM)

This is not a great way to build a reputation as a sporting player, but not illegal. The MTR 2.7 says

Registered decklists record the original composition of each deck and sideboard (if applicable). Once your decklist has been accepted by a Tournament Official it may not be altered.

That is to say - decklists are final when they are handed in to a judge, not when players take their seats for the player meeting, which most people are running at the same time as round one pairings these days. That said, I believe it is only *technically* legal, but far outside the spirit of decklists and competitive play.

This player is exploiting a loophole we opened by trying to save everyone time by going straight to round one pairings instead of having a separate player meeting. At an event the size of most PPTQs (most I've seen were ~25 players or fewer) we would have several options for closing the loophole, which might not work as well at larger events. The judge could start collecting decklists before posting round one pairings, or better yet, just speak with this player and educate them on the goal of decklists, why we are skipping a player meeting and going straight to round one pairings, and how they are not making themselves any friends with this behavior.