Deck Issue

Penalty: Warning

Definitions and Philosophy: When a player’s Main Deck, Material Deck, or sideboard contents do not match with a registered decklist submitted at an event.

When an event requires a submitted decklist, the list indicates the intention of what the player wishes to play in the event. Players are expected to conform their decks to that list and any deviations might detract from the integrity of the event formats. Issues in the decks that a player owns might be commonly found for a variety of reasons, including accidental inclusion of cards from an opponents deck, mixing of Main Deck and Material deck cards, or forgetting to undo any sideboarding that took place within a match before the next one.

This infraction excludes any proxied cards mandated for use by a Judge as well as any cards that are reasonably separate from a player’s Main Deck, Material Deck, and Sideboards.

Players should maintain good organization of cards being used in a given tournament to avoid accidental mixing of non-tournament cards that might lead to a deck issue. Players are expected to observe and watch for potential deck errors before any advantage or disadvantage can result. A Game Loss penalty is a justifiable upgrade to deter any abuse in these respects.

If there is a concern for an intentionally made deck issue that confers an advantage to the offending player, cheating should be investigated with the proper penalty as Cheating as opposed to just a deck issue.

To avoid common deck issues, extra copies of generated, double-faced (if applicable), or previously sideboarded cards (if it is a new match) should all be removed prior to starting a new game or match.

Corrective Procedure:

• Missing Cards: If cards are simply missing or found in absence, the missing cards are shuffled into the random portion of their appropriate decks, from whichever zone they were found in.

  • If it is the first game and a deck that does not meet legal criteria is presented for shuffling (less than 60, typically) the missing cards should be looked for, revealed, and added to the random portion of the deck.

  • If it is not the first game and missing cards are found within the sideboard, the missing cards are revealed and placed in their appropriate decks. If cards are added to the Main Deck, the deck must be shuffled after the cards are added. If the cards were missing in a such a way that the deck construction was not legal (i.e. less than 60 cards) then Main Deck cards in the sideboard are revealed, shuffled, and a random selection of those are should be shuffled in the main deck to achieve a legal construction. If missing cards need to be added to the Material Deck (where the sideboard is in excess of points due to a surplus of Material Deck cards, the player will reveal and then shuffle the Material Deck cards within the sideboard (which would not result in an illegal list if added, particularly with respect to Divine Relics) and, from among them, add a random selection of those into the Material Deck.

• Divine Relics: If the Material Deck constraints are violated due to a deck issue caused by multiple Divine Relics, the player reveals all cards in the Material Deck with the Divine Relic keyword and an opponent chooses which from among them is kept while the others are replaced.

• Extra or missing cards found belonging to another player require the penalty to be applied to both players. The cards belonging to each player should be checked and verified with a deck check performed for each deck and ownership of cards should be rectified before resetting the start of game procedures.

Upgrading: If an invalid number of cards is determined with respect to the submitted deck lists during after a game has begun or during a deck check, the penalty is upgraded to a Game Loss. This mainly considers the following cases: Cards are found which are in excess quantities of cards submitted on the deck list or the player's deck is found to contain cards from the sideboard

E.g. Found 5 copies of a card that was listed as 4 copies on a deck list, or 4 copies found in the Main Deck for Game 1 when the decklist reflects 3 copies in the Main Deck and 1 in the Sideboard

If a deck issue is identified with more copies of a card in a Main Deck or Material Deck than would be allowed by deckbuilding constraints after a game has started, and one of the cards has been drawn, played, or entered any zone apart from the Main or Material Decks, the penalty is upgraded to a Game Loss. Otherwise, standard corrective procedures are sufficient.

If a player begins the first game with a deck that is clearly post-sideboard or had remained sided from a previous match, that player should be given a game loss and reminded to reset their decks to match the submitted deck lists before a match has begun.

De-escalation of game-loss: If the offending player realizes that they forgot to de-sideboard at the beginning of game before taking significant action in their first turn, or if an excess of copies was identified in the same context, the game loss may de-escalated back to a warning with the proper corrective procedures applied and their first turn reset.

Examples:

• A player presents a deck for shuffling containing fewer cards than the minimum required for a format.

• In the first game of a match, a player has a card that is listed as a Sideboard card on their submitted decklist but no copies listed in the Main Deck. This would be grounds for a game loss unless this mistake was caught by the offending player in their first turn before significant actions have been taken.

• A player has multiple sideboard cards present in the starting Material and Main Decks without any missing/extra cards across the decks. This an example of failure to de-sideboard from a prior match and should be upgraded to a game loss.