I judge at my LGS and from time to another a new player would attend our FNM with decks that was not standard. One time a boy came with ~100 cards and did not know any of the rules, but he got to play a round or two and was so happy to be there.

This Friday I had an experience I would like to ask you about: At the beginning of the tournament I announced the structure of the tournament, including the Standard format. At the beginning of round 1 I got a call from a match. A kid had played an Island and suspended Ancestral Vision. It looked like a kid had brought his home deck and did not know about the Standard format.

I explained to the kid that he could not be allowed to play with the deck he brought and suggested he could take two of the 30-card new player decks and play with those. He sadly thanked and went back to his seat with the new cards. Unfortunately his two friends had the same problem and I told them the same thing, they could not be allowed to continue with their decks, but if they wanted to they could play with two starter decks.

They played the round out, but somewhere between round two and three they all left. I had a small talk with them again explaining how standard works and what sets you can play with. After the fact I know that I should have asked if they wanted a refund for their entry, but I was a bit unsure if that actually was up to me.

What do you guys do when new players attend the tournament with 100% illegal decks?

My opinion (for regular):

As a judge:
Offer the player the chance replace his deck with standard legal deck (wherever he can get it easily).

If this is not possible or the player doesn't like it, because he don't want to spend money buying an event deck or something like this, talk to the TO. If this comes up early (and with 100% illegal decks it should come up early) I will suggest to the TO to refund the player. That is something that I can not decide, that is part of the TO job. But usually most TOs listen to suggestions from the judges in such situations.

In general, find a solution with the TO and the player that makes the player happy. And if you have a good TO he sees the chance to make this as a positive experience for the player. The will remember the TO and the judge who helped him to get the best out of the situation.

Well, there's what policy supports … and then there's what I've done in similar circumstances. (Shhh, don't tell Andy or Toby, I may have violated policy!)

Back in the days of the Junior Super Series (and thus, before today's Regular REL), I helped a store in Wyoming run a JSS event. One kid showed up, very excited to get to play in his first “serious” event - like a lot of kids his age, he probably avoided tournaments because they were full of high school and college-age players. This was an event just for players his own age - how cool was that?!

He had his “green deck”, probably about 75 or 80 cards in total, and at least 20-30 of them no longer legal, probably not even in Extended. His first round opponent called us over pretty early in game 1, when the first old card showed up.

I explained Standard to the kid, and why he couldn't keep using that deck on that day. I also explained that we'd help him fix his deck, if we could - but that it would take most of that round to do that, so he'd have to lose that round (he couldn't possibly present a legal deck in less than 30-40 minutes). He understood, and we started looking at his deck; there were so many illegal cards that we couldn't just remove them and continue.

Then the store did something pretty cool - an idea I'll suggest for any store, in fact - they loaned him a deck. The guy who handled singles for the store also had a handful of Standard-legal decks, offered for sale; this guy explained each of the decks to the kid, and let him choose one to use for the day, no charge. That kid ended up having almost as much fun as he'd hoped for, coming in - except he didn't “live the dream” (winning the whole thing).

I like that Wizards now builds competitive event decks for stores to sell - but I still like the idea of a store having a few “loaner” decks handy, for exactly this kind of occurrence. And I really like finding a way to help players learn how to have fun, even at “scary”, “serious” events.

Event decks are probably the easiest and most universal answer.

Were I a store owner, I'd consider selling a new player who made this mistake an event deck with a discount equal to the event fee. This way the player feels like the store is helping him have an option without the store just giving away things or having loaner decks.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Then the store did something pretty cool - an idea I'll suggest for any store, in fact - they loaned him a deck. The guy who handled singles for the store also had a handful of Standard-legal decks, offered for sale; this guy explained each of the decks to the kid, and let him choose one to use for the day, no charge. That kid ended up having almost as much fun as he'd hoped for, coming in - except he didn't “live the dream” (winning the whole thing).

This is why I also heavily recommend, as a Regular REL judge, keeping one or two decks of any format you are judging. For Modern, since it's rather popular at the moment, the Duel Decks are great to keep on you. For standard, you can always have an intro deck or a self-made fun deck on hand.

The store I judge at has lots of new players that are just trying an FNM for the first time ever. While we run our FNM's for free, it's still no fun to come to a store and be told that you aren't allowed to play anymore for the day. (Especially since some of the younger players don't have a funds to buy a deck right there and then).

So if you have lots of cards that you don't use sitting around, have some fun and build a deck or two - focus on fun interactions, not necessarily competitive capability. This way newer players get to have fun and see the game at its prime.

I don't know if this is supported by policy, but it is supported by
experience.

It is only really a problem if the player has any chance of winning a
match. They usually don't, and the player came expecting that as their feet
get wet. I have found it easy to explain to a player that I cannot allow
them to win the match using these really powerful cards in their deck. But
if the player wants to concede at the beginning of each match and then play
with their illegal decks, they tend to be much happier than being forced to
play a different deck or shell out money for different cards. You might be
surprised by how much more comfortable people are with this short and sweet
option. It doesn't wound their pride, make them feel as disappointed in the
cards they already own, place them in a position of being even more out of
the water, etc. They also tend to have an easy time striking up a
conversation with their opponent about how their deck is too powerful, they
need different cards, etc. The result also usually bears out in experience,
since they almost always lose anyway, so they don't feel artificially
injured by tournament rules.

As a TO, and this is really up to the TO, I always offered people in this
situation a full refund.

The only time I've had this happen was when I was head judging a PTQ.
The player in question didn't understand that cards from Duel decks
weren't in standard and it was his first DCI event. We had caught it
before the start of round one and we went for the customer service
route and it turned out he had another deck with him that was 2 cards
off legal and was sitting at 65 cards so he just took them out and
played in the event with that deck.

He ended up 0-6 for the day, but I believe one of his last two rounds
he managed to win a game and was pretty happy.

Remember these cases usually involve players who really don't have
much of an idea of what is going on. Giving them the best chance of
playing in the event by the rules is the best outcome.

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Jacob Faturechi
<forum-3757@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> I don't know if this is supported by policy, but it is supported by
> experience.
>
> It is only really a problem if the player has any chance of winning a
> match. They usually don't, and the player came expecting that as their feet
> get wet. I have found it easy to explain to a player that I cannot allow
> them to win the match using these really powerful cards in their deck. But
> if the player wants to concede at the beginning of each match and then play
> with their illegal decks, they tend to be much happier than being forced to
> play a different deck or shell out money for different cards. You might be
> surprised by how much more comfortable people are with this short and sweet
> option. It doesn't wound their pride, make them feel as disappointed in the
> cards they already own, place them in a position of being even more out of
> the water, etc. They also tend to have an easy time striking up a
> conversation with their opponent about how their deck is too powerful, they
> need different cards, etc. The result also usually bears out in experience,
> since they almost always lose anyway, so they don't feel artificially
> injured by tournament rules.
>
> As a TO, and this is really up to the TO, I always offered people in this
> situation a full refund.
>
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–
Gareth Pye
Level 2 Judge, Melbourne, Australia
Australian MTG Forum: mtgau.com
gareth@cerberos.id.au - www.rockpaperdynamite.wordpress.com
“Dear God, I would like to file a bug report”

If the player is truly clueless, then we want to provide them the best experience that we can while maintaining the integrity of the event, even if the event is “just” an FNM. It's important that our new player feels good about venturing into the frightening world of “competitive” Magic so that he or she will come back next week - with a legal deck!

Bear in mind that not everyone will want to purchase an event deck or an intro pack. It might not seem like a hefty purchase to you, but in a lot of cases, these new players are kids who only have enough money to afford entry into the event.

If the TO has a box of commons/uncommons, I'd go through the new player's deck and swap old cards for new cards on the spot. With the TO's consent, those cards could just be gifted to the new player - generally we're not talking about more than a few dollars worth of commons and uncommons. Let your new player restart the round, and explain to the room that there will be a time extension so they can walk to the corner store, take an extended smoke break, or whatever.

If the TO doesn't have a box of commons/uncommons, you can offer a loaner deck, or hopefully another player at the event has one for use. This isn't as ideal, because the new player doesn't get to use his or her “own” deck.

If you absolutely cannot replace the player's cards for whatever reason, let him or her play in exchange for forfeiture of prizes. This is the worst-case scenario that I'll try to avoid, but if push comes to shove, I would rather give the player an opportunity to experience sanctioned Magic than send him or her home empty-handed.

Edited John Galbraith (April 12, 2013 02:44:29 AM)

Also something I've taken to when seeing new players coming into the store is offering to do a quick look through their deck to make sure it's legal for that format. I make sure to be completely courteous to the player and tell them exactly why I'm doing the check. I make sure that no one else can see the deck I'm looking through.

My LGS has a pretty stable base of players with maybe 2 or 3 random new people. Larger FNMs would definitely be harder to go through this process. Standard FNMs don't normally have this issue, it's been Modern FNMs where I have players bringing in decks with Homeward Paths and Commander PreCon-only Legends. I know this doesn't quite answer your question, but I think being able to prevent the issue is very beneficial.

As an aside I'm looking for a quick sheet of those 1% cards that have been printed in Duel Decks, Commander, etc that are Modern frames but not actually printed in a Modern set (Wild Mongrel from LvG, Homeward Path from Comm, etc etc).

This was a problem at our LGS before our town had a serious judge community last year. Most of the time, the players resolved it on their own by explaining that the cards were out of standard but that it was no big deal and they could keep playing. It never affected the standings because no one who came in with a non-standard deck ever won a game.

These days, I would probably do what others in this thread have suggested and scrape together a standard-legal deck for the new player. With the number of cards our LGS has available to loan and the number of skilled and kindhearted regulars we have, this would probably result in an overzealous collective hunching over a table after the first round, debating whether hellrider or falkenrath aristocrat would be best suited to top the curve of the new deck.

Letting them play without prizes is also an option. I think there are a lot of ways a head judge or TO could sort this out, but, in the spirit of FNM, I think any decision that removes them from the tournament is almost always the wrong one. That's bad for the player, bad for the LGS, and, ultimately, bad for Wizards, too.

Edited Levi Ritchie (April 16, 2013 11:25:20 PM)

Last month I was judging my first big event at Regular (50 people).

One of the player was a boy with a non-legal deck for standard or any other format, it was like 90 cards, 3-4 standard legal, everything else standard non-legal with a 2xDemonic Tutor :)

The way it should be handled was “remove non legal stuff and replace with basic lands”. But he would have had to play with a monobasicland deck. So I told him what I should have done and offered him to concede every match and use his deck to play anyway under this “gentlemen agreement” with his opponent.

He accepted this and played the first turn, but due to his very very poor deck he dropped after turn 1.

I knew this wasn't supported by policy, but I also know Regular is to about to educate players, teach them something and let them enjoy what they're doing, and that's why I've gone a different path to enforce this philosophy while granting no advantage to the boy and no disadvantage to the other players.

Edited Andrea Mondani (April 29, 2013 06:00:19 PM)

I actually dislike the “let them play but have them lose” route. The majority of my local players are at least somewhat competitive, and would not enjoy playing against an opponent with a 100 card casual deck, since they aren't getting good play testing experience and its not worth their time.

I do like the idea of a store having a “loaner” deck that the player can use that is somewhat competitive but still cheap.

Justin C
L1, North Carolina, USA

That's why I also asked his opponent before letting this route to be walked :>

(BTW I also am all for “loaners” as they avoid some headaches :> )

Edited Andrea Mondani (April 30, 2013 03:34:58 PM)

Originally posted by Justin Cole:

I actually dislike the “let them play but have them lose” route. The majority of my local players are at least somewhat competitive, and would not enjoy playing against an opponent with a 100 card casual deck, since they aren't getting good play testing experience and its not worth their time.

But the regulars will be back next week. I think its more important to provide the new player with the best experience possible for the current situation. His positive experience has relatively more impact on him than a positive experience for the regulars has on them. Same with a negative one.

Edited Toby Hazes (April 30, 2013 04:17:03 PM)

Plus, the competitive player is unlikely to get the experience he/she wants even if you hand the new player the latest GP winning 75. They're unlikely to be able to pilot it properly, so there's no chance if PTQ level play testing.

In the end, there is little opportunity to improve the competitive players experience, but there is a lot of scope to improve the new players'.