Well, argueably, a 15-god pack is stronger in sealed than a normal jou-one would be. So it'll actually be quite hard to convince a PTQ-player that he really wants to play with a JOU-Booster instead of a Pantheon-one once he knows that he can use the 15 gods. And it would be quite terrible customer-service to not tell him that he can use it, too.
If I imagine myself in the situation of beeing at a PTQ, there's no way that I would trade in my Pantheon for a normal JOU, even if I get to keep the 15 gods, unless the TO threatens me with expelling me from the venue…which is essentially forcing a player to switch the booster.
Also, if I opened a Pantheon booster not knowing that I can play it if I want to, and the judges or the TO pushes me to not using it (aka ‘using diplomacy and reason’), and then later find out that they cannot force me to, I'd be quite upset, and quite justified in that, in my opinion.
I feel like everything that is a middle ground here is terrible customer service. Either they get banned from competetive events, or we allow them at competetive events and do not attempt to mislead the players by clearly telling them/announcing ‘If you open a 15-God-Pack, you CAN play it (but, if you want a normal JOU-Booster instead, you can buy one from the TO/the TO gives you one free of charge/you can trade it in for a normal JOU-Booster. Note that the latest option is not really an option, if we are honest)’.
I feel that beeing asked to ‘set expectation before product is distributed by messaging to all participants’, which to me reads as ‘ask players to switch out product and do not tell them that they can play with it if they choose to do so’ is beeing asked to deceive players about the rules that we have in place.
And I personally will not do so.
EDIT: Let it be a Top8-Draft then. The point I'm trying to get across is the packs do warp the format, and even though they might come up rarely, when they do, the format changes quite radically for those involved.
I believe this is not a desired effect. But, by saying that the packs are allowed, Wizards says that it is. Going further down this line, even the offer to switch the packs out seems fishy. We do not allow players to swap out boosters unless they are different from how they are supposed to be. These are supposed to contain 15 mythics, and that is not unconventional. Hence why would we allow players to switch these, but not, say, Theros-boosters containing foil-elspeths? They probably are about as close in rarity as there are.
In my opinion:
If the Boosters are not considered unconventional, they should be treated as normal.
If the Boosters are considered unconventional, they should not be treated as normal.
There should be no choices involved, because choices depend on external circumstances and thereby lead to inconsistency. Yes, we have some inconsistencies in other places, too, because they usually involve he-said, she-said or had-to-be-there moments, but this clearly falls under neither of those categories. There really is no reason not to have a clear line how to handle this other than that ‘someone in charge of them’, who is somewhat represented by the judge present, chose not to have one.
I will follow the line, or lack thereof, presented here, I'm just saying that I won't sugar-coat the story - I will tell the TOs I work with that they can offer the players to switch the pack out, free of charge or not is their decision, or that they can choose not to offer a switch at all. I will tell players their choices, but won't put weight on either side, much less hold an option back. If asked why this is this way, the only thing I can tell them is that it is because ‘the people in charge said so’. And if asked what I would do/what the documents say, then I'd tell them that the boosters are considered normal, and, by the letter of the book, shouldn't be switched out.
Edited Philip Ockelmann (April 29, 2014 12:04:38 PM)