This came up at a standard Comp. REL tournament. While deck checking the Top 8 lists, it is discovered that a player has three cards in his sideboard in different sleeves. The three cards were two Pithing Needles in flat black sleeves and an Aetherling in a Dragonshield sleeve. The rest of his deck was in Ultra-pro matte sleeves. All the sleeves were black. What infraction/penalty apllies?

Were the cards in his deck when you discovered them, or were they currently in his SB?

One of these things is an upgraded marked cards. The other is not an infraction.

Edited Joshua Feingold (Aug. 22, 2014 12:05:00 PM)

Having cards that belong in the SB in different sleeves is not, inherently, a problem. More information is needed before an infraction has incurred.

They were in his sideboard.

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

Were the cards in his deck when you discovered them, or were they currently in his SB?

One of these things is an upgraded marked cards. The other is not an infraction.

I didn't issue a penalty. I did a short investigation though since the sleeves looked similar, but if you looked closely you could tell them apart. Some other players confirmed that he that he desleeved/resleeved when he sidebparded earlier in the day.

I also advised him against do the same thing in the future because he could very easily put those sleeves into his deck and then we have a marked cards issue.

If they'd handed the box over to us during a deck check earlier in the event (during an actual match), we'd normally be looking at a D/DLP. (Though I've seen disagreement among judges about this). I don't think there's be much argument in considering Pithing Needle to be conceivably playable. Being in different sleeves wouldn't matter here.

Are we treating Top-8 “courtesy” deck checks differently then? Or is “player presenting their deck to their opponent” really the point of no return for things like an illegal sideboard (with the all the “conceivably playable cards” extra baggage)?

In that case, if someone gives us their deck for a top-8 check and we discover they misregistered something (last minute card switch they forgot to record maybe), do we infract? Or just investigate/fix since they haven't presented yet for a game?

I guess the short version of the question is: Do top-8 checks follow a different set of rules, or are they really just courtesies since they're taking place outside of a match?

Chris, if the cards a supposed to be in the SB why would we be looking at a ddlp?

Deckchecks are the same. In fact, they could be even more thorough in top8, as no “hard time limit” applies.

Different sleeves in SB cards are not an infraction. Most players don't like to desleeve and resleeve, and it's probably due to scarcity of replacement sleeves. If you ask the player (and previous opponents) about that and confirms that point, I won't investigate much more.

Oh, I misread the original post. Ignore me.

I was thinking it was 3 cards in addition to his sideboard.