Draft unstable, guy was sitting near to me, pack 3 pick 1, I saw for a split second he is hidding shiny card to his wallet, then he asked how many cards should be in booster and get an answer from ppl. He proceed with his pick and passed 13 cards instead of 14, I counted it, told him twice there is not enough cards, he was silent about that, someone else told him that he hid something and better if he find card, he looked at his piles(one was contraptions, one normal cards), told that one contraption is not what he picked last and gave me this contraption from top of his pile. I was confused and did not found quick and good enough resolution in my mind to that, having in mind that simply I can't search him and booster could be broken with less cards. I asked on IRC already and get advice that I should investigate after he explain he took extra card and count his piles, sounds fair as he already explained himself. I still want to get more voices from experienced judges about this situation. Probably he would not admit that he took a card to his wallet, even when I count his piles.

@update
I talked situation with TO. We are pretty sure he took extra card, I was suspecting card he asked later about, but was not sure about this, TO told me that guy asked about foil unstable swamp price and told he bought it from friend, but did not remember price. TO told that question and explanation of unknown price was suspicious when this guy asked, before I told him about this. Strange thing was why he try to ‘steal’ it when he could just pick it, there is no high value beside some foil cards. TO told me when this guy played third game he thought we are playing with redraft(foils and rares are the prizes), so seems that there was intention to keep this card and not give it to prize pool. Also he gave me third contraption, I did not know there are always two, so seems like random card.

Besides that can a player just tell that he is taking his cards and leaving without proceeding with draft as in this situation 30 drafted cards and 15 from newly opened pack?

Edited Tomasz Kryński (Jan. 4, 2018 08:47:09 AM)

It sounds like you've already gotten the advice that most of us here will give. Just to re-iterate then: Count the cards in the passed pack and the cards that they player has drafted. If those two numbers don't add up to the correct amount (45 in this case), then you know the missing card is somewhere else. Given that the player specifically asked how many cards should be in the pack and then didn't mention having abnormal product would make me believe that the pack was not originally abnormal, so I'd just ask the player to account for the missing card and not accept answers that are obvious lies (like “this random card from my pool” when we've verified that the pool contains the correct number of cards, or “this random common” if there's a rare and uncommon missing from the pack).

Ultimately, you cannot force the player to return the card they have “stolen,” but they should still be disqualified if you don't believe their accounting of where the extra card went. You may also talk with the TO afterward about the community impact of this player's actions, and suggest that a store ban be considered if this sort of thing keeps happening with this player.

To your last question: yes, that's legal and covered by MTR 2.10.

+1 for “reasons not to rare re-draft.”

Edited Andrew Keeler (Jan. 4, 2018 08:42:06 AM)

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

It sounds like you've already gotten the advice that most of us here will give. Just to re-iterate then: Count the cards in the passed pack and the cards that they player has drafted. If those two numbers don't add up to the correct amount (45 in this case), then you know the missing card is somewhere else. Given that the player specifically asked how many cards should be in the pack and then didn't mention having abnormal product would make me believe that the pack was not originally abnormal, so I'd just ask the player to account for the missing card and not accept answers that are obvious lies (like “this random card from my pool” when we've verified that the pool contains the correct number of cards, or “this random common” if there's a rare and uncommon missing from the pack).

Ultimately, you cannot force the player to return the card they have “stolen,” but they should still be disqualified if you don't believe their accounting of where the extra card went. You may also talk with the TO afterward about the community impact of this player's actions, and suggest that a store ban be considered if this sort of thing keeps happening with this player.

To your last question: yes, that's legal and covered by MTR 2.10.

+1 for “reasons not to rare re-draft.”

Thanks for answer, I updated first post after talk with TO. That was rather harmless as we were keeping all picks, but guy thought this is redraft.

Originally posted by Tomasz Kryński:

That was rather harmless as we were keeping all picks, but guy thought this is redraft.

Let me clarify: I'm agreeing with you that the player probably took the extra card because they believed that a re-draft was happening, and I think that re-drafting in general is a bad prize system because (among other reasons) it incentivizes people to behave this way during drafts where valuable cards are opened.

That said, Don't underestimate the negative impact that this sort of behavior on the experiences of the other 7 drafters. If there are other prizes at stake in the event, then this player has “gifted” themselves an extra first pick out of this pack, which will generally make their deck stronger on average and their opponents' decks weaker on average, which will tend to net this player a greater share of the prize pool than they might earn otherwise. Even if no other prizes are being offered, this player is taking a small amount of fun (value and deckbuilding) away from 7 other players by abusing the draft system, and this should be strongly discouraged.

Originally posted by Tomasz Kryński:

That was rather harmless

Cheating is never harmless. If you allow the player to do it and suffer no consequences, you encourage them to do it again. That does not align with your goal of keeping your store a safe and welcoming environment.

I will count every pile of cards on the table…

All players must have the same, that is the sure truth… soo do it.

If all players have 31 drafted cards and pass a pile of 14 to next player… and He told that “this contraption wasn´t draft” to fill to 14 the pile doing the Drafter pile becomes 30 cards… I think it´s enought to ask him to open and show his wallet. (before you ask on first to search the miss card, OFC…)

All must have 31 + 14 cards (the 31 can be 13 contraptions + 18 regular cards, and 2 will be basic lands most of times).
Have a lost card is a serious problem.
Must found It.
(I think…)

I agree that this is wrong as he took it, thinking he wont get it. By ‘rather harmless’ I meant that it was rather harmless for a draft, but maybe not, he took relevant card instead of basic. TO want to get a guy on a talk as this was his first draft, he is ~15-16yo, we dont want to discourage him from playing, but let him know that we know and this is unacceptable, rest is probably based on his reaction. He would get an eyes watching his picks for the rest of his mtg career in our LGS, anyway.

Thanks guys for your voice on topic.