There are no white cards listed, there are no white-mana activations or flashback costs either, but the decklist does have three Plains, and there are several strong white cards in the sideboard.
At the start of round 2 you get the deck from the player, and you discover that it contains 40 cards total, including the listed Plains and 2 Avacynian Priest that are listed as present in the card pool, but are not noted as part of the maindeck. The deck has no other issues.
How do you proceed?
View Answer
Though usually in these scenarios we assume no intent to cheat, it is set up pretty clearly in the scenario that there is a potential for advantage, note that this may be a case for investigation. As the “results” of the investigation, then:
During your conversation with the player, as you review the list with him he says that he must have made an error in recording, as his maindeck is in the initial configuration he intended. If you can conclude that this was a honest mistake, and that there was no intent to deceive we have determined that the player did not cheat, and we can go ahead with the standard infraction, remedy and penalty.
When the decklist and the presented deck that a player is using do not match, as in this case, that is a deck/decklist problem.
The instructions from MIPG 4.9 regarding resolution of Deck/Decklist Problem are:
“Remove any cards from the deck that are illegal for the format or violate the maximum number allowed, fix any failures to de-sideboard, restore any missing cards if they (or identical replacements) can be located, then alter the decklist to reflect the remaining deck.”
We don’t have to remove any illegal cards (none were found), and we don’t have to worry about having too many copies of any one card (it’s Limited; the 4 copies restriction only applies to Constructed). The player said that the presented deck is the original configuration, so there is no need to de-sideboard. No cards are missing. Therefore, we will alter the decklist to reflect the remaining deck. In this case, that means adding the two Avacynian Priest to the player’s decklist, bringing it to forty cards, so that the deck and list match and there is no longer a problem.
Then the penalty is applied, which is a Game Loss.
Additional notes: It’s acceptable for a floor judge to issue this penalty. Though there is a recommendation that the only the Head Judge assign Game Losses, Deck Errors have an exception.
MIPG 1.3. Applying Penalties
“Additionally, any penalty of Game Loss or higher should be reported to the Head Judge, and it is recommended that only the Head Judge issue penalties of this nature (with the exception of Tardiness (4.1) and Deck Errors (4.9)).”
We will also be giving the players a time extension of the time since the start of the round plus three minutes for shuffling. This is due to the following instruction from the Magic Tournament Rules:
MTR 2.6 Time Extensions
“If a judge pauses a match for more than one minute while the round clock is running, he or she should extend the match time appropriately. If the match was interrupted to perform a deck check, players are awarded time equal to the time the deck check took plus three minutes.”