Strictly Surgical Sideboarding - The Knowledge Pool

During a deck check at a Modern PPTQ, you notice that Percy has an extra card in one of the sleeves of his sideboard. The sideboard contains two copies of Surgical Extraction, and the extra card is a third copy of Surgical Extraction. It is faced backwards behind another sideboard card. Other than that, his deck is legal. You return to the table and pull Percy aside, where he explains that he was given his 15th sideboard card last minute, and had nowhere else to put the card he was removing. He also mentions that during the pregame procedure, he showed his sideboard to his opponent and pointed out the doubled cards, even informing and showing his opponent that the reversed card is Surgical Extraction. Percy’s opponent, Olivia, confirms the story. What do you do?

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Answer

While Percy does have an extra card with his sideboard, which would normally be a Deck Problem, this is legal. The MTR requires players to present their sideboard, since this isn’t always done, we default to “whatever else is in the deck box.” By pointing out exactly which cards are his sideboard, Percy avoids a penalty here.

Thank Percy for following an obscure rule, and make sure he understands the consequences should he fail to present his sideboard. Even if he is going to explicitly point out his sideboard each match, he should still remove the extra card from the sleeve, leave it in his box and keep his sideboard outside of the box, to avoid confusion.