Innistrad might not be in Standard anymore, but it is still legal for Legacy, Vintage, and Modern (as well as Commander, but that’s not very tournament-heavy!), so this is a good tip to revisit. As you may know, when Innistrad was first released, many of the booster packs had their basic land replaced with a ‘checklist card’- it has a normal Magic back, but the front is just a list of all the Double-Faced Cards in the set. The intent was to allow players to use DFCs even if they preferred non-opaque sleeves, or if they didn’t have sleeves at all. Of course, if your sleeves are 100% opaque you’re welcome to just use the actual DFC itself, rather than using the checklists; they’re only REQUIRED for clear sleeves or no sleeves.

However, you shouldn’t mix and match! The MTR tells us that if you’re using one checklist, then all your DFCs have to be represented by checklists. It’s mainly to cut down on confusion, and to eliminate possible sneakery and tomfoolery. So, if you only have enough checklist cards to represent SOME of your Delvers, or a few of your Huntmasters, you either need to find more checklist cards or get ready to throw those DFCs into some opaque sleeves. Otherwise, you’ll just have to do without!

Today’s Tournament Tip written by Trevor Nunez