[Announcement] Central Coast Type I Championship

[The Atog Lord]

If they put 3 or 4 Pro Tour's in the same 2 month period using the same format for all of them, I bet you would see more people trying to get their decklists withheld.

Withholding a decklist at a large event is not really an option. At a premier event there is a lot of scouting that occurs.

For instance, at nationals, there were several teams which had everyone's deck and variations after the first three rounds. Scouting is legal, and a very common practice. In fact, Wizards releases the top eight decks at these events before they are played out.

[Smmenen]

Maybe I'm off base in saying this - but small differences in the SB can make a much bigger difference in Type One than T2 and that is much easier to conceal - even with scouting.  I make it a practice of looking at my SB like they look at their hands on celebrity poker when I play T1 in large tournaments so no one looking over my shoulder can see it (as there is frequently someone doing just that).   All the scouting in the world won't be able to help you construct a persons decklist if they don't want people to figure it out.  Of course, you'll know what they are playing - but the devil is in the details.

[walkingdude]

If you want to find the specific cards from a particular person’s deck you almost always can. Every one uses fetch lands, and many other shuffle mechanics. If you can keep quick mental tallies a few fetch lands and a tutor like demonic are enough spot the nonstandard cards and count how many of them there are. From those and a sixty card maximum, you can then work out the numbers of standard cards. This of course says nothing about the right of people to exclusive information, only to the practically of it. Its very difficult to preserve secrets from a persistent and determined observer. Particular if there are several of them since you can only block so many angles.