Sealed Deck ­ Pool Registration and Deck Construction

Welcome back. Last time we covered registering a deck during a constructed event, whereas this week we are going to venture into the lands of Sealed Deck. The most common place players will play sealed deck is at Pre-Releases ­ where you simply turn up at your local store and get a box with all your goodies in. When it comes to a Competitive REL event (I’m going to focus mostly on a PPTQ here), you will be randomly assigned a seat. Once you are seated, the judge will come around with a check-list containing all the cards from the sets being opened along with your 6 boosters. Previously you would open boosters that would be passed and would be required to drop from the event if you wanted to keep them ­ this is no longer the case.

Now the boosters you are given are yours to keep ­ everyone in the event has 6 boosters and a pool/deck registration form in front of them and we have a new simple procedure: all the players facing one direction in the room will be told to open their boosters, check they have the right amount of cards and show them to the player sat opposite them. If you are the person being shown cards here, PAY ATTENTION!! it will be up to you to verify the contents of the pool.

When one side of the event has finished opening their boosters, the other side will repeat the same steps. Once all the boosters have been opened and shown, you will need to pass the pool of cards to the player opposite you and receive theirs in return ­ if you can’t do this, simply call for a judge. When you have the new pool, write your name and DCI number at the top of the pool registration sheet in the Player Registering section and start registering the pool. You will usually have 20 minutes to do this. Firstly take the pool and separate cards by set. Once they’re separate, sort each pile by colour and then by collector number, as this is the same order as found on the registration sheet (usually this is alphabetical within each colour) and register each card.

To register a card simply note the number of each card found in the pool in the Total column box. After the 20 minutes have elapsed, you’ll simply swap the pool back to the player who opened it (and receive yours back). You will now need to start building your deck and you typically are given 30 minutes to do so. Your deck must contain a minimum of 40 cards including basic lands and everything else will become your sideboard. Registering your deck is the same as registering the pool ­ simply note the number of each card you wish to play in the main deck. Once you have finished, quickly count your deck to make sure it has at least 40 cards, check you have registered every card you’re playing, make sure you’ve put your name and DCI number in the Player Using Deck box, put the first three letters of your surname in the top right corner and make sure you have included basic lands. When you hand this list to the judge, this is the same list you must start every match with.

● When given your boosters and registration sheet, open your boosters when told and show the cards to the player sat opposite you;

● Pass the pool to the player opposite you and receive theirs;

● Write your name and DCI number in the Player Registering section at the top;

● Sort the pool you were just given by set, then by colour;

● As you register each card sort them to match the order on the registration sheet;

● Write the number of cards in the pool in the Total column for each card;

● Swap the pool back;

● Register a 40 card minimum deck by putting a number in the Played column for each card you play;

● Write your name, DCI number and first three letters of your surname in the Player Using section at the top;

● Make sure you have included any basic lands you are playing!