I have made a video on the topic of doing deck checks, for those of you that prefer reading instead of watching I also typed out my spoken word so you can learn however you like to! I hope this is useful for the upcoming Pro Tour Qualifiers and beyond.
Deckchecks! We gotta do them. But how? I will present to you 3 different methods to do deck checks. First, a method where we sort the cards. The second one is one where the cards stay in the same order and the third one should only be applied for limited events because it is really not suited for constructed decks. I will however not talk about any philosophies, rulings and problems that might come with these deckchecks.
Before we start, how should we order decklists so that we can find them fast? Well, if you are below 20 players I suggest ordering the decklists alphabetically, it shouldn’t take much time to do that and will save you some later. As addition grab a list of players (if possible also in an alphabetical order) and make sure that everyone has given you a decklist.
A method for more players is to let the players write the table number of their round 1 on top of the decklist. Fetch the decklists in order so you have table 1 up to table x already sorted. Now you just need the pairings for round 1 and an alphabetical list so you can see on the list which player you can find under which table number and you are good to go. It saves a lot of time later.
So let’s grab a deck and a decklist to start. A quick reminder, we should do deckchecks away from players because we don’t want to give potential information about a player’s deck to their opponent.
It’s also always a good idea to grab the deck in the deck box, so we don’t risk losing cards and give them back to the players without any trouble.
First, regardless of the method we are going to use, we should check the sleeves from all sides, top and bottom for any markings. Then we count the cards while we also checking the backside of the sleeves. In Classic Constructed we should count at minimum 60 cards up to 80 cards including the equipment and weapon pieces we are going to look at later. In Blitz the deck should be exactly 40 cards with at most 11 Equipment and Weapon cards. In Limited the deck the player is intending to play must contain at least 30 cards while their overall pool is either 45 (draft) or 90 (sealed) cards big.
Once we finish doing that, the different methods come into play. So let me present to you the first one. We would start with sorting the cards. How you sort them is your choice. You could sort them by pitch, by pitch and name or only by name. In FAB I personally prefer by going only with name because otherwhise I just need a lot of space and more time. In the end it’s up to you and your preferences.
Now grab a pen and tick off the cards. Remember that some of the cards are in the sideboard, which we have not touched yet, so you might end up with 2 out of 3 cards or are missing cards entirely. Don’t worry about it yet! The only problem would be if we end up with more cards than there should be.
After we went through all the piles we should look at the sideboard. Make sure that the deck and the sideboard don’t mix, since we want to bring the player their cards back in the correct formation. And there you go! Congratulations, this deck check seemed to have gone fine! At the table please instruct the players to give their decks a good shuffle since you changed the order of the cards.
In the second method we put the deck face up in front of us and we are going to tick off each card individually. Then place the cards face down on the desk in front of you, this way the bottom card will stay the bottom card. This is my personal favorite method. For me it feels easier, you get to see if there are weird pattern shenanigans going on and the deck remains in the same order so potentially the players can go on by cutting/shuffling their opponents deck and start the game right away. Be aware that many players still want to give their deck a quick shuffle after you handed it to them and if two judges made the deck check on the table and one of them ordered their deck we should instruct both players to shuffle their decks.
Now, for limited events there is another method you could find useful, especially if you have not much space to do a deck check or if you lost all your pens. I personally don’t know how effective it is in Flesh and Blood but I wanted to present it to you regardless. After you count the deck, keep it face up in your hands, go through the deck slowly, checking each card you encounter on the card pool registration sheet. The only card the players have to keep playing throughout the tournament is the hero they registered as their hero, all other cards they can legally play together with their hero count as sideboard, so they can switch up the cards in their deck before each game.
Does the decklist contain multiple copies of a card? Slide the card up so you know you have not found all copies yet. When you find all of the copies you can slide all copies of the card down again. It may occur that a player does not play all copies of a card in their deck, so don’t panic if they have more copies in their pool than in their deck.
At the discretion of the Head Judge you may also need to check the rest of the cards the player could potentially play, so if you are unsure check in with them.
And that’s it! With a little practice one can really become fast at doing these. So enjoy your upcoming deck checks. Until then, stay save and healthy.
What would an article be without Sebastian Braune who not only corrected my words but also edited the video for me! Thanks a lot 🙂
Eser talks 