It's very unfortunate to get a game loss for this though! At a Worlds level event, I think they could re-sleeve the deck, leave it in the same order, and things would be fine. A game loss though! Why not just replace the sleeves with other pokemon sleeves of the same kind and move on? You deemed it was unintentional, so do we really need to ruin a game for him so that we can teach him to check his sleeves better? Give him a prize penalty or something?
It takes a judge 5 minutes to re-sleeve an entirely new deck, and you can have another watch that to make sure it's being done correctly. I think it would be worth the delay at an invite-only, prestigious event.
That is what I would have ruled.
This is Worlds, the most prestigious tournament in the World. People come and represent their country by playing in the event. Giving a game loss for anything less than cheating / completely broken game state is wrong in my opinion.
If all 4 PokeDrawer or Rare Candy were in distorted sleeves, I could see the Game Loss, but if not, it seems to me that it was just random luck with a few Poke Drawer and Rare Candy being in the distorted sleeves, and that also depends on how many sleeves were distorted. 10-15 distorted sleeves would wipe out any idea of cheating for me if all 4 rare candies or poke drawers didn't make it into the 15-ish bad sleeves.
If I didn't feel the person was cheating, if there was nothing to make me think that way, I'd issue the same thing I'd issue at a City Championship, a deck re-sleeve. Like Ryan says, let a judge do it, and it shouldn't take too long.
If we eliminate the idea that the player was cheating, because the sleeve malfunction was labeled 'unintentional', than we can say that the player did nothing wrong. The player was given sleeves by TPCi, sleeved their deck roughly 24 hours or less before the tournament, and then proceeded to get a game loss because their sleeves were defected. The player showed up, played hard, and got a game loss
because they did nothing wrong.
If this would had happened to me, I would not had continued to play for the remainder of the tournament. Props to Gino for not letting it ruin his day, but I do wonder if it didn't hurt his game subconsciously knowing that his chance to make top cut was affected by something he had little control over.
There should have been a deck check at Worlds. The number of participants are a lot less, and if judges can deck check whoever many people the day before Nationals, they can deck check all the decks the day before Worlds. If there would had been a deck check, this problem with the sleeves would have never happened.
If no deck check happened because they were confident that at this level there would be no cheating, than it isn't fair to assume one player is cheating with their sleeves 'unintentionally' marked and give a game loss for.
No disrespect to the judges, or TPCi, it is just how I feel.
