Greetings.
I participated in my first MTG prerelease event on Saturday, January 29th at Hairy Tarantula North. It was a Sealed Deck format consisting of 3 Mirran or Phyrexian faction-specific packs and 3 Scars of Mirrodin packs. The split between Mirran and Phyrexian was nearly 50-50, with a total of 44 players. Naturally, having played a Metalcraft Red deck for constructed, I picked the Mirran side.
After wishing good luck to Bobby, who sided with the evil Phyrexians, I proceeded to sit down at the cool table with my Mirran allies (including Beau, Lucas, Nina and Matt, among others). With so many participants, we had to go through a deck registration procedure. We were each given a checklist for Mirrodin Besieged and Scars of Mirrodin to track the cards we opened. After listing each card we opened, we passed our pools and checklists to the left 3 times. Each player was encouraged to check the list for any discrepancies, as random deck checks would occur later in the day. A deck check failure would result in disqualification for the player with the deck. I thought that this was a great preventative control for cheating. Scars of Mirrodin has been out since October so anyone could swap in their own broken rares. Besides, without this control and with 44 players in the room, the Hairy T staff would be hard pressed to constantly keep an eye out for cheating.
