[Suggestion] Tournment side deck and deck list.

I read some complains about the final seating and previous knowledge of the decks of other players.
When the Multi-Judge are in use, this could help one of the judges to know about the other players deck or make it "impossible" because the judges tend to finish the game and help at another table.
Some players talked about a open deck list of the finalists but this would help TOO MUCH imho .

Maybe the final round could be with a open deck list including a side deck, maybe 20 cards that could be changed to the final round.
The final deck can have anything from the original deck plus side deck, making the real deck impossible to know but the generic idea possible ( in most cases ).

Augustus
Itaocara, Brazil
August 16th 2015
2R+F
10 players
Samir Sardinha
www.vekn.net/event-calendar/event/7990

-- 4vp in final

Deck Name: Malk Trollbox
Description: Use the crosstable to block with babble, radios and starshell, bleed when possible, defend from the predator.

Crypt (12 cards, min=19, max=30, avg=6.25)

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3x - Group: 2 - Korah - - priscus
3x - Group: 2 - Dolphin Black - -
2x - Group: 3 - Rodolfo - - bishop
1x - Group: 2 - Kite - - bishop
1x - Group: 2 - Artemis - -
1x - Group: 3 - Uncle George - -
1x - Group: 2 - Boy Toy - -

Library (90)

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Master (14)
3 Vessel
2 Rotschreck
1 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Pentex(TM) Subversion
2 Direct Intervention
1 Wash
1 WMRH Talk Radio
1 KRCG News Radio
1 Blood Doll
1 Institution Hunting Ground

Action (9)
6 Kindred Spirits
3 Under Siege

Action Modifier (6)
6 Eyes of Chaos

Reaction (24)
5 Eyes of Argus
4 On the Qui Vive
6 Babble
5 Telepathic Misdirection
1 Eagle's Sight
3 Melange

Combat (6)
5 Disguised Weapon
1 No Trace

Ally (2)
1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1 Neighborhood Watch Commander (Hunter)

Equipment (9)
4 Starshell Grenade Launcher
2 Sniper Rifle
1 Ivory Bow
1 Bowl of Convergence
1 Gran Madre di Dio, Italy

Combo (20)
6 Random Patterns
3 Deny
11 Swallowed by the Night

Side Deck
Master (2)
1 Wash
1 Not to be

Action (2)
2 Restructure

Action Modifier (2)
2 Lost in the Crowds

Reaction (4)
4 Eagle's Sight

Combat (4)
1 Disguised Weapon
3 No Trace

Equipment (2)
2 Sniper Rifle

Combo (4)
2 Deny
2 Swallowed by the Night

Without going too much into reasoning or arguments for or against at this hour, I would like to say that people very often overestimate the 'benefits' and 'power' of getting peek at a deck list before a game. Especially if there are four decks to look at, and given only, say, 2 minutes of time to look at all of them, you'll get no more than a glance at the archetype, and maybe the one trick they might have.

You still won't be able to tell 'when' they have the trick in hand, and so will either play around it or decide not to.

It requires quite a bit of memory to realistically memorize deck lists in the heat of the moment.

These have been through already in, as far as I know, MtG (I don't know the game myself) and A:NR (played in personally), and most likely a myriad of other competitive games. A:NR tried to keep the deck lists closed until the very end, where not using open lists for top8 could just not hold water anymore. And, I mean, that is a game where bluffing is practically built into the core design.

I'm not a huge advocate of open lists for finalists, but there are definitely a strong case for it, and people's knee-jerk reaction is often just to dismiss it because the change seems bigger than it realistically would be in practice.

That all being said, other options could be just as valid as well, and having a side-board for the finals is one very good option. It could spark a lot of healthy changes in the meta for sure. The issue is that people would still write up deck lists, would need to come more prepared and couldn't just show up with their deck at a whim as easily, and that the preparation of finals could take considerably more time. This is all jumping into assumptions of course.

tl;dr your idea is valid, but not inherently better than just having open lists to take a peek at before the finals - a proposition that undoubtedly scares people more than it realistically should.

It is a significant advantage to know someone's deck list card for card. This is somewhat mitigated by net decking where you pretty much know a deck list but again card for card knowledge is really warping.

This is mostly a problem because of seat choosing. Randomize the seating, and people will have time to discover the other decks once in play.

Please NO side decks.

You could include so many effective (well, at least relatively) silver bullets in it without having to worry about playing the preliminary rounds with a deck that was burdened by them.

Some decks might be so brutally destroyed by some cards that would not be included in a normal deck. Ever.

Also the hassle of 5 people studying each's others decklists and then including cards from the side deck as well as removing cards from their actual deck.

Nice idea, but please just no!

Note that for the purpose of the OP, a real side deck is not needed. If the only goal of the side deck is to avoid giving full information about the deck to other players (e.g. broadcasting loud and clear that you don't play Archon Investigation,) then one does not need to be able to switch cards during the tournament. One would just need a public and a private deck list. The private list would work like the current deck list, and the public list would be a superset of the private one.