Not sure what more you'd want to be done? Is FFG going to blacklist them from all over the world with the new player errata list? That sound time consuming enough and I'd rather them focus on creating new content in the game and getting it to shelves lol

Plus the game is hardly big enough (competitively speaking) to justify anything of that nature. This isn't MTG with its DCI points and enough prize money that you can theoretically play it professionally. A local store ban is more than sufficient punishment.

Presumably the people that visit that store have spread the word around that area. Be difficult for them to get any kind of game in with people if the are known locally as cheats.

You should never trust anyone at a tournament. I would suspect the most common way to cheat is to take out the direct hits, so do a quick count always. If enough people count it will discourage this activity in fear of getting caught.

One of the many things that suck the fun out of tournament or competitive gaming. If you have to win a game to have fun, then you are playing the wrong game.

This is still OK though, right?

Seems legit

You should never trust anyone at a tournament. I would suspect the most common way to cheat is to take out the direct hits, so do a quick count always. If enough people count it will discourage this activity in fear of getting caught.

One of the several reasons why I don't like tournaments. Why would anyone want to be in an environment like that?

You should never trust anyone at a tournament. I would suspect the most common way to cheat is to take out the direct hits, so do a quick count always. If enough people count it will discourage this activity in fear of getting caught.

One if the several reasons why I don't like tournaments. Why would anyone want to be in an environment like that?

That environment does bring out the worst in this hobby.

You should never trust anyone at a tournament. I would suspect the most common way to cheat is to take out the direct hits, so do a quick count always. If enough people count it will discourage this activity in fear of getting caught.

One if the several reasons why I don't like tournaments. Why would anyone want to be in an environment like that?

As someone who has spent 10 years playing as many tournaments as he can attend across four different games... the environment is not like that, and Osoroshii would soon find himself without many playing partners if he started behaving as he describes. All of the tournaments I've ever attended have only had the slightly tighter structure differentiating them from casual games. I've never met anyone who goes in assuming everyone else is a cheating slime who needs to be watched like a hawk.

As a mathematician at heart, I feel the need to calculate how likely it should be to see three munition failures - apart from the obvious zero for an unaltered deck - but haven't got the time right now. Having read the thread, no one's raised the obvious and less detectable way to cheat with an unaltered deck; namely putting the "bad" cards at the bottom, etc. to analyse the ordering for tampering is almost impossible to do during a tournament. Just make sure you shuffle well and at least 7 times to ensure as random a placement as possible.

DoctorMike

Having read the thread, no one's raised the obvious and less detectable way to cheat with an unaltered deck; namely putting the "bad" cards at the bottom, etc. to analyse the ordering for tampering is almost impossible to do during a tournament.

Pretty hard to get away with. Not only is it really easy to pick up the false shuffles that would be required to maintain the order, but the whole plan gets ruined by an opponent who wants to swap decks for a final shuffle & cut.

I'm going to bring my extra deck with me to worlds and if my opponent has something amiss I will just offer him the card(s) he is missing and move on.

I'll do the Jokers' vanishing pencil trick with the cheater and his models.

As a mathematician at heart, I feel the need to calculate how likely it should be to see three munition failures - apart from the obvious zero for an unaltered deck - but haven't got the time right now. Having read the thread, no one's raised the obvious and less detectable way to cheat with an unaltered deck; namely putting the "bad" cards at the bottom, etc. to analyse the ordering for tampering is almost impossible to do during a tournament. Just make sure you shuffle well and at least 7 times to ensure as random a placement as possible.

DoctorMike

What is there besides the obvious scenario? There shouldn't be any altered decks on the table, with no exceptions! As soon as you see the third one, bye-bye! (I did however happen to take cards from the opponent's deck in a casual game, ended up with a few extra direct hits at the end of the game - make sure it's not that before you start accusing)

I usually offer the opponent a cut of my deck after I shuffle the cards, which usually prompts them to offer me the same. It's courteous and low-key, but this way I can cut their deck as well without having to make them feel bad in any way.

I've never thought about trying to cheat like that, or in any way, as i want to win on merit, not by foul means.

I think the penalty should be hard on them, it will stop others from trying to copy them, though i never check my opponents decks, i only play at a local club and with friends, so i trust the people i face.

Tournaments bring out the worst in people, yet also the best.

There are a couple of guys who come down to our local store whenever they run a tournament. They car pool with each other and are apparently good friends. However they are both chalk and cheese when it comes to personality. One, we shall call him Mr. D is very kind and supportive of all players and opponents. I played against him in my 3rd round and D has quite the reputation amongst the UK branch of the game. He completely obliterated me, but I swear to this day that he let me destroy one of his TIE Fighters just so I wouldn't feel bad about the loss, why? I downright said I would concede at some point in the game because it was a lost cause but he told me not to as it would cheat us both out of points as well as my opportunity to, no matter how dire, potentially turn the game around.

I still lost, but I came out of the game with 12 more points than I would have if I conceded. After the match there was a good 25 minutes left and we got talking and he came across and we discussed my list, faults in any tactics, good things about the list, bad things. He basically gave me some coaching advice and since I am far from the best player of this game, I found that very helpful and he was a very kind chap with very sportsmanlike conduct.

Then there is Mr. K...he travels with D to tournaments all around the UK as it is cheaper for them rather than them both driving to the same location when they both live near each other. K is EXTREMELY competitive and I have heard consistent complaints regarding him and his conduct. In our last tournament he played several people who are part of our weekly gaming nights, he was playing a TIE swarm and basically used the 'Fly Casual' aspect of X-Wing to his advantage, saying that they do the exact same move each turn and not bother with dial flipping too much. Fair enough, until one opponent (who is a player in my RPG game night) got a little suspicious and asked him to flip his dials over...to reveal a manoeuvre completely different to the one he was just performing at that very moment...

Another local friend at the same tourney ran into a situation where his falcon was down to 2 hit points and accidentally performed a turn that went the wrong way, he appealed to the guy with the typical Fly Casual aspect of the game to see if the opponent would mind if he went the way he intended. The guy declined and forced him to do the other move...sending the Falcon off the board when there was no need to...had I been in his shoes I would have permitted my opponent to perform the intended direction, it would not have changed much and I wouldn't want to win with a 'ring out' for the opponent. Now RAW the rules were indeed on his side, however I believe that it goes against the spirit of the game.

As a final nail in the coffin, Mr. K was extremely rude and contentious to the winner of our tournament. The winner did indeed get a buy the first round of the game and apparently according to Mr. K means that it wasn't a 'proper' win and the person did not deserve to win the tournament. Now the winner is someone I have played against, he has come first in a tournament...and also dead last, he is a very superb player but not without fault. I think it's insulting to said person to even suggest that a tournament win is marred simply by one single round where he got an automatic win for being there.

TL;DR: Guy was a d*ck, didn't reveal dials and when forced had different moves, forced and opponent off board due to incorrect directional turn after being pleaded to with the 'fly casual' slogan, and insulted the winner of the tournament by insinuating that him getting a buy the first round didn't make it a proper win.

How about revealing the deck after the game? if one person played with an illegal deck: automatic win for the oponent.

You should name the second chap, i intend to play some events in the UK.... i'd like to know in advance if i ought to be looking out for him.

I'm very easy going and would hate to have someone abuse my good nature

Fair enough, until one opponent (who is a player in my RPG game night) got a little suspicious and asked him to flip his dials over...to reveal a manoeuvre completely different to the one he was just performing at that very moment...

I wouldn't blame that on the competitive scene. Using one dial for a mass-move sounds a bad habit shortcut used in casual play, and is then hard to break when one hits a tournament. I have a couple involving proper timing that I'm still trying to break.

I will grant that it sounds like this guy wouldn't be willing to change that habit, but that's a problem with his general attitude rather than the tournament itself.

Another local friend at the same tourney ran into a situation where his falcon was down to 2 hit points and accidentally performed a turn that went the wrong way, he appealed to the guy with the typical Fly Casual aspect of the game to see if the opponent would mind if he went the way he intended. The guy declined and forced him to do the other move...sending the Falcon off the board when there was no need to...had I been in his shoes I would have permitted my opponent to perform the intended direction, it would not have changed much and I wouldn't want to win with a 'ring out' for the opponent. Now RAW the rules were indeed on his side, however I believe that it goes against the spirit of the game.

IMO, the guy's opponent was in the wrong here, both in rules and in spirit, and was trying to abuse "Fly Casual" to cover his mistake. It's a tournament played under competitive rules, and he picked the wrong maneuver. Own up to the mistake and play it out. I remember my first tournament where my opponent made a similar mistake with a full-health Phantom. He didn't try to get around it; he accepted the mistake, moved the ship without complaint (aside from cursing himself for the error) and accepted that it would fly off the board the following turn. Luckily for him time was called before that round started, but neither one of us knew that at the time.

As a final nail in the coffin, Mr. K was extremely rude and contentious to the winner of our tournament. The winner did indeed get a buy the first round of the game and apparently according to Mr. K means that it wasn't a 'proper' win and the person did not deserve to win the tournament. Now the winner is someone I have played against, he has come first in a tournament...and also dead last, he is a very superb player but not without fault. I think it's insulting to said person to even suggest that a tournament win is marred simply by one single round where he got an automatic win for being there.

That, on the other hand, is simply extreme d*ckish behaviour.

You see i understand its in the rules to accept the dial as is but there are some circumstances where its just decent to let someone fly the way they intended.

Lets assume for sake of argument i'm flying three ints down the right flank (my side) of the board and after boosting 5 and a bit forwards decide to swing them all left but accidentally set them all right and fly the entire lot of the board before a shots been fired.

Well yeah thats my mistake and *technically* they are all dead but would you *really* want to chalk up a 'win' that way?

We're toying with a house rule of allowing ships that 'accidentally' go off board to come back on at the same point two turns later 'stressed'

Having different dials but revealing just one as if they were the same is both ingenious and heinous, I would have never dreamed of checking if my opponent put the same maneuver on all of them.

What really gets on my nerves are phantom players that check their dial repeatedly, very quickly, without notifying me. I always get the feeling they could be changing their dial on the fly, it's very easy to pick it up and go from 1 left to 1 right. I love playing the Phantom myself, but I either remember what I put, or I check with my opponent first, as per the official rules. Some even do this repeatedly in the same turn!

I know how the "reveal" mechanic works, but I wish they would just "show" me what they have, then they can choose to properly reveal or do something before they reveal as they wish.

Ahh, reading this has brought back so many memories lol.

I no longer live near any sort of venue, so I can no longer take part in tourney play...and honestly, I don't mind it.

The teenagers and young college students seemed to value winning over fun, even if nothing was on the line. The rules lawyering that went on was crazy. And don't you EVER take your eyes off the table. You'd move your unit into firing range, look away to talk to someone, then back to the table and the enemy unit is no longer in range. You were sure you were in range, but you can't prove it. Line of sight arguements were standard in every match.

One guy even got caught for modifying his dice. He had done an extremely good job of cutting off a face, drilling holes and weighting it with lead pellets then sticking the face back on and covering up the cut line very well.

I'm sure the venues I went to would have had damage deck fixing like crazy, along with bumping units, moving asteroids, etc, etc...

Kind of glad I don't have to deal with that junk any more and can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the game with friends.

Tournaments bring out the worst in people, yet also the best.

There are a couple of guys who come down to our local store whenever they run a tournament. They car pool with each other and are apparently good friends. However they are both chalk and cheese when it comes to personality. One, we shall call him Mr. D is very kind and supportive of all players and opponents. I played against him in my 3rd round and D has quite the reputation amongst the UK branch of the game. He completely obliterated me, but I swear to this day that he let me destroy one of his TIE Fighters just so I wouldn't feel bad about the loss, why? I downright said I would concede at some point in the game because it was a lost cause but he told me not to as it would cheat us both out of points as well as my opportunity to, no matter how dire, potentially turn the game around.

I still lost, but I came out of the game with 12 more points than I would have if I conceded. After the match there was a good 25 minutes left and we got talking and he came across and we discussed my list, faults in any tactics, good things about the list, bad things. He basically gave me some coaching advice and since I am far from the best player of this game, I found that very helpful and he was a very kind chap with very sportsmanlike conduct.

Then there is Mr. K...he travels with D to tournaments all around the UK as it is cheaper for them rather than them both driving to the same location when they both live near each other. K is EXTREMELY competitive and I have heard consistent complaints regarding him and his conduct. In our last tournament he played several people who are part of our weekly gaming nights, he was playing a TIE swarm and basically used the 'Fly Casual' aspect of X-Wing to his advantage, saying that they do the exact same move each turn and not bother with dial flipping too much. Fair enough, until one opponent (who is a player in my RPG game night) got a little suspicious and asked him to flip his dials over...to reveal a manoeuvre completely different to the one he was just performing at that very moment...

Another local friend at the same tourney ran into a situation where his falcon was down to 2 hit points and accidentally performed a turn that went the wrong way, he appealed to the guy with the typical Fly Casual aspect of the game to see if the opponent would mind if he went the way he intended. The guy declined and forced him to do the other move...sending the Falcon off the board when there was no need to...had I been in his shoes I would have permitted my opponent to perform the intended direction, it would not have changed much and I wouldn't want to win with a 'ring out' for the opponent. Now RAW the rules were indeed on his side, however I believe that it goes against the spirit of the game.

As a final nail in the coffin, Mr. K was extremely rude and contentious to the winner of our tournament. The winner did indeed get a buy the first round of the game and apparently according to Mr. K means that it wasn't a 'proper' win and the person did not deserve to win the tournament. Now the winner is someone I have played against, he has come first in a tournament...and also dead last, he is a very superb player but not without fault. I think it's insulting to said person to even suggest that a tournament win is marred simply by one single round where he got an automatic win for being there.

TL;DR: Guy was a d*ck, didn't reveal dials and when forced had different moves, forced and opponent off board due to incorrect directional turn after being pleaded to with the 'fly casual' slogan, and insulted the winner of the tournament by insinuating that him getting a buy the first round didn't make it a proper win.

I've done it before, fly off and I didn't ask, and if I didn't fly off I would have won that tournament.

Im all for fly casual, but if you let people take back their moves they dont learn anything.

It is a tournament afterall. If they forget a focus, ya sure, buy selecting the wrong dial, well I can't let everyone who does it go.

Learn your lesson

I let lots of things go, but setting wrong dial move. If a player can't tell difference between right or left then that is not my problem

If I did such a thing, I wouldn't ask

I'd say well that sucked

This is a something that can happen in any environment, tournament or no. While I agree one would be more prone to do something like this in a competitive event to win games and prizes, I do not genuinely believe that someone capable of making the conscious decision to fix their damage deck (or microwave their dice, I have seen that in 40K) would stop at tournaments. They would do this in all aspects of the game.

Look, bottom line, if you feel the need to cheat, at a game... I'd don't want to know you. I don't want to play you, I want nothing to do with you. At the highest levels of this game, it is a game of skill, of talent, and of luck. If you are not good enough to win a game on those merits, and those merits alone, and feel the need to cheat to try to compensate for that... you deserve the public 'boo' you will receive.

I have no love for someone who feels the need to cheat to win. Suck it up, take your loses like man, and learn from them to get better. Not get better at cheating... Ugh!

Krynn007, normally I would understand, however he outnumbered the falcon heavily, victory was almost certainly gaurenteed and the move itself did not cause the person to fly off however the next move gaurenteed it would go off with no way to avoid it. The player didn't even measure it first, he saw the orientation was wrong as he was putting the template down and Mr. K pointed it out. There was no need to send it off, the TIE's would have had a high chance of destroying that ship as it only had 2 HP left.

Gage, that's exactly the point while victory would have been guaranteed by Mr. K, there was no need for it, 5 TIE Fighters VS a Falcon with only 2 hull left had a high probability of destroying that thing. I have no problem if you block a ship and that causes it to go off the board since that requires tactical planning, however using your opponents 'mistake' of a flipped dial I feel is highly against the spirit of the game, that is just my opinion however. It's not like the guy planned a straight or bank and wanted to change it to a turn or even change the speed of the maneuver, it was simply a flipping of direction which the player realised after that would cause a ring out.

Plus there's the double standard of him using the aspect of Fly Casual to cheat but then not allowing it to take precedence in a situation where no matter the outcome he would most likely win and instead took the route that gave his opponent no chance rather than a little bit of a chance of turning the tables (there could have been a lot of dud rolls for those TIEs...as very unlikely as it is).

So..

i just came from a tournament where 2 players were banned for any further tournaments at least at this location...

I was actually thinking about this problem as well for a longer time and never knew how to actually deal with it...

The DAMAGE deck...

Do you ask your opponent before you start to look through his deck?

I never did... i would have actually felt like a jerk...

Today, taught me the lesson.. if i don't know the opponent i want to see the deck...

2 players had modified damage decks.

The decks were build with 33 cards so at first glance you don't suspect anything...

It came up as one of the players was receiving several critical damage cards from an attack.

He revealed the cards and the opponent got suspicious since all of the sudden there were 3 Munitions Failures on the board on the opponents side...

He called the TO and he was taking a look... he had 5 Munitions Failures and 5 Damaged Engines and 3 Thrust Control Fires... and so on... not a single Critical Hit.

As caught, he responded that it might have been accidentally since he plays with his roommate all the time and maybe they screwed up the cards.

Well, the roommate was participating in this tournament as well so the TO stopped his roomies game and was taking a look as his Damage Deck as well.

Which should contain now 14 Critical Hits correct?

NO... he had beside some differences the same modified Damage Deck as his friend...

All the games of these two had been annulled and given the win to their opponent...

As already said.. they are also excluded form any further tournaments at this location...

(and im sure soon will be banned from other locations as well since the XWing community seems to be well informed and close)

So what to do now?

Do i really have to ask now every opponent to please show me his cards?

How about a Damage Deck swap at the start of each game?

If you get the cards from your opponent you will take a look at it anyway to make sure all is correct and you will not feel like a jerk for asking since it is the rule.

What you would do?

As a side note, im very disappointed that we reached this kind of level in this game... we are not playing for thousands of dollars winnings or anything significant...

I still don't get it...

Ah well....

Happy 4th ya all who are in the states

Yes, you should ask to shuffle/look at your opponents deck. I would HAPPILY let you shuffle my deck.