This is entirely separate and coincidental to the debate around new damage cards, but the following happened at my gaming club who were running a casual tournement for xwing.

I started playing a guy who looked really organised with all his cards in little dispensers, which was great, he even had a little dispenser for his damage deck, we were all facinated but he got funny about us looking at his cards (they are his property so fair enough)

As we got in to the game, i found that every time he suffered critical damage it was always the really minor results that didnt cause any effect on his ships, no direct hits, no important systems damaged. I like mangler cannons so i see lots of crits normally so it was frustrating that they werent doing anything useful.

This then happened in his second game against another opponent. Now i am not someone who involves the judges in a tournie with no prizes, but this guy did.

One of the judges came over and asked to inspect his damage deck, the guy threw a massive tantrum that we were all morons and he doesnt know why he wastes his time with rubbish like this. He then packed up and left.

We all suspect he had a 'custom' damage deck with all the nasty cards either taken out or moved to the bottom. We noticed this time but it only came out in the second game once quite a lot of crits had been mitigated, if we werent throwing so many crits he might have got away with it.

Has anyone else seen this type of cheating and how would you recommend dealing with it in future?

What sort of person would you have to be....

I'd just let the guy win might make his life a little better.

Yes, I have heard of this sort of slimy trick. It's not new, and when they get caught, they tend to get theatrical to say the least. Thankfully it hasn't happened in my area. But the case I did hear of, the guy was pretty much banned from tournaments. In a smaller area, that can pretty much kill any chance of him getting another game any time real soon. I suppose the first warning was when he didn't want you to look too closely at his card dispenser.

On the whole, most players are pretty genuine and play fairly, but there's always one that'll pop out of the woodwork.

It is in the tourney rules that deck can be check and should be checked by the TO.

At the very least, damage decks should be cut before each game.

doesn't matter if he actually cheated or not, calling you names and being an unpleasant person, I'd be happy to let him leave.

and ask him politely to not show up, again.

everyone at a tournament (especially ones without prices, but not exclusively) is there to have some good and fun time.

people with his attitude makes having fun rather difficult for everybody else.. our hobby does not need people like that. no hobby does.

I'm constantly astounded at how some people behave while playing a game. A GAME. Competition is fun. Being competitive is fine. Cheating is not. Acting like a 10 year old is not. Get it together.

Like has been said above, it's usually pretty customary to offer your damage deck to your opponent for a cut.

Maybe he just didn't want cooties on his cards.

Space cooties. Definately something worth being overly dramatic.

Some people can't help themselves. There's something in their mental makeup that's not quite right. They're in the newspapers everyday.

On a slightly different note...

You should always be willing to call the TO/Judge over if you think something isn't qutie right. You may not be right, but it is IMO better to do that then let someone get 2-4 games in, and then find out they've been cheating.

You are right in hindsight i should have called over the TO earlier. I wasnt sure if something was up, everyone has games where things all go against you, and bad luck always seems more dramatic than good luck. The tournie was free to enter with no prize other than prestige so i didnt feel like the aggro. Maybe next time

My damage deck has 33 direct hits.

My damage deck has 33 direct hits.

I know that feel.

Or munitions failure. I've been running lots of bombers and every game I ALWAYS draw both munitions failure cards. Guarantee. Happy to have the new deck now lol.

You are right in hindsight i should have called over the TO earlier.

I get that you didn't want to cause a scene... That's actually something most cheaters count on to help them get away with it.

But the Tournament rules say... "Each player shuffles their Damage deck thoroughly and presents it to their opponent. The player’s opponent may shuffle and cut the deck if desired."

So he was breaking the rules by not shuffling his deck and letting you shuffle and maybe cut his deck. If someone didn't want to give me their deck to shuffle/cut I'd wonder, if they refuse to shuffle it themselves, I'd call the TO over right away.

In this case, it's IMO cut and dry (with hindsight being 20/20 and all) but even if it wasn't, the fact that there were some questionable things going on, and he was acting odd is IMO enough to have someone come look at it.

Just because someone draws 6 crits and none are a Direct Hit!, wouldn't be enough. But when odd things happen and the other person is acting oddly, that's when I would get a TO involved.

The problem is as I said, is that cheaters count on people being reluctant to get the authorities involved. They act offended because they know that will quite often get someone to back down. But that is why it's all the more important to act when you think something is wrong. Because if you don't then maybe the next person won't notice or won't call them on it.

Then they get away with it, or worse get caught in the final round, which pretty much would ruin the day for everyone.

My damage deck has 33 direct hits.

Some days it sure feels like that. Or 33 Munitions Failures when you're running a turret.

My damage deck has 33 direct hits.

isnt it supposed to be 25 direct hits? 33 is cheating bro

Theres only 25 shipcrits aand 8 pilot crits, so a legal deck is 25 direct hits and 8 blinded pilots.

At least that's an identifiable and inspection on the spot proven one. We got a guy in our area we want to inspect the dice of as they roll to well. And we've ruled out rolling technique we think.

At least that's an identifiable and inspection on the spot proven one. We got a guy in our area we want to inspect the dice of as they roll to well. And we've ruled out rolling technique we think.

make him use your dice.

My damage deck has 33 direct hits.

Mine too, except when i play HLC Outrider. Then it always has one munitions failure and 32 Direct hits.

Therefore: Praised be the new damage deck!

People that cheat at X-wing need a hug....

I announce this before every tournament I TO. I feel deep pity for any player that NEEDS to cheat while pushing around little miniatures of Star Wars ships.

I bet half of our WAGS think we are cheating on them WITH our little toy space ships sometimes

At least that's an identifiable and inspection on the spot proven one. We got a guy in our area we want to inspect the dice of as they roll to well. And we've ruled out rolling technique we think.

Bring a glass of room-temperature salt water and put his dice in it. Roll them around a bit with your finger. If they always bob back to the same side up, they're rigged. There's a great video on YouTube illustrating this with a D20...

At least that's an identifiable and inspection on the spot proven one. We got a guy in our area we want to inspect the dice of as they roll to well. And we've ruled out rolling technique we think.

Bring a glass of room-temperature salt water and put his dice in it. Roll them around a bit with your finger. If they always bob back to the same side up, they're rigged. There's a great video on YouTube illustrating this with a D20...

This is a good way of checking your own dice for manufacturing flaws too. Goes to find salt and a glass of water to test them out...

Some people can't help themselves. There's something in their mental makeup that's not quite right. They're in the newspapers everyday.

Often under the headline "Florida Man..."

It doesn't prove they are rigged. I did the salt water float test on my dice and I only found about 5 out of 24 that were actually well balanced. All of my dice are FFG dice, from 2 starters, one dice blister, and one set of swirlies from this years regionals. Actually my regional dice were fairly unbalanced, usually towards the blank sides... . Anyway, I try to use a dice tower whenever I play in a tournament to make my dice more random.