Hi,

I have a question about damage decks and the way they're shuffled. After a player drew 4 successive Direct Hits on a Decimator (serious bad luck there), someone told them that they should pile shuffle their damage before play, making sure that each Direct Hit card was in a different pile. Since most players will only cut, or do a quick overhand shuffle, the Direct Hit cards are almost certain to be separated.

My read on this is that it is cheating, but several players disagree, with one individual calling me 'OCD' for being concerned about players doing this.

Ruling?

There's an excellent video on numberphile about shuffling. The best way according to the math wizzes is what they call a wash shuffle. Spread the cards out and "stir" them for minute to get the best random mix. They claim a riffle shuffle should be done like 7 times if I remember right. I find the damage deck too small to riffle.

It's not random shuffling if you're consciously separating identical cards. You should randomise the deck, not evenly distribute it, and randomised decks can and do have runs of good and bad in them.

If they are placing certain cards in certain places in the deck and not shuffling after that then they are definitely cheating.

There's no rule that says how to shuffle your deck.

If someone makes 7 piles and starts each pile with a direct hit, then as a TO I might say something. If however they made 6-8 piles and put cards on them at random, not knowing which cards go on which piles... Then that's going to be about as random as you can get.

There's no rule that says how to shuffle your deck.

If someone makes 7 piles and starts each pile with a direct hit, then as a TO I might say something. If however they made 6-8 piles and put cards on them at random, not knowing which cards go on which piles... Then that's going to be about as random as you can get.

Yeah, pile shuffling is fine (and indeed, a pretty solid way of shuffling if done repeatedly with a riffle or overhand in between). Pile shuffling carefully placing a Direct Hit in each pile is not.

That's why I generally shuffle for a moderate long time my opponent's deck at tourneys and I ask him to do the same.

I'm sure to shuffle his cards properly and he can't accuse me of anything, having shuffled my deck by himslef

There's an excellent video on numberphile about shuffling. The best way according to the math wizzes is what they call a wash shuffle. Spread the cards out and "stir" them for minute to get the best random mix. They claim a riffle shuffle should be done like 7 times if I remember right. I find the damage deck too small to riffle.

Stoneface is right, you need to overhand shuffle the deck at least 7 times. I always do a pile shuffle then 7 overhand. it might be overkill but at least no one can claim any cheating or be pissed the cards are not randomized.

The rule is that you are allowed to shuffle your opponent's deck if so desired. While there is no specific method listed for randomizing the damage deck that is what you want to do and if you don't believe your opponent is randomizing the deck properly you can take steps to change that.

There's no rule that says how to shuffle your deck.

If someone makes 7 piles and starts each pile with a direct hit, then as a TO I might say something. If however they made 6-8 piles and put cards on them at random, not knowing which cards go on which piles... Then that's going to be about as random as you can get.

Yeah, pile shuffling is fine (and indeed, a pretty solid way of shuffling if done repeatedly with a riffle or overhand in between). Pile shuffling carefully placing a Direct Hit in each pile is not.

The riffle shuffle is the only thing there actually doing any randomization. Pile 'shuffling' is deterministic, and does no randomization ; if you know the starting order, you know what the ending order is. At that point, just cut out the piles and riffle or mash because the piles aren't doing anything to properly randomize.

What the guy in the OP's post was suggesting was most definitely cheating, no ifs ands or buts. 'Proper' randomization takes ~7 riffle shuffles and would undo any (illegal) attempt to more evenly distribute Direct Hits anyway. Randomization doesn't mean you should never see 4 direct hits in a row, that's an entirely valid random result of shuffling the deck. If your opponent ever just makes piles and then restacks them with no other shuffling, ask them to riffle because again, Pile Shuffling is deterministic and a known starting order ends in a known ending order; it's entirely likely your opponent may not know that but its shady all the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuffling

Agree with all - cheating. If even distribution was the rule, the cards would be numbered.

It is true that you could see four Direct Hits in a row even in a properly randomized deck. The odds are certainly against it but then again so are the odds of any specific four card combination and because there are seven in a deck it even has a higher probability of happening.

If this weren't cheating, why not put all Direct hit cards in one pile and make sure that pile is the bottom one stacked? They're all shuffled right? The definition of putting conscious effort into getting certain cards into certain areas is not shuffling. It is stacking the deck.

At some point, does the blame lie with poor education systems?

How difficult should it be to understand what randomisation is and isn't?

Sorry for the snarky kind of post, but this type of thread really makes me wonder what gets taught in maths classes around the world.

That's how I shuffle the first time I got the damage decks. Split the cards up manually. Then, immediately after, I shuffled like you would any other cards.

Splits them up, then gets them to a random order.

At some point, does the blame lie with poor education systems?

How difficult should it be to understand what randomisation is and isn't?

Sorry for the snarky kind of post, but this type of thread really makes me wonder what gets taught in maths classes around the world.

I don't know if you've got kids or not, but the "new" math homework mine used to bring home would confuse the crap out me. They're so busy learning the 17 steps it takes to add two numbers together to even get to learn anything else.

It's not just X-Wing, though. I was reading a thread where people were arguing how to randomise a 250 card (Battle of Wits) Magic the Gathering deck.

It was like Captain Obvious and Common Sense were both fighting against a lost cause. For some reason, Pile Shuffler thought that he was not cheating.

I fear for the future if a game needs to print step-by-step instructions for how to sufficiently randomise a deck of cards.

That's how I shuffle the first time I got the damage decks. Split the cards up manually. Then, immediately after, I shuffled like you would any other cards.

Splits them up, then gets them to a random order.

If you're properly randomizing, splitting them up beforehand does nothing to the outcome. If you're not properly randomizing, splitting them up beforehand is equivalent to stacking your damage deck.

I literally meant I do it the first time I take the deck out of the box. As they sell it with the crits grouped together (at least in the ones I've got)

After that, it's shuffled many many times by myself and my opponents. And cut.

It's just so I know the first few times I use it (as I'm not the best shuffler) the crits arn't still grouped. As THAT isn't random, that's just my bad shuffling out of the box lol

The take away we should all follow:

Watch your opponent shuffle. It should be fairly obvious if they're staking their deck by ensuring the direct hits are spaced out via the pile shuffle method as they have to know which cards are their direct hits in order to do this. When this occurs insist on your right to shuffle your opponent's deck and involve the TO should your opponent object.

At some point, does the blame lie with poor education systems?

How difficult should it be to understand what randomisation is and isn't?

Sorry for the snarky kind of post, but this type of thread really makes me wonder what gets taught in maths classes around the world.

I don't know if you've got kids or not, but the "new" math homework mine used to bring home would confuse the crap out me. They're so busy learning the 17 steps it takes to add two numbers together to even get to learn anything else.

I have considered myself to be very good at math but this "new math" is enough to drive me crazy. I fully realize there are multiple ways to get to an answer and a person should be exposed to all of them but to push them all down a person's throat is too much. An example of crazy I've seen is how 5x3 is not the same as 3x5 when it comes to trying to figure out an answer.

When it comes to the topic of Randomization we all need to recognize that "random" doesn't always look random to our rational minds. If I asked you to pick 6 numbers from a pool of 75 to try and match six numbers randomly picked from an identical pool you may think that having 1,2,3,4,5,6 come up could be a random result. The thing is that those numbers have as much chance of coming up as any other six numbers and although they may be expressed from smallest to largest they may not have been drawn in that order. Compared to this the odds of drawing 4 Direct Hits in a row from a 33 card deck are extremely high especially when there are 7 of them in the 33. Now if the DH's were all numbered the randomness of it may be more apparent because it can happen and you'd see the different ways 4 DH could show up.

At some point, does the blame lie with poor education systems?

At some point, does the blame lie with poor education systems?

How difficult should it be to understand what randomisation is and isn't?

Sorry for the snarky kind of post, but this type of thread really makes me wonder what gets taught in maths classes around the world.

It's the human brain. Assuming that if something has a pattern then it's not random. The opposite is also true: that something with no apparent pattern must be random. The brain is pretty good at "seeing" patterns even if they don't really exist. Like a face in burnt toast or a teapot in cloud. Another example is the "Gambler's Fallacy". Betting on a certain card draw or dice roll because it's due.

As for the Direct Hit, my record so far has been 6 in one game. Four up and two down. I think all four of the face up cards were killers too. My deck, my shuffle. While they weren't drawn consecutively they were most unwelcome.

There's a great series of lectures by Michael Starbird titled "What are the Odds" where he goes to some length trying to explain randomness.

I used to pile shuffle and then overhand when I played MTG. With so little shuffling happening in xwing, I dont bother with the piles.

I'm sure FFG would be glad to develop and sell an official X-Wing damage card auto-shuffler for this situation.