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.

back when I played Magic, the way I would try to hose pile-shufflers was to pile-shuffle them in return. Assuming they had a land about every third card, I would make three neat piles and give them their deck back.

Not sure how applicable that is to an X-Wing deck, though.

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.

back when I played Magic, the way I would try to hose pile-shufflers was to pile-shuffle them in return. Assuming they had a land about every third card, I would make three neat piles and give them their deck back.

Not sure how applicable that is to an X-Wing deck, though.

That is pretty nasty but entirely called for. When I put my MtG deck together I would initially "stack" my deck just to help me make sure I had what I wanted in it in the right ratios but after that it is just shuffle it enough times to actually get it random. And then curse when it throws me the screw that is the death of things.

The odd thing about trying to stack a damage deck in X-Wing is simply that you probably never really know when you are going to need a face-up card as opposed to just any old card to use as a damage marker. When the game begins I don't think most people know which card drawn will be the first face-up card seen.

Or which ship is going to suffer it for that matter.

Honestly, with a 33-card deck it's not that hard to randomize it.

Here's an idea, if an opponent is so keen on avoiding direct hit cards, load up a stress generating team that can reliably deal crits. Once your opponent is drowning under status effects that can't be resolved by an action due to stress, he'll long for a direct hit that resolves as soon as it is played.

What I've done in the past is to randomly lay out 11 piles then randomly deal 3 cards per pile, one at a time. After all the cards were dealt, randomly reassemble the deck. This was before I found out about the wash shuffle.

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.

I figure that dealing out 6 piles face down, picking them up in an arbitrary order, and repeating that a couple of times does more than an adequate job of mixing up my deck.

I would be a little ticked off if my opponent grabbed my deck and roughly riffle shuffled them.

I figure that dealing out 6 piles face down, picking them up in an arbitrary order, and repeating that a couple of times does more than an adequate job of mixing up my deck.

I would be a little ticked off if my opponent grabbed my deck and roughly riffle shuffled them.

Once again, pile shuffling re-arranges , but does not randomize . If you, the general you not you specifically, know the starting order, you know the ending order, even over multiple runs. You specifically may not know and may not be purposely using the technique to stack the deck, but because it can be used to do that if all my opponent does is pile I'll ask them to give it a few riffles.

I figure that dealing out 6 piles face down, picking them up in an arbitrary order, and repeating that a couple of times does more than an adequate job of mixing up my deck.

I would be a little ticked off if my opponent grabbed my deck and roughly riffle shuffled them.

Once again, pile shuffling re-arranges , but does not randomize . If you, the general you not you specifically, know the starting order, you know the ending order, even over multiple runs. You specifically may not know and may not be purposely using the technique to stack the deck, but because it can be used to do that if all my opponent does is pile I'll ask them to give it a few riffles.

As a general rule I don't riffle shuffle cards that come with games.

If someone is going to bother to stack his deck, go through an elaborate procedure where he needs to keep track of where cards end up that will be thrown off when his opponent cuts his deck and then the cards get distributed in an unpredictable fashion after all of that he's probably a horrible pain in the ass to play with in every other respect.

Without riffling, it can just be a little suspicious and I would also question intentions and since I have every right to shuffle your deck, I'd also be suspcious if you were upset I was shuffling your deck. I make it a practice to hand over my deck for my opponent to shuffle in every game so it almost sets a social expectation that people tend to not want to break.

Let's make it simple.

If you are trying to manipulate the location of any specific card (or cards) in the deck, you are cheating. By deliberately splitting up the Direct Hits and not giving them a chance to scooch back together, it's cheating. If they split them up, then properly reshuffle, it's okay because now the earlier endeavor makes no real difference

Without riffling, it can just be a little suspicious and I would also question intentions and since I have every right to shuffle your deck, I'd also be suspcious if you were upset I was shuffling your deck. I make it a practice to hand over my deck for my opponent to shuffle in every game so it almost sets a social expectation that people tend to not want to break.

I don't want you riffle shuffling because I don't want you bending my cards. If you are going to shuffle someone else's cards be respectful of their property and use a strip, overhand, or a wash shuffle.

I don't riffle shuffle any cards that come with games. Give me a deck of Bicycles or Hoyles and I'll riffle the **** out of them. Besides, I don't find riffle shuffling a deck of sleeved minicards to be very effective. My pile shuffle, quick strip, pile shuffle, quick strip, pile shuffle is going to do a better job of breaking up the cards that were used in previous games than a riffle shuffle of stiff little cards will.

I find people react more negatively to pile shuffling, than, Riffling, but thinking about I realized I most often overhand shuffle.

Here's a thought, if you prefer to pile shuffle, offer to let your opponent cut the deck 4-5 times. That is, put all your piles together then allow your opponent to break your deck down into 5 piles at random points then put them back together. It would at least mess up an attempt at stacking the deck by possibly putting bad cards close to each other and saves your deck from wear and tear.