Clarification: Had the issue been brought to our attention during the match, we would have suggested sharing dice. Unfortunately, the issue was brought to my attention after the match had concluded. Our concerns then became thus: equitably address the issue because a specific complaint had been made, protect the accused from unverifiable accusations and rumor mill (because of all the reasons already given for FFG dice not being scientifically machined, etc...), maintain player integrity by preventing influence of future opponents, follow FFG protocols to the best of our ability, and finally handle everything objectively and discretely so as not to cause undue emotional stress. We obviously fell short on this last objective.

This has most assuredly been a learning experience for me on several fronts. Among all the accusations and comments there is some truly beneficial advice and it is appreciated. I am only human after all, I cannot travel back in time. I can only offer my utmost moving forward.

Brobots with FCS and Crack-Stem? And they wonder why your getting 3-4 hits a turn? Anything less and I would assume your dice have a flaw to the blanks.

Alright, let's set the record straight. First off, this was easily one of the best run events I've seen overall in 20 plus years of competitive gaming (including FFG run Gen con and world's events). These TOs had every I dotted and T crossed including timers, announcements, pairings, rules, etc. except for one unfortunate event. Everyone has had an experience with a poorly run event and a bad TO, don't get it twisted that this was one of those events. I could easily criticize many TOs at similar events tenfold for their skills before the lunch break (including, but not limited to, the event the previous week that sparked an 11 page forum thread on tournament length or one in statesboro Georgia that had outright collusion this past Saturday, though it had no meaningful impact on the results). This was the first time these TOs had to deal with something like this (let's face it, xwing has been an extremely casual community until this season). Could they have handled it a bit better? Sure. But there are certainly worse ways to go about it than giving you free dice. The best way to handle it would be to remind any opponents that had a problem that they could just use your dice as well. You can't realistically test dice on the spot. I love how that argument is essentially "people don't understand small sample sizes and statistics, so you need to roll them a few times to be sure". Best not to hold up an event by fondling them for 30 minutes either.

It's also worth pointing out that both TOs are extremely kind young ladies, and maybe (can't speak for them for sure) they "caved" for a quick solution because they had multiple grown men yelling in their faces like children (the OP's accusers, not the OP himself). It's worth mentioning that the OP's noble TO friend, who has not run an xwing event near this size himself, was yelling the loudest. Resulting to personal insults, facebook rants, the whole nine yards. I'd bet dollars to donuts he's of the aforementioned negative breed of TO.

I'm sure it through you off your game a bit, but sooner or later, you have to be able to play with some sort of distraction in just about any competitive setting for a game or sport. You can't play in a bubble. I've had to play virtually every store championship and regional over the past two years on little (and often no sleep) due to work schedule. I've lost in the final match multiple times in these circumstances. I was playing with a fever as well at this event. Our group had a clerical error cost us our hotel room on the first night of Gen con this past year, resulting in us having been awake for 24 hours plus by the time the event even BEGAN. I had to play a top 4 regional game a couple years ago with some random older lady that had wandered into the store chatting me up about attack wing, which I give less than a you know what about. Granted some of these instances (and there are many more) were beyond the control of the host location and/or TOs, but my point is life happens. I wish my biggest distraction was a free set of dice. Also, as you mentioned, your top 4 opponent did win in the previous Swiss game (and he ended up going undefeated on the day and won the event) before the distraction. Can you really say for sure it would have been different otherwise? For everyone else's benefit I'll mention that Tim (the champion on the day) is a consummate gentleman and was not one of the accusers.

And the last point I'll make is about the supposed lack of observation. Even at the top 16 for world's and gencon, in that initial round of 16, there was typically just a single judge giving a cursory glance down the long row of 7 or 8 mats on the one table. Not really going to glean too much from each game like that. Only the game on the stream really had a judge hovering. Speaking of streams, it's worth mentioning that the game in question WAS being live streamed, with the TOs on their laptops anyway.

I obviously had a lot to say based on first hand experience at this event, and apologize for the rant. Safe to say though, that if the entire player base from this event was polled on the overall performance of these TOs, it would be an overwhelmingly positive response. Looking forward to the regional at this location.

Wait....what happened at Statesboro?

There were an odd number of players, 4 rounds swiss plus top 4. In round 2, a player who no longer lives in statesboro, but is originally from there and friends or at least familiar with the T.O. asked to be given the bye for a free win. A couple players from our local meta (roughly 2 1/2 hours away from statesboro, maybe less) witnessed the T.O. manual switch players after the round 2 results were generated by the software so that said player could get the bye. They didn't say anything, just kinda rolled their eyes, because frankly, they weren't really concerned about the player in question shooting up the standings and making the cut. He now lives in "the next meta over" about 45 minutes away, and is frequently up to some sort of antics so the players are very familiar with him, but frankly, for lack of a better term this guy is essentially the village idiot and mostly harmless. We're all kinda just used to him and pick our battles. The player ended the day 1-3. In the next round however, the T.O. was witnessed again (they were already suspicious at this point) switching another pairing or two so a couple locals didn't have to play each other. Even at this point, the guys that saw this were willing to give the T.O. the benefit of the doubt thinking that maybe the software had repaired people from a previous round. Once at the tables, one player calls out as an honest question "wait, I'm 2-0 and my opponent is 0-2, how are we playing?". This was one of the pairings involved. The T.O. tried to mumble up some excuse about the two of them having very close m.o.v. and saying it pairs off of that, which of course is a) virtually impossible since we're probably talking like 300 something m.o.v. to about 100 something, and b) not even true to begin with in relation to the software. He then comments a bit later to one of the players from here that had been watching him (not sure exactly how it was brought up again or how he confronted him about it, but safe to say it was off to the side fairly discretely, again to not completely embarrass the T.O.) that " yeah, I switched them because they are both from around here and play each other in the shop a lot." Around this time the pairings for the 4th round were going out, and the player he had just said that to was matched up against one of the other 2 players that rode with him from our area (because they were the two 3-0 players). He then says to the T.O., in a tongue in cheek manner, "well can we not get paired up then? we play each other all the time". It's worth noting that they were playing, and have been for awhile now, the exact same list verbatim card for card. It's a miserable game to watch, let alone play in i'm sure. And it's happened at least 4 times with them because, like this day, they are usually both doing well with it. But they understand it comes with the territory. The T.O. responded "no, you guys are playing for the top table, I can't do that". But of course the players he repaired were both 2-0 at the time (maybe one 1-1 and a 2-0) so it's not like he was at least just doing this with people that couldn't affect the cut or something. The two of them proceeded to get a draw with the mirror match. I don't think there were any issues after that, other than some salty attitudes when it came time for the final match and the other player from here playing the same list as our friend that had been talking to the T.O. was slated to play against (i think) a local. He asked simply if he could film the game. They said sure. He said ok, give me about 10 minutes to grab a smoke and set up the camera (hadn't had it in there from the start for whatever reason. Possibly for space or just not to seem as intrusive). As he's outside, about 5 mins into the short break, the T.O. and other player in the finals start bashing him along the lines of "who does he think he is getting a camera in someone else's area?, what is taking him so long, he needs to hurry the hell up and not be an ass making us wait, he didn't even ask if he could do it, etc." to which the other player from our group with that same list who had lost in top 4 match to the player saying these things and was sitting right there said "he did just ask and you both said it was fine". The response was "oh, well I guess he did, but still". Straight up elementary school logic. For the record, we have a fairly popular youtube channel in the region, and the player getting the camera is the guy who made the map of all the store championships in the country that this board seems to be pretty thankful for. We do our best to cover the game for the benefit of anyone who is interested. We even had the final match from gen con this past year up before team covenant. If they had seemed at all not ok with him setting up the camera, when he asked them, he wouldn't have pressed the issue. We've had at least one similar case in the past.

That's all that really needs to be said about the Statesboro Store Championship, unless it's going to at least be in another thread. It doesn't need to completely derail this already volatile one. There may be some behind the scenes emails etc. that come of it, but that's all I'm going to say about it out in the open. It goes to show though, that even on the EXACT same day, in the EXACT same region, there are far bigger T.O. problems to worry about. Let alone if we go drudging up accounts from every store championship and regional over the past 4 years. The last thing we need to be doing is having a bunch of people jumping on the band wagon to roast some T.O.s that did an overall outstanding job because the peanut gallery think this is one of those times when it really is not the case.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

Yeah that was so out of order it deserved an instant ban, you don't mess with others stuff anyone willing to do that should not have his complaints taken seriously on any level.

Once again am I the only one concerned that people (including the TO) rifled through another players stuff without his consent?

Once again am I the only one concerned that people (including the TO) rifled through another players stuff without his consent?

No and we've all said as much. But as I read the reports, the TO never actually rifled through anything.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

Yeah that was so out of order it deserved an instant ban, you don't mess with others stuff anyone willing to do that should not have his complaints taken seriously on any level.

I feel bad for the TOs. There is just so much crap from the players on both sides that it is sort of ruining what sounds to be a well run event.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

Yeah that was so out of order it deserved an instant ban, you don't mess with others stuff anyone willing to do that should not have his complaints taken seriously on any level.

I think one of the big factors to reiterate here was that, at least initially, the T.O.s and or owner were not aware that the dice belonged to another player than the player that was inspecting them. Now, granted, you can argue that no one would probably say "hey come look at these dice" (which is how it was said, not "i'm looking at this guy's dice I just played because they seem loaded or anything to that effect) if it were their own dice. But people are strange and have odd since of humors. Everyone has probably known someone to roll their own dice in front of you and say "my dice suck, watch" hoping to roll a bunch of blanks while you're looking. This player was also still calm on the surface at this moment, the yelling came a bit later. By the time the T.O.s and owner realized what was going on, the process had already begun. It had already drawn onlookers etc. It couldn't just be completely ignored very at that point. As far as action against the player messing with things that don't belong to him, he was already eliminated for the tournament, and didn't sound particularly thrilled to come back at some point by the end of it. If he did come to another event there, I'm sure he would, at the very least, get a stern talking too and additional scrutiny. Which again, would probably not make him want to play there again anyway, but it's not like the people running the event condoned his actions in anyway. Trying to resole the situation without any further escalation once too much attention was already upon it is not catering to his wishes.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

Yeah that was so out of order it deserved an instant ban, you don't mess with others stuff anyone willing to do that should not have his complaints taken seriously on any level.

I feel bad for the TOs. There is just so much crap from the players on both sides that it is sort of ruining what sounds to be a well run event.

Thank you! We tried to run a smooth event - even going as far as to fill out the score sheets beforehand for everyone so names were easily read and ensuring everyone was already in Cyrodex prior to arrival. All rules were available on tablets in searchable PDFs for quick reference, and questions of arc or range or anything else were double checked and blind - we didn't not want to be told whose ship was whose.

General feedback has been good, and I am really excited about regionals. It should be a great time!

Once again am I the only one concerned that people (including the TO) rifled through another players stuff without his consent?

Again, when first on the scene, it was not immediately obvious that those dice did not belong to the player speaking with the T.O. I'm also not trying to make the T.O. sound dense. I'm just saying for that 30 seconds or whatever before it started to draw more of a crowd including the actual owner, there was little to no indicator to the contrary. As I said, the accuser was initially very vauge, intentionally or not.

Once again am I the only one concerned that people (including the TO) rifled through another players stuff without his consent?

No and we've all said as much. But as I read the reports, the TO never actually rifled through anything.

I think she/they may have been handed dice with a "here roll these" and rolled them a few times. There was no digging through trays, boxes, etc on the T.O.s part.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

Yeah that was so out of order it deserved an instant ban, you don't mess with others stuff anyone willing to do that should not have his complaints taken seriously on any level.

I feel bad for the TOs. There is just so much crap from the players on both sides that it is sort of ruining what sounds to be a well run event.

This cannot be over stated enough. FFG should take absolutely no action against the store or the T.O.s The only response they should give, if any, is their written consent to instruct players to share the dice in the future.

This was not handled well.

When someone is accused of being a dice cheat, the correct protocol is to burn them at the stake. If they die, they can die with a good reputation and the assurance that they were not in fact a cheater. But, if their dice powers save them and the fly away on a broomstick made of dice, then we know they practiced the dark arks of dicecraft.

Once again am I the only one concerned that people (including the TO) rifled through another players stuff without his consent?

First off, if you read the whole thread you are far from the only one. On the other hand, and I'm not saying it was right by any stretch, but by all accounts there didn't seem to be any "rifling" through. Even by the OP's account (unless I read it wrong; I'm open to correction) the dice were on the table and he watched the accuser doing it and was "flattered." He never raised that as a concern until the mob here started attacking the TOs handling of the situation. His concern was that the accusation got in his head and he feels he didn't play to his ability. Understandable.

Under the circumstances, I think the TOs jumped on what they felt was a ruling that needed handling, and the "rifling through" is a subject to be breached with the store owner. Which may or may not have happened. I wasn't there, but I am a customer of Get Your Fun On and can state unequivocally that Marc runs the best store around and runs multiple events over multiple product lines on any given day. This is an awful tarnish on an amazing track record and I'm sure everyone involved would do whatever they could to rectify it properly.

In that post from the owner it states he was worried about dealing with a complaint if a players accusation weren't heeded. I must point out that those accusations were coming from a player that without permission from anyone pulled apart and went through another players belongings. I'm not so sure the venue should be worried about fielding a complaint from a player that should have been removed from the event for messing with another players stuff without permission.

Yeah that was so out of order it deserved an instant ban, you don't mess with others stuff anyone willing to do that should not have his complaints taken seriously on any level.

I feel bad for the TOs. There is just so much crap from the players on both sides that it is sort of ruining what sounds to be a well run event.

Yep but I can understand the OP getting thrown off by such an accusation, and while I know it was a tricky situation it could of used a touch more diplomacy.

A cheater wouldn't care they've already thrown away their sense of decency, but that preys on the minds of honest folk.

I am wondering what the Regional fireworks will be like. Are they going to ban half the state or are we in for a 20 page thread after it?

Well, there already seems to be a group trying to discredit the venue. Seems they would've preferred their own store.

I am wondering what the Regional fireworks will be like. Are they going to ban half the state or are we in for a 20 page thread after it?

Back to your cave, troll. No one said anything about bans.

Clarification: Had the issue been brought to our attention during the match, we would have suggested sharing dice. Unfortunately, the issue was brought to my attention after the match had concluded. Our concerns then became thus: equitably address the issue because a specific complaint had been made, protect the accused from unverifiable accusations and rumor mill (because of all the reasons already given for FFG dice not being scientifically machined, etc...), maintain player integrity by preventing influence of future opponents, follow FFG protocols to the best of our ability, and finally handle everything objectively and discretely so as not to cause undue emotional stress. We obviously fell short on this last objective.

This has most assuredly been a learning experience for me on several fronts. Among all the accusations and comments there is some truly beneficial advice and it is appreciated. I am only human after all, I cannot travel back in time. I can only offer my utmost moving forward.

This is an extremely important point in the whole tapestry here. This is another issue with the seemingly best situation of "you two should just share dice" measure. For the record, I do NOT think he was. I think it was mostly just bro bot math skewing people's perspectives. Worst case scenario I feel is he hit a bit of a reasonable hot streak on the day. What's particularly interesting about bro bot math, is it takes some "lucky bad rolls" such as 1 natural hit on 4 dice against a fresh target that they then hopefully evade so that you get to shoot back with the target lock and potentially a focus then. Then you have your old 4 hits 77% of the time with focus and lock. But if your dice were actually loaded you'd get more "decent shots" that would probably net less damage in the long run in a strange sort of way. It's kinda like evade dice. Many players will roll one triple natural evade at some point during a match. But does it come when your opponent only rolled 1 hit and the game is already virtually decided, or does it come when the game hangs in the balance and you have 3 hits coming in at a nearly dead ship? In the long run the green dice were probably fairly even, but yours maybe just mattered more. For him to get meh naked attack rolls followed by strong modified ones sounds like the definition of dice rolling a wide variety of results.

But let's say that you did have someone knowingly using loaded dice, and the suspicion was only presented after the fact. And even if it started out discretely, in 10 mins or so time it escalated to the point that everyone in the room was aware of it. The suspected player knows the heat is on him now. If he has loaded dice, he knows he may be required to share them in the following game. If he is doing all this intentionally, and is this slippery, it's at least within reason he could manage to somehow (say if the T.O.s are trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and don't immediately confisicate the dice while trying to gather facts) switch in a backup set during the commotion. Every xwing player has like 12 dice of each color by now, especially a player that would need them for such a purpose. He could then be sharing normal dice if asked to do so in the following game. Alternatively, if the dice were confisicated immediately, there is no way to know if another set he has has also been tampered with. He could pull those out and at least benefit from them for a bit in the following game before being asked to share in that game IF it was brought up again. If this had happened in the middle of a game, even the most skilled sleight of hand artist would have a difficult time switching out the initial loaded set when asked to share, but again, it didn't. Giving him a neutral set without access to other dice was a way to be sure. Again, I don't think he was cheating at all, and this is some casino level of hypotheticals i'm talking about here. I'd like to think this level of shenanigans doesn't exist (yet) in xwing. But it goes to show that the hosts were willing to try to handle this in the best way possible and consider every factor they could.

Hi again gang! As I'm still in the moderation cycle even though I've been a member on these boards for 5 years just never needed to post, this reply may take a while to appear.

I would like to address the situation with the actual dice checking. I sat for quite a while and went over the security camera video of the table in question to ensure the flow of events. I do not have sound on this camera so can not verify anything said.

For the sake of reading I'll call the player with the dice player 1 and his opponent player 2. Here is what happened:

The match concludes. Both players are gathering their stuff up. Player 1 uses a wooden tray for his markers, ships, templates. He uses a dice cup for rolling and storing his dice. He finishes gathering his stuff and leaves it at his side of the table to walk away.

Player 2 is still gathering his stuff. He reaches over and picks up the dice cup and looks in it. shakes it. rolls the dice out and rolls them a few times. Sets them back in the middle of the table.

(I will state here that yes this is improper to touch another players property without permission or notification. He has been contacted and notified of this offense. It is now in the roster of "things stated by the TOs prior to every tournament" with the things like "no dial touching without telling your opponent first" etc. But, I would also like it to be known that player 2 did NOT dig through anything, go through any boxes or bags in any way to get these dice. He picked up the dice cup on the table on the opponents side. It does not lessen the offense but he was also not "rifling and digging through another player's stuff" as I have seen it stated here.)

Player 2 continues to gather his belongings and packs it up.

As TO1 approaches the TO table player 2 walks over to her and gets her to follow him to his table. She is standing at the end of the table. Player 2 picks up the dice and rolls them a few times. She pciks them up and looks at them and sets them down. There is conversation for a moment. TO1 turns to TO2 who is busy at the reporting table with folks turning in their scoring sheets. So TO1 steps over to another table that has a known TO from another region who is just watching a game (he was playing in the event, not TOing, but had already been eliminated). They both return to the table and look at the dice and talk a moment.

The visiting player/TO returns to the game he was watching. TO1 goes over to TO2 and they have a discussion involving phone searching and such.

At this point player 1 returns to the table and regroups his belonging and slides them to the end of the table. He walks away again.

Player 2 finishes gathering his belongings and leaves the table and the venue shortly after as far as I can tell.

At this point is when the TOs approach me about the situation and the rest can be read in my other novella :-)

I do absolutely feel bad that this situation upset player 1. It was actually our intentions to not upset him. We wanted to make it abundantly clear he was in no way being accused of cheating by way of dice tampering at all by the TOs. There were not 3 official accusations of dice issues. Only one. The others were just offhand comments that added up later. But it was made officially to a TO and needed to be addressed like any other "judge!" call during the event. The TOs and myself only wanted it to be a positive experience for player 1 by eliminating any post event rumor mill that most likely could have arisen had he won the event. In hindsight, maybe the best call going into the top 4 cut would have been to say nothing to player 1 and just have everyone pool their dice and redistribute randomly. This idea did not arise till much later after it was found out player 1 was shaken. We just tried to be discreet as possible in addressing the issue and making sure his victory couldn't be questioned.

As the store owner, I happily invite player 1 back to the venue for Regionals and will pay his entry from my own pocket.

Although, with the account of the yelling, there was no way this was going to be done quietly.

Although, with the account of the yelling, there was no way this was going to be done quietly.

The player was taken aside and switched the dice (in a separate room - the store used to be a movie theatre) before his top 4 match. The yelling started when I approached the table, to ask the result of that match. His friend made a passive aggressive comment about how we only accuse non-locals of cheating. I informed the friend that we accused no one of cheating. The friend then proceeded to yell at me. That is when I called over TO1, who is the one who made the original observation. I bristled up a bit, I admit. I don't really like being yelled at.

Just make sure they don't bring an infinate sided dice...

You turn into a piece of plastic, the table could turn into a Wampa, or you could just roll a crit.

No one does. Especially over a game. But, the yelling clearly indicates that either group wasn't quite willing to let it go.

Hi again gang! As I'm still in the moderation cycle even though I've been a member on these boards for 5 years just never needed to post, this reply may take a while to appear.

I would like to address the situation with the actual dice checking. I sat for quite a while and went over the security camera video of the table in question to ensure the flow of events. I do not have sound on this camera so can not verify anything said.

For the sake of reading I'll call the player with the dice player 1 and his opponent player 2. Here is what happened:

The match concludes. Both players are gathering their stuff up. Player 1 uses a wooden tray for his markers, ships, templates. He uses a dice cup for rolling and storing his dice. He finishes gathering his stuff and leaves it at his side of the table to walk away.

Player 2 is still gathering his stuff. He reaches over and picks up the dice cup and looks in it. shakes it. rolls the dice out and rolls them a few times. Sets them back in the middle of the table.

(I will state here that yes this is improper to touch another players property without permission or notification. He has been contacted and notified of this offense. It is now in the roster of "things stated by the TOs prior to every tournament" with the things like "no dial touching without telling your opponent first" etc. But, I would also like it to be known that player 2 did NOT dig through anything, go through any boxes or bags in any way to get these dice. He picked up the dice cup on the table on the opponents side. It does not lessen the offense but he was also not "rifling and digging through another player's stuff" as I have seen it stated here.)

Player 2 continues to gather his belongings and packs it up.

As TO1 approaches the TO table player 2 walks over to her and gets her to follow him to his table. She is standing at the end of the table. Player 2 picks up the dice and rolls them a few times. She pciks them up and looks at them and sets them down. There is conversation for a moment. TO1 turns to TO2 who is busy at the reporting table with folks turning in their scoring sheets. So TO1 steps over to another table that has a known TO from another region who is just watching a game (he was playing in the event, not TOing, but had already been eliminated). They both return to the table and look at the dice and talk a moment.

The visiting player/TO returns to the game he was watching. TO1 goes over to TO2 and they have a discussion involving phone searching and such.

At this point player 1 returns to the table and regroups his belonging and slides them to the end of the table. He walks away again.

Player 2 finishes gathering his belongings and leaves the table and the venue shortly after as far as I can tell.

At this point is when the TOs approach me about the situation and the rest can be read in my other novella :-)

I do absolutely feel bad that this situation upset player 1. It was actually our intentions to not upset him. We wanted to make it abundantly clear he was in no way being accused of cheating by way of dice tampering at all by the TOs. There were not 3 official accusations of dice issues. Only one. The others were just offhand comments that added up later. But it was made officially to a TO and needed to be addressed like any other "judge!" call during the event. The TOs and myself only wanted it to be a positive experience for player 1 by eliminating any post event rumor mill that most likely could have arisen had he won the event. In hindsight, maybe the best call going into the top 4 cut would have been to say nothing to player 1 and just have everyone pool their dice and redistribute randomly. This idea did not arise till much later after it was found out player 1 was shaken. We just tried to be discreet as possible in addressing the issue and making sure his victory couldn't be questioned.

As the store owner, I happily invite player 1 back to the venue for Regionals and will pay his entry from my own pocket.

I'm not a fan of pooling dice just like I'm not a fan of just swapping ships, etc. I know where my dice came from and as unlucky as my greens tend to be at times I still prefer them.

Not sure anyone would be in favour of pooling dice. 1 opponent saying that someone's dice are bad or they are cheating with their dice is not enough to warrant what happened even with 2 other opponents saying something about hot dice. This happens. I have a 3 ship tlt build where 2 of them have predator and the 3rd ship reduces pilot skill to 0. This build crushes but in part due to the fact that I am able to reroll 2 dice with 2 of my ships. Since there are 6 sides on a red die that have something on them, the chances of rolling them with a face up is 75%. Reroll 2 of them and it goes up even more. To inexperienced players or those who have had bad dice luck this may appear to be "cheating dice" but it statistically is correct. To have 4 dice rolling with HLC and have FCS(which allows rerolls of all of them), the chance of having 3 to 4 hits is very high. With a focus token, you can't get any higher odds in this game and it is stacked in favour of attack.

I am wondering what the Regional fireworks will be like. Are they going to ban half the state or are we in for a 20 page thread after it?

It was the salty players that claimed they didn't want to come back, not the other way around. Miami is more than welcome to come play and find another excuse when Jacksonville, and Tampa, and the space coast, and Orlando get the best of them again (I'm directing this post not at the O.P., but at the rest of his group that came in with an extremely lousy attitude).This was the first time this group had left their comfortable surroundings and discovered that it's a very big world out there. There is a very clear big fish small pond syndrome here. Again, the ring leader of the group was stirring up trouble WEEKS ahead of time telling them how they should run the event (directly contrary to FFG guidelines btw), why their impressive venue shouldn't have regionals etc. All because he had run some local tournaments. When he walked in, and said to the T.O. in his mean girls esque tone, "have you even ever played xwing? pfft" I wish I was standing there so I could ask "have you?". Straight up sexist comment because he probably assumed a female T.O. was helpless. I don't know how to say this without sounding conceited, but if everyone was being honest with themselves, they've all seen the group that travels to an event thinking their just going to storm in there because they routinely beat scyks at home and don't take the culteral shock gracefully. On the flip side, another common trend has been store championships in fairly rural areas that have attracted more out of town players as this game has exploded having disgruntled locals when all of a sudden 3 rounds in theings are not going their way. One such event I was at had one local literally fist pound the table to the point that the ships got airborn because he flew straight onto a rock in ROUND 2 before exploding in a rant of swearing and questioning why he even plays. Shortly after that ANOTHER local was berating a FIRST TIME TOURNAMENT PLAYER for play TLTs (and i mean like 1-2 not 4) because "they are the most overpowered thing in the game, you must be a miserable person if you have to play something like that in a game" etc. etc. After that game concluded, he continued to attack the player (who barely even spoke) instructing him to "not stand next to the table because you're in the way. If you're going to just stand around somewhere, have the decency to go somewhere else, like outside." The other player then just sat back down, and the rageaholic replied "or that, if you insist." Children were within 10 feet of both of these players for both of these instances. Children were also present in the room at Get Your Fun On ("Tournament Director" included) when grown men were yelling and swearing on saturday. I had several of them wathcing my games on the top table throughout the day with the T.O.s and some others kindly explaining the game in the most motherly/school teacherlike fashions you can imagine.

Again this is another topic for another thread more than likely, but the simple fact is with the insane growth this game has had, it can no longer always be the fly casual atmosphere it has in the past. The vast majority of players are still great people, but the sad truth is that this sort of behavior is becoming more commonplace and is sort of an unavoidable side effect of a super successful game. I've seen it at 3 out of 4 events so far this season compared to virtually none at dozens of events over the previous 3 years. It still beats having a game you enjoy die out from lack of popularity though.

I will add that I fell bad for the O.P. he seems like a genuinely nice guy, who was a little upset in the moment but nothing extreme, and seemed to have calmed down just fine after the fact. I would not want to be in his shoes and have to ride 2 1/2 hours with the group he was with, nor play with them on a regular basis. The fact that they keep claiming local just cracks me up when the other out of town groups had no such issues, and never have in the past. I have been at every single store championship or regional in this area, or the nearbyish orlando area for the past 2 years. never had an issue as an out of towner. Neither have the tampa guys at these events. It's also why I can firmly stand by my point that this was the first venture outside of very south florida this group had made. That also includes the regional in Tampa last year. That's the kind of guy we're dealing with in this "Tournament Director" guy. You wanna talk about baseless accusations......

No one does. Especially over a game. But, the yelling clearly indicates that either group wasn't quite willing to let it go.

Correct. The yeller was the same person who, a week before, started a thread in the event on facebook complaining about how regionals was going to be ran. When I posted clarification, he just straight up ignored my responses. Once someone else (my fiancé) shut him down and explained, he then proceeded to call him, and another player, by name and say he was going to "bring some damage".

This same player asked TO1 if she "even played the game".

We have tried the best we can to mitigate the damage. It appears we failed in that regard.