I would like to point out few situations that were recorded during day 2 of Lothal Open.
First one is a tight maneuvering which you can see at 36:30 of this video:

What you can see is polish player trying hard to fit his K-wing behind Old Teroch. Please notice how he slightly moves the template away just before the judge-call, and leaves it there as an evidence.
Final verdict favors polish player, based on the fact, that his ships have third-party transparent token-holders on top of their bases, and he claims this to be the reason both ships ended up in contact.
Also, notice how he never uses those add-ons in the intended way (no matter how ingenuine this may or may not be), putting tokens next to his ships.
Judge's decission finds its conclusion in lethal bomb-placement, and Miranda avoiding 5-dice shot from Fenn Rau. I dare to say, this was a game-changer.

Now, let's move on to the final match:

First questionable situation occurs at 14:20, with Quickdraw bumping Tomax Bren. Please notice how Lukasz executes the bump, placing his ship next to Tomax, instead of behind him. This resulted in r2 shot into the shuttle.
Next one is quite impressive. Take a closer look at the bomber movement at 19:30. Lukasz works hard to fit it in front of the shuttle, but has to stab it a bit while his oppoent is reaching for his stuff on the right, to succeed. He convinces the judge it occured after he finished the placement, and it a go.
The last one is Crackshot trigger abuse attempt at 27:00, when Lukasz calls it before his opponent had a chance to finish modifying his dice. This time the judge acts properly, and it is a no-go.

What I am trying to point out, is that we might have serious problems with judging, which is especially alarming at the largest tournaments.
Such situations should be settled out in favor of the player, that is on the receiving end of other player's clunkyness or inability to recreate game state or prove his version of events.
The community is growing fast, and FFG should take care to keep things clear, especially at he high-level events.
Currently we have huge "gray areas" in tournament rules, and stuff like intentional stalling, positioning abuse, or simple unsporting conduct often go with no consequances.

Do we want X-wing to be a place for such behaviors?
Players across the globe greet one another with "fly casual!" quote for a reason, let us do something to keep it alive, even when most precious acrylic goodies are on the stack...

Miranda fit in there. No bump of bases from what I see on the video.

But in the second video... both moves you've pointed out look questionable to me.

We will never know, especially after he moved the template before the judge-call. Also, try to hear how the judge is refering to the "normal" and additional base thing.
Even if there was no bump, the way the polish player acted immediately after the maneuver, makes it impossible for the judge to give clear answer, because he definitely moved the template. In case of such tight maneuvers, players should proceed in a way allowing both sides to define the outcome.

You also have this situation in match 1 with Timo clearly (explaining) after his maneuver that he is considering a barrel roll... then puts down a focus token and removed his hands from the token and the playing surface. THAT focus is now his action. At that point Greg reveals his dial and after it's fully revealed anf Greg is even getting his template to move his ship... Timo wants a take back and wants to pull off the focus token and barrel roll. And then he does so, without asking. He bullies Greg into allowing him a take back.

Not cool. Once the game state has changed and new information in revealed, you don't get to rewind your previous action and choose a different one. Timo gives some lame excuse that he did not "SEE" what was on the revealed maneuver dial, but that can neither be proven or unproven. The fact remains that a focus token was placed and the hand was removed and the next ships dial was revealed. No take backs at this level.

Casual night? Okay.

System open? Nope. That focus is locked in. No barrel roll. No take backs.

Fully agree.

That dude straight up cheated. He flicked that shuttle out of his way to get his bomber in. I would have straight picked my stuff up and rolled.

8 hours ago, fairxwing said:

What I am trying to point out, is that we might have serious problems with judging, which is especially alarming at the largest tournaments.
Such situations should be settled out in favor of the player, that is on the receiving end of other player's clunkyness or inability to recreate game state or prove his version of events.
The community is growing fast, and FFG should take care to keep things clear, especially at he high-level events.
Currently we have huge "gray areas" in tournament rules, and stuff like intentional stalling, positioning abuse, or simple unsporting conduct often go with no consequances.

Do we want X-wing to be a place for such behaviors?
Players across the globe greet one another with "fly casual!" quote for a reason, let us do something to keep it alive, even when most precious acrylic goodies are on the stack...

I do get the feeling that FFG is doing what they can to make a great game but likely have a 'corporate executive" stance of leaving a lot of the tougher ruling stuff be settled by the tournament hosting community. A lot of these people hosting the events are highly motivated by love of the game vs. it being the most profitable venture for them. FFG is the real breadwinner in the tournament scene and should be getting involved despite it being a dicey area. A lot of people volunteer time judging or TO so there is only so far you can ask them to go before you'll have trouble finding judges. FFG being the largest stakeholder in tournament scene as far as profits, directly & indirectly, definitely have a responsibility to do what they can to keep the game as clean and well run as possible.

Judges aren't omnipresent so to catch cheating is a daunting task, if they show up and are unaware and the opponent is unaware of cheating I don't think there is really great corrective action for that. Judges even in major league sports have to make best call based on whats available. However, videos of final matches can help identify someone doing shady stuff and if you win but everyone knows you cheated, you've really lost out since there is no prize money in the X-wing tournament scene.

The case of the shuttle. The opponent pushed it back afterwards so I am sure he saw the flick. Given that he was not complaining I am sure it fitted.

OMG, both players were there, several top european x-wing judges were there. All of them had a very close look at the situation and accepted it. What's the point of bringing this here after the tournament? It won't change a single thing.

After 12 games of x-wing, playing final I would say it's normal your hands are shaking and you're somehow clumsy.

There were plenty people around, judges etc and opponent doesn't complain.

I find this topic confusing.

I suspect, looking at nickname of the user and time he registered on the forum (clearly only to rise this topic) it's part of some personal crusade and effect of animosity rather than something more.

1. You do realize there were ~20 people watching it live and now some of you here on the net seeing YT video recorded with perspective try to judge better then them...? COME ON, be reasonable.

2. This whole topic is just sad echo of our discussion on Polish forum - where there were strong personall attacks, and whole discussion had zero arguments backing this "cheat". Even the winner that supposedly should feel cheated, said all was fine.

@fairxwing Great job man, instead of enjoying like rest of us, Polish domination of this event, you wanna try show all Polish players as cheaters....*******. (oh yes cause im sure he is someone from our community - time coincidence of both discussions about the same situations is too big to be just coincidence)

It's a low quality video from an angle that prevents us from seeing exactly what was happening. The "flick" was post-placement, just nervous fingers I'd assume, and the other player didn't question it. This looks like the usual sort of accidental slippage that happens all the time on giant mousepads.

I don't want to get into specifics in this case... I generally agree with some of the later posts... you weren't playing - so what you think doesn't matter.

But more generally

Quote

"stuff like intentional stalling, positioning abuse, or simple unsporting conduct often go with no consequences"

Similar things happen in many wargame-type tournaments (you can add loaded dice, putting off your opponent by being a smelly bugger... and a whole range of other things). My approach to this has always been the same:

If you do the above things... your a "insert derogatory swear word of choice". That is punishment enough. I may have lost a game, but you'll always be "insert derogatory swear word of choice". Fortunately I have more in my life worth worrying about than a game of toy soldiers... no matter how much I love those games. If people feel they need to cheat or "push boundaries" for some kind of life-validation... well good luck to them. I hope they find the happiness they obviously so desperately need.

I don't think its up to FFG (or any other games company) to stop people being a "insert derogatory swear word of choice". But if you encounter it with your opponent, tell them what they're doing - hopefully they will change.