One member of our group thoroughly enjoys pointing out to everybody at every opportunity, this 'genius' strategy of pulling as many cards as possible when a ship is bound to die anyway. (I.e. let's say a ship has 1 hp left and a focus token, your opponent gets 4 hits and you roll 3 focus results, not spending the token to pull 4 cards out of your deck instead of just one).

While this can be useful against things like "I'll Show You The Dark Side" if you really want to avoid Panicked Pilot on your other ships, I got to thinking just how statistically significant it is simply to pull more cards out of your deck. I'm hoping the much more statistically inclined members of the forum might be able to help, is there a way to calculate how many times per 100 or 1000 games this might make a difference?

It makes essentially no difference, as the cards are random and uncontrollable. There's just as much chance that those pilot crits will be the last 8 in the deck as the first 8.

Try and invite your friend to a poker game.

Are we sure there's no statistical advantage at all?

I mean, that totally makes sense, but I don't want to look a tool!

That's not strategy. It's just what you're supposed to do. You take a number of damage cards equal to the damage you suffered, and then after all ships of the same initiative have attacked, you remove any ships with damage equal to or greater than their hull value.

Statistically, though, it won't make a difference unless ISYTDS is involved, or the cards are dealt faceup (In which case this can give you a tiny bit of information about what's left in the deck).

I guess if there's a crit that absolutely destroys the effectiveness of another ship in the squad, there's a tiny bit of sense to this? But if you then miss those cards, then the likelihood of that ship being effected by that specific crit increases, right?

1 minute ago, Squark said:

That's not strategy. It's just what you're supposed to do. You take a number of damage cards equal to the damage you suffered, and then after all ships of the same initiative have attacked, you remove any ships with damage equal to or greater than their hull value.

Statistically, though, it won't make a difference unless ISYTDS is involved, or the cards are dealt faceup (In which case this can give you a tiny bit of information about what's left in the deck).

The strategy being proposed is to avoid spending mods on the shot that is killing you, to maximise your draw.

25 minutes ago, FriendofYoda said:

Are we sure there's no statistical advantage at all?

I mean, that totally makes sense, but I don't want to look a tool!

Unless you have some control over the cards being drawn, it makes no difference, as long as the deck is properly randomised.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The strategy being proposed is to avoid spending mods on the shot that is killing you, to maximise your draw.

Unless you have some control over the cards being drawn, it makes no difference, as long as the deck is properly randomised.

Oh. Yeah, that's correct. Unless you're trying to trigger a reshuffle by running out the damage deck, this is pointless when Kylo's not around.

As long as any crits are revealed as appropriate drawing extra cards makes no difference statistically as long as the deck is properly randomized. The only way I could see this mattering is if your deck actually ran out of cards (which I think triggers a reshuffle of the cards from destroyed ships), or if you are cheating and loaded the damage deck.

5 minutes ago, Squark said:

Oh. Yeah, that's correct. Unless you're trying to trigger a reshuffle by running out the damage deck, this is pointless when Kylo's not around.

It's pointless even when he is, because there's exactly the same probability that the last card is the card you didn't want him to be able to pull, as that the first card is.

It's basically pointless for the reasons others have noted, yes.

But where some people say there is a real advantage is because you get to see the cards that come out of the deck when a ship dies, so this gives you 'more information' about what crits are out and what crits are still in your deck, since when a ship dies you discard (and get to look at) all the damage cards it had. This information could then maybe be useful to a future attack when a ship is deciding whether to spend or save its Focus to cancel some incoming critical damage.

Granted, this is not very likely to have have any meaningful practical effect on the vast majority of games, and in the grand scheme of things would not be worth the time or mental energy to try and make use of this "bonus" information. But, in very very very rare circumstances (outside of IWSYTDS Kylo who can fish for particular crits), it will make no difference whatsoever.

@AllWingsStandyingBy The problem there is that nothing gives you the right or ability to look at discarded damage cards.

On a semi-related note, I played with an R5 the other night and for the first time ever I repaired a facedown damage card. There was a moment of gleeful shock as I realized... I don’t know where to discard such a thing 😂

5 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

It's basically pointless for the reasons others have noted, yes.

But where some people say there is a real advantage is because you get to see the cards that come out of the deck when a ship dies, so this gives you 'more information' about what crits are out and what crits are still in your deck, since when a ship dies you discard (and get to look at) all the damage cards it had. This information could then maybe be useful to a future attack when a ship is deciding whether to spend or save its Focus to cancel some incoming critical damage.

Granted, this is not very likely to have have any meaningful practical effect on the vast majority of games, and in the grand scheme of things would not be worth the time or mental energy to try and make use of this "bonus" information. But, in very very very rare circumstances (outside of IWSYTDS Kylo who can fish for particular crits), it will make no difference whatsoever.

It has absolutely no effect, because you cannot control what cards are being drawn, or change their order, heck, you can't even control what ships your opponent will shoot first.

The only time that controlling what is in a deck of card matters, is when you can change its order, or control what you draw from it.

9 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

It's basically pointless for the reasons others have noted, yes.

But where some people say there is a real advantage is because you get to see the cards that come out of the deck when a ship dies, so this gives you 'more information' about what crits are out and what crits are still in your deck, since when a ship dies you discard (and get to look at) all the damage cards it had. This information could then maybe be useful to a future attack when a ship is deciding whether to spend or save its Focus to cancel some incoming critical damage.

Granted, this is not very likely to have have any meaningful practical effect on the vast majority of games, and in the grand scheme of things would not be worth the time or mental energy to try and make use of this "bonus" information. But, in very very very rare circumstances (outside of IWSYTDS Kylo who can fish for particular crits), it will make no difference whatsoever.

Unless a pilot ability, upgrade or game effect specifically states you can look at the face down damage cards you are not permitted to . Read the Damage Cards on page 8 of the Rules Reference, there is no exception made for destroyed ships in it.

19 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:

@AllWingsStandyingBy The problem there is that nothing gives you the right or ability to look at discarded damage cards.

On a semi-related note, I played with an R5 the other night and for the first time ever I repaired a facedown damage card. There was a moment of gleeful shock as I realized... I don’t know where to discard such a thing 😂

incorrect, "Each player’s destroyed ships, lost shields, lost charges, and discarded damage cards are open information.." page 6 of tournament regulations.

if your opponent asks to see them you have to show them.

It still doesn't make any difference, because you cannot control when you crit* or what order the remaining cards will be in.

* the only exception being when you might spend resources to ensure a crit, such as by getting Marksmanship, or taking a lock with a TIE/x1, and this MIGHT change your decision, but... it really shouldn't. Because for the former, ALL the crts are nasty, and if it's worth you getting it normally, it's worth you getting it in the knowledge that some are missing, and for the latter, it gets you a die anyway, and that's honestly the good bit.

4 minutes ago, nikk whyte said:

incorrect, "Each player’s destroyed ships, lost shields, lost charges, and discarded damage cards are open information.." page 6 of tournament regulations.

if your opponent asks to see them you have to show them.

Page 5 of the Text only pdf. Interesting how that conflicts with the Rules Reference...

21 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It has absolutely no effect, because you cannot control what cards are being drawn, or change their order, heck, you can't even control what ships your opponent will shoot first.

You've entirely missed my point. I'll try with an example:

Let's say you've got that perfect kill-shot lined up on Fenn rau, and you've got TL+F at Range 1 ready to blast him... but given his concord dawn and his own defensive tokens, you're gonna need a good shot to put him down. He shoots first, and he's got three incoming crits, you roll three eyeballs. Now, you've got plenty of hull, let's say, so those three crits won't kill you... but they will hurt. Do you spend the Focus to avoid the crits, or do you grit your teeth, eat the damage, and save the TL+F shot to try and finally wipe Fenn off the board with your own attack?

Well... if those crits include Weapon Damage or Blinded Pilot ... saving that Focus won't matter as much... so maybe you should just spend the Focus defensively and risk letting Fenn get away... BUT if my other dead ships have revealed to me that both Weapon Damages and both Blinded Pilots are already out of my deck, I can eat the incoming crits safely knowing that they can't shut down my attack opportunity (or, I might know that there's less of them in the deck, if I want to think about the odds of drawing into one that remains). This would encourage me to save the Focus, eat the damage, and try and kill Fenn with my upcoming attack. So the idea is that by allowing your dying ships to eat more damage, they are revealing to you more cards that have been taken from your damage deck, and that this knowledge might be theoretically useful as you decide when and how to spend resources to mitigate would-be damage on your remaining ships.


Granted, it will still only rarely matter in an actual game.

The takeaway: Do you gain theoretically useful information by letting extra damage come into your dying ships? YES . Is it really worth doing so and trying to use that information to your advantage? NOT REALLY .

5 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Page 5 of the Text only pdf. Interesting how that conflicts with the Rules Reference...

the rules reference doesn't say that you cant look at discarded damage cards, so there is no conflict.

So in response to "does it even matter"...

Technically, there might be a time where your options are

-spend important token that you want elsewhere

-take a crit

and in that case, what the crit is will matter so knowing what's out of your deck also matters.

But I think in general it usually doesn't matter anyway because it's rare that you'd rather take a crit than spend a token or whatever (like, if you have any way to avoid that crit, you usually do, so no matter the odds, you can't meaningfully control the outcome).

There is perhaps a time when you would be more confident with certain decisions when certain crits are gone. I don't see it - just because Damaged Engine is out of the deck doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to play my Vader differently and let him get shot, because he can still die from just hits. But I'm not ruling that out as a meaningful decision I guess...

1 minute ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

You've entirely missed my point. I'll try with an example:

Let's say you've got that perfect kill-shot lined up on Fenn rau, and you've got TL+F at Range 1 ready to blast him... but given his concord dawn and his own defensive tokens, you're gonna need a good shot to put him down. He shoots first, and he's got three incoming crits, you roll three eyeballs. Now, you've got plenty of hull, let's say, so those three crits won't kill you... but they will hurt. Do you spend the Focus to avoid the crits, or do you grit your teeth, eat the damage, and save the TL+F shot to try and finally wipe Fenn off the board with your own attack?

Well... if those crits include Weapon Damage or Blinded Pilot ... saving that Focus won't matter as much... so maybe you should just spend the Focus defensively and risk letting Fenn get away... but if because my other dead ships have revealed to me that both Weapon Damages and both Blinded Pilots are already out of my deck, I can eat the crits safely knowing that these crits won't screw me (or, I might know that there's less of them in the deck, if I want to think about the odds of drawing into one that remains). This would encourage me to save the Focus, eat the damage, and try and kill Fenn with my upcoming attack.


Granted, this is all super-theoretical rare opportunity sort of scenarios that are rarely likely to ever matter in an actual game. So my point is: do you gain theoretically useful information by letting extra damage come into your dying ships? YES. Is it really worth doing so, investigating discarded damage cards, and trying to use that information to your advantage? NOT REALLY.

This is reasonable, including the 'it's not worth the effort' element. Because you should be playing the long game in that situation, assuming you don't hurt Fenn, and going for survival, unless he's winning on points anyway.

And it still doesn't change the order of the deck that was set at the start of the game, or the odds of drawing any given card from the remainder, so it still doesn't change the fact that the strategy proposed in the OP makes no statistical difference.

It's essentially meaningless. When intentionally suffering extra damage on a ship doomed to die, the burned cards are just as likely to be the "not so bad" crits as the "really bad" crits.

There may be an edge case when you'd pull enough cards to reshuffle the deck and reset all the probabilities, but c'mon. That's wicked edge-case.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

Because you should be playing the long game in that situation, assuming you don't hurt Fenn, and going for survival, unless he's winning on points anyway.

I disagree, given that in the "long game" situation it may be very difficult for your ship to get those kind of attack opportunities on Fenn, whereas he may have little trouble continuing to harass your hip in future rounds. So the "play defensively and stop this damage now" strategy is not clearly the "best" decision... in fact, I think generally I'd defer to the "eat the damage now and take your swings while you got them, because against a ship like Fenn they may not come around again" camp.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

And it still doesn't change the order of the deck that was set at the start of the game, or the odds of drawing any given card from the remainder, so it still doesn't change the fact that the strategy proposed in the OP makes no statistical difference.

Umm, no one who said there is some (minimal) strategic value to maximizing kill-damage ever said that it changes the order of the damage deck? That's never been the point. The sort of strategy the OP's friend is talking about is exactly the strategy that I've laid out: eating more damage is theoretically advantageous because it allows you to make more informed decisions about future damage-mitigation choices when crits are incoming. Will that theoretical advantage be useful in practice? Rarely, but sometimes.

The Millstone Fallacy is alive and well.

It is also a means of playing the game clock...