Planar Chaos prerelease action

My first post to this blog. I started this because I have many good times playing Magic and wanted to keep a record of some of those highlights. If you aren't familiar with Magic, then there won't be much for you here. I wouldn't expect much strategy and what not either, just some of my own experiences.

The major inspriration for this post is the prerelease event I attended two weeks ago. I opened some great Blue and Red for the sealed portion (Psionic Blast, Draining Whelk, Magus of the Scroll, splash white for Lightning Angel, etc). Ended up 3-1 and won some packs. The interesting stuff happened after the sealed tourney during the Two-Headed Giant....

My buddy Micah and I opened a fairly mediocre set of cards, but did the best we could. We won one and lost one. The third match was an eye-opener in many ways. Our opponents start fairly fast by suspending a halberdier and dropping a couple 1cc and 2cc creats. On turn 4 the fireworks went off. One of them played Sunlance, Uktabi Drake and Scryb Ranger. The other guy then casts Empty the Warrens for 8 goblins. At the time it just seemed like a nice couple of hands coming together for a big play. They mentioned that they had gotten it to got off for 16 in an earlier match. Needless to say, they ended up winning. It didn't really dawn on us until later that they had quite possibly cheated. Usually in sealed it wouldn't be likely to get 5-6 really good 1cc and 2cc spells in two colors that you can cast by turn 4. It would seem the support player (the non-warrens guy) would have to have several 1cc and 2cc cards in order to have that many to cast on turn 4 (not to mention the couple he cast before turn 4). The warrens guy also had at least one suspend card to support the warrens as well. The decks, in retrospect, are block-constructed quality for 2HG. But this was a low k-value event and there weren't any decklists. I guess we could have asked to count their cards and sb to make sure no extras were slipped in, but if they were smart enough, they could have made the counts come out right.

I know now that I won't be shy to ask a judge to count an opponent's cards. I really don't mind losing, but losing to cheaters is no fun. They are like theives, taking prizes away from more honest folk. Not to mention how they taint the experience.

I know it wasn't a clear-cut case of cheating, but my 2HG partner and I have played for nearly 20 years combined and this is the first time we'd really sensed something like this. Anyway, if any of this post made sense to you, you must play as well. Would you have suspected anything in this scenario? Do you think I am paranoid? Would you have acted on any suspicions? Just curious.