Friday evening Dave and I played some Dice Masters at the usual haunt.
As I’m still building a local Dice Masters community, and those I’ve introduced the game to haven’t invested in buying product yet (ie not building teams to play). We dark drafted (you can read about the format here) my Marvel cube.
Below are the teams and basic actions that we drafted.
My Draft 1 Team
- Black Widow: Natural
- Ant-Man: Biophysicist
- Green Goblin: Goblin-Lord
- Punisher: McRook
- Hawkeye: Longbow
- Wolverine: Wildboy
- Deadpool: Assassin
- Psylocke: Betsy Braddock
My Basic Actions
- Invulnerability
- Rally!
Dave’s Draft 1 Team
- Mystique: Ageless
- Mr. Fantastic: Brilliant Scientist
- Gambit: Ace in the Hole
- Vision: Density Control
- Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme
- Professor X: Recruiting Young Mutants
- Nova: Quasar
- Magik: Illyana Rasputina
Dave’s Basic Actions
- Teleport
- Gearing Up
Our first game was the perfect game for my team. I got both Green Goblins out along with five sidekicks very early. It was a quick game.
Game two was longer but not by much. Green Goblin still played a part in the victory.
The next two games saw Green Goblin reduced to a bit part at best. The games were longer and requiring a better use of my roster to find solutions to problems Dave was presenting.
These last two games saw a much greater reliance on The Punisher as the killer die to get victory. He does present an interesting choice for your opponent when he attacks. The chipping away of life to keep a character fielded to block bigger amounts of damage almost seems over powered.
I did feel I drafted well. Especially in the last two games. I felt I had solutions to buy for the problems Dave presented. Deadpool was a good solution in one game allowing me to swing through with some big unblocked attacks.
Dave was adamant he had something in his team and wanted to keep trying when I offered to redraft. It almost felt like that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the Black Knight, “it’s a mere flesh wound”.
After our fourth game Dave finally admitted defeat for his team and agreed to a new draft.
Score: 4-0 to me
Below are the new teams we drafted. We both agreed we were happy keeping the Basic Actions as they were.
My Draft 2 Team
- Falcon: Samuel Wilson
- Nick Fury: Mr. Anger
- Gambit: Ace in the Hole
- Punisher: McRook
- Wolverine: Wildboy
- Professor X: Recruiting Young Mutants
- Captain America: Special Ops
- She-Hulk: Jennifer Walters
Dave’s Draft 2 Team
- Mr. Fantastic: Brilliant Scientist
- Green Goblin: Goblin-Lord
- Mystique: Ageless
- Magik: Illyana Rasputina
- Spider-Man: Hero for Hire
- Nova: Quasar
- Doctor Octopus: Megalomaniac
- Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme
It was my turn to be on the receiving end of a fast Green Goblin attack and his Side Kick horde. I made the call to take all the damage. Which reduced my life to 3. Yeah a brave call. But my inner magic player whispered to me “life is a resource”. Taking the damage got the threat removed for a turn or two. Give me time to stabilise and make a heroic come back.
And the plan seemed to be working. I did indeed get Dave’s life down to a level where if I could swing in unblocked I’d win. But Dave was able to use his Spider-Man to stop me blocking enough damage to get the win.
Our second and final game was another long game with dice being drafted as solutions to what Dave had drafted. Particularly his Doc Oct and its ability to stop a character from blocking. That was so annoying.
Score: 1-1
I had been thinking about refreshing the cube. Particularly in relation to Green Goblin. But Dave felt Punisher was too powerful, and I agree. So those two cards are definitely on the replace list. Now I just need to look at the card pool (the commons) and look for replacements. I need to do this before I go visit Nathan.
I love the case I got to use with Dice Masters. It’s targeted at D&D players. But works brilliantly for storing my Dice Masters stuff. I could easily fit a team in here for a tournament. But at mo I use it for the basics for two players.
