Three back to back life events updates in a row and no gaming stuff. I know not good enough.
If life hadn’t decided claiming Ebony wasn’t enough of kick in the emotional nads. It decided physically it needed to torment me as well.
Just after midnight last night a kidney stone decided it no longer wanted to be cooped up inside but wanted to see the big wide world instead.
I have a high pain tolerance but when this happens it really does test my limits. I think the previous time this happened I described how intense the pain was. Breaking out in sweats, throwing up just from the pain.
Early on while still able to I got mum to take Nico and Loki. Probably a good idea. Fur ball company often helps when one of them leaves us. It’s their presence, being happy just to be curled up next to you. Not demanding anything. Listening, boy are they good listeners. All stuff you need at moments like this.
I was then lying with a bowl in the conservatory trying to survive the pain. Why there? It was cool, and when you are sweating so much from the pain it helps believe me. Plus it was also next to a toilet. Which I would need.
What helped get me through was the hope that this would be all wrapped up so I could make the interview I had at 8:30am.
As the clock approached 8am the pain still there I needed to contact the interview and work.
Although out of the kidney the stones were now in my bowel causing just as much pain until they were passed.
I was in no position to make those calls myself. Just attempting was making me do multi coloured yawns or more accurately what little was left in my stomach.
It would need mum to make the calls for me.
Unable to give mum the numbers to call, she would need Google. The flaw in the pain induced plan. Mum doesn’t know how to use Google!
So between expelling bile I told her to get my brother to do it.
I was unable to correct mum when she told my brother it was a chest pain. A mistake that would worry my friends at work.
Once those stones had finally passed out of the body I was right as rain. Feeling like I’d been sparing with Tyson and getting a few kidney punches, and very very drained.
I was then able to contact my friend let her know how I was. That’s when I found out about my mums lack of biology knowledge. I’m glad she didn’t call an ambulance, which she was close to doing.
As I was writing this tale of suffering I’ve got lucky and another shot at the interview. That’s a big big relief.
I’m now recovering and recharging from that marathon pain session.
Ebony and her brother Toby were trouble egging each other on all the time.
But they were beautiful souls.
Ebony always wanted attention and was my special girl.
The last few weeks Ebony, like Strider decided sleeping downstairs was better than going upstairs at night. Meaning Mum slept downstairs as well. Yes Mum had a proper bed to sleep on.
Ebony hadn’t been her usual self with food the last few days either becoming very fussy.
The signs has been there that soon we would no longer be sharing the same path.
However even when you know the inevitable is coming, it doesn’t make it any easier.
We knew she wouldn’t make it through the night. So before I left mum after tea I gave Ebony a hug, and thanked her, told her I loved her and asked her to say hi to the others for me.
Today has always been a tough day for me. Even after 35 years the pain of my Dad’s death has not eased.
The proverb “time heals all wounds” on this anniversary seems so hollow.
Dad’s passing has always meant September has never been a month where emotional I’m in a good spot.
But the pain is now doubled with Nan leaving us just eight days later.
It truly feels like September is the month my heart and soul shows how broken they are.
The only signs to the outside world is I may become more reclusive and avoid the outside world. Which might mean I cancel plans at the last minute and piss off friends. But that is unavoidable. It’s hard to give the true reason. I’m one of those irrational folks that will gladly help anyone in anyway I can, but not be able to ask for help when I need it. Sometimes that mask slips. I’m sure I’m not as good at hiding it as I think.
I miss them both dearly.
But I remember the good times and their love. May they both be in peace wherever they are.
I do like deck construction. It’s a side of ccgs like MtG that I get immense enjoyment from.
However I have over the more recent months come to appreciate more the other aspects of game formats offered by this type of game. Such as preconstructed decks and draft.
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy these differing ways to participate in a game before. It’s just my preference was for playing with decks I’d constructed.
But as I took an extended break away from the competitive side and the constant very expensive arms race. I wanted to return to playing these types of game casually with my friends and without the expense.
As I’ve documented in previous posts I’ve found official MtG precons for Standard/Pioneer/Commander/Game Night Kits and the Card Kingdom Battle Decks great as casual pick up and play sessions with friends.
Now I’m trying to bring that casual side to Dice Masters. Particularly using cards from sets that I already own.
Sadly in the Dice Masters world there are no precon products apart from starter/learning sets that do not give the full blown Dice Masters experience. But are great for teaching the core ebb and flow of the game.
Which is how I fell into and loving the draft format with the draft packs.
But at £10 a pack purchasing two packs a time can soon mount up. I needed a way to get more value out of any draft packs purchased, and my dated collection.
Luckily the MtG community had an answer. The cube. I’ve already written about constructing a cube for Dice Masters.
So at the moment draft whether using official packs or a cube is my preferred way to play Dice Masters with friends.
Which brings me after that rather long introduction and justification to the fact that once again this Tuesday Dave and I played Dice Masters by drafting the two Dark Phoenix Saga draft packs.
I’m enjoying our two player draft experience but in an ideal world we’d have three or four drafting and playing their teams against each other.
The first two games I was royally beaten by Dave. Game one saw me purchase two early explosion basic action dice. They helped whittle Dave’s life down but I wasn’t able to capitalise on it.
Game two I just wasn’t able to get anything going to container his bloody doubled up attacks or overcrush.
Our third and final game of the evening saw me get a consolatory victory so it wasn’t a complete white wash. My key to victory in this game was my Mystique Freedom Force comboing with Madelyne Pryor Sisterhood.
Basically I kept throwing Mystique in to chump block and pump up the loyalty counters on Madelyne Pryor, and when a suitable character die was in the used area move it to the prep area.
Madelyne at the end was getting pretty pumped at the end +7A and +7D iirc.
The three games were all we had time for before the early closing of social club (our hosts).
Did I pull a Master Mold?
After all that’s the thought that was eating away at me whilst the two draft packs remained unopened. The temptation to find out in the days since their arrival excruciating. But I managed to resist.
However we pulled no Master Mold between the two packs.
I have to admit I was a little disappointed. But that’s the major drawback of the ccg model that you live with.
Now for the bit related to the post title…
So I now have my first cube.
It’s probably the laziest one you can do. I just threw the four draft packs together. It really doesn’t get simpler than that.
It’s a modern cube.
Which means I used draft packs from Modern legal sets. In this case two draft packs from The Dark Phoenix Saga and Secret Wars.
So it’s kinda a chaos draft experience due to the fact I’m using two sets.
Nice thing is this all fits into a MtG Commander deck box!
However the play testing of this cube will have to wait until our next Dice Masters session due to the evenings time constraints.
The nice thing is that once I get more draft decks from these sets I can curate the experience better, like including a Wolverine. There were one or two cards that had abilities that triggered if Wolverine was present. But those thoughts are for another day.
Well for two or three days I have been. And didn’t think you wanted more posts on my current fixation.
The plan was for September to get off to an epic start of gaming after the disappointing amount that took place in August.
However best laid plans etc meant that this start to the month has been a damp squib.
For instance today was meant to be Twilight Imperium 4 again. And it would have been if British Gas had come to upgrade mums meters at the time they told her (8am).
In my defence my mum organised this without checking with me first.
However as the morning went on and no sign of a British Gas engineer I had to make a call about if the game went ahead.
The guy didn’t turn up until after midday. Apparently they didn’t know they had to come to mums until they thought they had finished their last job for the day and got told they had mum to do.
This is what a disappointing month of gaming looks like
So with no Internet, and having dog sitting duties whilst the engineer was next door I tried getting mums dog Ebony to settle. But she just wouldn’t. She’s an old dog who doesn’t handle changes to routine that well. Which meant it was nigh impossible to watch any dvd. But I tried a couple episodes of Blake’s 7.
So no gaming but at least mum has a new smart meter for her gas and electric.
I’m hoping Tuesday still happens and I can draft Dice Masters with Dave, and finally get the gaming off to a start for the month.
On the arm front the arm is starting to get sore again. But not nearly as bad as before. So I’m still popping the pills to control things to allow me the use of the arm and to try and rest it as much as possible.
Some gaming stuff did happen in the last week such as…
I had been putting off getting the recent Rolling Realms promo packs when they were released due to cash flow issues at the time.
But now I have them and they are added to the Rolling Realms box. Which now is so full you couldn’t fit another card in it. Well not with out a bit of knife work on the insert.
I did finally manage to get the custom Dice Masters playmat image that I purchased shared with Patriot Games for printing. It was too large to upload via their website. So hopefully that arrives soon. Just hope Gav is able to find the playmat I originally had now. I know the dice bag I ordered off etzy has been posted. So with a fair wind it will be here by Tuesday.
Other arrivals in the week were two Dark Phoenix draft packs. Can’t wait to draft these. The temptation to crack them open has been huge. I want to know if I have the current meta defining Master Mold Endless Sentinels in one of them. So far I’ve been good and resisted.
Wow did I just sneak in Dice Masters to this post? Oops. Bait and switch.
Thanks for reading this far and catch you in the next post.
“OMG Darren! Just stop. You need to write about something else for a while. Give us a break from all this Dice Masters ramblings.”
But, but, I actually got to play it last night.
Dave and I met up and played some games of Dice Masters.
We started off playing the learning teams from the TMNT set. So two characters each, and three basic action cards in the middle.
Starting off with poor dice rolls and being forced to basically buy basic action dice is not a great start to a game of Dice Masters. But thems the way the dice roll sometimes.
With that sort of head start it wasn’t a surprise that Dave got to claim the first victory.
I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the cards selected for the teams in this learning game. The two characters in my team didn’t have any synergy at all. Their abilities were pretty pointless.
Our second learning game was the Secret Wars Origin packs. Now these were more fun. I had the Groot led team, whilst Dave had team Spidey.
I thought this worked better as a learning game. Groot’s ability to stop a character from blocking for the turn when fielded was very useful in putting a stop to the Spider-Man blocking ability. Much to Dave’s annoyance.
For this second game I was able to go on and get the win.
Game three saw us jump right in and do a two player draft with the two Secret Wars draft packs I had.
Wow the difference in card quality and design is significant. The cards felt so much better. Although I do have one complaint. The trigger abilities by an asterisk need to be more clearly marked on the cards. So it is clear which is an on going ability and which is the triggered one by rolling a side with an asterisk.
They do foil cards now! Wow I like that.
During our draft I thought that I had drafted a Reed Richards when in fact I had accidentally taken a second Beast! How that happened I don’t know. It was not my intention. I had wanted a second Fantastic Four team member to benefit from a buff that Invisible Girl gave other Fantastic Four members. It’s why I specifically drafted a Namor with the Fantastic Four icon on.
What a blunder!
Despite losing. I just couldn’t handle Galactus. I kept throwing bodies in front of him, sometimes enough to KO him. But when he also had Thanos with him. It eventually wore me down. Although Beast was annoying as a blocker with his reroll when KO’d. We had a lot of fun.
I don’t think in this game either of us bought a basic action die.
Draft works really well like this. Much simpler than opening multiple booster packs.
Glad I ordered two Dark Phoenix draft packs now (might after drafting them, use them with the Secret Wars draft packs create a Modern cube for drafting).
It was so much fun playing the game again. Boy have I missed playing it. And now once I create some cubes, or teams I can play with my friends whenever we want.
I think I mentioned briefly in a previous post the idea of creating a Dice Masters version of an MtG cube.
So what is a cube?
Basically a cube is a large pool of cards selected to play a limited version of the game, ie draft.
A cube is a casual format. Apart from I think CardKingdom there are no commercial cubes to purchase. A cube is normally put together by a person to play with friends or gaming group.
Usually a cube reflects a theme or mechanics that the person putting it together enjoys. So the cube could be a tribal cube containing cards that are tribes the creator likes playing like elves, slithers, dinosaurs, etc. Or it could be cards from MtG sets that the creator enjoyed playing, or a pauper cube with just commons.
There are usually at least 360 different cards in a cube, but can be more depending on how many players the cube is designed to support.
A cube is also a living thing. As you play them they get tweaked, new cards added, etc.
A cube is a very personal thing. It’s an expression of the person that created it. But they are fun. If you like the draft format that is.
So what about Dice Masters?
I think it is possible to create a cube for Dice Masters.
Currently draft in Dice Masters uses the blind draft packs that contain 2 or 3 basic action cards (depending which set draft pack you are using), 12 cards and 2 dice for each of the 12 cards.
It is this draft pack that I will suggest we try and recreate over the old draft of using booster packs.
I think as a minimum our Dice Masters cube should support up to four players (but could be built to support more players).
So with this in mind our cube when finished will have
48 cards (a mixture of character and action cards), that’s 12 cards per player
12 basic action cards, that’s 3 basic actions per player
96 dice to go with the 48 cards
Obviously these numbers will go up depending on the number of players we want to support with the cube.
Now the hard part choosing the cards to include in your cube.
Here are some ideas:
Pauper – only common cards from a set/sets
Only rare and super rare cards
Only certain teams, so just Avengers or X-Men for example
Cards only from certain sets like D&D
Hero team vs Villian team
Only Villians
Only female characters
No global actions
Only cards with global actions
No cards over a certain purchase cost
Only promo cards (are there 48 promo cards?)
You get the idea.
When it comes to play. Before hand I’d sleeve the cards. Ideally I’d sleeve the basic action cards a different colour.
Shuffle the basic action cards deal 3 per player.
Then shuffle the rest of the cards and deal 12 to each to player.
After that you follow the Double Rainbow Draft rules that Wizkids publish here.
This is a great format for breathing life into those cards from older sets or even cards you don’t use in newer sets. Let me know in the comments below if you tried building a cube and how it went when you used it with your friends.
In the meantime I will post on here any Dice Master cubes that I create.
In my previous post where I shared ideas that possibly might reinvigorate Dice Masters. More than one of the suggestions were heavily influenced by my experience of MtG.
One I missed is doing a Dice Masters equivalent of a chaos draft. This is where booster packs from various MtG sets are used for the draft instead of from just a single set.
I don’t see why this isn’t something that players couldn’t do themselves at events or with mates. But it’s also something Wizkids could run at conventions.
It’s that convention side I’d like to see the variety, using them or piggy backing on the convention to run a Dice Masters version of a MagicFest or whatever they are called these days. Not just the competitive play for a title (world, regional, etc) but side events like draft (which they did at GenCon), chaos draft, a Golden Age event, a pauper event for both Modern and Golden Age. You get the idea.
Yesterday I was chatting with my friend Freddy who lives in the US. Told him I’m back in the game. It turns out he still has most of his stuff from back when we were playing too. He’d sold off his cards that were worth money. So I’m guessing that’s cards like Gobby and Black Widow.
We agreed we should play a game or two again. Which would be using webcams at the moment. However there was some exciting news that would mean we would finally meet in real life and play a game or two in person.
Freddy is coming to the UK in December. How cool is that?
Taking into account the status of his collection our games I think would obviously be Golden Age, and what I’d call pauper. Plus when he is over here we could do a draft.
So excited.
I did start organising the cards that I have. At the moment alphabetically. Next it’s to organise by rarity. Which will make building more easy. So I know for pauper I can go to a particular box to get all my commons.
Thinking aloud is it possible to do a Dice Masters version of a cube for drafting? I need to think how this would work. Just spitballing ideas that breath new life into collections and allow players to play with friends or family.
“Not another Dice Masters related post. You’ve not even got it to the table yet!”
I know. Plans I had to get it to the table this bank holiday weekend (in England) have been blown out. However that doesn’t stop these first impressions of stuff that lands through the letterbox.
heroes in a half shell – my first impressions of the TMNT Dice Masters box
I like TMNT.
Back in the late eighties like an awful lot of people I got caught up in the whole heroes in a half shell craze.
I really liked the first movie, enjoyed the episodes of the cartoon I caught on tv. Played the video games, and even bought a couple of the graphic novels.
At best you could describe me as a casual fan.
So the fact Wizkids did a TMNT set does appeal to my inner fanboy.
The nice thing about this product is it’s “complete” and you don’t have to go off and buy any boosters to try and get the cards/dice you want.
The box claims it has everything for two to four players to play. And I wouldn’t disagree with that.
I liked the themed waxy paper dice bags. I actually prefer these paper playmats to the glossy ones in the Secret War origin packs. Although I’m not sure how long they’d last with frequent use.
I do like the rulebook a lot. Although the size does make it hard to read the cards in some of the diagrams. But that could just be my failing eyesight. Why is this an issue? Well in the quick start section at the front of the rulebook it tells you to use the cards in the diagram! Which for me was unreadable. Luckily they are actually named in the full rules section.
I do like that they give two learning game teams. However I think it would have been a great idea to include two eight card team lists for two players. Or even suggested four card teams for a four player game of the doubles format that they suggest players can use. Plus the rules for a doubles game.
The box also acts as a storage box for dice too. Ho
SIQUK Dice Storage Case Initial Impressions
I was looking on Amazon to see if I could find a second (all already have the official Dice Masters one) dice bag with a suitable pattern. When in the search results it threw up this dice storage case for £12.99.
It looked just what I needed for carrying around a team or two to an event or a game with Nathan or a friend. And at a price I really liked.
There was a slightly more expensive version that was deeper and had a second dice tray. Which I did come close to purchasing. However a rough guesstimate of the single tray version capacity looked like it’d do me.
Plus Amazon was able to deliver it to me the same day as ordering. Cool.
The case is more than enough to hold a dice masters team and dice. If I was going to a tournament/event or playing someone else with their own stuff I could easily fit two teams in the tray.
If I wanted to take two teams and everything for two players, ie me playing with a friend it’s short of space by four dice. But playing 18 dice each isn’t too much a hardship. And for me not enough to warrant getting the two tray version.
As the photos show above it can easily hold everything for two players to use two learning teams. I have the two Secret War origin packs and the TMNT suggested learning teams in the case photos above.
Removing the tray for dice allows you to use the bottom half as a dice tray. Which is pretty nice.
In the lid half there is more than enough space for your team cards, and basic action reminder cards. Plus a large zipped pocket. I have a rulebook, and couple of paper playmats in mine.
Overall my initial impressions are very positive and just what I was looking for.
Well I’d bloody hope so after the recent spat of posts about Dice Masters that I’ve written, and ordering some Dice Masters stuff.
I have been listening to a Dice Masters podcast called Double Double ‘n Dice. I think the hosts of the show are Canadian. In the latest episode where one of the hosts talks about their GenCon 23 experience they mention about a new VP at Wizkids. The host talks about their conversation with the VP and how the VP wants to revitalise Dice Masters, and is looking into what they can do.
I have some ideas that I will now share with you of products I’d like to see and think might help with that revitalisation of the game.
Just so we know where I am coming from if it wasn’t already clear, I am a returning player to the game. I haven’t played the game for nearly seven years.
So I am really out of the loop as to what the current meta is. There has been a rule change for the first player and their first turn of the game. Tokens have been introduced. And thats just stuff I’ve come across so far in the last week!
Which means I’m not in too dissimilar a situation to that of a new player wanting to get into the game.
Where do I start? Is it worth taking part in an event in a FLGS or online?
And thats the major issue any competitive collectible game that has been around for any length of time has.
I know that Wizkids do starter decks. And I have liked the ones that they did when I was really into the game when it first came out. Will I like the new ones when they arrive?
Starter decks have a real aim of being used by new players to learn the game. They should be fun to play with against each other. But they most definitely are not something you could play at a competitive event. I think Wizkids hit the nail perfectly here on pricing and the fun side for learning the game.
That’s where I think Wizkids could learn from WotC and the Challenger decks they do for MtG. The Challenger decks whether Standard or Pioneer are meant to be decks a player (new or established) can buy and be competitive at a Friday Night Magic. (FNM). They may not win the event but they will have fun, and not be a door mat for other players.
Usually these Challenger decks reflect popular deck archetypes such as burn or control that make up the current meta for the format.
I think that Wizkids could do a similar thing for Dice Masters. Create a team pack that is competitive and allow a new player to take part in competitive events and win one or two games. Think of all the new content content creators could make such as “the three best cards to replace for under $10”
Another precon Wizkids could copy the idea of from WotC is the Commander decks. Dice Masters has its golden age format which is basically the games version of Modern, Vintage, etc. Well I think Wizkids could look at previous World Series team lists and reprint them as something new players or even current players could buy and play. Although thinking of it this is more in line with the decks WotC used to print with gold borders of Grand Prix winner decks. However they could do decks that are golden age format recreating popular archetypes.
I know that there was mention of getting more IP outside of the Marvel/DC stuff they currently release around. I’d love to see LoTR, maybe The Witcher. But I can see these licenses being real expensive if they can even get them. I love the FFG Android setting. It’d be so cool to see that licence in Dice Masters but not sure if that would have mass appeal. I could see My Little Pony, maybe He-man and She-ra being very popular. Would Nintendo IPs work? Going by how many people backed the Last Airbender RPG on kickstarter I would think that would sell like hot cakes.
Going back to MtG I’d love Wizkids to expand on the formats for the game. They have the two most obvious ones. However it would be cool if they could come up with the Dice Masters version of Commander. I think a multiplayer free for all format would be cool. Would it work with all players starting with say 30 health? Would we still need the current first player first turn rule? It would need it’s own ban list? Are we just looking at a rules tweak for golden age to make it work as a multiplayer format?
I’d also like to see Wizkids push a Dice Masters version of the MtG fan created pauper format for both Golden Age and Modern. So basically versions of each format that only common rarity cards can be used for team building. Making it more accessible to new players.
Which brings me onto conventions like GenCon. At least I’d like to see more variety in the type of events being run. They can still do draft and the competitive modern. But I’d like to see Golden Age and pauper version events also being run.
That’s some early thoughts for Wizkids to consider, or I hope they would. I think they can learn a lot from WotC (although not the releasing too much product and milking the players like WotC are currently doing, no One Ring stunts please).
Will anyone in the Dice Masters community read these? Nah. That’d require me to become active in the community and share these thoughts. I’ll stick to my little corner of the internet shouting into the void.
A first look/initial impressions of the Secret Wars Origin Packs
Just got my grubby mitts on my first bits of new Dice Masters. I went with the two Secret Wars Origin Packs and a couple of draft packs. I’m not going to touch the draft packs until I have a chance to play a draft game with Nathan or a friend.
In the meantime I thought I’d give my initial impressions of the two Origin Packs.
To start with I was caught off guard with the size of the boxes (both the origin packs and the draft packs). They were a lot smaller than I was expecting.
Once I had got used to the size I actually like the fact they are more compact with very little wasted space. Heck you can very easily through them in a pocket.
I did like the “play mat” although I would have liked it to be a little bigger. The little rule book is nice as well.
I was rather disappointed that the Origin Packs only had two character cards and two basic action cards.
At the cost of the product I wasn’t expecting rare or super rare cards in the box. So it wasn’t a surprise that these are common versions. There seems to be some synergy between the four cards and looking at them the game plan for each team should be easy for an experience player to explain to a new player. A nice touch would have been to include a sheet or in the rulebook a little bit about how to play the team.
These packs are what I would equate to the free Welcome Decks that WotC used to give to FLGS to give to new players to learn to play MtG. These are clearly aimed at teaching the game and giving the new player the required sidekick dice for future plays.
I didn’t mention this in the earlier part of the post but if Wizkids were to do a similar thing to the Welcome Deck for stores to give to new players to learn to play with this is exactly the sort of thing I would have suggested.
Sadly these are too expensive for that to be the case. They are not even up to the old starter packs which I would have said are the Dice Masters equivalent to the MtG Starter kits.
Overall these look like fun little intro teams to teach the basics of Dice Masters. But I will say there is a large asterisk over the fun bit until I get a chance to get them to the table.
