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 Marvel Dice Masters is a newly released collectible game by Mike Elliot (Quarriors, Thunderstone, and some M:TG) and Eric Lang (A bunch of random poo poo for a bunch of companies), and published by WizKids. Now, "collectible" is something of a dirty word in games these days, with most of the successful ones either being ancient colossi like Magic or adoption the new living card game model. MDM takes on a slightly different (but not too different) approach to the original formula; You only need one of each card for a complete playset, and your "deck" is only 8 cards. Instead of a traditional TCG deck, each player brings eight character cards and two basic action cards to the table, and all of these are open knowledge. In fact, players even have access to their opponent's basic actions! On top of each of those cards is somewhere from 1 to 4 dice, depending on the card, and those dice are what make up the TCG-analogue deck.  If you've ever played a deckbuilding board game (Quarriors, Dominion, etc.), the rest of the game will start to feel very familiar to you. On your turn you draw four dice from your bag and roll 'em. At the start of the game, these dice are going to be bland "sidekick" die, which feature one of each of the game's energy resources (Mask, Bolt, Shield, and Fist), as well as a wildcard side that can act as any resource and an actual sidekick character side. You can then reroll any number of these dice once, and with the final result either buy dice off your character/action cards, sending them to your discard pile to come up later in typical deckbuilder fashion, or "field" your character-sided die, sometimes activating special effects and readying them for combat. In your opening hands this will strictly be the free-to-field sidekick characters, but as those characters you presumably have been buying start working their way through your deck, you'll be able to field more and more powerful units. Once you have your character engine underway, you can start really mixing it up. Characters have three stats on their die, with the top-left being their energy cost to field, the top right being their attack value, and the bottom right being their defense value. Combat works similar to Magic, where the attacking player announces which characters in their Field zone are going to be attacking, and then the defending player announces and assigns die in their Field to block the attackers. Damage is resolved simultaneously, and any character who took more damage than they had defense is KOed and sent to the Prep area. Ones that didn't take that much damage are returned to the Field, and ones that went completely unblocked are sent to the Used (discard) pile. Any die that are in your Prep area at the start of your turn are added to and rolled with your 4-die "hand," allowing for potentially explosive turns. Confused? Maybe this handy playmat will clear things up a bit:  Deckbuilding Deckbuilding in MDM is, as you'd expect from a game with so few cards in play, pretty simple. You could probably make a functioning deck by just picking your eight favorite characters, slapping on some dice, and sitting down to play. That said, there's a few restrictions and tips you should be aware of: 1) No repeat characters: Every character in the game has, at least, three different versions - Common, Uncommon, and Rare - with a few having starter deck variants and four lucky heroes/villains having a coveted Ultra Rare version. That said, because each character only has one die type regardless of the card rarity you're using, you can't double dip. No 4 Wolverine/4 Black Widow decks, I'm afraid. 2) The total deck dice limit is 20: Even though each character card has a specific dice limit printed on it in the bottom-right corner (this changes based on card version, so be sure to check it!), there's still a team construction limit of 20 dice total. Note that this doesn't include the three dice that will be on each of your basic actions. 3) Buying expensive dice is hard: The game is new, but evidence is already pointing at low cost, fast rush strategies are going to set the pace. If it's taking you 4 shuffles to even start buying the centerpiece for your deck's gameplan then you probably aren't going to live long enough to make it happen. Low-cost characters that provide solid defense and useful energy types (Beast: Mutate 666 being the current hotness for any deck that requires Mask energies to do anything) will both keep you alive and help you accelerate towards those big characters. 4) Be careful with Global powers: Cards that have powers listed as Global mean that both players have access to them. These effects are often incredibly powerful, and sometimes even make it difficult to use the cards they're printed on, like Magneto who buffs all your villain dice, but whose global lets either player pay to reroll a villain die (including their opponent's). Generally you want to aim to make your Globals useful for you, but not particularly useful to be used against you by most other decks. But even then, with characters like Magneto, you can still make it work if you're aware of it and play accordingly. Collectible Model While only needing one of each card for a playset is nice, the game isn't without ways of making you buy more. Each pack of cards only contains two cards (and a die for each), and there's also no easy way to get dice outside of buying packs or finding someone who has extras. Starter decks come with full sets for each of the characters in it, but there's another 20+ characters who aren't featured anywhere in there that you need to buy packs to get dice for. Now, I bought a booster box and almost had a complete playset of dice (3-4+ for each character), but there were still a few holes. This definitely might turn someone off. Mike Elliot actually wrote up an interesting short piece about why they went with the collectible model instead of the LCG model for this game, so if that sort of thing appeals to you, take a look: Mike Elliot posted:While LCGs, Deckbuilders, and other "card games in a box" are very popular, most mass market stores will rarely touch a game in the $30 or more range, and certainly not in any significant quantities. Most of these stores want low price point items that can be bought on impulse purchase. Additionally, the starter decks themselves contain essential cards/dice to play the game regardless of which characters you choose. However, they were short printed and basically impossible to find right now. Wizkids has done a great job communicating about this over the last week and assures that a small shipment will be hitting stores this next week, and then a notably larger one two weeks after that, but we'll see. Fortunately, as a stopgap, they also posted a pdf which offers ways to proxy all the essential cards/dice if you have booster packs but not starters. I've been using the method described and, while it isn't the best thing ever (since the odds of you having die that feel like or are the same size as those used for characters are pretty slim), it's worked well enough and I've gotten in plenty of games. Here's the document if you want to use it.  so many dice, so little time The Current Hotness Like with any card game, MDM's meta is already well into development within the first few days. While things are in an exciting state of flux, a few bits of info seem to be commonly agreed upon. Here's a few of the cards and combos that you can expect people to be using early on. Nova (Quasar) + Human Torch (Johnny Storm): Pretty much the first combo people talked about seriously. The idea is that you have both Nova and Torch fielded, and every time you field anyone else (including Sidekicks) you use Torch to do a point of damage to your opponent and to Nova, triggering Nova's draw ability. I feel this deck is going to really define the early meta since the cards are easy to get and it sort of plays itself in many situations. Black Widow (Tsarina): Super cheap, super rare. The cornerstone for early game rush, and can easily do significant damage over the course of the game. If your deck doesn't have an answer for a hypothetical and not terribly improbable 3-Tsarina opening, you might have trouble once more people get access to this card. Green Goblin ("Gobby"): The other particularly-scary ultra rare card. Like Tsarina, Gobby is able to pump out lots of early game damage, and most of the best counters for it cost 4-6, meaning you need to survive the initial bombing and stabilize if you want to win. More difficult to play than Tsarina (and fewer people care about GG as a character), so expect to see less of him than her, but yeah. Storm (Wind-Rider): The card that inspired a BGG thread by yours truly, and a card I think will gain a lot of sudden notoriety after people's sticker shock from Tsarina and Gobby, and the inherent cuteness of the Nova/Torch combo, begin to fade. There's not much to say here that I don't say in that thread's OP, but let's just say that she's probably the scariest card currently that isn't rush-oriented. Probably mandatory for control archetypes right now. F.A.Q. This game has a bunch of weird rule interactions, most of which are directly caused by the lack of stack, so if I see people bringing up the same questions repeatedly I'll post them here. Links for Stuff Team Builder/Card List: An excel document that lists all the cards/dice, and has built in functionality for making a deck. Card Inventory: An easy way to mark off which cards you have and how many die for each. The complete rules: It's the rules. Also has a complete inventory of what to expect in a starter deck. Countblanc fucked around with this message at 17:07 on May 5, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 23:23
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 20:39 |
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It's a lot less confusing than I probably made it sound, here's a breakdown of the different products you can buy and what comes in each: - Booster Pack: Has two cards (can be the same character, but not the same version of a character) and one die for each of those characters. So if your pack contained the illustrious Nova/Human Torch combo, you'd get those two cards, as well as a single Human Torch and a single Nova die. - Booster Box: Has 60 2-card booster packs. - Starter Deck: 24 characters (3 variants of 8 characters), 10 basic action cards, 2 dice bags, 16 character die (2 for each of the 8 characters), 16 sidekick die, and 12 basic action die. Everything except the 16 character die is starter deck exclusive, and a big part of the game's problem right now, which will hopefully be fixed soon. Using the document I posted towards the end of the OP you can play without the starter deck exclusive things. Also yes, a single starter deck has enough for two players.
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Apr 28, 2014 23:56
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Campbell posted:Nice OP! With the scarcity of starter packs, and the proxy instructions, I've been wondering just how much you'd really miss the starter cards? If you get a box of boosters, it seems like the starter characters would get replaced really fast, and aside from having to use vanilla dice for actions/pawns is there any other set back? At least until a month from now when there will be starter packs everywhere for normal price. The game is too new for me to say exactly what cards are truly important, but I think, at the very least, the starter's Beast: Mutate 666 is going to be a staple for control and other slower decks. Other than that, and the inconvenience of having to use vanilla die for a few weeks, not really. The dice range anywhere from "pretty good and cute" to "seriously?" in terms of quality. I have significantly more good than bad, but I have a few that are just missing accent paint colors on one side or other weirdness. None that are unplayable though. The card stock itself isn't the best either, but since you never actually shuffle your cards wear isn't something I'm particularly worried about. I haven't had any smudged ink, just some bent cards that fixed themselves after being under a textbook overnight. Unrelated, the Wolverine ultra rare I pulled from my box (first pack, no less) sold the other night for $65! Hooray for secondary markets!
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Apr 29, 2014 00:00
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At least some of it is due to the product shortage, to be sure, but it's hard for a lot of people to justify another collectible game a lot of the time. Apparently one of my friends managed to find some starter decks and I should have them by early next week. Hooray, no more proxying.
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May 1, 2014 03:22
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Go to tournaments, because everyone who plays this game is a huge scrub, and I don't mean kids being kids. I started a facebook group to find players in Michigan, and everyone other than my small core group is like "I made a deck of all Doctor characters, it's undefeated in my local meta! Huh, what's "deck thinning" and why would I want to do that?" I'll be at GenCon this year, hopefully some event gets run so I can take a completely undeserved top 32 at a major tournament.
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May 1, 2014 06:52
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I think your deck needs a stronger win condition, or at least, a stronger focus on it. I see your deck's current objective as "field Hulk ASAP, ideally with Fury on the field," and that's a perfectly workable goal. But characters like Hawkeye don't make a lot of sense there - He doesn't use the same type of energy that Fury/Widow/Hulk use (Cap doesn't really "fit" that well either but his energy type is fine), and his role is to clear defenders without attack, which Hulk already does. Here's some general suggestions for you: 1) Replace Cap (Natural Leader) with Cap (Star-Spangled Avenger). He's more expensive, but this way he also serves as a tech card against Gobby, is just more useful in general since your deck really has little reason to attack with sidekicks, and also patches you up a bit. This last bit is important because-- 2) You should use Silver Surfer, specifically for his global ability. The specific Surfer you use doesn't matter too much since you will basically never be purchasing him, but his global lets you pay a Shield energy - of which you'll likely have some of with your Fury purchases and random other dice - to take two damage and place a die in your Prep area. This does wonders for acceleration, and will let you field Hulk easier and earlier in the game. I'm pretty sure this global also triggers Hulk's ability too, so there's that. 3) Consider another strong Fist or Shield character, just as a tech option. I run Thing (+3/+3 when you have fewer fielded characters) in my Hulk deck because he's SLIGHTLY cheaper and serves a different function. I probably won't buy him very often, but if I'm energy starved and need to exploit my opponent's good fortune with rolling sidekicks he makes a decent early buy. Doc Oc (the one that lets him disable a defender) is a decent Shield option, but I haven't really explored that too much. 4) Dump Hawkeye. I said it before, but he just has no real purpose in your deck outside of sniping a few specific characters and your deck doesn't REALLY care about that. I know you want to use him because he's an Avenger, but he just doesn't fit with what you have so far. Consider Punisher (McRook) for a similar purpose with a more agreeable energy type. This could also serve as your tech option! 5) I'd use Force Beam for one of your actions. It's cheap as far as actions go, and also triggers Hulk's ability - this can theoretically lead to 5 damage to your opponent's entire board with good rolls, and a minimum of 3 damage. It also just wipes out Sidekicks (which is great since you don't want your opponent blocking your heavy hitters with them) and sometimes will nail slightly meatier targets like Widow/Angel that I expect will be really big once people have access to them. Thrown Car is a decent secondary, I'd use either that or Gearing Up. Thrown Car has the bonus if being less useful for some other archetypes so you probably aren't accidentally bringing a card your opponent wants to also buy. And yeah I think Hawkeye would deal the extra +1 damage.
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May 2, 2014 21:45
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I'm pretty sure four is the most any die currently uses, but since future sets will require different die, it's really a character by character basis. You'll never need more than two Colossus die, because all of his poo poo is mad expensive and I simply cannot fathom a viable deck that'd need more than two of them. Lots of characters are like this, like Thor, Phoenix, Dr. Strange, and I'm sure more. Other characters like Angel and Black Widow, well, you'll want four of those.
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May 3, 2014 05:45
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Yeah, my matches with Icy were both incredibly relieving with how it showed Tsarina was beatable (though I admit to not being the most top tier of players and made at least one huge mistake during one game), and also a tad depressing because it furthered my belief that big beats isn't going to be an immediately viable archetype. Unless you can make your poo poo unblockable you may just get walled by a good control deck since they have a wall of viable defenders (and can easily neuter your offense through Distraction and other tricks), and a straight aggro deck is simply going to beat you to the punch. I'm gonna keep trying stuff though, I haven't given up on the style, but we'll see. The rare Professor X is really solid in control, and that sorta surprised me. I had a few turns where I had the choice between fielding a single character for two life, or simply rerolling and hoping for energy to maybe do something in the future. He also doesn't die, his health is huge so even if you force him to attack you it still requires 2-4 defenders to really take him down. Loki also shut my deck down real fast (and likely would to any rush if you survived the initial burst) since saying "sorry, those four Widows you bought first round? Can't use those anymore," is a HUGE kick in the teeth.
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May 4, 2014 05:33
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 20:39 |
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I have no idea, truth be told, nor do I think anyone else does. The most they've said is that they aren't having supply issues with boosters.
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May 5, 2014 23:13
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