I’m Calling You Out

Hey everyone, sorry for skipping a couple of weeks. We did have Dice Masters events, but I could not find the time to write articles. Maybe I’ll discuss those teams at a later date. But for tonight, I wanted to test a couple of characters that you don’t want to block…while of course forcing you to. So get ready, because…

I’m Calling You Out

The Team:  This team has some punch.

This team was, if I’m honest, a bit unfocused. There are two characters I wanted to build around: Hulk and Bullseye. Bullseye was in to test his removal, to see if I could reliably get a 2-for-1 out of him (KO one, spin another). Hulk was in to see how well Call Out could work with these stats. In both cases, I knew I wanted a force block global to take advantage of their abilities, so Booker T made his way in as well.

Now, anytime you’re building around a 5-cost, you want to set things up to get to him. Enter Kree Captain, whose discount is reliable as ever, plus he’s a good beat stick on his own. To make his global more consistent, I threw in Black Dwarf. He gives me the energy type I need most, without giving my opponent the flexibility of an Intellect Devourer. Not to mention that his character ability could give Hulk or Bullseye Overcrush, which is most welcome.

This wasn’t quite enough though; I wanted to get to Hulk quickly, and having excess fists is not wasted thanks to Hulk’s global. So I put in Wong as a 2-cost fist character (hey, I wanted to try his removal ability) and Clayface to bring in Wongs on demand to fuel global abilities.

The rest of the team is utility. Confront The Mighty was put in as extra removal (and hey, if I use it on Bullseye, I can KO stuff with him that way to trigger his ability). Angela was put in to counter Drax, Mary and all that other nastiness, and finally, Atlas was put in for an extra bit of ramp.

With all of that said, on to the games!

Game 1:

I started the evening against an 8-cost overcrushing Thanos. My opponent missed a lot of rolls in this one. As a result, Hulk got a lot of damage in early. To keep up the pressure, I got some Kree Captains on the field, and before Thanos could show up, I went wide with lots of high-attack characters and won.

1-0

Game 2:

Next up, against a SR Thanos team (using R Spidey for removal). That team had a hard time getting anywhere because I kept attacking with Hulk, calling out Parasite. My opponent chose to KO Parasite over taking Hulk damage. Re-fielding Parasite then made it hard for my opponent to afford Thanos. Rinse and repeat for several turns; while my opponent was stalling, I was building up a bigger number of characters. By the time Thanos was out, I had the situation well under control. My opponent had no choice but to attack, and in the end, she left herself too open. I won.

2-0

Game 3:

I finished the evening by going up against a control team, with rare Spidey, Drax, Mary, Pip…all that good stuff. I went for Kree Captains and Hulks. Spidey was a pain to deal with, and my opponent almost won; however, he didn’t realize he had lethal and I somehow hung in there with 4 life left (he had 9 or so). On his last turn, I had two characters: Wong and Black Dwarf. Both with 3 attack, with his Spidey at 4A/4D. Whoever he targets with Spidey, the other can block and I can use the energy I get from his Spidey’s ability for Hulk’s global. He decided to go after my removal (Wong) and spin him to energy, allowing me to block with and KO my Black Dwarf. The next turn, I fielded a Hulk, targeting him with Black Dwarf, and as a result I won. But he would’ve deserved the win.

3-0

Game 4:

I took the bye to help with matchups.

4-0

Post-Mortem:

-Tonight reinforced why I like that version of Hulk best. Call Out with those stats is a bigger deal than people realize. If we had a way to give Overcrush to a character for cheap, he would be even better.

-Tonight did not give me a fair assessment of Wong. I got to trigger his ability twice all evening. He just wouldn’t come up as a character most of the time.

-To absolutely no one’s surprise, that Bullseye is wonky as all heck. Funny, yes, but incredibly unreliable. And with his effect being mandatory, I had to spin my own sidekick to energy once…which I then used to trigger his own force attack global. So it wasn’t wasted.

-This Black Dwarf is not to be underestimated as a secondary win condition. We have a lot of characters with bigger stats now, and Overcrush can really come in handy. So if you put him in for the sidekick fixer (which is reason enough!), don’t forget you have a cool character to use too.

-Special shout-out to our very own jbouwme who, along with Rob, made the trip to come play some Dice Masters with us. Thanks for coming out guys, it was great to see you.

Overall, this team really needed another 3-cost, but it was a fun ride anyway. Since my local meta loves R Spidey right now, I’m starting to understand this new “use it or lose it” meta. Makes me wonder where the dust will settle. Will control teams win the day by shutting everything down, or will people win by going for broke with aggro? Only time will tell.