This past weekend was the official/unofficial 2020 Dice Masters World Championship.  I say unofficial as this was a fan hosted event organized by CR Gameroom (with a little help from ourselves and the Ministry of Dice).  As a result of the current worldwide pandemic, there was no live Wizkids event this year, so the Community had to make the best of the situation.  The CR Gameroom guys took charge and decided that some type of an event would be held on the weekend that Worlds was supposed to take place.

Instead of a single day tournament, they decided to try and replicate the Worlds experience by hosting side events along with the main constructed event.  The weekend broke down like this:

• Friday (October 9, 2020) was the 10/10 (minus 3) Modern Event.  This night was hosted by ourselves here at DM-North.  For those unfamiliar with this Format, 10/10 is a constructed format where you must use 10 different cards from 10 different sets.  The minus 3 was our own addition to the rules by banning the current “Big 3” cards (Becky Lynch – You Know Who, God Catcher – That One, and Thor – I’m New… What The Hell Did I Do?).  These games were best of 1, Swiss Rounds.
• Saturday (October 10, 2020) was the main Modern Constructed Event.  This was the big one, where players brought their best to the table to roll for Dice Masters supremacy.  This day was hosted by the organizers at CR Gameroom and broadcast all over the internets.  There were no bans in place for this one.  Swiss Rounds were a best of 1, with a Top 8 cut.  The Top 8 games were best of 3.
• Sunday (October 11, 2020) was a 2 for 1 day, where The Ministry of Dice hosted the Global Escalation Event in the morning and the CR Gameroom guys finished up the day with a full on Golden Event.
  • Global Escalation is a constructed Format that bans cards that have won previous competitive events.  You can find the current ban list on the Wizkids website, but The Ministry added in some additional bans to make the Format a little more interesting.  They did not allow any of the following:  Professor X (Uncanny X-Men), Morphing Jar (Yu-Gi-Oh!), Doomcaliber Knight (Yu-Gi-Oh!), and  Clayface: Restless (JUSTICE).
  • The Golden Event was open to everything, except for official Wizkids bans.  All of the filth was available here.

I had originally planned on attending the live Event, so I cashed in the wife points to hide in the basement and participate in the online Event.  Let’s see how the weekend went.  This will be a bit of a long article, so feel free to jump to the sections that interest you.

Modern 10/10 (minus 3)

I decided that even though we were officially the host of the Event, I wanted to participate as well.  This meant that the poor Twitch viewers were stuck just watching gameplay and did not have the Reg/jourdo commentary in the booth.

What Did You Play?

The Team:  Avengers (Orbital) Strike.

I went into this Event with one goal in mind.  Hit Orbital Strike at least once.  That was it.

The original plan was to use the new Hulk from Infinity Gauntlet with Regenerate, and pepper in other Avengers to help out.  The ID Card would help give a little extra buff to hopefully push just that much more damage.  However… it was pointed out to me that Becky has better purchase and fielding costs when compared to Hulk and can easily be made an Avenger on this Team.

Out with Hulk and in with Becky.  The rest of the build was to make things work.  Black Widow – Agent serves as another Avengers body, and protection from things like Iceman/Turk.  Ant-man also fills the natural Avengers spot that I need for this Team, and is a solid back-up win condition in his own right.

With the ant on board, I needed a way to spin him reliably.  Energy Field fit that role with its nice Global.  Istrid Horn then joined the Team to help protect the Ant-man option from things like Static Field.  Professor X was my only source of Ramp, which this Team was lacking.

The last two pieces were one I wanted to try out with Orbital Strike, but have not had a chance to yet.  Thunderbird seemed like an interesting way to bring back my Field after hitting a Strike.  Nihiloor served as a way to KO Thunderbird in the event he survived Orbital Strike.  Good in theory, but not sure it will work in practice.

I’m not going to do a game by game breakdown for the Side Events.  You can watch them on the various YouTubes and Twitch VOD’s if you so desire.

Long story short… Orbital Strike struck once, and it was very satisfying.  I could never get to Thunderbird, so I have no idea how he works with this Team… but I want to find out.  Orbital Strike is a Team that is pure Dice Masters.  You win or lose by the roll of the dice.  If you are not taking yourself too seriously, I highly encourage you to play this card.

Global Escalation

I am skipping a day to bring you the other Side Event that I participated in.  Sunday (early) morning was the Global Escalation Event, hosted by The Ministry of Dice.  Normally this is not really my thing, but I was actually excited to join with the additional bans that make the Format not as much fun for me.

What Did You Play?

The Team:  Spider-man Team Up.

This was another one trick pony Team that I have been wanting to try out since I first saw the card.  The whole Team revolves around Spider-man: Superior Team-Up.  To absolutely no surprise, the combo is to run Spidey, Team Up and other Affiliated characters.

This is your prototypical “glass cannon” Team.  If it fires, it fires well.  If it fails to roll, you are more or less dead.  So, I needed stuff to go with Spidey, and instead of just grabbing maximum Affiliations, I decided to actually put some tech into the Team.

Since this is an action based Team, Red Dragon makes it for the Global Ability.  Discounts are great when you are trying to purchase a 4 cost action as your win condition.  The next piece I added was Wonder Woman: Ambassador of Peace (note: The promo version of this card is missing its Affiliation symbol).  She served the purpose of trying to shut down the stupid Hela/Beholder combo that was in the GE Pool.  However, she is double sided, so I needed to minimize the Globals on character cards for me.

I was reminded that Ring was a thing, and could serve as a Sidekick maker that my Opponent could only use on their own turn.  Not great, but works for the Team.  Pairing it with good old Resurrection brings back the Ring-Res combo from the olden days for bag control and ramp.

Next came Widow for her ability to decrease direct damage and her two Affiliations.  Dreadnaught was put in place for a board clear option (and two Affiliations), but after playing the Team I really did not get a chance to use him well.  Istrid Horn was again there to minimize the Static Field issues.

The final piece of the puzzle was Constantine: Anti-hero.  This is a personal favourite of mine, and I hope we see his ability return.  I had a hunch there might be other Teams like this in this Event and he gives a little security against action dice.

Again, you can watch the action on the line when you are ready to do so.  Spidey lived up to his glass cannon status.  When he worked, he worked.  When he didn’t, he didn’t.  Definitely a fun Team, but needs some tweaking here.

Modern Constructed

This was the big Event on Saturday, hosted by CR Gameroom.  The best of the best.  Would Becky, God Catcher, or Thor rule the day?  If you didn’t watch the event, check out all of the coverage from the various channels.

Let me start by giving full credit to Whippitgood.  He actually submitted a version of this Team for Roll For The North, but was unable to participate in the Tournament.  I saw the Team on the Team List and was intrigued by it.  It was not something that I was sure could hang with the Big 3, but I figured it would be worth a trying.  It definitely fit my play style more than the other options, so I decided to borrow this as my starting point.

What Did You Play?

The Team:  Green Lantern’s Light.

Green Lantern is the core damage producer here.  He has been around for a while, so most of you are familiar with how he works.  Attack with Justice League characters while you have masks and burn your Opponent down with direct damage.  You can bounce him back with something like Static Field, or let him punch your Opponent in the face with some decent stats.

However, he is a 5 cost.  This makes him harder to get… until Asuka came into the game.  She makes mask Teams ridiculous.  The 2 cost discount makes Green Lantern a solid choice.  Now you just need to load up on more masks and you are cooking with fire.

Obviously mask production is key here, so you are putting in Clayface for the Global.  1 mask can now become 2.  If there is a Clayface across the board, this gets even better for you.  For prep, there is really only one good option in Modern right now and that is Villainous Pact.  It also gives you an alternate win condition if you get enough bodies in the Field and not many Villains across the board.  The new Rare Black Widow is an easy addition to this Team, given her removal ability and mask Synergy.  The cheap cost, with Clayface allows you to get masks out fast.

Poison Ivy: Red is a good addition to the Team for anti-Becky tech.  In fact, she is decent against many of the big 3 if you combine here with a force attack Global… which the new Doctor Strange happens to have in mask form.

Now for the flex spots.  I kept Turk Barrett on the Team from the original incarnation.  Even though he is not a mask, he synergizes well with masks.  I will be using lots of Globals and if he is out, I can start to turn that into removal of smaller characters.

The original build of this Team had Typhoid Mary there in the last slot, but I decided it needed something else.  There was enough removal that she was not necessary.  I debated between the new Rare Spider-man and Zatanna, but ultimately went with Zatanna.  She gave me more masks and another Justice League character to pair with Green Lantern.  Also, her spin-up ability could be useful against opposing Black Widows.

Swiss Rounds:

I ended Swiss with a 3-2 record on the day.  Even the games that I lost, I felt I had a chance in.  That is pretty much all you can ask for in a Team.  You can check out the playlist below for the match videos.

Top 8:

Green Lantern vs Green Lantern.  This was quite literally a mirror match, with only two cards being different on our Teams.

Post-Mortem:

I will be perfectly honest in that I did not expect to make the Top Cut in this one.  It was a pleasant surprise to see that result.  The Team can actually hold its own against God Catchers and Thors (although it helps when the other stuff does not roll well).  I didn’t get to see how it handled Becky though.  If it can slow the pace enough, I don’t see why it cannot though.

Asuka is really the lynch pin to the whole build.  If she fails you, the whole Team will fail you.  You need her discount ability to get to Green Lantern faster, and buffing her up with cheaper mask characters turns her into a legitimate threat.  As important as Asuka is, Clayface is right up there too.  You need the Global to really make this Team sing.

Static Field is another must have here.  You ideally want Green Lantern bouncing back as much as possible.  More importantly though, you need this Global to stay alive while you get set up.  It will take a little time to get to Green Lantern, so you will need this to keep the bad things away until you are ready.

This is also where Poison Ivy and Doctor Strange come in.  You can use Ivy as a natural blocker and she will KO most of the bad stuff right now, while surviving herself.  Now with Doctor Strange, you can force thing into her and even if they use Static Field to bring them back, her Deadly ability will KO the character.

Black Widow is a piece that failed me more than it helped me.  However, I would absolutely leave this piece in.  The potential is too good on this Team.  Zatanna was the one piece that was good… but I still feel there is something better.  I feel like this is the odd duck (surprisingly) on the Team.  Watching some of the other top Teams makes me wonder if Dani Moonstar may have been a better piece here.

Let’s talk Turk.  I was honestly skeptical with keeping him on the Team, but Comicsmike convinced me otherwise.  I am glad he did.  With so many mask Globals in play, he ability is just too good to pass up.  I should have used him more than I did, but I was grateful when he was around.

Overall, this was a really fun Team and I need to thank Whippitgood again for making the bulk of it.  It does seem to have some legs to it and I think it can hang with the Big 3.  While not as fast as those Teams, it is still solid.

Two years, and two Top 8 finishes.  I am ok with that.  While not live in person, this was still a great Event to hang out with people who enjoy this great game.

It has been said many time already, but thank you again to CR Gameroom (even Chris) for taking the lead and organizing this Event.  All 3 days were great fun and it was a great way to spend Thanksgiving Weekend.

To all the players I got to play and chat with… Thank you again.

I love how great this Community is and I am happy to hang out with you any time.  Looking forward to the next big Event… which just so happens to be Dice Masters vs Cancer from our friends at The Ministry of Dice.

Thanks for reading!  This was a long one.

– jourdo