Dice Masters Rainbow Draft Strategies.
4.12.2015
A rainbow draft is a nice format for a Dice Masters event. Each player gets to open 12 booster packs (always fun) and choose cards from among the packs that all the players opened. (Details). Players make a tournament-legal team from their drafted cards and any 2 Basic Actions from their collections, and then play some games.
With the draft format, players can't use the deadly Super Rare cards from their deep collections, so the format tends to be a little more even than fully-constructed tournaments. It's also an excellent way to fill in holes in your card collection. But there are a few strategies to keep in mind:
- Draft multiple cards for character you intend to play, because that's the only way to populate your character card with multiple dice.
- Plan for characters with a range of costs. Support higher-cost characters with lower-cost ones of the same energy type. On more than one occasion, I've been unable to buy the high cost characters that I needed because I didn't have the correct energy type showing.
- Unless you're drafting from Uncanny X-Men boosters, you won't see any of those Professor X cards with the economy-generating global action. If you're used to relying on PXG, keep in mind that you won't be able to buy expensive characters as quickly without it.
- You can fill in strategy gaps in your team with your Basic Actions. For example, if you have some expensive character to buy, try Gearing Up. Or if you're short on low-cost characters, bring 2- and 3- cost Basic Actions. (Be careful not to overload your dice bag with Actions; you'll still need typed energy to buy characters.
- Keep an eye on drafting cards to fill in your collection. You probably always want to keep those Super Rare cards with the red stripe. And if you still need more Storm dice in your collection, you probably want to grab Storm cards when you can. You probably won't be able to draft to both win the tournament and fill up your collection, but both strategies have their benefits.
1.6.2015
I went to a constructed deck tournament for Dice Masters this weekend. I had fun, but didn't expect to lose so much. Here is a review of the cards I brought, and how effective they were in play.
- Ant-Man - Biophysicist (UXM): It's always great to have a 2 energy cost character for the first few rounds, but I think a Beast or Storm might be better in a Constructed format where players have control of the dice distribution.
- Storm - African Priestess (AVX): Very effective. I'd like to load this card up with the maximum of 4 dice next time.
- Kitty Pryde - Sprite (UXM): Kitty wasn't as effective as I needed at a cost of 3 energy. Perhaps I'll try her 2 cost card next time.
- Nightcrawler - Circus Freak (AVX): I didn't buy any Nightcrawlers during the matches, because every time I had 4 fist energy, I wanted a Wolvie. I want to play with Kurt, so I will just have to suck it up and try him next time.
- Wolverine - Formerly Weapon Ten (AVX): This Wolvie works great - especially if you can clear all the blockers. Thrown Car's spillover damage helps.
- Black Panther - Wakanda Chief (UXM): He would have worked well (Thrown Car counters his "opponents must have fielded characters" limitation), but as another 4 fist energy character, I didn't get him out enough.
- Captain America - Star Spangled Avenger (AVX): This was a very effective card, but difficult to buy since I didn't have any lower-cost Shield type characters.
- Cable - Techno-Organic (UXM): As with Cap, Cable would have been effective at clearing small blockers, but was too tricky to buy.
- Thrown Car (AVX): One of the more expensive actions, especially with Wolverine and Black Panther available, but this action always leads to damage.
- Focus Power (AVX): A cheaper action that's almost always useful.
