Dice Masters

There are a lot of different sets for Dice Masters now.  I have two and my usual opponent has three (two differant from me).  They are the ones my opinion is based on because that is what I have experience with but they all work the same.

I have the DC Justice League set and the Marvel Uncanny X-Men sets (with a few Age of Ultron cards and dice thrown in that my friend gave me as spares).  I normally play against my friend with his Uncanny X-men, Age of Ultron and Amazing Spider-man sets.  It is one of my most played games and one I actually have a decent win/lose ratio at.
How does it play?

The game is very similar to Magic:The Gathering with an added "bag building" mechanism.  To start players pick their team, the cards they are going to use and their corresponding dice.  The numbers of cards and dice used can vary, but official tournament rules are 8 cards 20 dice.  Players start with 8 sidekick dice in their bag.  These are basic weak dice much like starting cards in a deckbuilding game.

All the dice have two types of face, energy and and character faces.  Each turn the players will draw 4 dice from their bags and roll them.  They can use the energy faces to buy better more powerful dice, or to field character faces rolled if there is a cost.  Character faces are what what will be used to fight.  Each has an attack and defence value.  Once dice are fielded they can be used to attack your opponent and they can use their characters to block.  If they do you match the attack and defend values of each, if one attack is higher than the others defence that dice is KO'd if it isn't they simply move back to the field.  If they don't or can't block the damage it is applied to the player, like Magic.  Each player has 20 health and if they lose it all you win.  Dice that get through to the player are moved to the used pile along with energy used, brought dice and they are the dice that get put in to re-fill the bag when it is empty.

It is a simple enough game in it's basic form but the real strategy and complexity comes from the special abilities on the cards and picking which dice to buy.

The Cards
There are multiple versions of the same characters in each set.  They all use the same dice so attack, defence and cost to field are all the same.  What changes is the cost to buy and the special abilities on each card.  It is these abilities and how they interact with each other where the strategy of the game really comes from.  Like Magic a lot of the strategy for the game comes from before the game even really starts.  What team you use, which special abilities you pick and how they work together can decide the game before it has started.

Of course how you play or what you end up being able to do can all be affected by the roll of...

The Dice

Lets face it, this is one of the biggest things about the game, it is called Dice Masters after all.  The dice in the game are amazing, they all look really good and can really fit the characters they are meant to represent.  Dice fighting can seem a little abstract but the distinctive colours and logos can help bring it to life.

Collectable Dice Game

The game is a collectable game.  This was a bit of a turnoff for me originally.  I don't normally like collectable games because of the amount of money you can sink into them.  The starter set contain enough for a small two player game and then you can get sealed booster sets which each contain 2 cards and 2 dice to go with them.  The boosters are cheap enough, I pick them up online for £1 a booster and with the starters around £15 you can get enough for a good team not spending more than you would on any other game.  20-30 booster plus a starter set should give you enough for a few different set ups and enough to be competitive.

The starter sets come with 8 characters and 3 cards & 2 dice for each.  As well as that they include the rules, basic action dice and cards, the sidekick dice and bags.  There are also upgrades for your sets.  You can get playmats that help organise your game play but I haven't bothered with them.  You can also buy Collector's Boxes.  These help with storage and include special edition cards as well as the basic action dice and cards and a set of sidekick dice.

The Sets
Like I said there are a lot of different sets you can pick up for this game.  They are all pretty well balanced from what I can see.  Unlike Magic I haven't seen any power creep in this game.  They all have the same rules so do mix and match together.  Like I said we often do Justice League vs. Avengers or X-Men Vs. Guardians of the Galaxy, but it is also possible to do Batman with the X-men against Avengers with the DC Villains.


As I said there are plenty of sets available to buy.  At the time of me writing this there are 12 different set out or announced and I'm sure more will be along soon.

All of the sets are the same collectable format except one.  The new Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles set is not collectable.  In one box you get everything you need to play the game and there are no boosters available.

 If superheroes are not you thing there are also sets available for D&D and Yu-Gi-Oh!  I have heard that these sets don't blend with the others quite as well because of the wording of the cards since there are monsters not villians etc.  It can work and you can decide if a villain is the same as a monster.

The option for different cards and combining different set really help the replayability of the game and I love trying to think of new combos that will work well together and trying to beat the teams my friends build.  Overall a great game and one that hits the table plenty as a great two player game.

It can be used for 4 players and there are rules for that in the box, but I've not done it and have very little interest in trying to play it that way.

I have stopped buying stuff for the game (or at least I have planned to stop).  I have plenty of dice from different sets and I don't feel like I need more.  I'm happy with what I have and can still spend time making new combo's with just the cards I have.  Not sure I'm going to find anything more powerful than my Justice League Combo, but we'll see.*

*No I'm not telling what it is