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| HULK FIELDING COSTS SMASH PUNY HAWKEYE |
Welcome back for another round of discussion on basic Dice Masters strategy! Seeing as how we covered buying dice last time, we'll be moving on to how you want to think about fielding your dice this time. And let's face it - fielding costs are a drag.
You've finally managed to get that seven energy you need to buy your If Looks Could Kill Cyclops...but your opponent has a Green Goblin die at level three breathing down your neck, and if it gets through, you doubt you'll make it around to fielding that Cyclops. Fortunately you've got a Beast that didn't roll energy, but...darn, it's level three - the only one that actually costs energy. Stuff like this drives me nuts - it's like the gamer's own little Sophie's Choice.
Really, the answer to that is pretty situational, but the best way to think about it is "how can I prevent myself from having to make that sort of game-deciding choice as much as possible." And that's where building your squad with an eye towards fielding costs comes in.
But first, let's think about how we measure fielding cost a bit.
But first, let's think about how we measure fielding cost a bit.
What TFC Doesn't Tell You
I've seen a lot of people use TFC - Total Fielding Cost - to talk about how 'good' a die is fielding-wise. That's fine - it's easy to calculate, and it does make for a pretty decent measure of how unpleasant it'll be to get a die into the field. I honestly prefer talking about the average fielding cost - though that's really just the TFC divided by three - if only because it translates a little more quickly to the scale games are played in: energy expected to get this die onto the board. Still, TFC of 1, or AFC of .33 - either way, we know Hawkeye is cheap.
Both of these approaches have a slight problem, though it's not much of an issue so far: they don't actually describe the distribution of fielding cost over the faces of a die. Consider Human Torch (0 1 2) and Cyclops (1 1 1). Both have the same TFC, 3, and AFC, 1. But they don't have the same fielding costs; Cyclops will always cost you one, while sometimes Torch will also cost one, sometimes he'll be free, and sometimes, he'll cost you two. Neither TFC nor AFC pick that up.
Personally I feel the distribution is almost as important as the value itself. The more consistent the distribution of a die's fielding costs is, the more predictable that die is in terms of "how will using this die fit into my master plan of getting enough energy to get the job done." I know Cyclops will always cost him one, and I can plan accordingly. Yes, sometimes Human Torch will wind up being free, and I can kick around a little more energy to buy that slightly nicer die or fuel an ability, but sometimes he'll wind up on that 2 face, and now I can't buy that Loki I really need after my opponent binge-bought some Tsarinas. This will become even more pronounced if we start seeing more lopsided dice, something like 0 0 3 - sometimes the character is really cheap, and sometimes...not. It might seem like it's a deal most of the time, but it's a gamble, and while those can win you games, they can also cost you them.
The Power of Being Cheap
I don't think it's a surprise that I favor cheap-to-field dice. The 0 0 1 characters, like Beast, Black Widow, and Hawkeye, usually field without detracting from your pool at all, and if they do, it's a relatively easy-to-swallow one energy, which is very helpful during the earlier game, when you're trying to field a force to harry/defend against your opponent while still buying stuff to let you win later on. Similarly, I tend to shy away from the TFC 6 guys - your Hulks and Thors and such, because sometimes they bushwhack you with that three face, and suddenly you have problems fielding all your characters, to say nothing of buying dice you need. Honestly it's why I think the common Ghost Rider is something of a trap - that two buy cost makes you think he's a leg up for the early game, but his 1 2 3 is so disruptive early on (to say nothing of his very mediocre stats for the cost) that he just winds up not being worth it.
Cheap characters are also usually easier to churn - they take less to get KOed, and thus less to wind up back in your prep area to be rolled to field, cheaply, again - maybe with a tasty on-field effect - or to be used as energy to fuel your purchases, or even getting your larger characters out. This is a reason to not get too married to your little guys; you will want, or need, to use them as energy from time to time, and part of how to play the game well is deciding which dice are okay to 'give up' and use as energy. A lot of cheaper dice wind up being inapplicable at some point or another - if your opponent is running a lot of unblockables, you can probably spare your Beasts, say, or if you're not buying any big dice, you might be alright with giving up that Brimstone Biker. This will change from turn to turn - maybe you draw a Power Bolt and blast that annoying level one Genetics Expert Beast that was keeping you from using your Tsarina...or maybe they Gem Keeper Loki your Human Torch, and he's not going to be fielded anyway. If you're churning a lot, this will get more and more important, as your prep area will be more and more heavily characters, meaning more and more potential fielding cost for you to deal with; figuring out who you can "sacrifice" will go a long way towards relieving the pressure there.
You shouldn't always only take the cheap characters, though. I mean, you can - Tsarina and Gobby would have words with me if I tried to assert otherwise - but limiting yourself to the 3-or-less TFC club is going to lock you out of some very useful dice, like Loki, Doom, Venom, Nova, and so on. The trick comes in understanding that these guys are going to cost you, and planning around that. It helps to consider the overall pool of dice you'll have in your bag - say, six or so sidekicks, sixish sub-3 TFC, two or three midweight dice, and one or two TFC 6ers, if we're talking mid- to late-game. Your 'average' hand will probably run one or two sidekicks, one or two cheap guys, and one of the midweights or more expensive dice; if you let one of the cheaper characters - whichever is less useful at the time - roll as energy, that's on average two and a half or so energy; probably enough to get that TFC 6 and TFC 2 out. When you get both your big guys, and one of the mediums, and a sidekick...well, that's when you have to triage, and decide what you must have based on what your opponent has, what you need, and how much energy you have to buy what's available. It might be more important to have that one energy to buy that Storm rather than to buy a Hulk, if she'll let you pare down a big disparity in number of characters.
Planning for the Big Purchases
All in all - if you've built your squad with a decent mix - several cheaper, more focused characters, with a couple larger 'blunt force' finishers - handling your fielding costs should come fairly naturally, with few of those "game rides on what I do now" choices I mentioned way back at the beginning of the article. Most of the time, you're not going to be buying your more expensive dice, outside of drawing aids like Gambit or the rare Ghost Rider, earlier on. When you do start getting them into your dice bag, you should have a bunch of smaller characters, and maybe some action dice, that can help you soak that extra cost, and on top of that, you should be less pressed to buy lots more dice; it'll be okay if you wind up blowing the six energy you get that turn to field a level three Hulk, a level two Gambit, and a level two Nova, because you (hopefully) don't have too pressing a need to get too many more things RIGHT NOW.
It's more of an issue if you're trying to race to buy that expensive die, though - if your strategy for Gobby relies on getting that five-cost Reed Richards' Rival Doctor Doom into your third bag of dice, you're going to have to take some turns where you have to hope you roll lower-level heroes, or outright roll them as energy - 0 fielding cost still isn't going to generate energy like rolling an energy face would, and could in that sense be considered a potential 'loss' of energy. This is where your tactics come in; you have to understand when you absolutely need to get something on the field, even if it means you have to wait another couple turns to get out your breadwinner, and when it'll be okay to risk losing some life to get that die in hand.
It's hard to give hard and fast rules for this - sometimes those four Tsarinas your opponent bought on their first two turns will wind up rolling energy and that mad scramble for a defense will ease up. Sometimes they won't, and you'll need to think long and hard on whether you can afford rolling your Beasts as energy and taking four damage per die right now to get that big guy in your bag three turns from now. You'll need to play the next few turns in your head: what can your opponent get, what are they likely to get, and how bad will it cost you to let them get their way? Using the above example - with twelve dice in their bag, four of which being Black Widows, you can expect them to draw one or two a turn for three turns; it might be safest to get those Beasts out and try to churn them, hopefully getting rid of one or two Widows through reroll attrition, to let you stave off some damage and concentrate your dice to enable your big purchase. At the worst, no attacks happen, you're largely untouched, and you focus on other parts of your strategy, or the Beasts roll poorly and the Widows don't, and you end up taking about the same, or even a little more, damage than you might have otherwise...but still get enough energy to get your guy, who hopefully will help you against the Tswarm.
We'll get more into how to approach this issue by understanding what your opponent will be likely to have, and what you'll be likely to have to counter it, in the upcoming intermediate strategy article How To Get Kicked Out of Vegas, If Vegas Played Marvel Dice Masters. Join me next time, though, for the Squad Building Basics finale: Tying It All Together...if I don't put out a bonus in the form of a love letter to my current favorite card first.
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