In this week's episode of The Reserve Pool, Dave, Katie, and Evan talk about how they're spending their summer vacations! Then we announce the contest winners. Finally, we wrap up our faction discussion with the free agents.



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Obviously we're really waiting for GenCon, as that's where we here at The Reserve Pool think we're going to start seeing some really meaty sneak peeks. But all is not lost, Crit to Hit gave us some really great pictures of the side of the booster box from SDCC. This at least gave us a few little bits to hold us over until we get to look at a few more cards.

As previously revealed, the booster box is going to hold a full 90 cards, rather than the 60 from the first set. I'm still a bit skeptical, as my first experience with the AvX booster box was trying to figure out how to get the packs out of the box. We'll see!

Our last bit of news an analysis from SDCC is going to be to look at the cards from the side of the box and see what we can figure out! It won't be much, but if you're like me you want to know every little detail... and if you're not like me, you can enjoy the show of watching me get this stuff figured out. I imagine it can be pretty fun to get all of this information without squinting over a bunch of blurry screen shots for hours... which I did.

It's easy to look at deck building (or squad building, as I've come to refer to it in this game) as a tedious task, but sometimes it can be a lot of fun. It's all about the approach. Today, we'll go through the process, deciding on a win condition and building a deck around that.

So, I think it is well documented that I get a great deal of pleasure from staring at promotional pictures and deriving far more information from them than any reasonable person would bother to. I dictated this first sentence to Evan, and he was nodding his head in emphatic agreement with each word. What does this mean for you, dear readers? It means that I have come up with a pretty good idea of who we will be seeing in the Uncanny X-Men starter kit and some pretty solid guesses for who our best candidates are for the Super Rares!!

Keep in mind that this information derives from some slightly blurry screenshots (care of Crit to Hit) and me working off of some assumptions that I have taken from the numbers that we had from Avengers vs. X-Men. I'll drag you kicking and screaming through my work, and at the end I'll give you my best guesses for who our stand out cards are for the set.

A complaint that I'm seeing here and there is that some people really hate direct damage in this game. I actually really don't understand this at all. In fact, direct damage is probably more thematic in this game than it is in many other games.

So pictures are coming in from SDCC, and that's awesome, because WizKids has taken the opportunity to show off some cards we've never seen before! Considering we've seen exactly 1 complete card before now, it wasn't hard, but we've gotten to see 14 new cards! Oh man! Considering that we're going to see another 126 total cards this expansion, that's actually a pretty nice percentage, so let's take a look at the cards, and a few more hidden bits and bobs.

All pictures came from Crit to Hit and their SDCC coverage, so all the thanks to them, all pictures are from their good work. Hat tip to Ben Lang and Matthew Marsee who both pointed us this direction, and Ben for helping figure out what these cards said!

Quick note above the cut, we've got a quick look at the AvX collectors box and the reskin of the African Priestess card. It looks nice, a little on the big side, so I'm really curious to get to peel it open.

Edit: 7/25/2014 - day two pictures, also from Crit to Hit have come out, and I've replaced many of the pictures with clearer versions.

In this week's episode of The Reserve Pool, Dave, Katie, and Evan discuss recent Dice Masters match ups ! Then, we dig into a discussion of the new tournament rules. What makes sense? What doesn't? Also included - Mailbag!



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Note: This was scheduled for Monday and didn't make it for some reason. Here it is anyway. Sorry about that!

If you're going to an organized play event or want to throw your had in the ring putting one together, you should be familiar with the following!

WizKids has released official tournament guidelines that answer several questions about ties, what to do when events go to time, and a host of other bullet points.

If you're unfamiliar with such tournament events and have never experienced what "swiss" is, the document explains that as well. It does give some solid information.


I don't want to talk too much here lest we make this week's podcast irrelevant - because spoiler alert, we'll be talking about this subject in this week's episode of the show.

You can find the .pdf document here.

So as some of you may or may not know, I sort of accidentally won a set of official playmats due to the article I wrote about the teaser images on Boardgame Breakfast. They also came in good time for my birthday! So, what's a girl to do but to play with them and decide how they measure up? Dave already reviewed the unofficial CowCow play mats, so it's only fair that I take the official variant out for a spin.

I was originally not going to purchase the playmat, and had considered the CowCow solution if anything, but now that they're here I actually really liked it! There are quite a few things to recommend it, even if it does have a few downsides to go with the good parts.

Hey all - just a reminder that The Reserve Pool's OP Month One Contest ends Thursday, July 24th at 9:00 AM EDT.  The original post said Wednesday, but I said in the podcast that it was Thursday, so I will honor the latter; an extra day for all!

So if you're looking for a chance to win Teamwork and possibly Thor: The Mighty, remember to send your tale of your greatest win or worst defeat to before then.  Entries received after the deadline will not be eligible to win.

Good luck, and happy rolling in the meantime!

Reader Sean "Keebler" Powell volunteered to discuss his organized play experiences with us after a marathon three-events-in-two-days run. Those of you who haven't experienced organized play yet - live vicariously through him! If you have, let us know how these experiences compare to your own. We're willing to do a few of these. Guest posts are welcomed, though we make no guarantees that yours will be featured - it depends on several factors, and if we don't use you, we still think that you're great!

This is part two of a two-part feature.  

By Sean "Keebler" Powell

If you missed the first part of this article, look here to see the team that was brought to the OPs and the thoughts/justifications behind each card.


So, on to the events!

Yesterday Marvel officially announced the OP Month Three exclusives: the basic action Deflection (which we've known about, and have discussed a couple of times) as a participation reward, and Wolverine: Walking His Own Path as a prize for placing for the month.  It'll be a bit before we have these cards in our hot little hands, but that doesn't mean we can't mercilessly pick them apart now!

In this week's episode of The Reserve Pool, Dave, Katie, and Evan mention the games that we're playing these days! Then, we dig into a discussion of the Avengers! Who do we like, who do we hate? What about support staff like Nick Fury? Also included - FAQTalk and Mailbag! 



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Let's be honest, although Dave talks about the dice in all of his card reviews, I usually don't put a whole lot of thought into the aesthetics of a die. Sometimes it's just so distracting, though, and you can't help but think about it as you roll dem bones. Today I want to talk about dice color, and dice quality, and talk a bit about the upcoming Uncanny X-Men release as well and whether or not some lessons have been learned about dice and pretty colors.

So, let's get one thing straight: not all dice are created equal, and what's the point of having a blog with my opinion if I can't use it to make fun of some of the dice in this game that really should have been sent to their room and not come back until they were painted properly?

When I was deeply involved in Android: Netrunner, people had an occasionally silly manner of judging the cost of a card. They'd factor in everything, including the fact that you needed to spend an action to draw it and an action to play it. Depending on the day and my mood, it teetered on the fulcrum between logical and ridiculous.

Reader Sean "Keebler" Powell volunteered to discuss his organized play experiences with us after a marathon three-events-in-two-days run. Those of you who haven't experienced organized play yet - live vicariously through him! If you have, let us know how these experiences compare to your own. We're willing to do a few of these. Guest posts are welcomed, though we make no guarantees that yours will be featured - it depends on several factors, and if we don't use you, we still think that you're great!

This is part one of a two-part feature.  

By Sean "Keebler" Powell

This tournament report is going to focus on my findings in a two day - 3 tournament stint from last weekend throughout Ohio!

Right? There are three Things, and we're talking about them, so that makes them important Things. Yeah, I know, it's a reach. But has it ever been otherwise with me?

Thing hails from the Fantastic Four and is a pretty burly dude. To be honest, I have yet to use him in the game, and that may change after going through the review today (EDIT: After writing this, yeah, I'm definitely giving the big guy a shot very soon)!

Here are the usual details for the next poll, about signing up for Board Game Geek in the first place, and the guild page so that you can join in and participate in the stuff that we do over there.

With out further ado, we bring you: Thing.

Welcome back, dicefans!  I'm going to kick off today's article by...talking about Magic: The Gathering a bit, actually.

I'll be perfectly blunt - I haven't seriously played magic in approximately a bajillion years.  I look at cards
today, and they might as well be written in moon language for how well I understand them (well, or would, outside of how most of the terms explain what they mean); the whole concept of the stack was after my time.  In those simpler times, one of the deck styles I enjoyed immensely was the monored direct damage deck.  I had one that would zap the opponent relentlessly for a few turns, then blow up everything on the board and start again; it never really got old.

So having said that, maybe everyone will understand when I say that while I don't think it's the best of the basic actions, Power Bolt is probably my favorite - it reminds me of those carefree childhood days of Lightning Bolting my opponents into submission.  Oh, and also the fact that it's a pretty useful thing to have around, of course.

In this week's episode of The Reserve Pool, Dave, Katie, and Evan talk about continued OP woes - just so you know that you're not alone! Then, we dig into a discussion of villains! What makes a good villain, who do we like in this game, and how can we best use them? Also included - Combo Killers and Mailbag! 



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Greetings, true dice believers!  We've got something special for you all today - by now you've heard our woes at finding an OP event to attend (and you'll hear some more about this tomorrow!), and we figure that we can't be alone in this.  There's probably a bunch of people out there, reading this article right now, sad that they couldn't participate in the month one OP because there just wasn't any in their area, or because boosters were sold out, or because product was so limited their FLGS wasn't interested in running it.

Well, good news - we here at The Reserve Pool have got our hot little hands on a number of the OP Month One participation rewards, and even a few of the prizes...and we think it's time to share the wealth.  That's right - we've got ten copies of Teamwork, and two copies of Thor: The Mighty, that we want to get into the hands of our readers.

So what do you have to do to get a chance at the goods?

EDIT: It seems that WizKids is retracting a LOT of the recent rulings that went out. So take any of this with a grain of salt. It seems that nothing will be official until the 2.0 version of the FAQ comes out. That said, we'll leave this post up for posterity - and then perhaps we can compare notes once the true rulings have been revealed!

Usually we save FAQTalk for the audio podcast. Strangely, as you'll find on Thursday, we didn't include one this week - and it turns out that was a good idea, because we have new information!

WizKids has loosened their lips and clued us in on a few different contentious issues.

The have also revealed an email that you can use to contact them with questions. They say that this is going to be THE official source moving forward for items that have not yet made it to the FAQ.

Let's take a look at what we know now:

So, as we head into the heart of OP season (for people who can find it), it's important to remember that just because it's alright in casual play doesn't mean it's alright to take that behavior with you into tournament play. Some of these are just good gaming etiquette in general, but some of them it can be hard to remember when you're in the heat of your game.

Remember, these sorts of things aren't just 'because', they are the way that a game can be executed in the fairest and cleanest way possible. If you want to have a reputation as a game-rushing jerk, go through whatever motions you want, but if you want to grow the community and do things the right way, keep these simple rules in mind as you head to your FLGS with your dice and cards.

The latest winner of our poll is the Punisher.

I have to admit that I know little about this guy outside of the Dice Masters environment. I've known that he exists, and I know that he offers a brand of vigilante justice that some of our more wholesome heroes would be unable to stomach, but that's not a lot of detail. Alas, I will be unable to wax nostalgic about a character this week and stick to the facts at hand.

Here's everything you need for the next poll, about signing up for Board Game Geek in the first place, and the guild page so that you can join in and participate. We definitely have some giveaways in the not-too-distant future, and they'll likely be tied to the guild. Join up!

Everyone here at The Reserve Pool would like to say:  Happy Independence Day!  I'm sure that, alongside barbecue and fireworks, everyone is looking forward to the start of the Month 2 of OP - I've seen some events for the 5th on the WizKids system, so good luck to all who will be participating.

In this week's episode of The Reserve Pool, Dave, Katie, and Evan talk about the friendliest of local game stores where we get our game on. Then, we dig into a discussion of a mechanism that is unique to this sort of game - spinning! Also included - Mailbag, and FAQTalk! 



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Our dice masters play mats are pretty distinctly organized. That's a good thing, because there are a lot of places for our dice to go.

We have our prep area, the reserve pool, the field zone, the attack zone, the used pile... even the dice bag is technically part of the play mat.

But there's another, oft-ignored section of the mat where dice go to die. Ok, they don't die, but this is (allegedly) where they go when they've been knocked out.

I say allegedly because no one seems to play that way, and the rule book doesn't tell us. KO'd die? Move it to prep. Immediately. Do not pass go.

But is this the intent? What's the deal with our ill-defined KO zone?

So far, I've covered a lot of the planning aspects of playing Marvel Dice Masters - what dice cost and do, and how to make a coherent team given that. I've also discussed some of how you'd actually going about playing out that plan, largely with respect to when you want to buy what.  That's very important - having a good plan will win you games, especially when you know how to handle impediments to it - but it's not really covering a big chunk of the game - combat.

There's two sides of considering combat, just like there are two sides to actual combat:  when to attack, and with what, and how you should block.  I'm going to leave that first bit for another time; maybe I'm feeling a bit defensive today.  Regardless, blocking is every bit as important as attacking: it keeps you from dying, which is almost always aces, and it gives you an opportunity to set up the board for your upcoming turn.

So let's get to it, then!