We recently held our third Dice Masters tournament at my FLGS, , and the event went off without a hitch. The prizes on the line were the Days of Future Past OP cards and the event type was Constructed. We ended up with an ok turnout of 6 players. Everyone had a great time and we saw a really decent mix of the meta - some high level competitive teams, some more casual teams and then some things in between. As I've reflected on the events, let me share some of my observations.
It's in the Numbers
As I mentioned above, we started our event about 15 min late because we were waiting on a group of 4 players who ended up no-showing. Fortunately, we had 6 total players (including me, and I served as both a player and the TO) and so we pressed on with the tournament. Put that number in juxtaposition to our first event, which had 10 players and our second event, which had 3. I contribute our 3-player flop to bad scheduling on my part. Several of our players play MtG and there was a big tournament about two hours away that finalized the day before. I don't blame anyone for opting out of rolling dice. But this week's low showing had me bummed.
Now, before I get too down on myself, I will say this. 6 works. 6 is functional for the format we played with - which was constructed. The tournament ran entirely smoothly and everyone felt like they got plenty of games in and had a good time. HOWEVER...6 is the lowest number I could conceive of to really have a decent tourney. I haven't tried 4 yet but I can't imagine going smaller with less pairings would be equally fun. If the sweet spot is 10 - 12, 6 is my new minimum.
Format, Format, Format
At this point in time, our FLGS has run each of the three main formats once. Those formats being Hybrid, Rainbow Draft and Constructed. Out of all three of those - and I cannot say this enough - Rainbow Draft is my absolute favorite format. It's not even close. The reasons why store owners like it is clear because it sells product. I find it way more interesting as a Dice Masters player to see how hard I can push myself to put effective strategy into play through the draft format versus just bringing the same old "good cards" to every single event. Not that there's anything wrong with playing the meta - that's not what I'm driving at. It's more interesting to see what teams emerge from drafting.
This event was actually a planned DADDM Rainbow Draft. Our shop owner ended up calling this event a constructed format because she had no choice. She has been selling Dice Masters at a nice and sustainable rate and she didn't have a full booster box in stock. Add to that the fact that weather had delayed shipping of some fresh UXM and AvX feeds and D&D having been pushed back and we had nothing to draft.
Team-Ups and Battle Reports
So what did we have? Well, out of 6 teams we saw an interesting variation. Two teams both had a strong emphasis on using Punisher, McRook alongside a beat stick or two. One of those teams went 0-3 while the other finished 2-1. Two teams (including my own) brought some form of the Spider-Bomb (sans Tsarina/Gobby in both cases), obviously focusing on Wall-Crawler. One of these teams finished 2-1 while the other finished 1-2. There was a Flying Sidekick's squad that finished 1-2. Last was a generic Gobby team that naturally mopped up (in this sort of meta) and was untouched at 3-0.
I wasn't surprised at the results in the least bit. I was surprised at just how lethal the Spider-Bomb can be, but I lack the patience to wield it as effectively as it needs to be. I know it's a quick kill, but when you don't have lethal, you don't have lethal. In one game I swung in for 18 damage and ended up losing [-1] to 1 life. It's like wielding a greasy sledgehammer - you can hit and hit hard, but if you don't swing at just the right time, the whole bomb can slip away and leave you holding nothing.
All in all, it was an awesome event and most of us walked way with a full set of the promos.
Until next time!
Chris
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