Math is Hard
I'm not stupid, I'm just self aware that I don't think in terms of mathematics well at all.  It was my worst subject throughout school, contributing to any valleys in my education as a whole.  My ACT scores were 3 points lower because of it.  The first 'C' I ever earned - which came in college - all because of math.  Yuck.

It's been less than a week since we got our first real look at D&D Dice Masters, and Evan covered it both expertly and thoroughly here.  Today, however, our benevolent Dice Masters' err...Masters have revealed another pair of cards from the set on .  I want to take a minute to draw your attention to them and give my thoughts about them.

It's been a while, hasn't it?  Well, the wait is over, and it's finally time to resume the AvX OP Contest line!  We'll be playing a little catch-up this time, in the hope that maaaaaaybe what I said in the Month Four contest - that we'll be done before DC DM comes out - doesn't come to pass.

We open the show discussing recent gaming experiences and Dave's eternal struggle over Catan with his sister-in-law. Chris comes in to talk about his experience growing a Dice Masters community in his neck of the woods, and Dave examines a basic action card. We close with our feature, where we share tips for drafting effectively at your next Rainbow Draft event!

Lauren totally undersells her game knowledge - she went 2-1 at a recent OP!

It should not be a surprise for TRP listeners that I've been looking forward to D&D Dice Masters.  Well, for me, and other D&D fans, today is a good day - Wizkids just put up its D&D Dice Masters, subtitled "Battle for Faerun", site.  And from looking at it...boy howdy, I'm excited, because not only are we learning a lot about the set there, it looks pretty awesome!

The new set of Dice Masters that is to be released this week includes some pretty nifty mechanisms and other cool additions to the game, some of which are ones that I was really hoping we'd see at some point.

Even if you aren't a fan if Yu-Gi-Oh, there are some really cool things in this set, things that I absolutely hope that we see in future sets.

If you're on the fence about this one, give this and some of the other set coverage some consideration. You might get turned around. I did, so did Evan, and we're hearing the same from some others in the Dice Masters community.

If you were already sold, then start licking your chops.

Let's take a look.

A big thanks to WizKids for sending some review product our way!  Yu-Gi-Oh! Dice Masters drops this week - be sure to check it out.

Alert reader Mike shared some eBay auctions with images of the super rares for this new set - and so it seemed like a great time to talk about them!

As a YGO skeptic, I have to say that I'm starting to come around on this set. There are some really nifty abilities here and in the card set as a whole. Unless you're 100% turned off by the Yu Gi Oh brand and/or art style, I'd say that you should check this set out.

Let me also say that I know nothing about how thematic any of these might be. However, they're all pretty terrifying and they're all dragons, so I assume that they're all ridiculously powerful in the actually setting of YGO.

If that's the case, then WizKids nailed it. 

On to the cards!

I had to skip over Cyclops and Falcon for now, as I need to reshoot portions of those videos.

No, not a Dice Masters version of the restaurant - although as an aside that is the second most expensive meal my wife and I have ever enjoyed together (read: I'm cheap).  I'm talking about the influx of non-superhero sets that are arriving in this current season of the game.  With Yu-Gi-Oh and Dungeons & Dragons sets dropping back-to-back it seems that a lot of buzz within the larger DM community is split into camps.  I've always had a passing interest in sociology, so here goes.

Dave and Evan discuss the kerfuffle surrounding the Yu-Gi-Oh! dice masters set and how it's probably not too big a deal. Chris talks about some global abilities and Dave and Randy check the mail. We close with our feature, where we discuss the upcoming DC Dice Masters set and all of the information surrounding it.

New promotional photos on the site also provide a much clearer view of the formerly-unidentified orange die, but I'm ready to say that it is The Persuader, who has been known to carry a fiery halberd.

Those promotional photos also reveal previously-unseen die faces, giving us a better idea of the power levels that we'll be seeing. You'd better believe that Evan will be showing us numbers at some point...

We were all surprised by the recent news of serial numbers tying specific dice to card rarity in the Yu-Gi-Oh set. The move was made without warning and was certainly unexpected.

Just as unexpected, though certainly far more welcome, was WizKid's response to a question from a Facebook user stating that the numbering was going to be unique to the Yu-Gi-Oh set. But why? They did not say.

Well, we have a theory. But first, a little background.

From Facebook:



So let's just all breathe a big sigh of relief!

The DC Dice Masters rules are available in .PDF format - and as a throwback to yesterday's post, you can note that there are ZERO mentions of serial numbers in there. Fear not!

This rule book DOES give us information about more of the cards that we'll see in this set! Read on!

The Dice Masters Community has been alive with the news of the rather sudden Yu-Gi-Oh Dice Masters drop coming from WizKids.  Granted, we've known about Yu-Gi-Oh DM in the works for a good bit of time; it's sudden arrival is both interesting and a bit shocking.  So what does the arrival of Yu-Gi-Oh Dice Masters or the upcoming release of Dungeons & Dragons Dice Masters say about the future of a game heavily rooted in our beloved comic book roots?

What is it?

Dave and Evan continue their 2015 discussion by mentioning the games that they are most looking forward to this year. Chris debuts his brand-new segment about building a Dice Masters scene. We close with our feature, where we break down our top ten most thematic Uncanny X-Men Cards - as well as our dishonorable mentions!

If you didn't read the big DC spoiler post, well, what's wrong with you?! Get on that! We know quite a lot now about what the set will feature - every character and all of the super rares. But we have some more today thanks to the promo images from that same Game Trade Magazine post.

We can put together every character in the starter set and for a majority of them, all of their die stats.

None of this is too difficult to suss out, but it may require the reading glasses for some.

The starter goes with a few obvious fan favorites and provides mostly heroes with a couple of villains.

Excitement!

Spoilers after the jump, and commentary WAY at the bottom!

In this episode, the first recorded in 2015, we take a quick look back at some of our personal gaming highlights of the past year.  There's a mailbag question about attack step timing. Our feature delves into the sometimes misunderstood and disrespected die - the sidekick - and it's place in a very fearsome deck.

This game that we're all buying and getting together and playing is made by someone, and, as you already know, that someone is WizKids.  I've bounced around between a few collectible and/or competitive gaming scenes in my time as a gamer and WizKids is - by leaps and bounds - the least responsive game makers when it comes to engaging the community fan base.  Here's a personal case study.

I was a Heroclix player for a good three years.  Being a reader and community-engager, I got myself plugged into HCRealms, Heroclix's largest and leading fan site.  I was hooked and contributed to discussions and trading and all the good stuff.  
During my "tenure" surfing around at HCRealms, one interesting thing caught my eye.  

Lots of good stuff in this January edition of Game Trade Magazine. 

First, we get clear pics of a WHOLE BUNCH of dice. We also have a few super rares identified, and they reiterate the three cards - Batman, Wonder Woman, and Constantine - that they showed once before.

Join us after the jump for more.

We're very excited to add Chris to the mix on our website. He's starting a Dice Masters scene of his own out in Wyoming and is an avid tabletop gamer otherwise. Now that Chris is added to the mix with Randy, we'll be able to start enhancing the podcast with segments featuring them. Chris's audio experience and access to video equipment will also enable us to try a few new projects on the side. If you want to know more about him, check out his bio on our "about" page!

In this episode, we are thrilled to kick off the new year with another episode of The Reserve Pool.  There's a bit of banter about recent gaming acquisitions. Then, we look at UXM and all of our extensive testing and unveil - our top ten favorite dice from Uncanny X-Men. It's a light and fun way to start the new year!