About The Reserve Pool:

The Reserve Pool is a blog focused on the WizKids game Dice Masters, which was released in April of 2014.

Our coverage of the game includes strategy articles, character profiles, and a podcast that's released each Thursday.


The Authors:

Dave - Founder

Hi, I'm Dave, and avid gamer from Pennsylvania, where I live with my wife. My family always enjoyed playing games together, even if we didn't have the best filter for the highest quality games. Holiday gatherings on both sides of the family always resulted in a game breaking out, though it was usually something like Songburst, LCR, or Trivial Pursuit.

In high school, I picked up Magic: The Gathering and was immediately interested. I had actually wanted to get into the game much earlier, but my mother wasn't willing to buy it for me. As a teen, with my own job, there was no stopping me. I was never particularly good, but I wasn't all that bad either. The huge universe of cards and abilities and creatures and spells blew my mind. I continued playing for several years.

The most significant gaming experience was discovering Heroscape with my then-girlfriend-now-wife. The scope of the game impressed me even more than did Magic, and I was hooked immediately. Not long after, she discovered games like Dominion and Carcassone, and we were off to the races. We now have a growing collection and will be making our first trip to a few conventions in 2014. I've also had the chance to appear on several episodes of The Dice Tower Showdown, debating topics with fellow gamers.

My wife Lauren and I live in Western PA and juggle married life, work, another blog/podcast, and a few different gaming groups with all the skill of an untrained juggler. We have a mild case of Acquisition Disorder and are obsessed with roller coasters and Disney World.

Favorite gaming outlets include the Dice Tower, The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast, and Watch It Played. Having done some blogging and podcasting of my own, I was inspired by the folks behind those wonderful shows to throw my own hat in the ring and see what happens.

Oh, and if you're wondering, mom eventually got past that negative association - there are several games she plays with us now.

Some of my favorite games non-Dice Masters games right now include Nexus Ops, Eclipse, and Steam Park. Thanks for visiting!  - I'm always up for a game.



Writer/Podcaster: Evan - 

Forged from primordial nerdium aeons ago, Evan bends computers to his will (or at least curses a lot when they refuse to do as asked) by day, and rolls around in a Scrooge McDuck-esque pile of math and games by night.  Between being introduced to the Atari 2600 at the tender age of four and the attentions of a father with a long history of board and wargaming, it was inevitable that he would become a gamer of both the digital and analog realms.  We're not quite sure where the math part came in.

Evan's formative years were spent cultivating a love of RPGs, including Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (of various editions), the highlights of the excellent PlayStation and Super Nintendo libraries, and assorted computer RPGs running from Rogue to Baldur's Gate.  While he was mainlining these, he also dabbled in Magic: the Gathering and several other collectible games, including the oft-maligned Dragon Dice, as well as Warhammer and Warhammer 40K.  He continues to favor RPGs, but has become increasingly a fan of roguelikes and procedurally generated games like NetHack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, many of which he is kind of terrible at despite his enthusiasm.  Outside of gaming, he enjoys cooking, even if he's glacially slow at it.

In recent years, Evan has rekindled the interest in boardgames that games like Heroquest and Thunder Road gave him when he was but a wee lad, enjoying games ranging from Arkham Horror to Boss Monster.  Coupled with a resurgence in comics-reading, spurred by the nefarious Katie, this led to acute interest when he heard of the upcoming release of a collectible dice game featuring Marvel characters.  After infecting Katie with the same, he proceeded to find the game an excellent target for long, rambling strategy and probability thoughts; recently approached by Dave for a podcast about some Reverb Fool or something, Katie investigated the possibility of Evan joining in as well, and the rest is (confusing, wordy) history.



Writer/Podcast Contributor: Randy

I’m married to my beautiful wife. We have 3 kids, no pets, but a 4th child is on the way (due June 2015), and we will get a dog someday when we have time to train a dog. I work in a plastic plant during the day, and try to do everything else under the sun in my off time. One of those many things is play Dice Masters.

I was never much of a tabletop gamer until early 2014. I started hanging out more with a friend who is very in to games. He would tell me about all of these crazy board games, and Tom Vassal, and playing League of Legends, and it was all way over my head. He knew comic books were my thing, so he had me play Marvel Legendary. It was a pretty cool game. Then we played Sentinels of the Multiverse, the card game. Before I knew it, I was going over once a week trying out some new game. Since then I’ve played Mage Wars, Chaos Ball, Sheriff of Nottingham, Descent, Star Wars Attack Wing, Dominion, Five Tribes, Kingsburg, Lords of Waterdeep, and more that I can’t think of. But around the time we started expanding our game nights beyond superheroes, he told me about this upcoming game called Marvel Dice Masters. I did some research, and was hooked. Plus, this could be my game that I invested in for us to play. The week of Dice Masters’ release I called up my
 local comic shop and asked if they were getting the game in, since they do dabble in some gaming as well. They said yes, and that they would hold a starter set for me. I picked it up for $15 along with my regular comic book purchases, went to work, and immediately over to my friend’s afterwards to play. Little did I know about the supply and demand issues that would follow. We both really enjoyed the game, but since it was no longer readily available, my friend never purchased his own starter, and we just continued to play with my set as my collection started to grow.

I had played Magic in middle school and Heroclix in high school, but neither one of them competitively. This game, I wanted to play competitively. So I found an OP event about an hour away, taught my little brother how to play, and we dove right in.

In addition to playing Dice Masters, other hobbies include writing, painting, being a Cleveland sports fan, enjoying WWE, reading and collecting comic books, listen to punk rock, watching Godzilla and other Japanese kaiju movies, watching tv shows with my wife, teaching my kids about nerdy geeky things, and after everyone else in the house has gone to bed I play the occasional video game (Dynasty Warriors or old-school Mega Man). I have played soccer for most of my life, started to learn to play drums and bass (but they just didn’t stick. I may pick up the bass again), wrote comic book reviews for a website (but had a falling out after a new editor took over), trained as a professional wrestler for 6 months (and realized that the pro wrestling lifestyle would have been great a few years earlier before being married with a couple of kids), designed a Godzilla card game that was under review for a couple months (before ultimately being rejected), and apparently signed up for another full-time job as a handyman when we moved in to our fixer-upper home. And now I write for The Reserve Pool.


Writer/Podcast Contributor: Chris

Hey - I’m Chris!  When I was in grade school around 20 years ago, a couple of boys in my neighborhood introduced me to a game called Risk and then a magical set of books called Dungeons & Dragons a short time later.  Gaming completely hooked me and I’ve been an avid gamer ever since.

I’ve floated between casual and competitive play - rolling dice, pushing minis around and building decks - for around a decade now.  I’ve dabbled in Heroclix, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k and Fantasy, Warmachine, and X-Wing and I’ve enjoyed them all in their own right.  However, with my love of comics (especially the Uncanny X-Men) and the relatively inexpensive investment, Dice Masters really struck a chord with me and piqued my interest.  It hasn’t disappointed.

Aside from collectible gaming, I really love board games.  I was fortunate enough to marry a beautiful woman who also enjoys copious amounts of cardboard and dice neatly organized on a table.  Some of our favorites include: Puerto Rico, Stone Age, Caverna, Lords of Waterdeep, Russian Railroads and (most recently) Splendor.

I live in Wyoming with my wife, baby girl and two dogs - Hank and Charlie.