Welcome back as we continue this journey on creating a Dice Masters Draft Cube. Like most projects, there are unforeseen problems. I’ve had a few things pop up in testing my cube I’d like to address.
Swarm
There are 17 character cards in all of D&D Dice Masters that have the Swarm keyword. There’s about 400 draftable cards in our cube. The chance of you getting one of those Swarm cards is slim. It’s even slimmer to think you could draft multiple cards of that character to add to your Swarm dice. This makes characters with Swarm less important, even when cards are coming with 2 dice per card. Since I’m making this up as I go, I’m making a game changing decision:
Character cards with the Swarm keyword come with 3 dice.
Boom. What do you think about that? Now, drafting just a single character with 3 dice and Swarm makes it a viable ramp option. And it will definitely put a premium on any of those characters. Getting 3 dice with Swarm makes a huge difference in overall feel of a team. That’s a legitimate ramp mechanic that can fuel even constructed teams. Making that an option in draft could force you to draft it over a mediocre win condition as your first pick. I think tough choices like that help the draft be a little more compelling.
I knew going in to this I may want to play with the number of dice associated with certain cards, I totally glossed over this next problem.
Multiple characters with the same name/dice
Yikes. Beholder, Frost Giant, Gelatinous Cube, Red Dragon, Zombie… let’s start here.
These characters appeared in two different D&D sets. They have the same name, and some even have the same subtitle. They use the same die molds (same energy type, symbol, and stats) but are colored differently. I feel like there’s 3 potential solutions.
Option #1. Stick to the hard rule of not being able to use character cards that share a name.
-This makes sense because it’s the same rule we’ve been accustomed to since the start of Dice Masters. What I don’t like about this, is it could give you “dead” cards in your draft, and force you to have to choose between cards with obviously different dice for no beneficial reason.
Option #2. Keep the rule of not being able to use multiple characters with the same name, EXCEPT, the dice are transferable since they are the exact same mold.
-I like this idea because it makes functional sense. If I draft a BFF Red Dragon and a ToA Red Dragon, I’ve draft 2 cards worth of Red Dragon dice. It could get a little confusing for players if they aren’t used to associating typical abilities with a different die’s color scheme.
Option #3. Allow players to have multiple characters of the same name on their team, provided the characters are from different sets (use different colored dice).
-This flies in the face of a rule that’s been in place across all Dice Masters formats since day 1. It may be difficult for players to remember while drafting. I like it in the sense that it keeps all characters from all sets unique; not allowing a higher percentage of dice compatible with a given card.
I flat out do not like Option #1 (only 1 character with any given name). If I draft 2 Beholders from Different sets, whichever 1 I choose, the other offers me nothing. Not a usable character, no usable dice. Nothing. You could simply say “Well, then don’t draft it.” But that answer doesn’t sit well with me. I want to make this draft cube the most fun it possibly can be. I don’t want to tell people “No. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.”
I feel like Option #2 (allow different dice from across different set on a card) would be the easiest and most understandable solution, except for one thing. We already have different characters across sets that use differently colored dice of the same mold.
Halfling Thief – Elf Thief – Tabaxi Rogue
Minsc & Boo – Gnome Ranger – Human Outlander
Half-Elf Bard – Birdsong
The list goes on. The absolute best (or worst depending on how you think of it) is Captain Elok Jaharwon and Captain Laskilar because they use the exact same die mold and are from the same set. I don’t want to have differently colored identical dice be able to represent the same character when we already have differently colored identical dice that must represent different characters. That is why we are going with Option #3.
A player can have multiple character on their team with the same name, as long as they are from different sets and use differently colored dice.
Because of the release date of some of the D&D OP cards (such as Mummy: Legendary Undead or Gelatinous Cube: Legendary Ooze), I don’t want there to be any confusion as to what set it is from. So that’s why I specify it needs to be from a different set AND use differently colored dice.
It’s also worth noting that it is a standing Dice Masters rule that when a card specifies it’s own name in its ability text, it’s only referring to dice belonging to that card. Keep in mind that when you have a BFF Frost Giant active, it does not have the abilities of the ToA Frost Giant, even though both abilities reference “Frost Giant”. Pay attention to the color of dice for the corresponding character card and abilities.
There are some exceptions to this. Let’s look at the Zombie from ToA. All versions affect “a Zombie character die”. As we see in this ruling here, “a Zombie character die” means “Only characters with “Zombie,” and nothing else, in their name…” Both BFF and ToA Zombies meet this requirement. So, a ToA Zombie’s ability CAN affect BFF Zombies.
BFF and ToA Zombie dice are both affected by abilities that affect “a/any/all Zombie character dice”
So, there’s where I am with the Draft Cube. I’m still gathering and organizing my ToA cards. It turns out I’m a few rare/SR shy of having a full FUS set in my Cube. That’s fine. I’ll want to finish it eventually, but there’s no point in putting off assembling the cube just because I’m missing a few rare/SR cards.
What do you think of the solutions I came up with to the above issues? Did I go in the right direction? Would you have done something differently? Let me know in the comments. Roll on.