Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

WizKids is about to release its third Team Pack, Maximum Carnage. So far, all three Team Packs have been Marvel. I mentioned this in the last Team Pack review, but I’ll say it again – I would love to see a DC Team Pack at some point. A Bombshells Team Pack would be awesome!

You can find the review video for the Maximum Carnage Team Pack on YouTube, here.



Team Pack



With this new Marvel Dice Masters Team Pack, you can replay or rewrite the way Maximum Carnage played out! Side with Carnage and some of the other devious and murderous Villains, or choose to side with Spider-Man and his allies and try to bring down Carnage before it’s too late! You can even build a team where Carnage and Spider-Man are on the same side and take the story clear off the rails! This Team Pack pairs well with any of the other Dice Masters sets and is a great way to boost your current team or start a whole new team build!

Pack Contents

~ 24 Character Cards

~ 16 Dice

Keywords

There are two returning keywords in this set, and no new ones.

Deadly

Regenerate

Affiliations

There are three returning affiliations.

Avengers

Spider-Friends

Villains

It’s worth noting that this Team Pack is the first time that we’ve seen Marvel Villains with the “V” instead of the Hydra logo for their Villain affiliation. I hope this wasn’t an accident and that they convert all Marvel Villains to the “V” so we can have a Hydra affiliation later!

Characters

Keeping the Bloodhounds at Bay has an interesting ability, but it’s highly situational. Your opponent has to roll and then reroll the character dice onto their level three side. If you have Black Cat active, they’re going to reroll those level three characters to try for a lower level or energy. Possessive and Nine Lives are both cards I would consider playing. Nine Lives is a great blocker! She’s got beefy defense on all three levels and she has a chance to Regenerate. Her attack stats are lacking, but this a character you likely will want to use for defense and not as an attacker. The same can be said for Possessive, which is my favorite of the three. It’s awesome to have a character with a defense like Black Cat’s and also have a While Active ability. Her ability makes her a big nuisance that your opponent may want to deal with while you’re building up to your win condition. She’s not an expensive character to purchase or field, which is another bonus!

Black Cat is a returning character, with a new design for her dice. Her die image is of her hand holding a diamond.

Captain America has the only Global ability in the set, on two of his three cards. S.T.A.R. Labs Global is much better in my opinion, but if you don’t want both Globals on your team, then Cap’s Global is okay. The benefit to Cap’s Global is that it only requires a generic energy and a Shield instead of a Bolt and Shield to use. “How “Bout a Hand, Son?” is a card I’d love to use on a Golden Age Flying Sidekick team. Behind You is a situational type card, but could be useful if you paired it with a Villain making ability or Global. My favorite is Squad Leader, who can give all of your Sidekick character dice Deadly until end of turn, when you field him. There is a minor text formatting error on Squad Leader – the Deadly keyword is not bold. Not a huge issue, but just in case someone tries to argue that it’s not a keyword – it is definitely a keyword.

Captain America is a returning character and has the same die design as his Civil War die, but a different color scheme. His die image is of him running and throwing his shield. The dice cannot be interchanged with previous versions.

No Pain, No Reign and Red Slayer have similar abilities in that they can use the abilities of another die when the appropriate conditions are met. No Pain, No Reign can use a When Attacks ability on another target character die when he attacks. Red Slayer can use a When KO’d ability on a target character die when he’s KO’d. Both are interesting abilities that could have their own uses if you build a team around particular abilities that trigger or activate when a character attacks or is KO’d. My favorite is definitely going to be Unfinished Business. I’m such a sucker for control cards and this similar to my beloved Oracle: Master Investigator. It only taxes them on your turn, not theirs, but it makes them pay two more instead of just one more. I see him being much more useful in Golden Age than the other formats. He cost five on all versions and he’s got some crazy stats. He’s got a 0/1/1 fielding cost and his attack and defense are fantastic! I like this guy and when we do a Golden Age event, he’s replacing Oracle on my team.

Carnage is a returning character with a new design for his dice. The die image is a profile of Carnage’s head and looks to be the same image for the set logo.

Doppleganger!!! I loved Doppleganger in the comics and I’m so excited to see him in Dice Masters. All of his versions do something nasty involving Sidekicks. Living Fractal is really cool in that you can steal their Sidekick that they rolled, but the downside is that you can’t steal their Ally dice from their Reserve Pool. Ally character dice are not Sidekicks until they enter the Field Zone. That makes him a little less cool, but he’s still useful for stealing their Sidekick dude(s) on their turn. With the way this card reads – if your opponent uses Parallax’s Global to reroll an Ally that’s already in the Field, and it comes up on a character face, you can steal it. That makes him significantly better. I like Predator too, but he’s kind of situational unless you’re using Ra’s al Ghul’s Global from the Batman set. Then you can control who’s a Villain and who isn’t. My favorite is Six Arms because you can blow up all your opponent’s Ally dice and Sidekick dice just by fielding this guy, and then deal damage to your opponent as well! He only cost four to purchase, where the other two version cost five each. He also has great fielding costs and great stats too. I really like this guy and he may find himself on my Villain team.

Doppleganger has made his Dice Masters debut in this Team Pack! His die is a new design and his die image is the outline of his eyes.

Iron Fist… I know you were in Maximum Carnage, but did we need another Iron Fist so soon? I don’t particularly like any of Iron Fist’s cards in this Team Pack because they don’t fit my play style. All of his abilities have something to do with you having or spending Fist energy. Sensei is similar to Beast Boy: Animal Magnetism from War of Light with a few differences, but still fairly similar abilities. Beast Boy lets you roll Sidekicks from your Used Pile in an attempt to get Fist energy, and he also gets a defense boost. Iron Fist cost one less than Beast Boy and has better stats overall. Let the Silence Speak lets you deal damage to character die, that isn’t blocking, equal to Iron Fist’s attack for the cost of a Fist energy. You can pump his attack up to make that a lethal blow on big defensive characters. Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch lets you pay as much Fist energy as you want to deal that much damage directly to a character die, but only once during your turn. He only needs to be active for you to be able to use that ability. Out of the three Iron Fist cards, I like Let the Silence Speak the best.

Iron Fist is a returning character with the same die design as his promo card, but instead of opaque green, his dice have a shimmering green color. His die image is his face mask. The dice cannot be interchanged with previous versions.

Oh – my – goodness. Sonic Beam is my new best friend! She’s a new Dwiz – but better! She cost the same, has better stats overall, and doesn’t have to target a die! She is the answer to that pesky Raven on those Ring Teams. Raven protects dice – not cards – so Shriek can maneuver around Raven. I love this card so much right now. But what is this next card? Dark Empathy ignores all text on opposing character cards when she’s fielded!!! Wow!!! She cost one more to purchase and you need to field her to gain that benefit, but oh my Pinkie Pie! She’s a monster! And then we have Sandra Deel who stops both players from activating Globals when she attacks. I like her, but I think I’d rather use Wonder Woman: Ambassador of Peace from the Superman Wonder Woman Starter instead. Sandra Deel is still good though – because she prevents the use of lots of combat oriented Globals, like Blink-Transmutation.

This is Skriek’s Dice Masters debut! Her die is a new design and her die image is a profile of her head with her hair hanging down.

There are a few other Spider-Man cards that I would rather use than these, but I do like Better Way. He’s useful against those nasty blocker types that always seem to get in the way. Staying True is cool, but I wish he kept his ability until the start of your next turn, so he would help defend against Overcrush characters. War of the Heart is great for those teams that use a lot of Alfred Pennyworth: MI-5 dice. He pairs really well with Captain America: Squad Leader from this very Team Pack. Spider-Man has great stats overall and all his versions cost four to purchase. He’s a great character for any casual game.

Spider-Man is a returning character with the same die design as his Avengers vs X-Men and Uncanny X-Men dice, but with a different color scheme. His die image is the spider emblem from the chest of his suit. The dice cannot be interchanged with previous versions.

We’ve only seen one other four cost Venom card, so it’s great to see that all three of these cost four! Corruptor is cool, but situational. There are cards that spin dice down, but it seems like an awful lot of work for a single When Fielded ability. Lethal Protector has a controlling ability that I can get behind! You only need to give a die the Villain affiliation if it doesn’t already have it and field Venom and steal it for the turn. My favorite of Venom’s cards is My Other. His purchase cost is great for this ability and you can attack with him or Fabricate him, and then use him again later! His stats are great, but can be troublesome if you’re wanting to use his When Fielded abilities multiple times. But he does only cost four to purchase, making multiple die purchases affordable and beneficial!

Venom is a returning character with the same die design as his Civil War dice, but with a different color scheme. His die image is a side profile of his head with his tongue lashing out. The dice cannot be interchanged with previous versions.



Character Dice

You only get two of each character die in the Team Pack. If you’re wanting to put three or four dice on a particular character, you will need to buy a second Team Pack (or trade, exchange, etc.). It’s never a bad thing to have duplicates of the character cards, but I’d rather just have max dice in one purchase.

There isn’t a die in this Team Pack that I don’t like. Even the simply designed Doppleganger has a ‘cool’ look to it. My favorite dice are Spider-Man and Black Cat. I love Spider-Man for his coloring and Black Cat has the perfect die image for her character! I also like that they’re reusing some of the previous designs and stats for some of the characters instead of popping new ones out all the time. And I’m a huge fan of the new Iron Fist die color. The promo die was a plain, opaque green and this one has that really pretty shimmer-swirl green. That also helps players tell the two dice apart for competitive level events. I also love that they used (or appears they used) Carnage’s die image as the set image. And Shriek has a really pretty image on her die too and is close to being a favorite of mine as well.

Final Thoughts

Team Packs are marketed as add-ons for starters; to help boost your starter cards or even as jumping on point for a new team build with the help of some booster packs. I think WizKids has done an excellent job with this Team Pack and out of all three of the current Team Packs, this is by far the best! The Doctor Strange Team Pack was okay and the Defenders Team Pack is one that I want to forget, but this new Maximum Carnage Team Pack is a must have for any player, in my opinion.

Not every Team Pack needs a meta breaking card. If most of the Team Pack has playable cards for casual players and then one or two that might appeal to competitive players, then I feel like it’s a good product. In my opinion, this Team Pack is formatted the way that every Team Pack should be. There are affordable characters; all the characters have good stats; lots of the characters have interesting or unique abilities; there is a potential meta card (or two… or three… or more); all of the character choices are appealing and thematic in regards to the Maximum Carnage comic story; and all of the dice are pretty, amazing, or cool in some way.

This is a great Team Pack and I can’t wait to play with these cards!

What are your favorite cards?

What cards do you think will make it into Modern Age or Prime metas?

Leave me a comment here or message me on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!



Special thanks to WizKids and The Reserve Pool for the use of their sites, and especially to WizKids for allowing me access to the product for this article and my review video!



Roll on, Dice Masters!