Good afternoon Dice Masters fans! ‘Twas the day after the Weekly Dice Arena, and this has taken the place of my weekly “live” game for the time being. For those unfamiliar with the Weekly Dice Arena, it is every Tuesday at 9 pm Eastern Time and hosted on the WDA Twitch channel. If you are free on Tuesday nights, and set up for online play, I highly encourage checking them out and participating.

They run a wide variety of different themes, and tonight was “Ladies Night”. Your entire Team had to be made from characters of the female gender. Thankfully, Team Builder has a filter for this and makes it easy to find cards to use. The only restrictions were that this was a Modern Event, and the big hitters were banned (Becky Lynch, Asuka, Hope Summer, Boom Boom, Dani Moonstar, and Jubilee). Beyond that, non-basic actions were allowed but should not have been the star of your Team.

With that in mind, I had to find myself a starting point. I wanted to play something a little nutty, so I settled on this…

Seems like a solid win condition here. Just get her blocked and pump her up somehow. Thankfully, we have a Force Block Global in the Booker T BAC to solve the blocking problem… and the Cone of Cold Global will take care of the pump issue. Easy-peasy! Everything else will be an accessory.

What Did You Play?

The Team: Rabid Squirrels.

So, the original plan was what I outlined above. Then I re-read Squirrel Girl. Her ability triggers at the moment of blocking. I will not have access to the Global Step to use Cone of Cold. Back to the drawing board.

Thankfully, Squirrel Girl is an Avenger and there is a little tool available to that Affiliation that helps with Pumps and Prep… The Avengers ID Card. If I can get these cycling through the bag, I can get some beefy Squirrels to be dealt with by my Opponent. The Prepping is just a bonus on the burst face.

This is good, but I decided to double down on the Pump options, so I included (She-)Hulk from Thor. Her Global gives me that extra attack I am needing, and her basic ability is a win condition on it’s own. I was not planning on buying her on the night unless I came up against another Hulk. Tonight was all about the Squirrels.

Ideally, after forcing a block with Booker T, I wanted to include a way to keep Squirrel Girl alive. Kate Bishop joined the Team for the Bishtraction Global. Her ability would also help with something like Scarlet Witch if she were to show up.

Next was something to deal with pingy crap like Attune or Infiltrate. Black Widow – Agent joins the Avengers Team, and should take care of that problem. The ID card also turns her into a bit of an offensive threat as well.

Joining on the defensive side of things was Wasp – Love and Loss. I have not played with this one, but I liked the potential punishment if I came up against an Attune Team. I was curious how she would work here… and being an Avenger helps out too.

I still felt that I needed some removal options and energy fixing options to make my Globals work a little better. Mjolnir could get me a Bolt on demand, and act as a source of removal in a pinch. However, you may have noticed that I am actually lacking in Bolt Globals… so how is this helpful? This is where Quasar came in. I love the character ability, but doubted it would come into play. The Global is what I wanted to focus on. Pay a Bolt to make a Wild. Now I all of a sudden have a “?” Energy Fixer.

For my last BAC slot, I chose my new drug… Walk with Elias. I am loving this Global on a BAC, and the action itself is very Dice Mastersy to use. It seems to be my latest addiction.

So, the plan is in place. Buy up Squirrels and ID Cards. Get the Squirrels big and force something into them. Bishtract them back and deal damage from Squirrel Girl’s ability. Mix in the other pieces as needed.

Game 1:

My first game was against a fellow Canadian, and first time WDA’er, Petrus. He was playing a Team with Rogue for Infiltrate shenanigans, and Domino for Energize shenanigans. Also an unfortunate Charlotte Flair for Sidekick buff that refused to roll. Widow was a little shy in this one for me as she decided to take her time to get out to help against the Infiltrate. Honestly, we both had difficulty getting going in this one. I took hits from Infiltrate while I was vulnerable, and some Domino hits as well (which I love). Eventually the Squirrels came a knocking. I was able to get them big enough to start dealing damage. Even if they got KO’ed they were the only dice that were behaving to return to the Field. It took a while, and the tail end of the game was on the stream, but the Squirrels eventually burned their way to victory. Side note: Even though this was not an Attune Team, Wasp was effective in punishing the use of Thrown Brick.

1-0

Game 2:

Round 2 was against Mike and this was going to be a Hulk-off. He had Daisy to trigger things. All I needed was Widow and Hulk in the Field and I could probably stay ahead of the life game. Except… my Hulk did not roll once. I had opportunity to Field her before Daisy showed up and missed… and missed every opportunity after that. Widow slowed the bleeding, and eventually I did some Squirrel stuff, but the damage was done. Hulk smashed me.

1-1

Game 3:

Another Team Canada match-up against Kim and her SR Angela Infiltrate Team. Widow was a prime player here to try and make that ineffective… although she brought her own Widow (to pump the Infiltrate damage). Again, my Widow would serve to slow the bleeding but not completely stop it. Good enough for me. I was able to get Squirrels out and ID cards cycling which helped out. I was not as concerned with the Bishtraction here as SR Angela basically nullified their combat ability. I just needed to force the block and none of my Squirrel Girls were getting KO’ed on my turn while Angela was around. I did get burned down to within striking distance of lethal before the pieces came together. This was my final Squirrel strike (12A) which was plenty by itself. The other attackers were just icing on the cake with the Avengers ID Buff.

2-1

Post-Mortem:

This was a fun Format and a fun Team to run. My original plan involved some expensive Mask characters, but that needed Asuka. Squirrel Girl fit my play style perfectly. It was punchy enough to cause some damage, and the machine was complicated enough that it required multiple parts to make work.

Without Booker T being available, this Team would not have worked. Period. You have to get Squirrel Girl blocked and it is too easy to let her through. Although I never got a chance to try it, I was very curious how the action itself could have worked here. Definitely some shenanigan potential to be had there, and need some exploring.

Everything else worked how it was supposed to. Widow was the ultimate band-aid when needed, the ID card made Squirrel Girl a legitimate threat, Hulk was terrible (but the Global was good), Kate kept the Squirrels in the game. No surprises there.

Mjolnir/Quasar actually proved to be an excellent energy fixer to bring in just about anything I wanted. I would have liked to get Quasar out at least once, as she changes the Global game on a Team like this. I never really had that chance though.

One question that did arise with Quasar though… The Global basically creates a virtual “?”. With the new rules with regards to virtual energy disappearing after you pass priority in the Main Step, does this energy disappear as well? Or does that only apply to Generic Energy? It never became a game issue, but the discussion did arise in one game.

Wasp was surprisingly effective. I would have liked to come up against a more Action heavy Team, just to see how she could have done. She definitely made my Opponent think twice about using the Action as it created a “life tax” for doing so.

Like I said earlier, Walk with Elias is my new drug. I see it taking the place of Resurrection in the new Modern for my BAC Ramp needs. Love me the WWE Global. I only wish it was once per turn instead of just your own.

Would I play this Team again? Absolutely. It was surprisingly fun to run “as is”. I am sure there are tweaks to be had if you removed the female limitation, but it worked well.

If you played on the WDA, what did you run? How did you like it? What is your favourite “Ladies Night” type Team? How would you optimize the Rare Squirrel Girl?

Let us know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

– jourdo

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