Welcome back Dice Masters fans!
This is Part Two of our look at the Earth X super rares coming from the newest Dice Masters set – Marvel Dice Masters: The Mighty Thor, thundering into your FLGS in early 2018! You can find the link to the first article HERE where we look at Earth X’s Captain America and Machine Man.
As a reminder, these super rares come with the Underdog keyword. As we discussed in the last article, abilities preceded by the Underdog keyword can be used when you have fewer character dice fielded than your opponent.
Today we will cover the other two Earth X super rares, starting with Earth X The Skull: Telepathic Awakening.
He is a 5 cost mask character with a very low fielding cost and low range stats. He brings a unique ability that a lot of players have been hoping for: a way to slow down those strong mask teams.
Underdog – When fielded, each player KOs all but 1 of their mask character dice.
When fielded, your opponent’s life total cannot go below 1 this turn.
First let’s look at his Underdog ability. Like the character in the comic run, The Skull makes a big splash when he hits the board. His ability will allow you to blow up any mask-specific teams you might be facing by sending all of them off the board via KO except for one. Dice Masters has seen its fair share of powerful mask characters, and the current competitive team builds are no exception.
Mask specific characters bound to be impacted by his presence would include:
Click any card to enlarge.
Raven has arguably been the linchpin of Mask teams, but The Skull allows you to sidestep her protective effects and KO all those strong cards your opponent brings to the table. Even if your opponent isn’t bringing an all-mask team, there are still plenty of mask characters running around in Modern format games that this will be a great addition to your teams!
He has the ability to cycle himself as well, you just need to have any one other mask character and you could kick him over to the prep to repeat the effect next turn.
His other when fielded ability balances him out-preventing your opponent’s life total from going below 1. Using him to clear a field, you can push your opponent to 1 life and wait for the final blow the next turn. He should see gameplay on team builds looking to bust open the single energy teams built around mask characters. He might be the perfect surprise to shake up your local metagame! He’ll break up your opponent’s board, setting you in a prime position to finish the game the next turn. Even if your opponent can recover – sooner or later if you can keep re-fielding The Skull they’ll get some unlucky rolls and you’ll be able to score the win.
And our final card is Earth X Thor: She Be Worthy. She’s got 3 come-from-behind effects, so the more ways you’re trying to catch up to your opponent’s board position the more likely Thor is to save the day!
First off, when fielded if you have less life than your opponent, you can KO a target character die. Targeted removal is always a strong effect in Dice Masters – allowing you to pick off that pesky character on the other side of the board or perhaps cycle one of your own characters that you want to re-roll next turn.
Secondly, Thor can KO another character when fielded – specifically a villain character die. In the current state of the game, villains are some of the best control pieces out there. In modern some villains you would most likely be looking to remove include:
The Mighty Thor brings some powerful villains to the mix as you can see – so having spot removal that can hit them might not be as situational as it seems.
Finally, the Underdog ability is a third when fielded effect that allows you to KO a target character die with fielding cost 0. There are quite a few cards that fit that criteria in the game, and it would allow you to at minimum clear a sidekick off you or your opponent’s board. More than likely though there will be a character die you want off your opponent’s board that is giving you trouble, or one of your own with a ‘’when fielded” effect that you would love to have wheel back around for your next turn.
Part of what has excited us about these Earth X Super Rares cards and dice is that they don’t just bring unique abilities and interactions to Dice Masters – there’s no telling which one is going to be the best! It all depends on your team and what you’re playing against at your FLGS or kitchen table. We hope you enjoy these great cards!
