Festive greetings members of the Ministry! As the New Year arrives its time to take a moment or two to take stock of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going as a site/channel/podcast. We were touting 2022 as the “Big Year for Dice Masters” over on the podcast, but was that the case? Time to share some thoughts with you lovely folks on the subject…
First… A Thank You!
Esteemed members of the Ministry: it has been our absolute privilege and pleasure to have you as readers/viewers/listeners through 2022. We sincerely thank you for all of your support.
It’s truly your participation in this whole thing that makes it worthwhile. We’re so honoured that you choose the Ministry of Dice for your Dice Masters entertainment content needs. Dice Masters has the best community in the world, and we’re grateful to be a part of it, and grateful to you for being our audience. It’s so much fun – and you make that worthwhile and possible.
Thank you so much.
So… Where Have We Been?
It’s no secret that, as content creators, 2021 into the early part of 2022 was… a struggle.
The Dark Phoenix Saga and Kryptonite Crisis releases had been struck by shipping delays. A spoiler marketing plan for Dark Phoenix Saga had been well underway before the delay news and we had covered it extensively by Summer 2021. It left a looooong void of stuff to talk about. All brewing was theory-crafting or by proxy, and things went VERY quiet as folks slipped away towards more active games.
The pandemic had prevented most all face-to-face play, so we had no casual OR competitive events in person to report on (although we did have online events of course.).
It was a hell of an 18 months or so there for a hot minute. To blow our own trumpet for a moment: I think its pretty impressive we covered as much content as we did!
BUT, from Spring 2022 onwards things improved dramatically. Dark Phoenix Saga arrived in March. Kryptonite Crisis was on track for summer and we had a new spoiler package from Wizkids to roll out. Events were scheduled. Superman Kryptonite Crisis shipped – EARLY in the UK no less! A rotation was announced. No longer were will filling air with podcast segments about Dice Towers or YouTube shorts about playmat tubes.
There was sets to review. Teams to brew and make game play videos with. Combos to discuss. Rotations to debate. OP kits to drool over. Rebrand announcements to scrutinise. A fresh meta to explore. We think it was indeed a “big year for Dice Masters”, although we wonder if that perspective may be somewhat skewed by the year that preceded it! LOL
So Many Highlights…
We’ve had our fair share of highlights in 2022, made all the more joyous following our Covid winter.
Our organised play activity got back up and running… albeit a light touch. We ran our regular annual UK Games Expo event, at which it was great to get together with the hardcore crowd over here and hang out once again. I enjoyed myself immensely, and had a wonderful time with all the gang. There was some constructed and drafting, and whole lot of fun and laughter that was much needed by that point in the recent history of Dice Masters.
We also ran another Dice Masters Vs Cancer, which was a great time and raised £650 for Cancer Research UK. The overwhelming love & support we get towards our fundraising effort – its a devastating disease that affects so many of our lives, and we’re proud to have a community who openly and lovingly stepped up to help do our bit for the cause. #F-Cancer.
We also had our much admired and highly valued “third leg” member of the MoD; Andy America, report on the Dice Masters goings on at Gen Con and the Wizkids World Championship in Memphis. Andy is a blessing for us when it comes to keeping our content not only relevant and up-to-the-minute, but such a warm and creative energy in the way he approaches it. Andy – we love you – thanks for those highlights this year. (Although… a little bit resentful that is Gen Con episode was so popular ;P )
Cracking open some fresh product on Stream was pretty epic too. It’s been a long time waiting for the opportunity to stream some new product unboxing so that was an exciting moment. Again; after such a long Dice Masters hibernation there was some real energy and fun about those streams that we hadn’t felt for awhile.
In fact – many live streams were an absolute joy. Another HUGE “Thank You” goes out to all of those who would come and hang out with us over on Twitch. You truly are the most tremendous crowd and a great bunch to spend some time with.
From a personal perspective, it was a “Big Year for Dice Masters” for us, and A LOT of fun.
Looking Into 2023…
Well… word is out that the solicits for the Dice Masters Secret Wars set has been delayed. Dice Masters Secret Wars will not be arriving until at least May, and even then that’s an estimate.
This means its going to be a long run without much in the way of NEW to talk about for awhile. We’re holding off an any further spoiler related vids (for obvious reasons) and will be dialling back on podcast segments that discuss the Secret Wars card spoilers to date. They’ll remain on the site in the usual place, but we’re going to hold off on talking the set up – we fear it may be a bit… infuriating for us all.
That’s ok though: we firmly believe there is a wealth of territory in the 2022 sets to dig into anyway. With the live events in 2022 there was much talk of competitive Dice Masters, especially in the lead up to Memphis, but we reckon there’s some solid casual play spaces to explore in there and brews to sink our teeth into. The long awaited return of the dice tower and dice tray content will be there too. We know you love that stuff! We’re going to plough that field TO DEATH. You have been warned LOL.
Over on the YouTube channel its my plan to reinvigorate some of the video series I haven’t touched upon for some time. The “WTF Wizkids!” vids are poised to make a return, as is the long overdue OP Kit Retrospectives. My new starter-friendly vids have been a bit sporadic too, so I’m developing some stuff there. Of course; I’m open to further suggestions, so let me know what might tickle your fancy and I’ll see what I can do!
I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be rough for us making content. BUT, if there’s one thing we’ve proven over the years its that we can fill air! LOL
Support the Ministry…
It’s been some time since we asked, but its time for a quick pander. We would like to take a moment to remind you that there’s no better way to show your Thanks and offer some support to the whole MoD operation by making a small contribution to the ongoing running costs of our stuff. You wouldn’t believe all the little financial odds and ends this whole content creation thing costs and, while we’re happy to foot the bill for this thing we love, audience contributions help us do a little more when it comes to production costs, range of service, and general polish on the finished article.
Here’s some ways you can pitch in…
MoD Merch
Yep – you read that right – we have a small selection of Ministry of Dice merch available now. The first handful of products are live on our Etsy store and ready for perusal and purchase right now, with more coming in the future.
Show the world you are a member of the finest Ministry with one of our merch items… (Click the pic to be taken to the store)
Twitch Prime Subs
Do you have Amazon Prime? If so; did you know there’s a way you can help the Ministry without making any additional payment at all?
All Amazon Prime members get a free Twitch subscription as part of their membership, and we suspect there’s many of you not using it at all. So… why not sling it our way?
If you’ve got a minute, whether you’re a Twitch fan or not, could you perhaps jump on to our channel and Sub with your Amazon Prime freebie? It’s a win-win all round: you don’t have to pay anything extra at all if you’re an Amazon Prime user and we get a little kick back!
Use Our Affiliates
We’ve got a couple of affiliate links down our side banner on the site. If you are in the UK and shop at Zatu Games then please consider using our link (for any product, not just Dice Masters) and if you are an eBay user then please do the same.
Its another win-win. You buy what you were going to buy anyway, and we get a little kick back towards our bills. Awesome.
US fans – keeps your eyes open for a new affiliate programme coming soon with a US gaming retailer too. I’ll let you know when it’s up & running…
Just Send Us Some Money
If you like… we’ve got a Donations link and are clearly not above just putting our cap out and begging LOL
That will do for today – I’ve looked back, peeked forward, and asked you for cash at the worst possible time of year. That’s a pretty solid blog post I reckon LOL.
We love hearing from you beautiful people so please do get in touch. Drop us an e-mail using the mail link at the bottom of the page, jump into our Discord, or PM us over Facebook. Let us know what your MoD highlight of the year was? Do you think it was the “Big Year of Dice Masters” we hoped it would be? How are you going to keep the game alive while we wait for Secret Wars in May? We can’t wait to hear your thoughts…
Otherwise – Happy New Year everyone. We’re looking forward to hanging out with you for another year to talk and play more Dice Masters.
Love ya!
