This weekend just gone the Ministry of Dice podcast ran one of our “The Ministry of Dice Presents Dice Masters” casual tournament events at the Gaming Vs Cancer Charity fundraiser in Southampton.
I’m going to write a little series of posts over the next week or so using the event for inspiration as there’s a lot of ground to cover – this first post (this one) is to give more info about Gaming Vs Cancer, provide an overview of the day, and show off some team lists. I’ve then got my tournament report which will break down my team and a blow by blow of my rounds lined up for a second post, and will finish up with a third post which will be an article about how the “Ministry of Dice” organise events and attracts a small, but dedicated base of players to its tournies.
So, let’s start with some GvC info…
Gaming Vs Cancer
The Gaming Vs Cancer fundraiser has been taking place since 2013. It began back then as “Clix for Cancer” and was exclusively Heroclix, but has grown year on year to include a variety of events & tournaments for other games, such as Netrunner, Pokemon, X-Wing, ST:AW, Pandemic, Destiny, and, for the first time this year; Keyforge.
The event raises money for Cancer Research UK, and has collected approximately just short of £15,000 in the 5 years it’s been running (that’s with a broad estimate of funds raised this year included).
The event traditionally takes place on the South Coast of the UK and has been in Southampton for a couple of years now. It’s been a prominent part of the UK Dice Masters scene for the last handful of competitive Dice Masters seasons as its Events have been official WKOs; so it’s been a supporter of, and part of the UK DM narrative for sometime now.
With no WKOs taking place over November this year we figured it was the perfect opportunity to put together one of our patented “The Ministry of Dice Presents Dice Masters” events instead – which I’ll elaborate on in a later post – but suffice to say we were more than happy to volunteer for this great event for a great cause. Mostly our responsibility was to build the prize pool, promote the event to attract players, and to help out on the day with any general stuff that may have been needed. Andy & I both wanted to purchase tickets and compete (I was planning on playing hard for the awesome custom playmat we’d had donated by Patriot Games) and so arrangements were made for Charlotte to be a player TO who did not purchase a ticket and did not claim any prizes from the pool.
Speaking of the prize pool; it was built on a number of hugely generous donations from contributors from around the world, in addition to the Ministry of Dice/BritRollerSix contribution – so I’m going to take a second to give a HUGE THANK YOU to the following prize donors and ask that you take a look at their linked websites for us:
EZLaserWorks / Dice Masters with James & Zack
Also – a few players pitched in with their duplicate promos – so another big THANK YOU to Alex and Charlotte – cheers guys.
The Team Lists
The tournament was using the Global Escalation format, which is a Golden format that comes with a ban list that you can find the info for HERE
The spirit of a “Ministry of Dice Presents…” event is casual fun and we play Swiss rounds all day. I’ll talk a little more about this in the third post of this GvC blog series, but for now I think you’ll be able to tell from the general feel of the team lists that the right balance was struck between not playing something crazy competitive (ie Ultraman/Imprisoned, Beholder/Hela, Ring/Dragon etc etc) but with enough fight in them that they were fun to play and held up in the MoD-style meta.
In order of placement then…
First Place – Me!
Basic Actions
- Villainous Pact
- Thrown Brick
Character/Action Cards
- Techno – Downloaded Consciousness
- Poison Ivy – Red
- Black Manta – Deep Sea Deviant
- Malekith – King of the Dark
- Cheetah – Some Manner of Monster
- Blob – Nothing Moves the Blob!
- Green Goblin – Norman Osborn
- Professor X – No More, Magnus!
Second Place – Seth Fullwood
Basic Actions
- End of Days
- Resurrection
Character/Action Cards
- Mimic – Borrowed Talent
- Avengers ID Card – Making it Official
- Nick Fury – Patch
- Black Widow – Tsarina
- Captain Cold’s Cold Gun – Frozen “Firearm”
- Billy Club – Tool of Justice
- Professor X – No More, Magnus!
- Madame Web – the Great Web Unravels
Third Place – Spug the Spuggiest of all the Spuggy Ninjas
Basic Actions
- Nefarious Broadcast
- End of Days
Character/Action Cards
- Norman Osborn – Don’t Call Me “Gobby”!
- Gorilla Grodd – Force of Mind
- Kree Captain – Lost Purpose
- Kree Soldier – Blue angels
- Danger Room – Flame-Throwers and Rotating Knives
- Bane – Genius Technician
- Rip Hunter’s Chalkboard – “Only Zatara Can Reach the POINT”
- Poison Ivy – Red
Fourth Place – Andy England aka “Not as good as Chris”
Basic Actions
- Create Food and Water
- Team up
Character/Action Cards
- Mimic – Borrowed Talent
- Nova Corp Uniform – Standing for Something Greater
- Dum Dum Dugan – Hardened By War
- Professor X – No More, Magnus!
- Billy Club – Tool of Justice
- Madame Web – The Great Web Unravels
- Bishop – Butterfly Effect
- Hulk – Jade Giant
Fifth Place – Dante
Basic Actions
- Big Entrance
- Villainous Pact
Character/Action Cards
- Doctor Doom – Reed Richard’s Rival
- Cyclops – If Looks could Kill
- Thanos – Go, Cull Obsidian
- Mystique – Raven Darkholme
- Malekith – King of the Dark
- Norman Osborn – Don’t Call Me “Gobby”!
- Kree Captain – Lost Purpose
- Dormammu – From Here to Eternity
Sixth Place – Paul Fullwood
Basic Actions
- End of Days
- Resurrection
Character/Action Cards
- Danger Room – Flame-Throwers and Rotating Knives
- Captain Cold’s Cold Gun – Frozen “Firearm”
- Kree Captain – Lost Purpose
- Jubilee – Mallrat
- Martian Manhunter – Watchtower
- Mimic – Borrowed Talent
- Alfred Pennyworth – MI5
- Blue-Eyes White Dragon – Monstrous Dragon
Seventh Place – Matthew Haley
Basic Actions
- Thrown Brick
- Take Cover
Character/Action Cards
- Ronin – Between Employers
- Wonder Woman – Child of Clay
- Captain Cold’s Cold Gun – Beautifully Designed
- Shriek – Dark Empathy
- Nitro – Stamford Incident
- Ant-Man – Pym Particles
- Avengers ID Card – Making it Official
- Nick Fury – Patch
Eight Place – Stu Dickson
Basic Actions
- Upgrade – Proton Cannon
- Resurrection
Character/Action Cards
- Billy Club – Tool of Justice
- Bishop – Butterfly Effect
- Raven – Azeroth, Metroid, Zinthos!
- Professor X – Recruiting Young Mutants
- Danger Room – Flame-Throwers and Rotating Knives
- The Collector – Taneleer Tivan
- Thanos – Eternal Might
- Kree Captain – Lost Purpose
Ninth Place – Alex Dickerson
Basic Actions
- Confront the Mighty
- Resurrection
Character/Action Cards
- Angela – Hunter of Demons
- Ricochet – Slinger
- Blob – Appetite for Destruction
- Gamora – Black Sheep
- Kree Soldier – Protecting the Seat of Hala
- The Spot – Dr Jonathan Ohnn
- Red Hood – Jason Todd
- Crystal – Aerokinesis
Tenth Place – Charlotte S
Sorry folks – I don’t seem to have Charlotte’s team list. I’m pretty sure it involved ‘Parademon – Strength in Numbers’ and Rare ‘Chwinga’.
Coming Next…
Keep an eye on the blog in the next few days for the second part of the Gaming Vs Cancer post series, where I’ll be going over my team and writing up my tournament report of match ups.
See you soon…
1 Comment