One thing I’ve been rattling about in the back of my head is this: with the next batch of Dice Masters releases on the slate being non-blind, how will they integrate with previous blind product?
What’s got me thinking about this? Well…My FLGS has a standing Dice Masters casual night every Tuesday, and in recent weeks I’ve noticed a little increase in enquiries about the Campaign boxes from ex-players and potentially interested new players coming my way (I am, after all, the “Dice Masters” guy down there). If these guys do indeed use the Campaign Boxes as a jumping on point – is it reasonable to continue holding Constructed events that allow the blind product too…
It’s a tough one.
I certainly want to discourage any “Noob Smashing” – and there are undoubtedly some high power combos from previous sets that could make for a very negative play experience for someone jumping on at the point of the Campaign Boxes. I remember the first time I encountered the rare Lantern Ring and the first time I was Guy-Rushed, or the time we all realised the The Bard was a thing. It was jaw dropping stuff.
I suppose without sight of any of the game-texts in the Campaign boxes there’s a certain amount of assumption there – it could very well be the case that there’s some tribal synergy that can hold its own against earlier archetypes, but I’m not confident. Sure; there’s likely to be a few gems in the sets but it’s doubtful a full competitive build that meets all the needs of a competitive set up will be present.
That brings another wandering thought to mind about rotation. Long standing players have been operating under the assumption that the rotation will follow a similar format to the first rotation, but is it out of the realms of possibility that Wizkids, with their renewed focus on more casual play, might reset competitive play entirely and set the rotation cut off at the point of the new Campaign Boxes? I suspect that’s unlikely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a new competitive format gets added to the list maybe to balance competitive play for the new on-boarding players who are non-blind only.
We’ll see. It’s definitely something I’m going to be putting some thought into in the coming weeks/months in preparation for any new interest the Campaign Boxes generate (particularly the Warhammer 40K ones).
Have you got any thoughts? How might you strike the right balance? Let me know in the comments below…
