Cue the guitar riffs and angsty monologues, the X-Men have joined the world of Dice Throne! In 2022 I took a look at the first Marvel tie-in sets for Dice Throne that brought the Avengers (and Loki) into Roxley’s popular competitive dice thrower system. Now they’ve joined back up with The Op to adapt the Merry Mutants to the game. Unlike the previous set, which had a core box of four heroes and two “expandalone” expansions with two characters, the X-Men edition is two four character boxes and one “Deluxe” box starring the ever-popular Deadpool.
What’s In The Box(es)
- 4 Hero Boards
- 4 Hero Leaflets
- 4 Health Dials
- 4 Combat Point Dials
- 4 Hero Card Decks
- 20 Premium Acrylic Swirl Dice
- Status Effect Tokens
- 1 Rule book
Marvel Dice Throne: Deadpool “Deluxe” Expansion
- 1 Hero Board
- 1 Hero Leaflet
- 1 Health Dial
- 1 Combat Point Dial
- 1 Hero Card Deck
- 1 Foil Mythic Card
- 1 Promo Card
- 1 Randomizer Card
- 1 Painted Hero Sculpt
- 50 Card Sleeves
- 1 Curmudgeon Coin
- 5 Premium Acrylic Swirl Dice
- Status Effect Tokens
- 1 Rulebook
Deadpool got his own box and, at thirty bucks, they made sure to include some bonuses to make it worthwhile. Not only is his player board bigger and more dynamic than the others, he’s also got some special cards, sleeves, and a big-ass Deadpool coin you can use. There’s even a very nice mini of Deadpool that serves no other purpose but to add to the game’s collectability.
How’s It Play?
The Dice Throne formula is strong here, which I give a detailed breakdown of here in my first Marvel Dice Throne review. Essentially, you’re playing PvP Yahtzee. Roll your dice to try to get them to match one of the abilities on your board. You get three tries to get the combo you want, with the amount of rerolls and dice manipulation changing sometimes based on your character. You can bank some resources as well from abilities and use those in the future to cause different effects or upgrade your abilities as needed. The odd thing about Dice Throne is that it’s kind of built for very specific play comps: 1v1 or 2v2. If you increase the player count to 5 or 6 (which the boxes and book claim is possible) you’re stuck in a King of the Hill mode where you mostly just attack whoever has the highest health. It’s fine but it’s long and even the rulebook discourages it for new players. Just a weird choice.
Like all Dice Throne editions, the new Marvel characters are where all the big changes are since they not only work with each other but also with the other Dice Throne releases and are fully interchangeable. So here’s a little breakdown of how each X-Man (and Deadpool) works along with how they fit into the greater balance.
Cyclops
Cyclops is one of the most straightforward of the new characters. He mostly is based around either punching people or doing overwhelming force with his optic blasts. Not too many tricks but if you can get the right combos he’s got some crazy damage numbers and at peak a lot of that is unblockable. The main issue with Cyclops is that since he’s a strategist and a leader he doesn’t really work on his own. His resources mostly do things like heal or buff other players so when you’re on your own you’re just not getting maximum utility out of him. But with strong numbers he’s never gonna be a bad pick.
Gambit
Gambit is a max complexity hero and it shows. His core abilities are fairly straightforward bo staff attacks with some tricks and tools to help him put enemies off their guard. But even his ultimate is fairly low damage (for an ultimate). The reason for this is that his entire playstyle centers on Accelerating his Ace cards which he, naturally, uses to cause most of his damage. Most of his abilities add charges or regenerate these cards back after use. Sometimes that relies on the rolled ability to match an Ace card’s suit. If you can get an Ace card fully charged, however, that’s a ton of damage. Fairly easy loop but there’s a lot of ramp and it can be easy to put him off his game if you know what you’re doing.
Rogue
Since it’s a bit difficult to replicate her power copying in Dice Throne, the game instead leans into Rogue’s leeching and power set she stole from Ms. Marvel (or Wonder Man, depending on your era). Gambit’s wife is structurally different from Carol Danvers (who is in a previous set) but does have many of her flying brick qualities: big hits, ionic energy use, and some strong ability to avoid hits. The closest they come to her power copying is “Influence”…but that really feels more like her just being charismatic than anything else. She’s built to go all out as much as possible with strong numbers and a few simple tricks and this makes her a great starter character.
Jean Grey
Jean is a bit of a disappointment on a power level but there’s a lot of interesting things happening with her. Like Gambit, she’s a max difficulty thanks to her abilities almost all happening off the board. Almost none of her abilities do direct damage. Instead, she has Force Fields to block damage, Acuity to manipulate dice or do damage, do a direct flame blast, or inflict Phoenix Burn as a Damage Over Time. It’s very much about knowing what you’re charging, what you’ve got on who, and knowing what targets to focus on. On top of all that she can also turn into Dark Phoenix. Dark Phoenix doesn’t get the income phase (limiting her ability to upgrade abilities, etc) but it gives her a ton more damage and add Phoenix Burn to basically anything. Not a character for the faint of heart but a monster for someone who can keep it all going.
Ice Man
No idea why they did Bobby so dirty with his art. In Dice Throne, Iceman is all about knowing when to unleash your powers, freezing out other players, and linking abilities with his Glide. Medium-complexity, Iceman does most of his work on the board with freezing powers and good damage. He has a “Dice Cube” ability that lets him stop others from rerolling and Ice Shards that he can store and then used to empower his attacks. You can kind of tell the design won out over theme with him because while gliding around on his ice is a big thing for Bobby, there’s SO MUCH he’s able to do that isn’t quite represented here. An interesting design but, like most things with Bobby, not enough to really make him look as attractive as the others.
Wolverine
Probably the easiest hero in this set, Wolverine only has TWO off the board effects and one of them is a simple Rage stack that adds to his attack. Everything about Logan in Dice Throne is about attacking and healing when he attacks, both through direct HP regain and card draw. Even his Ultimate heals him. His Alpha ability (which I don’t really see tied to any comics power) makes another player lose their income and be overall less effective in their strategy. Of all the heroes this is the one you play if you’re new or just don’t want to think too much.
Psylocke
Gotta put on my comics nerd hat here and complain a bit about how they still used Ninja Betsy instead of Kwannon here (Betsy is currently busy being Captain Britain). But it’s a mass market X-Men product so we’re probably stuck with her. Mechanically she gets a good showing with a lot of utilities beyond the damage of her psychic knife. She has a Manifest die that boosts her offense as well as a Paralysis debuff (stops players from inflicting status effects) and Infiltration debuff (forces someone else to reroll as die). Her big effect, I think, is her Agility which allows for her or an ally to halve damage inflicted if they can get a 50/50 roll in their favor. Not bad odds. She’s not as easy as some other characters but she’s definitely a great way to introduce yourself to more complex play.
Storm
If Bobby and Betsy were a little hit or miss, Storm’s inclusion is near perfect from her art to her powers. Another medium-complexity hero, Ororo can not only do a lot of damage to a lot of people but ALSO control the battlefield in some unique ways. Core to her powers is lightning, which is charged up by her basic abilities. Once she’s got enough charges, that Lightning strikes and does undefendable damage OR buff the abilities that the lightning is charging. This is frequently how you get her Tornadoes, which let you steal dice from other people to use in your attack rolls. If you’re really lucky you can also get Wind Shear, which is her main defensive effect that blocks 2 damage AND sends that damage to someone else. She’s a real blast to play and highly thematic, especially for higher player counts where area damage matters.
Deadpool
Much like Ryan Reynolds and 4th-wall humor, Deadpool’s playkit is exhausting. There’s so much going on with him! He’s got direct damage, he’s got healing donuts, he’s got less healing than you’d expect considering his deal. But what he also has is a WHOLE bunch of annoying gimmicks. You want to stop play and do rock paper scissors? Use finger guns and say pew pew for extra damage? Want to tell fart jokes? Want to yell Taco Tuesday like it’s 2012 and you’re the most epic redditor ever? Deadpool has you covered! Even one of his core abilities is Onomatopoeia, which requires you to make sound effects to get a bonus. It’s just a lot. They clearly wanted to justify his status as a stand-alone character (one of the only ones ever made for Dice Throne) and it’s obvious they decided a Kitchen Sink approach is best. Of course you can be a curmudgeon (literally there’s a mechanic for that using a challenge coin) and avoid it, but then it’s just a lot of weird fiddly things that don’t amount to much. Oh and HE can copy other players for some reason, even though Rogue can’t. Plenty of sound and fury signifying very little outside of an annoying sense of humor. Cool miniature though!
The Verdict?
If you’re a Dice Throne fan, you’ll be looking at this set as a great addition to your collection. There’s plenty of cool and unique abilities here and a lot to like when stacked up against all the other heroes. Psylocke, Storm, and Gambit all stand out as really unique characters that use the format to its fullest. The rest are fun as well but some are more reliant on specific team comps than others.
As an X-Fan, this is a slightly harder sell. The Dice Throne formula is rather strict and hurts the feel of some characters like Rogue. The designers clearly know the characters well enough but it can be disappointing not really feeling the core of some of these characters represented. Plus the rather inconsistent accessibility of the characters (only two of them are really easy for beginners and they’re in separate boxes) means a total newbie might not be as quickly sucked in as otherwise.
Regarding Deadpool…you need to be a fan. Fifty bucks for a character box of mostly dice and cardboard is steep on its own but thirty for ONE guy? That’s a hard sell. They tried their best to pack in as many perks as they could to make it worthwhile like the fancy coin, the utterly superfluous statue, and card sleeves but it doesn’t quite feel worth it. Completionists and hardcore Deadpool fans will love this but if you’re just testing out the waters of Dice Throne I’d give him some space until you’re committed.
You can get all three Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men releases at The Op’s Shop, Amazon, or your FLGS. The two boxes are at an MSRP of $49.99 with the Deadpool release going for $29.99.
Images and Review Copy via The Op
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