It’s time to add to your collection of CCG accessories – as we check out the best dice for MTG!
Though Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is, of course, a Collectable Card Game – or CCG – you may not realise that there are numerous dice that can prove useful while you try and take down your opponent with your carefully built deck of MTG cards.
Of course, they’re not used as you’d normally use them in tabletop gaming – but they can be invaluable visual aids for any number of different circumstances in a game of MTG.
So let’s take a look at the best dice for MTG!
1. d20 Dice
Yes, here we are with everyone’s favourite polyhedral, 20-sided d20 Dice – which was popularised by its usage in Dungeons & Dragons.
Of course, with players attempting to reduce their opponent’s Life total from 20 to 0 in a Standard game of Magic: The Gathering, it’s an absolutely perfect, straightforward and – perhaps most importantly – cost effective way to keep track of your current Life points.
Not only that, but it’s also easy to see your opponent’s Life total at a glance if they’re using a d20 to display theirs too.
Though Wizards of the Coast do produce their own d20s (which they refer to as ‘Spindown Life Counters – we’ll cover these shortly) do bear in mind that simple, ordinary twenty sided dice are perfect for tracking Life totals in MTG.
Which is what we opted for as our choice for the top spot of the best dice for MTG list!
The dice pack that we felt offered the best value were in a bundle of 42 d20s, in assorted, random colours – and it even comes complete with a velvety dice bag too.
Do you, or will you ever, need that many d20s?
Even if you were to hand one to every different opponent you face for several months, you’ll probably still have d20s to spare, so the answer is almost certainly no to that question!
Still, as us tabletop gaming addicts know, the dice paradox is real. It’s simultaneously possible to have far too many dice, but too many dice is never enough!
2. MTG Spindown Life Counters
In order to make it sound a bit fancier and, I suppose, a bit more as if it’s a specific die to use in games of MTG, Wizards of the Coast refer to their Magic: The Gathering branded d20s as ‘MTG Spindown Life Counters.
These can often be found in Magic: The Gathering bundles and special packs – and usually have a specific set icon or the planeswalker logo in place of the 20.
You may also find that your friendly local games store – rather than online retailers – will split products such as bundles in order to sell packs, or even single cards, individually. This often means that they’ll sell the branded Spindown Life Counters separately for a small cost.
Naturally, you can also find these on eBay – if you’re looking for the Spindown Life Counter for a specific set, you’re likely to find it here!
We’ve pictured a few of these from a couple of different sets, but the one at the bottom of the group is from the recent March of the Machine MTG set, complete with the set’s specific symbol and in colours matching the overall theme.
These can be found in March of the Machine Bundles, which we’ve provided the link for above – if you want to get hold of the Spindown Life Counter and a collection of cards too!
3. Positive And Negative Token Dice
Positive And Negative Token Dice take the 3rd spot in our list of the best dice for MTG!
Many cards in MTG allow you to summon tokens or add Power and/or Toughness bonuses to your cards, but there’s not always a straightforward way to put these into play to ensure they remain visible on the battlefield.
Token cards aren’t always available and bonuses often have to be committed to memory to ensure they’re taken into account.
Though this isn’t normally a huge issue, it’s definitely handy to have a way to deal with this without awkwardly scribbling on little pieces of paper or something similar!
Which is where these dice come in.
With values ranging all the way from -1/-1 to +6/+6, positive and negative value dice are perfect to add to cards which may get increasing bonuses or penalties.
They’re helpfully split by colour too, so your negative dice are in one colour and your positive value dice are in another.
This greatly assists with visibility, helping both players to quickly and easily understand the state of various cards on the battlefield.
We’ve chosen the black and white versions of the dice, as they provide the most visual clarity in our opinion, but there’s a range of colours and even quantities to choose from.
Given that there’s little difference between the prices of the various quantities of dice – and just as we did with the d20s – we’ve also opted to showcase what we feel is the best value, in terms of the number of dice you get for your cash.
4. Planechase – Planar Dice
Last, but by no means least, we’re finishing off with this list of the best dice for MTG with the Planechase – Planar Dice.
So this one’s a bit leftfield – as it’s for a very specific format of MTG, which might need a bit of explaining!
Planechase – which is alternatively known as ‘Planar Magic’ was a format introduced with the Planechase set, way back in 2009.
In the Planechase format, players have a deck of ten plane and/or phenomenon cards (though no more than two phenomenon cards can be in their ten card deck), known as the planar deck, in addition to their normal deck of Magic cards.
Each player has the top card of their planar deck face up – and these have various effects on the game state and/or players.
At any time when a player could cast a sorcery card (so usually during one of their main phases), they can roll the planar die – which can have one of three effects.
If rolling a blank – of which there are four on the planar die – nothing happens.
Rolling the planeswalker symbol shifts the current active plane to a new one – simply take the active plane, place it on the bottom of its owner’s deck, then draw a new one face up. This is known as planeswalking.
Finally, rolling the chaos symbol on the planar die activates the chaos ability of the current plane’s card.
The Benefits Of The Planar Dice
Using planes, phenomenon cards and the planar die is a way to add some randomness and exictingly unpredictable effects to a game of MTG, in a way that feels entirely thematic to a game which features two – or more – duelling planeswalkers!
Naturally, if you want to play Planechase – well, in addition to your Planechase deck, you’ll need a Planar Die!
You can currently find the Planar dice in March of the Machine Commander decks – alongside Planechase cards, for the first time since 2012!
There are five different colours of Planar dice; each is a match for the specific Commander deck it’s packaged with.
Of course, you can usually find single Planar dice online; eBay and other MTG specialist online retailers may well have them in stock.
