Writer’s Note: This article is for Magic as a whole, not specifically for EDH. The information can be used by EDH players, just note that some things may vary.

Your opponent’s life die says two. You cast Lightning Bolt, place it in the graveyard, and say “good game” politely. You opponent says “What? Oh, my life total was supposed to be at five.”

At some point in your gaming life, something like this has probably happened. It may have been number of tokens, loyalty counters, +1/+1 counters, but it happens. I want to put this up front: I believe it should become common etiquette for players to carry 4 life dice with them, and a handful of 1d6’s.

Things happen, we forget our dice bag at home (or if you’re like me, you forget to even bring them home from the game store), maybe we spill our bag and one die gets lost; it happens. There are more mistakes that happen than just that. Have you ever accidentally hit your dice and lost your life total? This mistake it a little more impactful because it affects the game itself. This is the exact reason why a lot of players bring note pads to write on; there’s less room for error. If you’re like me, then you like your dice. You like the feeling of a physical, three-dimensional representation of the things on the field. Or, in simpler words, I think my dice are pretty and I like to use them. The reason why I think everyone should have more of them is for the sake of consistency. Your opponent should be able to look at the field, see everything that’s in play, and know everything that’s going on. They shouldn’t have to ask what your life total is or how many counters are on something, they should just know. On the same note, you also shouldn’t have to ask these things! This isn’t even common courtesy, it’s a part of the game. If your opponent is hiding their life total, that’s cheating. This is open information to all players. To recap (in reverse order), all players have access to the knowledge of life and what’s on the field, we do these things to keep track of what’s happening and is why we have physical tokens and dice, and sometimes players forget tokens and dice at home. This is why I previously stated that players should have four life dice with them; two for each player if someone forgets.

I’ll use an example from the last draft I did. I had my opponent at 18. I swung at him for 4 and didn’t write it down (I’m new to using a die for my opponent, I was expecting mistakes like this). The next turn, he gained 4 life and said ‘I go back up to 18’. My response was obviously ‘I have you at 22 now’. We went over the math of what had happened and realized I was wrong. The way we were able to do this is because we both had dice for each of our life totals.

There are two steps to this process that I’d like to point out. The first was the dice themselves. With each player keeping track of both life totals, even if a stray elbow catches one player’s dice, each player’s life totals are still on the table. The mistake is able to be rectified. If each player only takes care of their own life total, then it’s all up to honesty and memory. If the two players remember the life total of one player to be different, you’re screwed. There’s no way to fix that problem. The second step is actually seeing these problems in action, which was the verbal part in the last example. Whenever someone takes damage, loses life in any way, or gains life, their new life total should be stated out loud. If there’s any discrepancies, then it can be dealt with right away. Most Magic players, at least the ones I have met in my time as a player, are very honest with their games. Players will usually mention it when you take too much damage or gain too little life. Of course, the same will be said when you take too little or gain too much, but the point stands. Most Magic players want to play Magic so they can win using the tools they’ve put into their deck, not by cheating.

For the sake of keeping track of all player’s life totals in a place where all players can see it, dice are the easiest. They’re rather easy to read from all directions. Paper is a common replacement, but is harder to read from across the table. Personally, I prefer dice since they can also be placed on cards, but many people use a mix of the two. For me, dice is the only way to go.

Just for reference, shown below are the contents of my dice bag. Please note that I am an EDH player; I use a lot of dice because my format uses a lot of dice. Most players will not need as many as I’m showing here, but they all fit in my bag so I don’t mind carrying extra.

4d20’s for two players (I must have accidentally swapped an Eldrich for someone’s Kaladesh, they used to all be the same); 3d20’s for commander damage; 2d4’s and 32d4’s for all players to share for counters