#Sideways# wrote:Ah yes, the proverbial "cats and dogs" as it were, the Autobots and Decepticons follow a very gray, very thin line between friend and foe in the Transformers Trading Card Game. In fact, one of the most prolific decks at the moment is Optimus Prime fighting alongside Nemesis Prime, which is ironic in every sense of the imagination.
There aren't many mechanical problems with this, game-wise -- after all, your opponent is the enemy, not a faction of "bad guys". But flavor-wise? It's like mixing Pepsi and Coke (or as I like to put it, making Pepsi slightly less awful), shrimp on pizza, orange juice in milk.
So, Wizards had three options. One: Make a rule change to force mono-faction builds. Two: Make "fake synergy" where you have no other choice but to play mono-faction builds. Three: Make mono-builds enticing with special cards but not to the point that they nerf the multi-faction builds.
Thank god they chose the third option.
_________BATTLE CARDS__________"Who's scruffy lookin'?"Scoundrel's Blaster is a card that certainly has a name that plays the part. I mean, when you play a card and you get to say the word "scoundrel" in an unironic sense, you're going to have a good time. But is the card as good as its name?
Well, it's kind of... Meh. The green pip makes it at least viable, but at the end of the day, it's a Primary Blaster that can give a very situational Pierce 2. As you may have heard me say before, I don't like low Pierce damage. There isn't too much point to it in most instances of the game -- if you're hitting for low enough damage to need that low of a Pierce number, you probably shouldn't be playing the characters you are.
The only thing I can think of that would definitely make use of this is a Combiner list. Combiners -- as per my playtesting -- have very, very low damage in the early game and even well into the mid-game. Without proper support, they will sit there doing very little for you.
With this, their low damage output becomes at least tolerable until you can combine them all and potentially have multiple instances of this card on them. But again, that's just pure conjecture at this point.
All in all, it's an okay card. I don't think it's bad; I just think that most lists won't be making too much use of it.
"The question you have to ask yourself is, 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya? Punk?"As with the Scoundrel's Blaster, this card has a baller name -- that isn't very well backed up by its stats.
I'm not going to go into much detail on this one as it's not that relevant given it's roughly the same card as the Scoundrel's Blaster. But, that being said, it should also be noted that Decepticons have a heavily armored deck in Tanks, where smaller damaging lists like Combiners would have a rough time dealing any damage whatsoever to them. You could potentially play Noble's Blaster in an Autobot Combiner list to try making that matchup better, or other similar lists.
But the thing is, that's just one example. I don't think it will be prolific enough of a deck to be overly meaningful in the long run to play these cards, but they're very cool cards to have at the back of your mind just in case you think it might come up.
"This is bad comedy."Decepticons, oft looking longingly at the Matrix of Leadership to light their darkest hour, simply couldn't compete with the utility it provided for Autobot decks. In general, the community couldn't really think of many things to remedy this idea -- the Dark Spark, perhaps, with a defensive boost instead of the Matrix' offensive one?
Well, look no further than the Decepticon Crown to answer those wishes. This card might not seem like much at first, but being a White/Green pip makes this a very interesting card combo that will definitely make its way into almost every Decepticon Combiner deck and several Decepticon mono-faction builds like Insecticons.
What's that I hear? "What is this over-glorified Data Pad doing on my screen?" Well, get out of here. How dare you denounce this great card to my face? Let me explain why I like this so much. Not only does it give the bearer Plan 1 (essentially a topdeck rigging effect, where you can flip what you want when you attack), but it gives your entire Decepticon team Plan 1. That makes me swoon. Too easy it is to sit on a huge hand and have nothing to play, with everything you need in your deck. This way, you pad out your attacks to hopefully increase the odds of you drawing what you need, and you also add a lot of potential damage to your attacks.
I mean, how often have you drawn Peace Through Tyranny or Improvised Shield and not played them? This seeks to curb that effect. Definitely a card to watch.
There's confidence, and then there's foolishness. Knowing the difference makes all the difference.So this card is really, really good. Not gonna lie, when I read this card, I thought it was even better than I think it is now. I had the same reaction to Brainstorm that I had with this, and the big difference? I think I'm right about this one.
See, Brainstorm is simply "play two more Action cards", which you need to have in your hand if you want to make the most of it, whereas Confidence is "draw and discard two cards and play another Action". Sure, you're taking a net loss in cards in hand, but you're using this card to dig for the card you need right then instead of having to wait until the next turn.
Ever had a moment where you say, "God, where are my I STILL FUNCTION! or Dino-Chomp! right now?" With Confidence, you get to dig for it, and then when you draw into it, instantly play it. It's so, so good. Heck, you can draw into another Confidence and chain Confidence if you really want to dig for something specific.
Seriously, I can't say enough good things about this card. It has such good synergy with Optimus Prime -- Battlefield Legend, Dinobots and Cars just off the top of my head. I can't wait to see what you can do with this card with a Combiner, or even a Titan.
Rumor has it that Swindle once sold someone to themselves.
Oddly enough, he ended up overvaluing that trade.Swindled is the second of faction exclusive Actions, and is arguably the veeeery slightly worse of the two. Like above, I love this card's draw effect, but the big difference here is the New Designs effect where you get to attach an extra Upgrade.
Honestly, the only thing that makes this slightly worse than Confidence is that there are just so many good Action cards in the game that Upgrades need to have a lot of punch in order to be worth the investment of your Action card for the turn. I mean, would you rather draw an extra card during your next turn with a Data Bank or resurrect the dead?
Yeah, I thought so.
But that being said, this is a very good way to attach an early Data Bank. Early Data Bank is never to be trifled with, and I honestly love the card very dearly in many of my lists. So, with that thought in mind, Swindled is a very good card to skip the "feels bad" turn of playing a Data Bank to no effect, since the turn you play it you don't get any rewards.
You can't chain it like you can if you get lucky with Confidence, but then again, you probably won't need to. If you play this card during your turn, you probably have a target for your Upgrade in mind, and in-hand.
All in all, this card is pretty much just as good as its sister card -- but perhaps "good" isn't the word to be using when comparing them. They're both good; it's just that they're different.
Thunderbolt and lightn-- Wait, I already did this joke!
... I guess I stole my own THUNDER! HA!Erratic Lightning is a very good card, especially for a common. This is the first we've seen of a negative effect that reduces your armor instead of perhaps damaging you in recoil -- looking at you, Static Laser of Ironhide. But this effect? This effect is waaaay better than Static Laser, and for very good reason.
See, a lot of aptly nicknamed "Orange Crush" decks rely very little on defense to win the game. Insecticons come to mind at this thought, with one to zero Armor being the average. To say that Skrapnel -- who has zero Armor -- doesn't care if his Armor drops at all is an understatement.
Most instances of decks that would want to use this card won't really care about the defensive drop, but here's the thing: This card is more unflattering for defensive decks than Static Laser. A defense drop can be more lethal than predamaged characters in certain lists, and it further polarizes the playstyles and card pools which is, in my opinion, a good thing. It makes people have to be more inventive, and defensive decks can't just be defined as "Orange, but slow this time."
Keep an eye on this one. It's going to be one to watch.
"Ah, yes, I see the design flaw. It's especially weak to repeated, blunt physical trauma."Hooooooooooly crap. This card is so, so good. Most games have a natural flow, a natural progression of events. Generally, characters get slowly upgraded with slowly give their players a growing advantage in the game. This card,
revealed by Wossy Plays on YouTube just dumpsters all that hard work your opponents put in to their field.
Now, it should be noted that it doesn't say Armor, Weapons and Utilities -- it says "or". But generally speaking, discarding all of a certain Upgrade is almost just as good as discarding all of them depending on the board state. In fact, early board state is generally homogeneous in terms of Weapons or Armors, so that puts even more power into this card.
I love this thing, probably more than I should given I haven't playtested with it yet, but in theory, this card is absolutely nutty in the right circumstances.
_________CHARACTERS__________"OHMYGODOHMYGODIFINALLYGETACARDINTHISGAMEITSABOUTTIMEIWASWAITINGAGES
TOFINALLYGETACARDANDWHYISMYROBOTMODEVANILLANOTHATSNOTGOODWHYDOYOU
HAVETODOTHISTOMEATLEASTMYCARISCOOLIGUESS"Well, Blurr said it himself -- and I couldn't agree more. But in case you can't read or don't want to read Blurr's speech pattern, let me spell it out for you: His robot mode is awful, but his vehicle mode is really, really interesting.
Blurr,
coming out of the Wreck N' Rule YouTube channel , shows us something we haven't seen before: Dual Attacks. That's right -- when you attack with Blurr in his vehicle mode, he generally gets to attack again. Now, he has three attack in this mode, but that doesn't necessarily mean he can't deal moderate damage, especially to undefended targets that your opponent would likely be saving, like Arcee.
He does "meh" damage in his vehicle mode, but thanks to the fact that he's a car, you can kinda go ham with him with all of their support. Turbo Boosters and Start Your Engines make him far more consistent than you might think upon first glance, and that makes his vehicle mode effect frankly fascinating to try and pull off.
But if I could ever put my finger on what might push him out of the run for viability, it would be his frankly dreadful point cost. It's 12! It's so high! This limits your team to very, very few options. Even if you wanted to run Thrust with him to give him that extra edge in his vehicle mode, you would end up running Scamper to play that third character and believe me when I say that it never feels good to play a Metroplex character without Metroplex.
But that being said, he isn't without friends, and there are plenty of six to seven star Cars to go around. Perhaps I haven't found the right companions for our speedy friend yet, or perhaps they haven't been revealed, but I can forgive everything about him because of one simple fact: He's a Common, and you can't expect the meta to form around one of them.
This guy probably won't see too much play, but there are definitely going to be people to try him out because of his popularity alone.
_________CONCLUSION__________Nearly everything here reinforces my statement about Wizards knowing what they're doing when it comes to faction balance. They really seem to have their wherewithal about them, a plan, a direction they want it to go. Everything is very well thought out, and I can't help but to smile when I think about how well balanced it really is. Though there were some rough patches throughout Wave 1, Rise of the Combiners really livens up the metagame and I can't be happier for it.
Thanks again for reading my article, and as always, check out my
YouTube channel to hear my thoughts on varying deck archetypes! I'd love to have you!
Now that we've seen quite a few cards, what has been your favorite thus far? What do you hope to see in the future? Are you happy with the game balance or do you want to see it go in another direction? Let me know in the comments below!