Initial Playtest Review of Transformers Trading Card Game

Leaked from Cybertron wrote:Smash the competition with Optimus Prime // Battlefield Legend, a Rare card found exclusively in booster packs! Check back next week for the reveal of another Rare card!

ZeroWolf wrote:Thanks #Sideways# and thanks again for your playtest diaries and thoughts. What method are you using to play test these?

#Sideways# wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Thanks #Sideways# and thanks again for your playtest diaries and thoughts. What method are you using to play test these?

Proxying. I print out their pictures and sleeve up decks of them, trying out the mechanics. Paper with a worthless Pokemon card behind them, yes, but still very effective at getting the general idea of the game.

ZeroWolf wrote:I thought it was something like that I did the same when me and a group of friends were deep into magic and tried making our own set it was fun, a bit exhausting at times, but fun.

#Sideways# wrote:This guy is a tank. He hits so hard, and he defends so much, that this guy is frankly idiotic to try to take down. You'd think that the best thing about him is his ability -- and you would be wrong. It's about every other little detail about this guy added up to make a formidable tank. With three base defense, this guy blocks most damage that he is dealt. Being Ranged, he can also make use of the Rapid Assault Armor Battle Card, giving him four defense and disrupting your opponent. He also has a base eight attack, which is one of the highest in the game along with the newly revealed Optimus Prime. But even more than that, with such a high defense, you can heal off the majority of damage you take with Team Up Tactics thanks to the fact that he is a Truck.

In fact, I built Shockwave / Inferno just last night and playtested it against Cars, which I thought would be an autowin. But I was wrong. The problem is this: His ability to return cards to your opponent's hand sounds great in theory, but when your opponent plays Turbo Boosters to untap their characters to attack you ad infinitum, you really don't want to put those cards back into your opponent's hand.

It's also a tall build, meaning you only have to characters to attack with, putting you at an even bigger disadvantage to Cars. You just end up losing because you attack a total of three times in a game. You can't even take advantage of Ready For Action. Shockwave as a partner is just not cutting it.

But on his own? Inferno can really bring the pain. Just imagine him with someone to supplement his healing, using their smaller attacks to set up knockouts before finishing them off with a huge attack from Inferno. The only problem is finding someone to fit that bill. Great potential, bad partners for the moment.

#Sideways# wrote:This card is really, really good. Forget about the card being scrapped from your opponent's hand -- if they've been playing the game at all, they can afford it -- but the upgrade being scrapped and a card being drawn for you? That's fantastic.

But here's the thing. The reason why I'm so excited about this isn't that your opponent is punished for knocking out a bug on your side -- why I'm so excited is that you can use this on your turn. You can pop this thing with Skrapnel's insect mode, which knocks out one of your Insecticons to forcefully tap one of your opponent's characters. Meaning, you can choose a target and lock your opponent out of an attack with that character at the same time. But with this, though, you even get to disrupt your opponent and draw a card while you're at it.

Kyleor wrote:Oh man, I just want posters of some of that sweet card art.

Hasbro wrote:PAWTUCKET, RI AND RENTON, WA–SEPT. 7, 2018 – Hasbro, Inc., a global play and entertainment company, and Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro and the publishers of the seminal trading card game Magic: The Gathering, provided more details today about the METROPLEX Deck, the first expansion for the TRANSFORMERS Trading Card Game.

“The character METROPLEX is a Titan – he converts into an entire city and towers over most of the other giants of the TRANSFORMERS universe. Keeping that in mind, we knew that METROPLEX deserved an even bigger card than the game’s standard oversized character cards,” said Drew Nolosco, TRANSFORMERS Trading Card Game Brand Manager. “The METROPLEX character card is 200mm tall – almost 8 inches. Whether in bot mode or alt mode, METROPLEX is one of the biggest TRANSFORMERS characters around, and now he has a suitably Titan-sized trading card.”

The METROPLEX Deck will see the AUTOBOT Titan enter the TRANSFORMERS Trading Card Game’s ranks for the first time, but he won’t be alone. During the game, players will be able to use the METROPLEX character card to deploy his three component bots: SCAMPER, SLAMMER, and SIX-GUN.

Transformers TCG Facebook Page wrote:Here are a couple of brand new Battle Card reveals, with some commentary from Case Kiyonaga, one of our amazing game designers!

"Are you having trouble dealing damage in your defensive deck? Energon Axe will give you a nice boost and will still do a bit of damage even if it’s blocked!"

"Grenade Launchers got you down? Is your friend attacking for 12 at a time? Do you have a surplus of d4s? Then I have the card for you! Force Field is here to keep your bots whole, hale, and (mostly) healthy! Be careful though: you never know when it might get scrapped!"

Transformers TCG Facebook Group wrote:Here are a couple of brand new Battle Card reveals, with some commentary from Case Kiyonaga, one of our amazing game designers!

"Are you having trouble dealing damage in your defensive deck? Energon Axe will give you a nice boost and will still do a bit of damage even if it’s blocked!"

"Grenade Launchers got you down? Is your friend attacking for 12 at a time? Do you have a surplus of d4s? Then I have the card for you! Force Field is here to keep your bots whole, hale, and (mostly) healthy! Be careful though: you never know when it might get scrapped!"

Transformersofficial wrote:Autobots beware, Megatron // Living Weapon is ready for action! Find this Rare @TransformersTCG card exclusively in booster packs! Stay tuned for our final card reveal next week!

#Sideways# wrote:The robot mode is rather lackluster compared to other robot modes for similar prices. But I'd like to bring your attention to the fact that he has Bold 2 built in to this mode. If you recall, Bold, Tough and Pierce all stack -- meaning, if you attached a Null Ray of Starscream to him, he would get both the +2 attack and the Bold 2 on the Null Ray, giving him a total of Bold 4 with a base attack of 6. This is good, but is it worth it compared to other options? More on this below.

#Sideways# wrote:The vehicle mode for this Starscream is the most interesting of the two. If you have three Planes in play when you flip to his vehicle mode, you get to put three (!!) damage on one of your opponent's characters. This is solid damage (a third of a small character's health), and you haven't even attacked yet. This allows Starscream to bolster other character's damage without attacking, himself. This ability is great, but we simply don't have the proper support for it yet to get a full idea of how powerful this archetype will be, and the biggest problem is the point values we have thus far.

The Plane support we've seen thus far has been titillating, but we can't have a full team of Planes -- at least not yet. See, we have yet to see Thundercracker, Skywarp or anyone else that could fill that point requirement. You see, this Starscream (if you noticed his Vehicle Mode below) has 11 points. That's fine, it's a common point value. But Slipstream -- often regarded as necessary for the archetype -- is eight points. That puts your point total to 19 out of 25, leaving only six points left over to work with.

The other big problem that this archetype has from my personal playtesting is a lack of draw power. When compared to Autobot Cars, we realize that card advantage is a very important thing. It allows you to draw into your Grenade Launchers, Force Fields and in this deck, your Bombing Runs.

Unfortunately, we just don't have that draw power yet. Maybe we will with the introduction of Skywarp or Thundercracker. Or maybe not. Not every archetype has to be broken, or even playable. As with all Trading Card Games, it's a simple fact of reality. C'est la vie.

#Sideways# wrote:Finally, we have Jaws of Steel which make Dinobots frankly ridiculous. It is a Utility that gives Dinobots Bold 2, and mind you, Bold stacks. So, let's do the math real quick here.

Every character starts with two flips from the top of the deck, and the first time a white pip is flipped, you flip two more cards. You then attach a Power Sword to give yourself Bold 3. Then, you attach a Jaws of Steel to give yourself 2 more Bold, bringing it to Bold 5. Then you play a Dino-Chomp! and give yourself BOLD 10 and you flip ten more cards from the top of your deck. This, combined with the white pip and the first two gives you a total of 14(!?!?) cards out of your deck to deal more damage to your opponent!

I am utterly flabbergasted. Dino-Chomp alone can give you some big numbers. But all this combined... Well, let's just say that it makes me glad that Force Field exists.

The Transformers Trading Card Game FaceBook Page wrote:Check out a brand-bitin' new Battle Card reveal from our Design Lead, Ken Nagle!

"All the Dinobots can BITE, so I designed this signature Upgrade extra-sharp metal teeth Utility. I gave Jaws of Steel the Bold 2 ability and orange icon so that Dinobots love biting into foes with orange battle icons. CHOMP!"

YoungPrime wrote:Not really into cards but at least it isn't Bumblebee like 80% of the other topics here.

#Sideways# wrote:Life, uh... Found a way.

So Grimlock is naturally very great for the Dinobot Archetype. You use his vehicle mode to add on to the already massive amounts of Bold given to your Dinobots through Jaws of Steel, Power Sword and Dino-Chomp! and give them Bold 13. This means you will be flipping a rough estimate of 17 cards off the top of your deck when you attack with a fully upgraded Dinobot.

These damage numbers give me diabetes.

His Robot mode is also fantastic, as he has Trample -- the ability to still use overkill damage. When you're flipping an ungodly amount of cards from the top of your deck, you're going to overkill something sometime, and this makes good use of that. Especially when your opponents have access to low HP characters, like Cars or Insecticons.

Sludge also adds to his survivability, which brings me to my second point: You can play a team of Dinobots. Grimlock is 10 points, and with Sludge at 8 and Snarl at 7, you come in with the best all-around Dinobot team at exactly 25 points. It even has draw power.

Mark my words, Dinobots will be one of the major meta-defining archetypes coming out of this first set. Even if it does require setup time.

#Sideways# wrote:This card is insane. It's an instant staple in almost every deck, except for certain decks that play only a handful of upgrades. But this is one of the few cards that, interestingly enough, give you more cards in your hand. Almost every card that draws cards ends up essentially replacing itself. Take, for instance, Inspiring Leadership.

Inspiring Leadership draws three cards and discards two from your hand. But Inspiring Leadership itself is a card that discards from your hand, leaving you at a stagnant hand size. This card can draw you a massive amount of cards, raw drawing three, four, five, or even more cards.

Enthusiast is really a great card that gets better over the course of the game. Not great at all at the start, but late in the game can really pack a punch.

#Sideways# wrote:Photon Bomb is the spicy, tattooed punk sister of Plasma Burst. Thus, I, being a fan of those, am very interested in this card. But even better, this makes playing Tall just a little more playable. If your opponent has four Characters in play, you're essentially doing eight damage without even attacking for the turn. Of course, you're taking damage too, but if you're playing Tall (two characters), you're taking minimal damage. If you, yourself, are using a Wide setup with three or more Transformers in play... Well, might want to rethink putting this card in your deck.

Another thing that this card does is allows you to set up damage on your characters for cards like Energon Axe or Swoop's ability, both of which requiring you to have damage on you already to properly use them. Naturally, this is a double-edged sword -- but what tortoise ever got anywhere without sticking its neck out first?

Scott Van Essen wrote:"Getting overrun by motorcycles? Swarmed by Insecticons? Want to blow up all the things? Photon Bomb’s the answer to so many questions you have yet to ask.

You might be surprised to see no battle icons on a card with a symmetrical effect. Believe me when I say that this notionally “fair” effect can be used in very unfair ways. To begin with, it is quite powerful in a “Go Tall” vs “Go Wide” matchup.

Photon Bomb is more subtly strong in low-armor, high-health vs. high-armor, low-health matchups, and can be situationally very impactful when you use it to unexpectedly KO one (or more!!) of your opponent’s heavily damaged characters.

Photon Bomb is the kind of card that designers love. It’s exciting to read, you know immediately what it does, and it has a major impact on the board. Yet, as you play with it, you discover depths of nuance and strategy that are not initially apparent."

steve2275 wrote:so when is the USA release?

#Sideways# wrote:Chromia is -- oddly -- the leader of the FemmeCycle archetype and the last femme we're going to be seeing from the game until next wave. She, unsurprisingly, is a Motorcycle Specialist, which is slightly unnerving given that we don't have much in the ways of exclusive Specialist support or Motorcycle support, but one great part about her innate abilities is that she is a Leader, which means she can take advantage of the Matrix of Leadership. Any deck where you can play that card to its fullest potential doesn't just have my attention -- it has my curiosity.

She has some interesting abilities, chief of which is the ability to return white-pipped cards from your discard pile to your hand. You can use this to find Actions you have already played or even better, return used Force Fields from the discard pile to play. This alone makes her formidable and a necessity to the fragile Motorcycle archetype.

Her robot mode is also great as it allows you to draw two cards more or less every time you attack with her. Despite her draw power, attacking in this mode is a risk -- she has zero defense, and if you don't have a Force Field on you already, you're going to have a bad time.

All in all, she's a good card that definitely has a place in the Motorcycle archetype. But outside of that, I wonder what other interesting combinations one might have to capitalize on her potential not just as a defensive character but as an offensive one. Perhaps, even, ironically playing her with Shockwave, constantly reusing and abusing System Reboot to deal indirect damage.

#Sideways# wrote:This card is really, really great.

I don't think you understand just how great this card is. This doesn't just transform one character like Rapid Conversion does; this transforms ALL of them. Sure, it's only from Bot to Vehicle mode and sometimes you want to keep someone in their robot mode, but either way, this card is utterly fantastic for decks like Insecticons or Motorcycles that play a large amount of characters that will all be transformed to Robot mode one by one.

But here's the kicker.

This allows you to use all of their effects at once. Most Transformers have an effect when you transform them to their vehicle mode, and this transforms EVERYONE. But to make matters even better, this is the only other card we know of that has both blue and orange pips on it -- so in other words, there's almost no downside to play this card.

Of course, not every deck wants to play this card -- but believe me when I say that most will.

Matt Smith wrote:"What would you think of an Action card that grabbed a weapon from your scrap pile then gave your character pierce 2 and Bold 1 until end of turn? How about one that bounced all of a character’s upgrades, repaired all of your characters for 1 then drew a card?! I was hoping you’d do all that and more when I designed ROLL OUT!"

#Sideways wrote:These cards are very healthy cards. They reward building decks with both blue and orange cards instead of a few rogue ideas of playing nothing but orange and white. Naturally, they have to get the exact same amount of blue and orange pips for their effect to work, which brings me to my second point.

One of these cards is strictly not good.

I know what you're thinking. "B-but Sideways, what the scrap is your problem, these function on the same principle! Are you crazy?" And you'd be right. But you'd be wrong about them being the same. Cybertonium Bow is a Weapon, whereas Shock Absorbers is an Armor.

The weapons we have seen outclass Cybertonium Bow in almost every way. Grenade Launcher adds more consistent, more powerful damage, Power Sword gives you the much better Bold effect to deal potentially more damage and frankly, milling your deck is better for you than you might think. There are more examples of better weapons, but let's be honest, you're not going to read them all.

Cybertonium Bow is inconsistent and relies on a lot of luck to pull off. It would be one thing if it just said, "count blue pips as orange pips", but it says that you have to flip the exact number of blue pips as orange pips. It doesn't even give you bold to help with this goal. Almost any other weapon is better.

But Shock Absorbers are the second best Armor we've seen, period. Nothing will dethrone Force Field as Armor King, but looking at the other Armor cards, do you notice something? They all only give +1 Armor or Tough 1. Which is why Shock Absorbers is a great Armor card -- it gives +1 Armor, but has the potential to add so much more.

If there were better armor cards, sure, then Shock Absorbers might fall into disuse, but until then, this is the second best armor we have.

#Sideways# wrote:This card is really frickin' insane. You see, in this card game, three defense can be a buggar to get any meaningful damage through. My boy Darkmount gets FIVE defense against ranged foes. Sure, you have a low HP for a high cost, but chances are, you're just not going to have almost any headway against this guy.

As far as vehicle modes go, Strax--Er, Darkmount has a pretty darn good one too. Sure, it scraps a card from your hand, but scrapping one card matters very little in the long -- and short -- run. You simply have a large enough hand or a hand with enough redundancy that you won't care. So, simply put, you get free damage that you can then double down on with Plasma Burst. Oh, and you haven't even attacked yet.

He is also one of the few Tanks we have coming into the game. This means you can use a full team of Tanks, with Demolishor, Megatron and Darkmount all tanking a lot of damage.

Hehehe.

Ahem. Anyway, because you're running three tanks, that means you can use Demolishor to his fullest potential, drawing two free cards since you're running two tanks other than him. Oddly enough, a deck that runs Megatron can take full advantage of Roll Out and be a frankly massively formidable foe on the battlefield.

All in all, Stra--DARKMOUNT is amazing. He also is cheap enough that he can be fairly splashable if you're trying to figure out where nine points should go in your team.

#Sideways# wrote:What can one say about ya boy Ransack? He's got a frankly mediocre set of stats and an ability that damages himself? Crummy, right?

Wrong.

This guy is actually very good for certain lists, Insecticons obviously being the forefront of these. Insecticons are frail and cheap, so naturally he fills in those quota, but consider, he heals one of your teammates by two damage, saving them from death and simultaneously boosting his own. That's right, he adds to his own damage for every damage on him already. This guy is cheap and a sick addition to any Insecticon list.

Insecticons, after all, are surprisingly hard to squish. They have a lot of healing for such a frail archetype, through Swarm and their own healing abilities, and this helps even more with that. Skrapnel sits pretty with a built-in Force Field and tanks several attacks while your opponent can do nothing but sit and watch while you heal off all their hard work. You can pretty much be rest assured, Skrapnel at least will not be dying so long as another Insecticon is on the field, especially with Ransack heading up his backline.

Ransack can also hit fairly hard as well, capping out at around seven base damage without any modifiers. This is very nice, especially with Force Field allowing him to reach such numbers. This can make him a fairly hard-hitting late game finisher, if a bit of a glass cannon.

Matt Smith wrote:"When designing the Insecticons I wanted to ensure you could run a 4 character team to emphasize the Swarm! nature of the bad guy bugs. Ransack is one piece of that puzzle. Ransack is meant to play support, tanking hits with above average defense on the bot mode, messing up your opponent’s plans with his damage movement ability, then getting in a really good hit while on the brink of KO.

Ransack requires some careful sequencing, but can provide a lot of value to any team when handled with caution."

#Sideways# wrote:Let me get something out of the way: I don't like Pierce in small numbers. You're almost always hitting for roughly three to five damage in the early game. You don't need Pierce to get through that unless you're facing off against Tanks, which I can understand, but since Tanks are fairly fragile on the health side of things, one doesn't need too much Pierce to do much meaningful damage. There's a lot of Pierce to go around, too, mind you.

But against any normal matchup, you just won't be needing it. So when I saw that this card came out, I didn't know what to think. On one hand, it seems like a worse Leap Into Battle, which always gives +3 attack no matter who is using it. On the other hand though, if you're playing Wide like Insecticons and always seem to be punching above your weight, this thing can give slightly less base attack, but gives Pierce 4 along with it. That's a good amount of damage and remember, that can be stacked with other amounts of Pierce on your field.

In my opinion, this card is a good card -- but an overly situational one that will find very few homes in decks. After all, you're not always going to be facing someone bigger than you -- and you don't want to be on the wrong footing when you face someone your own size.

#Sideways# wrote:"Stop right there lawbreaker!"

I really don't think that this is a very good card. Sure, you're disrupting your opponent, and they usually have to discard their one or two Upgrades they've been holding, but wouldn't you just rather use a System Reboot? The only thing this card has going for it is the double Blue pips -- those double pipped cards are very good cards to splash into lists.

But this card is... I don't really know what to think about this card. On one hand, it seems really good in Shockwave lists because there's a chance you're going to discard several cards from your opponent's hand to do some nice indirect damage. But on the other hand, there's always a chance that they won't have any upgrades at all. It's just an interesting card. Maybe it's good, maybe it's situational, but I'd frankly look elsewhere for a spot in your deck.

#Sideways# wrote:Deja Vu / I've just been in this place before / Higher in the streets / And I know it's my time to go

Heck yeah, more Car support! Like all Car support, Start Your Engines is really insanely good. Not only is it a straight-up better Ready for Action, it's also a Roll Out! all "rolled" into one. You, like Roll Out!, get to use all of your Car's abilities such as Mirage's, who can play a free Action. Sure, it only targets Cars so you won't play this in any other deck that isn't primarily a Car deck, but it's utterly jaw-dropping in decks that can take advantage of it.

It has everything that makes Roll Out! good, and more. See, Cars is all about controlling where your opponent attacks next, and then attacking with all three cars at the end of your opponent's attacks. Biding your time is all the easier when your opponents can only attack what you want them to. This helps with that because not only do you untap your Cars, it also sets them up to abuse Cliffjumper's ability even more than you already do, as you draw a card whenever you transform a Car to Robot Mode.

But the question is, would you play both in your Car list? Well, frankly, probably. Roll Out! is a very good card, and so is this one. I guess it's just down to space constraints.

#Sideways# wrote:Blast Shield is strictly okay. Sure, it has its uses, but if we're being completely honest, as a counterpart to Grenade Launcher, I wish it had more in terms of Defense. It's a one-time use, and of course nothing with ever take away Force Field's spot as the best Armor out there, but I wish this one came close.

You would definitely use it on Stra--I mean Darkmount, because seven defense is stupid, but aside from him and Demolishor, I can't really see putting this in lists over Force Field. Of course, you can play both if you really like defending, but in most cases you'd just be better off playing Shock Absorbers since they're likely to give you similar Defense numbers.

#Sideways# wrote:Speaking of better Armor, here's one right now!

Ah, yes, the Specialists finally have their day. Multi-Mission Gear is one of two Specialist-only Upgrades that I have for you today, but this one is probably my favorite, if for no other reason than I love the artwork. But in all seriousness, the effects on both cards are fantastic. More on the second one in its own section below.

Multi-Mission Gear allows you to play a free Action just for giving yourself more Defense.

You read that right.

"Free Action card" are my three favorite words in this game, and this is no different. Sure, it's only on Specialists, but when that type of character is already so prevalent in the game, Multi-Mission Gear can be easily splashed into whatever deck you're already playing it in.

Imagine, in a Shockwave deck, you play a System Reboot and discard your opponent's hand of five cards. Your opponent draws four and so do you. You then happen to draw into another System Reboot and a Multi-Mission Gear. You can figure out what happens next.

Or even moreso, you can use this card to play a New Designs, which plays another Upgrade for free, which you end up making a second Multi-Mission Gear, which can then play another Action for free and the cycle continues until you've completely burned out your brick of a hand.

There's an absolutely filthy combo you can use with this to draw a frankly ridiculous amount of cards, and I'll elaborate on it below, but until then, just know that this card is insanely good.

#Sideways# wrote:Did someone call for more Specialist support?

The last card I've got to show you today is one of my favorites, Multi-Tool. It's one of my favorites because of the combos you can pull off with it. Sure, it's not the best of Weapons, but it has a great support effect that is perfect for Specialists: Playing another Upgrade. Now, you're sitting there saying, "Then what's the point of playing this one if you're just going to play another one?" and I'll tell you what I tell everyone: How dare you speak to me.

Anyway, if you didn't notice, it also gives the Specialist +1 Attack, and perhaps more importantly, puts another Upgrade on the field. Sometimes, it doesn't really matter what the card is, but the real thing that matters is that it is. Let me elaborate.

Certain cards like having Upgrades on the field, no matter what they are, like Equipment Enthusiast, and when you can explosively put Upgrades on the field with this card, for instance, you can start powering up your characters and drawing what you need very quickly.

... Which brings me to my filthy combo. Well, it involves Sunstorm which I admit is not the best, but after Equipment Enthusiast came out I've been thinking (and playtesting) with him a lot more and he's been doing a lot better. But anyway, to the combo.

You would need to play a Multi-Mission Gear to play a New Designs. With that New Designs, you would play a Multi-Tool which in turn would play a Tandem Targeting System, which in turn would play another Tandem Targeting System from the Scrap Pile. That's four upgrades in play. And you know what that means? You get to draw four cards at least with Equipment Enthusiast, adding four cards to your hand.

Sure, you just burned a bunch of cards to do it, but you're also drawing them back and putting a load of Upgrades on the field while you do it. That's a lot in this game, and having Upgrades -- even small ones -- should not be underestimated. You could say that you never know when an Enthusiast might drop by.

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

Emerje wrote:

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

Straxus was a surprise, but Machine Wars Soundwave appearing on the last card just blew my mind!

Emerje

Randomhero wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

Straxus was a surprise, but Machine Wars Soundwave appearing on the last card just blew my mind!

Emerje

That’s Stalker

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

Skritz wrote:Am I the only one stunned that frickin' Straxus is a card in a Transformers TCG and part of the initial release to boot? Because let's face it: he's not exactly the most famous TF villain.

#Sideways# wrote:Jazz is really good bang for your buck, I'm not gonna lie. At six stars, he's a fantastic deal for being an Autobot Leader Car. First, let's go over his stats. Something you might notice if you're paying attention is that he has zero defense in both modes. Yikes. It would make sense in his vehicle mode, but let's be honest here, his Robot mode is a liability.

His stats aren't that great. In fact, Starter Bumblebee -- who's spot in lists Jazz is competing for -- is seemingly better at attacking than Jazz. One thing that Jazz has going for him that Bee does not is access to Pierce in his robot mode, but with such a low defense, it would be a huge risk to put him in that mode. The real power here lies in his vehicle mode, and being able to take an unbelievable amount of hits.

Jazz's vehicle ability is the best part about his kit, and it makes him hotly contest Bumblebee's spot in a lot of decks, most prominently of these being Autobot Cars. You hit for negligible damage (though you have Pierce in robot mode), but you're a Car that can take advantage of the Car support and that alone makes him viable. More importantly, he's going to be in his Car mode when he gets inevitably KO'd, meaning he's more fuel to his buddy -- Cliffjumper.

He and Bee are interchangeable, but in this case, I think Jazz is probably better in Cars than anything else.

#Sideways# wrote:"Thunder only happens when it's raining / Players only love you when they're playing..."

Thundercracker is a pretty good Plane, and is a very good card for the Plane archetype. He's got an average amount of points and a -- frankly -- overly average set of stats, but if we judged everyone by their stats we wouldn't have a game, now would we?

If you haven't guessed it already, his abilities are what gives him the real power. His vehicle mode gives him a fantastic ability work in tandem with Slipstream, Bombing Run and the indirect damage playstyle of Planes. Naturally, you can only use that ability on Melee characters, but let's be honest, everyone has Melee on their team somewhere.

What I like about characters that can damage as an ability is that they can still support other characters outside of combat. It allows them to prove their worth when you've already attacked with them, to be more than a big attack. Thundercracker is good at that, which is good in my book.

Speaking of big attacks, Thundercracker can surprisingly give some pain when necessary. If you play an Action, he gets +1 automatically. That means that you can play Bombing Run to move damage from yourself and your Plane allies, transform and attack with even more damage. Of course, you can also use Leap Into Battle as a pseudo-Grenade Launcher... Only to attach another Grenade Launcher and deal +8 damage, on top of his base 5 attack.

Thundercracker has the potential to hit very hard under certain conditions.

One thing to note, though, is that Skywarp needs to have either 6 or 7 points in order to play a team of entirely Planes. Common Starscream being 10, Thundercracker being 8, leaving 7 left over for Skywarp. If you use the Rare Starscream, that leaves even less points for Skywarp. Here's hoping he fits the bill!

#Sideways# wrote:More support? Tank you!

Oof. That pun. Anyway, this card is fantastic. Almost all Tank characters have at least 3 to 4 defense, meaning you can upgrade them to deal even more Pierce. Megatron, in particular, already has Pierce 3, so attaching this will give him Pierce 6 at the least. This card is great for bulky tanks like Megatron and Darkmount, but sadly, Demolishor can barely use it.

Since he has 0 base attack, Pierce is almost wasted on Demolishor unless you flip plenty of attacking cards when you attack. Just something to keep in mind when you play the only three tanks in the game thus far.

#Sideways# wrote:"Heyyy, duck in cover!"

This card is absolutely insane. Arguably one of the most powerful cards I've ever seen out of this game thus far, and it's not hard to see why. This card has all the power of Roll Out in Tank decks and more. Hunker Down is so powerful that it's insane. Let me explain.

You can only attach one Upgrade in a turn. Generally, it's going to be a Weapon or Utility -- mostly because it's generally better to attach a Grenade Launcher than an Armor card -- but Hunker Down? Hunker Down gives you free Armor so you can have your cake and eat it too. Not only that, but you get to put Force Field in play after it has been used.

That's utterly fantastic.

But not only that, but Darkmount deals two damage when you flip him to his vehicle mode, Megatron scraps an Upgrade on your opponent's field and Demolishor will draw two cards all when you play this card. AND you get to put three upgrades in play for free. I cannot stress to you enough how much this card makes Tanks not only playable but very good.

Even moreso, you might be wondering -- if I'm going to be attaching these Armor cards early, how will I draw into them? How will they be in the Scrap Pile? Well, that's where Demolishor comes in. He mills your deck at a startling rate thanks to his Robot mode ability. You mill the Upgrades with him, and you get to put them in play with Hunker Down. Truly, an amazing combo, and one you should definitely be on the lookout for.

Another interesting fact about both tank support cards is that they were designed by someone who worked on actual tanks:

Ken Nagle wrote:I want my TANKs to have lots of Armor then turn it into offense. I've designed software for the actual M1A1 Abrams tank; now I've designed tank cards, too. Introducing Hunker Down & Crushing Treads!

#Sideways# wrote:Now I know what you're thinking: Did he fire six shots or only five? You gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?"

Well, not with this card I don't. This card is pretty okay, but its niche uses sorely limit its play. Sure, you could put it on Ironhide -- the same that you get in the Starter Set -- and he could deal a surprising amount of damage. But that's kind of all he'd be there for, and there are simply better support picks for your buck.

But the real niche use here is in decks that play cards like Ransack, which thrive on damaging themselves. Decks like Energon Axe, and they certainly like getting to play them with little investment. More importantly, you can amplify Ransack's damage quite easily with this card.

It's a very limited use card, for sure, but I suppose everything can be used somewhere, if you look hard enough.

Scott Van Essen wrote:One of the fun parts of designing the Transformers TCG was making signature upgrades for classic characters. While only Optimus Prime can use his Ion Blaster, Ironhide is happy to share his Static Laser. Just make sure you read the fine print.

We've already shown several ways to connect cards to specific Transformers. We can hard-lock to a character like Ion Blaster of Optimus Prime, while cards like Null-Ray of Starscream can be used by anyone but are better on the named character.

Static Laser of Ironhide is a variant of the second, where instead of a base effect with a bonus for the named character, it's a larger effect with a downside that turns off for the named character.

Cards with downside effects tend to be cool and fun only if they're used sparingly, so we like to save them for when they really take the card concept to the next level.

In this case, I love that Static Laser of Ironhide cements itself as a powerful and dangerous weapon while also highlighting just how tough Ironhide is.

#Sideways# wrote:Wanna bet?

So "I Still Function!" is really, really good. It's essentially an extra turn, an extra attack, an extra threat. "I Still Function" allows you to use a lot of things to your advantage. For instance, Peace Through Tyranny allows you -- with some Multi-Mission Gear maneuvering and hand contents allowing -- to take extra turns ad infinitum by KOing the character you just resurrected.

Moreover, you can resurrect Ransack and put him at 1 HP, giving him 7 base damage instantly. Then, you can use a Bug Bomb on him, which activates as soon as your turn is over. Frankly, I love everything about this card. You can even bring back a problem card for your opponent and attack with them one more time, just to make things worse for them.

Matt Smith wrote:While testing Wave 1 I would often focus my deck around a single powerful character *Cough* Sunstorm *Cough*. Inevitably my dastardly opponent would KO that character and I’d be left to despair. I just couldn’t have that so I reminded my quarry that I STILL FUNCTION!

#Sideways# wrote:Why throw away your life so easily?

Well, that's a question you should be asking yourself. I'm not joking -- this card is a slightly worse version of Plasma Burst and Photon Bomb. If Photon Bomb is the tattooed punk sister of Plasma Burst, than One Shall Stand is the sadistic younger sister of Plasma Burst.

This card would be very, very good if it didn't decrease your health by a quarter or a third depending on the characters in question. Now, you're reducing your opponent by the same, but this card can bite you just as easily as it can help you -- and gets wholly worse as the game goes on. I suppose that this card would be better in Tall decks than Wide, but either way, this card's playability is in the air for me.

Of course, this card has the 100% best artwork of any other card I've seen thus far, but that only gets you so far in my book.

#Sideways# wrote:I knew I shoulda gone with the turbo.

Supercharge is pretty much a bad card in all but niche decks. I'm not going to lie, this card is very subpar to another card in terms of damage output. That card I'm talking about? Leap Into Battle. Leap Into Battle gives one of your characters +3 Damage, which is essentially the best case scenario for Supercharge. There's almost no reason to play Supercharge over Leap Into Battle.

But I did say "almost". Nemesis Prime likes having Bold, and with Bold 3 on a Power Sword and Supercharge giving him another Bold 3, Nemesis Prime is one of only a few decks to play this card effectively. But other than that? Pretty much a hard pass.

#Sideways# wrote:Make it a double, I guess?

Cards that say "draw" on them make me happy. They help cycle your deck and help you get the cards you need. But these should not be considered "draw cards" in the purest sense. You see, these cards are disruption cards first -- but are never dead cards in your hand.

Usually, disruption cards have their situational uses (Security Checkpoint comes to mind) and when that window has passed, become useless (dead) cards in your hand. When cards draw a card after outliving their usefulness, they are essentially never "useless" in a situation. Sure, there can be better cards to play in certain situations, but when you have nothing left at your disposal, you can play one of these and draw a card.

They're not bad. Are they worth a spot? Well, Drill Arms might. With the advent of Force Field and more Armor cards messing with your math, Armor scrapping is more and more valuable. If you ever have an extra spot -- or just really hate Armor -- Drill Arms will do all you want and more.

Transcription wrote:Drill Arms: Weapon -- When you put this on a character ---> Scrap an Enemy Armor. If you can't, draw a card. +1 Attack.

Scrapper Gauntlets: Armor -- When you put this on a character --> Scrap an Enemy Weapon. If you can't, draw a card. +1 Defense.

ScottyP wrote:The more I see of this, the more it looks like a Transformers game made for card game fans and not a card game made for Transformers fans. There's Transformers art and... that's about it.

ScottyP wrote:The more I see of this, the more it looks like a Transformers game made for card game fans and not a card game made for Transformers fans. There's Transformers art and... that's about it.

Nexus Knight wrote:

ScottyP wrote:The more I see of this, the more it looks like a Transformers game made for card game fans and not a card game made for Transformers fans. There's Transformers art and... that's about it.

Is that too bad of a thing, tho? Many fans will probably buy it because it is Transformers, and we may get a bigger player base of non-TF fans get into it.

ZeroWolf wrote:You got the starter set already? There's no combiners yet, and I'm not sure how they'll do them outside of special decks like Metroplex. Also the things you mentioned are hardly mentioned outside very specific media basically, Wizards have done the best they could with what they got without bogging the cards down with effects so no one could see the art. I remember complaints about text heavy cards on MTG, things that slow gameplay down are not good at all.

Nautica would have a few things to say about a gun shooting different coloured lasers out depending on faction