Grimlock and more revealed for the Official Transformers Trading Card Game

steve2275 wrote:so when is the USA release?

#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.

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

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.

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.