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We're a week from Christmas, how about some last minute Transformers savings for gifting or as a present to yourself?
This week Target is doing 30% off ALL Transformers online and in store, no codes or limits!
Walmart has reduced the price of their exclusive Deluxe 2 packs to $20! You may have to get store pickup for some of these.
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Legacy Wild Rider and Knockout: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... irect=true?wmlspartner=FYAGeMjDX6c&=&affs=p&wid=5b6b4213e4b0bcb699adeb9f&u1=&oid=223073.10006940&sourceid=37141976172661509211&affillinktype=3&veh=aff
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Legacy Arcee and Kickback: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... hbdg=L1800?wmlspartner=FYAGeMjDX6c&=&affs=p&wid=5b6b4213e4b0bcb699adeb9f&u1=&oid=223073.10006940&sourceid=37141976172661509211&affillinktype=3&veh=aff
Legacy Pointblank and Crankcase: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... hbdg=L1102?wmlspartner=FYAGeMjDX6c&=&affs=p&wid=5b6b4213e4b0bcb699adeb9f&u1=&oid=223073.10006940&sourceid=37141976172661509211&affillinktype=3&veh=aff
Studio Series Bumblebee Movie Arcee and Ironhide: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... hbdg=L1800?wmlspartner=FYAGeMjDX6c&=&affs=p&wid=5b6b4213e4b0bcb699adeb9f&u1=&oid=223073.10006940&sourceid=37141976172661509211&affillinktype=3&veh=aff
Studio Series 86 Perceptor and Bumblebee Movie Wheeljack: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... hbdg=L1102?wmlspartner=FYAGeMjDX6c&=&affs=p&wid=5b6b4213e4b0bcb699adeb9f&u1=&oid=223073.10006940&sourceid=37141976172661509211&affillinktype=3&veh=aff
Walmart also has some of their Transformers: The Movie Retro reissues on sale for under $10!
If you were waiting for a sale for the Rise of the Beasts transforming masks Walmart has the Optimus Primal mask for only $19: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... irect=true?wmlspartner=FYAGeMjDX6c&=&affs=p&wid=5b6b4213e4b0bcb699adeb9f&u1=&oid=223073.10006940&sourceid=37141976172661509211&affillinktype=3&veh=aff
And finally, moving over to Amazon they continue to have good deals on random figures:
So, lately, if you hadn't noticed, there were a few cards that were revealed over the past week or so. Not only were there literally dozens of cards that were revealed, but there were also several things that happened over the past week -- including the European Energon Invitational!
At that Invitational, the meta almost completely shifted from the aggro-dominant to a more aggro neutral meta, with a seemingly even balance between aggressive as well as defensive decks. This far more varied meta is a welcome one, especially given the fact that defensive decks usually have to be far more inventive in terms of dealing damage than the more simplistic aggressive ones. It makes for a far more interesting viewing experience in most cases, at least.
That said, the defensive decks that did extremely well were almost entirely comprised of Major Shockwave decks that out-consistency'd their opponents through the use of his intensely defensive compatriots and supporting them with defensive Secret Actions. As it so happens, the deck that eventually won was not aggressive, however.
You see, even though four of the top eight were Major Shockwave decks, the winner of the overall tournament was that of a Blaster/Firedrive combination that used Blaster's knack for playing extra cards and Steeljaw's innate Bold effects to combo together damaging Actions, Upgrades and everything in between to deal a shocking amount of damage. Of course, with Blaster you can also run Ramhorn to add a nicely defensive side to the deck, playing free Force Fields.
As far as the development of the late Siege meta, I've noticed something of a pendulum swing in terms of deck styles. First, it started off with everything being defensive all the time. Second, everyone remembered "Oh hey, Battlefield Legend is pretty strong" and then the whole format went orange. But now, it seems everyone has realized just how strong defense is again -- and how good aggro is as well. In this peaceful harmony, it seems that defensive and aggressive decks can get along with the swing card becoming Press The Advantage.
Press, as I've mentioned in the past, is one of the strongest cards and one of the biggest reasons that the aggressive metagame came to be. The question isn't if an Autobot deck can make headway against a Decepticon deck, it's how much.
Will these reveals change that? Let's find out!
CHARACTER CARDS
People all over the world / Join hands
Start a love train / love train
Astrotrain is kind of insane in almost every single way. I absolutely adore this guy -- not only can he completely carry a game, but he can also survive far and away longer than most. Let me explain by going through the basics of what the developers no doubt intended for him: Pokemon.
Pokemon involves evolving a Pokemon from Basic, to Stage 1, to Stage 2 over the course of three turns while using Energy Cards to power up a character little by little. The more Energy, usually the stronger the character. When we look at Astrotrain, though, we get the sense that Astrotrain follows that same game curve. On the first turn, you're going to have the ability to attach one Upgrade to him, activating his Spaceship effect. Then, on the next turn, you are supposed to attach a second Upgrade to activate his second effect. Then, when you use a third Upgrade to activate his Robot Mode.
At least, that's what you're supposed to do. See, there happens to be a very, very strong card by the name of Extra Padding. Extra Padding creates a nutty, nutty combination, being that you can place them all at once, or at least come close. When you do hit that magic number -- and you will hit that magic number -- you will be blessed with a four defense, nine attack behemoth in a defensive deck that will make him defend even farther. Mind you, that's pretty much comparable or in some cases better than Nemesis Prime after reshuffling your deck.
The best part about it, though, is that he's also a Decepticon Leader. That means that you can use Callous Leadership to move 5 damage counters from him -- effectively making him live far longer than normal, especially with a base attack of four and whatever Armor you've slapped on him. This isn't even counting whether or not you're playing Flamewar and/or Ravage alongside him, boosting him to heights never before seen.
He swings for a massive amount, and can take even more. Astrotrain is a character with boundless potential, and I don't think that it's a question of if we will see him, but when.
You won't be taking the Brunt of your opponent's attacks! Right? Right?
Brunt is... Interesting. On one hand, he seems to be a fantastically defensive card by all but turning off Bold, but on the other, he seems uniquely suited to being offensive as well. I would say that he would be fantastic in a balanced composition for that reason, but when you consider the state of his stats being as mediocre as they are, you begin to wonder if his cost begins to outweigh his benefits.
But that's not what Brunt is here for, right? How about his gun mode... Gun modes?
If you couldn't tell, this is the first dual-piece Weaponizer. You can choose to spread them around however you wish, with either one or both upgrade forms of Brunt on one of your characters. It is with these pieces that we begin to understand a few things. With once piece, we see that Brunt is not just an effectively permanent Grenade Launcher with his Weapon form, but also literally the best Armor in the entire game with not just a permanent Blast Shield, but also the added benefit of having Tough 1 on top of all of that. When you realize that you can attach both pieces to one character, however, one realizes the power level of Brunt is actually astonishing.
Let me put it this way. Have you played Overwatch at all? If you have, then you know about Ana, the support. She has an Ultimate ability called Nanoboost, where you can power up one of your characters so much that they sweep the entire enemy team. Brunt is the same way. You can use him to power up a character to the point that they become effectively unstoppable, giving them an astronomical attack boost and an almost insurmountable defense at the same time.
The only question at that point is, logically, who would be the best partners for him?
One could say that Battlefield Legend could be interesting, and by putting both Weapons onto him, he could be come effectively unstoppable. But I think that might be a little short-sighted, or at least a little obvious. I just don't think that a Weaponizer could do well in a Tall setting, but be sure to mark down this quote in your notebook because I might end up wrong later.
Nay, I think one of the better way to play this is in an aggressive list with the most oft-forgotten cards in the game at the moment: Demolishor. Demolishor loves having both three attack and Bold 1, but more than anything else, he loves having an Armor that gives him +2 Defense. Since he flips extra cards for each defense that he has, you will flip over Kickback-levels of cards whilst having one of the highest defenses possible in an aggressive deck.
The best part is? He's only 6 stars.
Brunt will only be usable in the kind of list that can support him to his fullest, if it wasn't obvious enough already. Since he's so radically different than everything else, you'll want to use him to his full power level. Admittedly, I don't know for sure if Brunt will ever see play if Cog's lack of usage is anything to go by, but when you consider that Brunt has potentially more value than Cog in the short run, it gets just slightly easier to see him in a team.
But just slightly.
Hell hath no fury as a Weapon removed.
Dazzlestrike is not good.
Not only does Dazzlestrike completely suck at dealing damage in her(?) robot mode, but she also isn't exactly special in her alternate mode in terms of damage, either. Unfortunately, whereas she heals her user, she also damages them back to where they were whenever she's inevitably removed via an Enforcement Baton or something similar. Since it's in your best interest to attach a Battle Master near the start of the game, you'll find that the character that you're attaching her to won't be damaged.
This makes her effectively a negative to attach to anyone who cannot keep her, as whenever your opponent discards her from play they will effectively get to deal three damage for free off the play of an Enforcement Batons.
Now, remember when I said that she's not bad on a character who can hold on to her? Well, for your consideration, I give you Greenlight:
"Sombra, online."
Greenlight is... Interesting. Making use of her Safeguard isn't exactly difficult, but her green pipped ability is deceptively strong. Since it doesn't matter if it's an Action or an Upgrade, you get to play both to boost her attack to a formidable six while also playing two of the most powerful cards in recent memory: Bashing Shield and Press The Advantage.
Given that there are also other cards that can be used with green pips, there are potentially higher damaging combinations through the use of Focus Fire. Since you get to play three of them at once, you'll find that playing a Bashing Shield and your Focus Fire all at once will get you a solid eight attack and Bold 6.
Of course, the hardest thing about that strategy is, y'know, staying alive long enough to actually use it. With her Safeguard, you're almost guaranteed two turns to pull it off, but we both know that's not enough. You see, in her alternate mode, she has the effect that her Upgrades can't be scrapped from her. With this in mind, we know that we can attach a Force Field to her with absolute impunity. But, perhaps moreso than that, we can use Dazzlestrike to heal her just enough to use Safeguard again, and you can't be punished by removal effects until you're ready to pop off with her in her robot mode.
Is this a viable strategy? I don't know. Probably not? It just seems too tech-y to be pulled off, but who knows? I guess we'll never know unless we get the green light from the rest of the set!
"Can we Fixit? Yes we can!"
Fixit is one of, if not the best 4 Star character on the market. Period.
His extremely powerful, effectively universal draw mixed with competent stats (for a Micromaster, that is) make his value off the charts in almost every way. The simple fact of the matter is that, if you're running a deck that needs to dig for something in particular, or perhaps even moreso in a deck that runs more white pips than most, I can think of no better character to play for your money. He's just universally good -- he can scrap your opponent's useful green-pipped card -- like a Bashing Shield, Enforcement Batons, Enigma or all of the above -- on-demand, while also having the ability to net you a new hand of cards to play with.
Oh, yeah, all of this is without using your Action for the turn. Which brings me to the thing I want to touch on:
Since he's universal, there aren't that many decks that wouldn't want to take him along for that added consistency. But, there is a deck that can only work with him on-board, and that's W1 Shockwave. Shockwave needs to chain as many hand-scrapping effects as it can in order to place as many damage counters as possible. When you realize that Fixit can use his ability alongside a System Reboot for your turn, you realize that you can force your opponent to take roughly 8 damage for effectively free, not counting any card effects like Testify to put more cards in their hand.
With proper use of Bravery and similar effects, Fixit will be safe from attacks and Shockwave will be able to spread the love (by which I mean damage) far faster and far more consistently than anyone thought possible.
I'm so ready to see some Anime Transformers fights again. I was born ready.
Is he good or just cool? Because I'm not so sure that he's good.
You see, he's got the look, and he's definitely got a sick power level in terms of raw stats, but when you consider the fact that he's 15 freaking stars, you gotta start to wonder if he's worth it or not. Metroplex, for example, has a lot of attention on him because of his even larger stats, but I've personally played him quite a bit and trust me, 35 HP sounds like a lot, but when your opponents swing for 13 a piece you start to wonder how long you're going to last.
Now, this General Prime -- typically called "Galaxy Prime" by most -- can avoid some of this by attaching Energy Pack (usually for free) and cards like Urban Camo to keep yourself alive more. But it begs the question, and I ask myself this question a bit too much from time to time, but consider this:
Is it enough to survive? Or do you want to live?
That wisdom is something I chew on in my own life, but with cards, it takes on a different meaning. What is "living" in a card game? Isn't remaining on the board enough?
Well, no. Galaxy Prime may stay on the field for a while, but he's so big points-wise that he'll likely be the only competent attacker on your team, making him not just priority #1 for your opponent but when he goes down, you'll lose the game almost instantly. Remember, he's got similar offensive power to Battlefield Legend, and Battlefield Legend only has 13 stars compared to Galaxy Prime's 15.
But, as a whole, I don't think that matters as much as I make it out to. Galaxy Prime has a lot of power in his kit, and I think he'll definitely be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but in an innately Balanced deck, can you really count on him to pull through?
Somehow I just don't see an SUV making a high jump.
Highjump confirmed my suspicions! Given the fact that Highjump is a 4 Star character, the pattern of Micromasters holds true! That means that you can play the full team of Off-Road Patrol members, with the total cost of all four of them coming to a solid 18 Stars. That said, we know now that Powertrain can reach those high stats that we so desperately crave, and can also be played with a 7 Star friend.
But what about Highjump? Is there any place for him anywhere else?
Well, I mean, you can play him in a heavily black list to draw some cards, I guess, but why play him when you could play someone like Fixit? Regardless, he's a black-pipped card that can still make some use out of its inclusion if you have the black pips to support him.
But again, I ask you this: Why not Fixit?
"Impactor? I barely know 'er!"
Impactor is probably bad. But, when you consider that he could be used in Aggro Tanks alongside Demolishor, Flak and Starter Megatron, he becomes a little less awful. You see, since you can use the highly underutilized Hunker Down to flip your characters all at once, you get the benefit of Demolishor's draw and Impactor's momentary Bold 1.
Of course, since he also has Bold 1 in his robot mode, he'll be a little bit easier to have deal damage, but beyond that his usefulness comes to an end. In fact, you can't really justify using him as someone to spread a lot of Bold 1 when you realize that Flamewar would be straight better. I mean, she does the same thing but for 5 Stars, after all!
Why are all of these Wreckers so bad, anyway? I mean, Springer was bad in W2, Kup was bad in Wave 1 and now Impactor is bad in W4! The Wreckers are getting wrecked.
Just in case you forgot that the Insecticons are good.
Kickback is insane. On one hand, his vehicle mode is the reciprocal of his Wave 1 iteration, being a busted force for defense on a blue Bugs team, but on the other hand, his robot mode makes standard Bugs even better.
First, the concept of Blue Bugs, the version of Insecticons with, well, blue. With bugs. There have actually been several potential candidates for Blue Bugs over the past few sets, most notably W1 Bombshell, Ransack and Chop Shop to name a few, but to make a long story short they focus mostly on tanking the damage instead of spastically run over your opponent as quickly as possible.
That's where this Kickback will surely find his footing the easiest, using both of his abilities to assist his allies. But what of his other abilities? Well, let me tell you a secret: His robot mode ability is actually super strong in a fully orange Bugs.
Why? Well, let me tell you.
You see, Kickback states that when one of your Insecticons flips at least one blue pip, you get to ping the defender for 1 damage. That doesn't mean that the pip you flip has to be exactly one blue pip. You could, for example, play Roll Out in your Bugs list to facilitate this ability. Having both blue and orange pips on the same card, Roll Out doesn't bog down your flips with any unnecessary blue cards, and you can still deal the free damage that Kickback is looking to pass out with them included.
Even better, Roll Out isn't even a bad card in your deck given the powerful effects of Skrapnel, Chop Shop and Ransack upon flipping to their alternate modes. Given that he's an alternate 6 Star to include, you're likely to drop Ransack in your list for him. But something that I think is worth experimenting with, however, is dropping Barrage for him, instead. This allows you to play a Full Loadout, as well as getting just a little ahead on the Transformation game through attacking with Ransack in his alternate form first, transforming Kickback to take full advantage of him from the get-go.
Of course, that's just a spitball -- but it's still an interesting idea regardless.
"Yesss..."
Lord Megatron will dominate any sealed event ever. With half decks, Megatron will get to activate somewhere close to every single round, sometimes more than once. He'll get to deal a frankly disgusting amount of damage at a similarly sickening pace. Remember, if you use weapons that boost his Attack stat, he'll get to deal more damage when your opponent reshuffles!
The thing I don't like about this guy, though (aside from the misprint saying that his alternate mode's attack stat is 5) is that his alternate mode is actually a bit useless. Milling your opponent is okay, for sure, but when you're milling your opponent for a maximum of five cards it's just... Underwhelming. That said, he is a Tank, which means in a non-sealed format, you can use Hunker Down to flip Megatron and mill your opponent for free, while attaching the ever-useful Armor.
As it so happens, though, Lord Megatron gets markedly worse in a constructed format. Given the fact that your opponent will have a far larger deck to play with, you'll have a far harder time finding value out of him unless your opponent is playing frankly moronic amounts of Bold and milling themselves regardless of Megatron's abilities.
I guess that's the real reason to run Megatron. Not as a strategy per-se, but perhaps as a deterrent. I mean, if your opponent realizes that they have to effectively KO one of their characters when they reshuffle their deck, don't you think that they might hold off on playing a Bold card or two?
Just a thought.
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating. And it gets everywhere."
Sandstorm is sadly not as strong as his opposite, Astrotrain. Whereas Astrotrain makes his value known through sheer defensive willpower, Sandstorm seems to be a Jack of All Trades, Master of None.
He's got a little of everything, and a little for anything. His whole game plan is to be exactly what he needs to be for as long as it takes. I am certain that there will be games where you'll just keep him in his Car mode, or his Helicopter mode, or even flashing his robot mode here and there.
Simply put, I love the idea of running a deck that's incredibly versatile, where you can tech your deck or sideboard to counter everything. To that end, I'd like to point out that the Reflex Circuits, Covert and Sturdy Armor can all be attached to Sandstorm through careful planning of his alternate modes, giving you outs to more defense than your opponent will likely be used to, especially in Helicopter mode.
Unfortunately, his robot mode leaves much to be desired (much like the missing attack and defense icons on the bottom of the Helicopter mode) in terms of versatility and usability. Maybe it's just me, but I wish that it did something more than just ping someone for one damage. I realize that it's better than nothing, and that Major Shockwave is slowly becoming a Major meta mainstay, but other than him most Specialists are just supports instead of major threats.
Something I just realized, though, is that he's basically doing Springer's job from Wave 1, except way better -- and on a Common no less! I mean, think about it; Springer was supposed to be a Jack of All Trades as well, but he kind of sucked at his job a bit given the fact that he relied on Bold and Tough. Sandstorm, however, doesn't deal with any such things.
I guess it really is true what they say: Jack of All Trades, Master of None, but still better than a Master of One.
Even here I get sidetracked.
Fixit may be the king of white, but Sidetrack is most certainly the king of orange. But, you might ask, didn't I just say that Fixit was the undisputed king of all Micromasters ever? What makes Sidetrack the best orange-based Micromaster and why doesn't Fixit simply take that cake?
Well, consider for a moment how many white pips you need to play in your deck to make Fixit anything close to consistent, and now consider for a moment just how many orange pips you might play in an aggressive deck. If you realize now how many orange pips are in your deck and how often they are going to be in your hand, you're going to realize how consistent that Sidetrack is going to be.
Plus, Fixit discards your hand, whereas Sidetrack can help build it instead. Sure, you are going to miss out on any Actions on the top of the deck, but honestly, who cares? They're going to be back in the deck after just a little while, anyway, and the short term benefits of putting a bunch of Upgrades into your hand shouldn't be discounted.
The only thing I actually dislike about Sidetrack is his extremely unfortunate HP. If you notice, he's only set up with 3 HP -- making him an ideal candidate for your opponent to play a One Shall Stand to take a free KO. You may think that people might not play it, but consider for a moment the fact that One Shall Stand has become an increasingly prevalent card in the metagame after Battlemasters came out.
This increasingly relevant and prolific card has become something of a mainstay for the metagame, and when your opponent can take a KO for effectively free on their first turn, you aren't exactly favored in that matchup, simply put. So with that said, is Sidetrack good at all?
Yes, still, he is a powerful utility for decks with the points to spare, especially in an aggressive Tank deck that wants to play Demolishor to his fullest potential. But beware -- your opponent might be just as glad that you're playing Sidetrack as you are.
Okay, I'm just gonna say it: Flamewar with rocket-powered angel wings is one of the raddest things I've seen thus far.
Wasn't Sights an Autobot originally?
Anyway, Raider Sights is kinda mediocre. Sure, we basically shouldn't talk about most Batlemasters in terms of their robot modes because of how "blah" they are with few exceptions, like Aimless or Lionizer for example, but Sights just feels uniquely mediocre. I dunno, maybe I've just gotten a bit jaded to this kind of thing. But the real reason you play a Battlemaster (at least, usually) isn't their robot mode, it's their alternate mode.
Which is also kinda mediocre.
Focus 2 isn't really a sought-after effect, even worse given the fact that it takes 6 Stars off your team in order to run it, and the benefits that it provides outside of that aren't exactly amazing, either. I mean, sure, boosting defense on a Utility is pretty neat since you still get to use an Armor to do so, and in Blue/Black lists you wouldn't mind taking advantage of Focus in order to do your Pierce damage, so it's not that Sights is bad per-se, it's just that he's not as great as some other Battle Masters that boosts Attack and Defense for the same cost like Nightstick.
One thing that I should probably touch on, though, is using Sights on Siege Flamewar like the artwork advises us to do. Since she has an innate Focus 2, you can use Sights to boost that to Focus 4, making a balanced deck show you effectively whatever flips you want whenever you want them. It honestly doesn't even seem half bad, and with Pop A Wheelie making Motorcycles have a reason to exist, I don't think it would be a bad idea to use Sights if you had the spare points. But, that's the extent of what I'd expect to use him in, frankly, given the other options.
"Go ahead. Make my day."
Six-Gun is kinda really neat. He's the kind of Weaponizer that I really enjoy -- the ones that force your opponent to deal with them, the ones that get so much value out of their robot modes that your opponents have to focus them -- which in turn activates their Battle Master or Weaponizer effects, and the clap-back from a suped-up character is painful at worst.
Six-Gun epitomizes this by having an extremely powerful character trait of being able to boost his own attack, comboing with other weapons already attached to him and Actions played from your hand. In total, you can create a massive amount of value out of his robot mode, and the best part is, you want your opponent to deal with him as well because his weapons are still powerful.
In fact, Six-Gun isn't likely to focus his Upgrades on the same character given the nature of Pierce and the powerful effects therein. Oh, and did I mention the fact that the Guided Missile Launcher can be placed in a Utility slot, meaning you can pair it with another weapon. This creates powerful combo potential in itself, and the Anti-Gravity Cannon also creates wondrous opportunities for smaller characters to deal damage to larger ones.
All of this being wrapped in a little shell of only 9 Stars makes Six-Gun a wonderful little package. Now, whether or not that will make him see play is still beyond me, but I can't help but to feel that Six-Gun is going to have a lot of potential value from his robot mode alone.
"Purple haaaaze..."
So let's talk about Safeguard Cars for a minute.
Safeguard Cars (Safecars, if you will) kinda fixes the biggest problem I've found with Cars since launch: They lose when they die. Now, I realize that sounds a bit obvious, but let me explain. You see, Cars as a general idea is a simple one: Don't die, untap, attack at once. This strategy dies almost instantly when it faces something more aggressive than it, something like Bugs who can effectively OHKO one of your characters from the get-go. You see, you can't untap or attack with something that's, well, dead as it turns out, and it plunges your damage output through the floor.
That's why I love Safecars so much. You still deal similar amounts of damage through use of Press The Advantage, Grenade Launcher, all that ilk, but you are all but confirmed to survive whatever your opponent throws at you so that you can untap your characters how you wish. Plus, to make matters better, you'll still have enough HP to take full advantage of Force Field, with Greenlight being able to take its advantage to the fullest with her alternate mode ability.
Now, as for Smokescreen, I think he's an obvious addition to this archetype. Having 4 Attack in his alternate mode and potentially 5 Attack in his robot mode for the cost of 7 Stars makes him an easy inclusion for the archetype, despite not too many interesting things happening with his kit. This is not to say that other Safeguard Cars will be revealed, and perhaps they will be better than Smokescreen, but until that time I think Smokescreen is a great character to run for the archetype, even if his use is limited outside of it.
I just can't think of any puns to CRACK, y'know?
Thundercracker is pretty neat.
So, Thundercracker makes something of a splash when you consider how much Pierce Power has been in Siege 2 thus far, his abilities are far more consistent than you might think. But, truly, is scrapping cards from your opponent's hand even that great? And is it worth basing an entire deck around when you're only doing Pierce damage? And who do you even play in such a deck?
Well, take for example the idea of playing Thundercracker, Nova Storm and Nightstick on the same team -- now that we have double black pips and more useful black cards, we can use their abilities far easier than initially thought. See, since Thundercracker chooses a card from your opponent's hand and scraps it, you can choose exactly what you want to scrap -- and Nightstick scraps another one afterwards. Then, afterwards, you can use Nova Storm's ability and Thundercracker's ability to move several damage counters from each of your characters at once. Plus, you'll have plenty of stars left over that you could use on Leap of Faith, or perhaps something like Pincer Maneuver.
Now, with all of that said, does Thundercracker have potential outside of that niche composition? Maybe. You see, since he has only 9 Stars, you can use him alongside a smorgasbord of smaller Planes where you can use Photon Bomb to set up a potentially disgusting amount of damage to be moved to one of your opponents. Let me explain with an example.
Thundercracker is 9 Stars, Storm Cloud is 4 Stars, Visper is 5 Stars, and we can toss in Skydive to flesh out the whole squad. Now, let's say for example that you start by going first and you just transform Thundercracker and swing with him. Then, after your opponent swings at you, you can use a Photon Bomb, spreading two damage to each character. That dealt a lot of damage to your opponent, eh? Well, how about a little more? Because, you can transform Thundercracker and reveal one of many double black pips in your deck to move every single damage counter on your characters (8 in total) to one of your opponent's character for a total number of 10 damage on one of their characters for an easily done combo.
Mind you, that's enough to KO a Bug or a Car for effectively free. What's not to love?
I think this isn't the last we've seen of Thundercracker. He's got a lot of potential in his alternate mode as well as his robot mode, and I think that it's going to be interesting to see whether or not those combos can come to fruition.
EDITOR'S NOTE: It has come to my attention that I appear to have misread this card, skipping over "one of" in terms of his flip ability. My apologies for the confusion, as this does change quite a bit of power in this Thundercracker and rather invalidates many of my points. Now, as it happens, I still stand firm on his potential in terms of damage movement and the new double black pipped cards that you will see at the end of the article; moving two damage from one of your characters shouldn't be taken lightly, and I do think that there is a significant level of potential with running him with Nova Storm given her damage movement abilities. That being combined with Bombing Run, you suddenly have a very deadly combination. Plus, you can't deny the usefulness of Bombing Run combined with Photon Bomb in terms of damage potential, especially in a four-wide setting.
You too can stand up the Vanguard!
Vanguard is busted.
There are no two ways about it -- this guy is on the verge of being broken. Giving not just one, not just two, but all of your characters an effective Force Field that never goes away is just insane. I mean, sure, you need to flip a white pip, yada, yada, who cares? Just play more white pips if you're worried about it. The point being, you can block any useful amount of damage from someone by flipping one of many white pips that you'd play in your deck for a simple five stars.
To make matters better for defensive decks that might want to play him, you get a free +2 defense when your opponent inevitably targets him down. But here's the thing: Do you want to play him in a defensive deck at all? Because I'm actually quite certain that you'd want to play him in an aggressive deck given the circumstances. I mean, effectively turning all of your characters into Skrapnel certainly doesn't seem to be a bad thing, and pinging one of your opponent's characters for a bit more damage doesn't seem half bad, eh?
I mean, even with Decepticons -- the more defensive faction, oddly -- can benefit from this guy because of Callous Leadership. It and Vanguard both have the magic number of 5 damage to make use of their abilities, making Callous Leadership into something of a Max Potion for your Decepticon Leaders. The simple fact of the matter is that Vanguard enables literally everything to be live forever; Autobot or Decepticon.
That means that your opponent will invariably try their hardest to focus him from the get-go. Our little R2-D2 here certainly doesn't like being in the spotlight, and his stats reflect that, but when you consider the use of Stealthiness or Hiding Spot in order to protect him throughout the game, you're looking at a Battle Master that will only die when you want him to.
I think that Vanguard is busted enough to be warranted in any deck that can fit him. Literally any deck that can run him effectively probably should. I mean, who wouldn't want to live longer, right?
Augly Reflexes.
Acute Reflexes isn't that great.
You don't see it as a boost to your attack, and Focus 1 isn't a stellar boost to consistency, and the defense side of it could also be just an Urban Camo to serve the same job. I don't see this getting much play outside of maybe some decks that play a crapload of white cards, with Vanguard or Fixit for example.
I dunno. I could be wrong. But until someone proves that to me, I think I'll just binder it and move on.
Back in black / I hit the sack
I've been too long / I'm glad to be back
Double black pips, boyos! Double black pips are not only real, but there are three different ones, meaning you can put a total of nine double black cards in your deck for your flipping pleasure. I think that this is exactly what black needed as a concept, since Pierce 1 here and there simply wasn't enough to warrant playing it overall. But now that we have full double black pips, I'm ecstatic to see where it goes. Will the black or blue pipped Bold cards see play to get to those astronomical numbers of Pierce that only Arcee could dream of? Who knows!
But until we find out, we need to take a look at the cards in their individual rights and see if there are any that you could actually play on your turn and not feel awful about.
Let's start it off with Crowbar, which has the nice effect of being a Grenade Launcher -- if that Grenade Launcher was terrible. I mean, you're going to be playing this for the pips, but really and truly, if you're attacking Crowbar during your turn instead of anything else, you're probably in a bad spot. I mean, Primary Blaster is a better weapon than this and it's, well, Primary Blaster. But, it's still good to know that if you draw it, you're not going to be exactly losing anything, unlike drawing an Improvised Shield in an orange deck, because you can scrap it so easily that it'll be back in your deck before you know it.
As for Minor Medic Kit... I think that it exists, and that's certainly not a bad thing. It's not going to exactly give you the "Wow!" factor that attaching something like Energy Pack or something similar is going to give you, but it's at least something, especially in a defensive deck. Unfortunately, if you attach it, you're not exactly going to have too many chances to scrap it outside of replacing it or letting the upgraded character die, which is kinda the opposite goal of the game in most cases.
As for Designated Target, it's everything I wanted and more. Given the fact that it has Pierce 2 in the deck as well as in your hand means that you're not losing any Pierce power by drawing into it, and you're still playing it from your hand to be reshuffled into your deck afterwards. Designated Target is also excellent in decks that can attack more than once in a turn, like with Cars or perhaps Motorcycles, given the fact that you are giving your entire team Pierce to play with. Of course, it is an Action, and there are certainly better Action-based damaging cards to play on your turn, but as far as double black pips go? I can't think of a better one to have in a deck.
Double black pips are fantastic news for the future of the color. I've been trying to get as many versions of black to work through the use of orange or blue counterparts, but many times I've felt that the black pips were simply a random side-effect that didn't give enough power to warrant its inclusion outside of a few niche character effects. Now, not only can you use those niche character effects easier, but you can also rest easy knowing that you'll have the amount of Pierce that you want, pretty much whenever you want it.
I mean, around a quarter of your deck will be made up of double black pips, y'know?
Flipping out.
Triplechangers, for the most part, haven't been stellar. They've either been too goofy to pull off like Blitzwing, or they've been too inconsistent to be powerful, like Springer. But, the worst sin of them all, was that most of them had one useless -- or at least incredibly niche -- mode.
For Springer, it was usually regarded as his robot mode. For Blitzwing? Also his robot mode. For Sandstorm, his robot mode fits that bill perfectly, having a one-and-done effect that will leave you either defenseless to attacks or pillow-fisted for your next attack. At least, that's what it seemed like, until Conversion Engine came along.
You see, that's what Conversion Engine seeks to repair: Mode consistency. Let's take Sandstorm, for example. On one hand, you have a dismal robot mode with a useful alternate mode, each with their own advantages for separate versions of characters. Normally, you'd try to avoid his robot mode like the plague; but with Conversion Engine, you can consistently transform him to Robot Mode and then back to one of his more useful modes afterwards.
But, I think Bliztwing is one of the better ones to take advantage of this. Given the fact that you're not only hoping but praying that your top cards activate his flip effect as not to leave you high and dry in his frail robot mode, Conversion Engine allows just a little bit of leeway to allow you to flip him back to one of his alternate modes. It's just a little bit of consistency, just a bit easier to work with than it was before.
Now, does this card instantly make Blitzwing, Springer or anyone else instantly meta? No, probably not. In fact, Astrotrain could care less about this card, to tell you the honest truth. But does it mean that I won't be thinking just a little more about the Triplechangers of yesteryear? You bet your tailpipe I will.
"Congratulations on your promotion, Admiral."
Involuntary Promotion is absolutely insane. It's basically an "I STILL FUNCTION!", but also... Not an ISF. It's a bit wonky, but it has the same if not more implications that ISF has.
Let me explain: Involuntary Promotion isn't just a one-and-done like ISF is, where it brings someone back, you usually attack with them, and then they go away. In this case, you get to bring someone back in total, while keeping the upgrades from the previous character. This means that, in decks where you have a very specific character that holds the entire deck together (Wheeljack in Cars, for example, where you could swap him with Bumblebee), you can simply swap out a lesser useful character for them and continue on your way.
It's a great card already, but the fact that it keeps your previously attached upgrades after the swap makes it even better for defensive decks. For example, you can, potentially, reuse Flamewar after she's KO'd, or you could bring back a character like Headstrong -- Upgrades already online thanks to your previous character.
Something else that I'd like to mention is the fact that you can use it alongside the Constructicons to boost your Tower. Let me explain this through an example: Your opponent goes first, and they happen to one-hit your Hook. That's when you laugh to yourself, give them a wry grin and tell them that they're a second-rate duelist with a third-rate deck, capping off your bravado by bringing back Hook and swapping him with Bonecrusher. In this scenario, you are not only bringing back Hook, a character with 7 HP, in exchange for a character like Bonecrusher, a character with 4 HP, but also boosting Devastator's HP by 3, potentially. But that's not all -- since you're KOing Bonecrusher, you're also building your tower by one level because it KO's Bonecrusher.
I'm always trying to find ways to make Constructicons meta. Does this fit the bill to push Constructicons ever-closer to being meta? Well, uh, yeah. It kinda does, actually -- but can it alone make Constructicons good? No. But can it make them better? Abso-freakin'-lutely.
"This never happens, I swear!"
Now, I'm not gonna lie -- when I first saw this, I thought it was kinda awful.
I figured, "Oh, hey, look -- it's another card that doesn't realize that aggressive decks don't actually use more than one Upgrade!"
It took me more than a moment to realize that this card is not actually meant to counter offensive decks. You see, when you realize that defensive decks usually stack quite a few Upgrades upon them, you start to realize that this deck is for defensive Decepticons during the mirror match -- especially against decks that happen to be playing cards like Extra Padding, where they stack upon each other.
With Backfire against a fully-loaded character, you're going to be dealing a solid three damage to them. Against a character with Extra Padding upon them, however, you're going to be dealing an extremely powerful five damage to them. Now, your opponent could play into this and simply not attach their Extra Padding, to which I ask you, is that not a win in itself? You are forcing your opponent not to play their most powerful cards simply out of the simple threat of a card that you might not even have in your sideboard!
The simple threat of it is what I love about it. Your opponent will be wary of making the mistake of putting down a card that they cannot remove from themselves, and you will reap the rewards.
H A C K E R M A N
Decipher is a really, really weird card. There are specific sideboard cards like Backfire, there are specific mainboard cards like Bashing Shield, and then there are specific character-hate cards like Decipher. If you hate Major Shockwave with a fierce, burning, immolating passion, then Decipher is the way to go.
See, Major Shockwave can put out his fair share of Secret Actions, and he's incredibly defensive. That's where Decipher can make your opponent's day sour. Not only is Decipher a black pip, "Pierce"ing Shockwave's "major" defenses, but it's also a green pip. Since you can consistently put it into your hand when you need it, you can abuse your opponent's Secret Action play pretty much all game.
It's a mean, green, niche machine that won't do much against pretty much anything other than Major Shockwave. Take that for what you will, but if you're really, really afraid of that one matchup, then by all means, Decipher will have a sweet spot in your sideboard.
Crosshairs officially doing more here than he did in The Rebirth.
Okay, so hear me out: This card could be good in a defensive deck.
Don't let that orange pip fool you into thinking that it doesn't belong! Even though it's the same thing as putting a blank pip in your deck, you gotta realize that being off-color doesn't necessary denote inconsistency. I mean, just look at it from the angle of you putting a blank pip into your deck and you'll be fine. But, all of that being said, when you look at the rest of the card, things start to get a bit spicy.
So, in a defensive deck that plays plenty of Armor, you can play a Defensive Configuration. Before you ask, no, you aren't really expecting to get the free Armor off the top of your deck: In fact, you're more after the second Armor slot -- the free Armor is just extra. I mean, have you seen a Dreadwing with a Reinforced Plating and an Extra Padding on him? How'd you like to have that on any character?
That's my point. But, with that said, I wouldn't be comfortable playing this alongside another blank pipped card. You're just flooding your deck with inconsistent cards at that point, so you'll have to decide between using Defensive Configuration or a truly blank pip in your deck. After all, Tough is the best way to get defensive value at the moment, and putting non-blue cards in your deck mustn't be taken lightly.
All of that said, Defensive Configuration certainly isn't for everyone. I mean, aggro decks won't like it at all, and Galaxy Prime might not find as much value out of it as people might think. But, in defensive decks like Major Shockwave, I think a dark horse might just be riding from the abyss.
As a side note, can you imagine a Dreadwing deck with two of these things on him? Four Armor slots, my guy. Four. Armor. Slots. Nightmare fuel, man. Nightmare fuel.
Putting the "hide" in Ironhide.
So, this is basically the defensive form of Erratic Lightning, and it's kinda missing an important piece of the puzzle that made Erratic Lightning so good: The blue pip.
Okay, yeah, sure. You just read my Defensive Configuration piece and now you're scratching your head, but hear me out. On one hand, Defensive Configuration is an orange pip -- effectively blank in a defensive deck -- but it also has an extremely powerful effect that can bolster your defenses even further than before. But, get this: It doesn't actually make you lose anything for playing it. It's just a boon. Sure, it might take you a turn to get that boon, but you're still getting there.
Guarded Posture kinda feels like the opposite of that. With Guarded Posture, you're actually losing a bit of the ever-important attack stat. If you've played a defensive deck, you'd know this by heart: Your cards don't do any damage whatsoever. Sometimes, dealing damage comes down to one point of damage between defenses and when you decrease it, you're making your job a lot harder -- certainly harder than Erratic Lightning ever did for aggro.
Which brings me to the second problem I have with this card: Aggro doesn't care about its defense. Most characters in an aggro deck have one or two defense, and they most certainly don't care about getting OHKO'd. Guarded Posture cutting your attack makes your only win condition (i.e. KOing your opponent's characters) way, way harder to pull off, and that gives your opponent time to eventually overpower your defenses. Something, mind you, that is easier now that you play non-blue pips in your deck.
That's my biggest problem with it. If it had one of the two stipulations, either an orange pip or an attack decrease, it'd be busted. But since it has both, I can't help but to think that we have a better secondary Armor option that rhymes with Schblast Schield.
Judging from the barrage of weaponsfire, I'd say that "hidden" part isn't going so well.
This card is broken.
I'm not joking. Hidden Fortification just made defensive decks way, way better, and Major Shockwave is chief of these. It'd be good if it was only Tough 2, but at Tough 3 you can combine it with your Armor to drown out any pathetic attempts at damage your opponent throws at you. The best part about it is, though, is that it's also a blue pip. The fact that it gives Tough 3 along with a blue pip makes it just insane. The fact that it's a common, too, makes it incredibly readily available for anything from a constructed deck to a sealed deck, as well.
I can't actually write much here because it's so universally good for blue that there really isn't a defensive deck that wouldn't want to play it. I'm serious; look out for this one.
Pictured: Me telling my unsuspecting coworkers about the conspiracy of Skinwalker Ranch for the third time that day.
Jam Signals is another in a vast sea of defensive cards that have an orange pip. Some believe that this is meant to counter defense, and whereas it's a nice concept, playing effectively counterspells in an aggressive deck is almost never good. Simply put, you're already using all of your space for more aggressive cards, so you won't have the time nor space to play Jam Signals.
So, the question becomes: "Who does?" In a word? Defense. You see, it isn't uncommon to play a line or two of blank pips in your deck for their powerful effects. So, why not play an orange pip in its place if its effects are better than the other blank pips that you could play, especially if it helps you beat mirror matchups?
That's why I don't mind the idea of putting Jam Signals in a defensive deck's sideboard. Since many defensive decks can use cards like Heavy Handed or The Bigger They Are in order to deal damage to you, you can use Jam Signals to effectively remove that potential threat from play. I am a big fan of making my opponents regret existing, and Jam Signals helps with that.
But, I can't help but to wonder if it'll see any play whatsoever. Infiltrate sees some play, but I can't help but to see this card as being the odd, kookie uncle to a solid card. I mean, there will definitely be people willing to try it out, but I think at the end of the day, it'll likely be bindered.
"I just invented perpetual motion!"
Kinetic Converter is a somewhat odd card that made me realize how Apeface is probably going to be the only one to want to use this (or the next) card. But, since we have no idea what Apeface will actually do, I'll go ahead and remark a bit solemnly about what uses that Kinetic Converter has, by which I mean it doesn't have any.
I mean, sure, you're effectively playing less cards in your deck when you look at it from the angle of you're playing a card to draw a card, but when Upgrade attachments are so, so important in this game, simply using Kinetic Converter to draw a single card is going to be firmly in the "inefficient" category.
Now, I'm being a bit harsh, here. That isn't to say that it doesn't have at least a little potential with some more niche concepts. For example, Metroplex is known to flip several times during a turn, meaning Kinetic Converter could draw you a fair amount of cards. Bluestreak and Blitzwing, too, flip themselves over per their attack, and thus you could use Kinetic Converter to facilitate draw; Cosmos could use it to draw cards after using a UFO; Cars, finally, can use it in tandem with Cliffjumper to get even more draw than normal.
So, where do these few limited cases leave us with Kinetic Converter? Isn't Data Bank just straight better despite being a white pipped Utility that draws you consistent cards in roughly the same amount of time for less commitment regarding your flips?
Yes, yes it is.
"Throw me the idol and I'll throw you the whip!"
Kinetic Intensifier Whip is a similar card to Kinetic Converter in that it requires the use of your flips in order to get value out of, and the times where you can flip more than once can actually make this into a formidable card.
Let's put this in the context of Metroplex, for example. With Metroplex, you have the use of Escape Route to give you an extra transformation during your turn. You can use that to, from your robot mode, flip yourself to your alt mode in order to spit out another small guy, but for this example, let's say we spit out Scamper. This single flip has given Metroplex a Bold 2 from the Kinetic Intensifier Whip, but also given him Bold 1 thanks to Scamper. So, what next? Well, we simply transform him back to robot mode, giving him another Bold 2 thanks to the whip, and thus giving him a total of Bold 5 for simply playing an Action with a green pip.
That seems pretty good to me.
Remember, you also get the +1 Attack from the Kinetic Whip as a base, so you're actually going to be swinging really, really hard in the right deck. I mean, just think about Cars. With a Start Your Engines and a flip for turn, Wheeljack can suddenly gain Bold 7 in total -- utterly monstering anyone that turn. The same could also be said for aggressive Tanks through the use of Hunker Down and Impactor.
I think that the little whip that could is a little beast of a card, and I think that there's a pretty good chance that we're going to be seeing a lot of this little Common rather soon.
Pictured: A brave Springer player futilely wades through an ocean of Insecticon players during the height of the Rise of the Combiners Meta.
What an interesting card. I am really not quite sure what to make of it, but Pincer Movement has immense potential in general.
Okay, sure, it has to be in a deck with three extra spaces to be even remotely consistent. But, when you consider the fact that you can pair it with All Out Attack or (depending on the deck) Pop a Wheelie, you're going to realize that you're going to have a lot more in the ways of multiple attack options than you used to. This seems like a generally strong deck concept given the nature of aggressive decks, especially the ones that use Battle Masters, that can't really take early KOs on untapped characters that well.
Now, in terms of specific decks that Pincer Movement would be useful in, I can't say that I have many ideas. On one hand, one could say that playing the new Kickback in place of Barrage in Insecticons could free up a spot for Pincer Movement, but the odds of you drawing that on any consistent basis is low at best, and Barrage already brings a solid amount of power to the list anyway, making his usefulness far greater that any single copy of Pincer Movement is going to give you.
In terms of other decks, there always is the idea of Motorcycles. Motorcycles, through the use of All Out Attack, Pop a Wheelie and now Pincer Movement could use all of these cards to target down opponent's characters early, hopefully removing them before the inevitable retaliation wipes the fragile bikes from the field. Pincer Movement helps with that because you're likely to be playing both Flamewar, and getting an extra attack is almost never a bad thing. Of course, you'd have to change the list to drop Chromia or Arcee for someone cheaper in order to play Pincer Movement effectively, but that's for you to decide on whether it's worth it or not.
In total, I think that Pincer Movement is a solid addition to the Star Card roster. Unfortunately, I do think that it will be inherently limited in its play given the nature of Star Cards in general, but that being said, isn't that exactly what you could say about literally every other Star Card in existence? Food for thought.
It's called Point Position because they are pointing at a position.
This card is utterly nutty for blue/black decks. Given the fact that Point Position is a blue/black pip combination, this should be obvious. But, do you want to know a secret about blue/black decks? Most of them require the use of Bravery in order to function. The fact that you can play two separate versions of Bravery in your deck just makes me swoon.
Of course, it's not a direct reprint of Bravery since Bravery works all the time, and Point Position only works when tapped. But, that's pretty much the same thing, anyway, and you're probably going to draw a Bravery later on enough to replace it anyway. It's a consistency card, a redundant system that makes the plane just slightly safer to fly. It also helps that it's both a blue pip and a black pip, making both sides of the equation slightly more consistent.
It makes me wonder at whether or not we're going to see Omega Jazz come into the meta a little. Its most prevalent problem was getting your opponent to attack where you wanted them to, i.e. Jazz, and it also felt a little pillow-fisted when I played it. Perhaps the black pip and Point Position can make Omega Jazz' dreams come true! Or maybe the fact that black pips exist could also push it out of the meta altogether.
Who knows? But regardless, I think that Point Position is certainly a great card to keep your eye on. It'll surely be played in janky, defensive rogue decks left and right, and it might just make blue/black a bit more consistent than you were expecting.
CONCLUSION
There are so many good cards that have been revealed, and so many of them can start their own archetype. We haven't even seen the full set yet and I'm already ecstatic for the future. The only thing that I'm currently concerned with at the moment, however, is the health of the Sealed Format. Remember, it was just revealed that players will have to play a full three rounds of Sealed at the Energon Invitational, testing our mettle, creativity and maybe just little of our luck.
What about you, then? Are you looking forward to Lord Megatron potentially making the name "Lord Megatron" a household name? Or are you as smugly happy as I am at the thought of playing an Optimus Prime that happens to look like something very familiar out of the golden age of Transformers, the Unicron Trilogy? You can't fight me on this! It was the best!
But in all seriousness, I think that we're about to see more than a few archetypes rise out of this set, with Astrotrain being the one I'm looking at the most at the moment. He just seems like a wall of value to me, and even if he's half as good as I think he is, I think we'll see him as a meta contender for sure.
Let me know in the comments below what you thought as I slowly dip my hands into a large bucket of ice water so that they may simmer down. I mean, is anyone else's fingers currently burning and numb, or is that just me? I'm sure it's fine, and not the onset of carpal tunnel.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you in the next article!
Below you will find the details for this weekend's Planet Terror event. We also have a new laoding screen to share with you, sent to us by Space Ape.
Here are the event details:
Bah-weep-graaaaagnah wheep nini bong!
New Bots: Blades & Dirge are joining the force! And two long-awaited characters Trypticon and Metroplex are coming soon... Planet Terror
Gather your Alliance members for a chance to win:
- Up to 3,000,000 Energon
- Up to 3,000,000 Alloy
- Up to 30,000 Spark
- Up to 60 Frequency Crystals with a chance to win a 4, 3 or 2-Star Blades or Dirge and lots of Crystal Shards! Event type: Alliance Totaliser Start Date: 24/05/19 10:00 UTC End Date: 27/05/19 10:00 UTC Prestige Allowed: 60 Bonus Experience: Triple XP How to Participate?
Reach HQ Level 4 and Join an Alliance!!
Tap the Event button!
Select an Event Battle Zone to fight in!
Win your battle and gather Battle Points!
Collect prizes!
Event Battle Zones Totaliser Prizes
*Each Frequency Crystal contains one of the following rewards: New Bots: Blades & Dirge
Two Aerial bots are joining the Earth Wars this weekend!
Despite his aerial proficiency and high-altitude targeting dexterity, Blades is a 'street-level' kind of 'bot, preferring to look his foe in the optic and get down and dirty like the streetfighter he is. He considers long-range attacks unsporting and cowardly, and would rather detach his rotor blades and slash through the enemy ground forces. But most times Blades concedes he was built for the skies, and his twin rocket launchers and dazzling photon bursts make him a highly effective aerial asset. Something his fellow Protectobots deeply appreciate.
Safe Zone: Drop a hack bomb dealing damage in an area. Confuse the targets for seconds (reducing their attack speed to 40% and making them attack your foes).
It's fair to say Dirge is a tank half-empty kind of 'con. His mournful, silent manner unnerves even his fellow Decepticons, and the sound of Dirge's engines has an uncanny effect on friend and foe alike. The chilling overture is merely the prelude to the petrifying fear they induce in whoever's in audio range, the unique combination of frequencies inducing acute, paralyzing fear and disorientation. However, if Dirge's concentration slips, he can fall prey to his own engine noise. But then he always has his air-to-air missile launchers and machine gun ports to fall back on.
Fear Inducing Signal: Drop a hack bomb dealing damage in an area. Confuse the targets for seconds (reducing their attack speed to 40% and making them attack your foes).
Check out Dirge in battlefields in Skywarp Greer's latest video!
DIRGE : First Look. New Bot: Transformers Earth Wars Dawn Of TITANS
The Prime Core struggle has woken from their slumber the towering behemoths Metroplex and Trypticon. It will take the combined might of a whole Alliance to take them down before they ravage through Cybertron.
You can soon fight the Titans Metroplex and Trypticon in Raid battles and win cool new rewards...
More powerful than even the strongest combiner, these two Titans are coming to Earth Wars to fight against you in Raids!
Stay tuned for more details. Under investigation
Here is the issue reported that we've been investigating:
Slash & Rippersnapper change targets and prioritise enemy outpost bots even though they are far away
This is just an example of the reports that we've received from you and we continue to work hard to improve your experience with the game every day.
We would like to thank you for your time and patience, and if you have any issues to report, please get in touch with us here: support@transformersearthwars.com. Alternatively, you can reach out to us in game via Menu > Community > Contact Support. Updates / Improvements
The following Updates/improvements are coming to the game soon!
Improvements in Raid Battles
You will get much more ability points and XP for each destroyed health stack in Raid Battles. This update will go live in the next version update.
Combiner Lock Camera
The camera will not be zoomed out when combiner is deployed. This change will be live in the next version update.
Bots getting stuck running on walls
There were a few issues causing this problem, a fix will be coming with the next version update.
And the following update went live last Thursday
G1 Arcee Core & G1 Skywarp Core
The retreat distance for both of these cores has been significantly reduced. The rest of the effects will remain the same.
I have a wide array of new reveals for this article! Including one revealed by some guy's YouTube channel by the name of Nanomachines... Wait, that's me! You read that right! Wizards saw fit to send me a character card to show off and dive into on my channel, with a link I'll put below if you'd like to literally hear my thoughts on it. But, until then, let's dive into the reveals!
CHARACTERS
"The name's 'Warp. Skywarp."
Sergeant Skywarp is another rare coming out of Siege 1, and he certainly has the power to back up that title. Simply put, he has a ton of synergy with Secret Actions, with both of his abilities refunding their use. Of course, the Secret Actions we've seen aren't the greatest, nor are they the most impactful, but Skywarp is just one of those cards that will forever get better in a constant climb of power so long as they keep printing Secret Actions.
Okay, so, why do I feel that way? I mean, sure, his stats aren't that great by any stretch of the imagination, and his cost isn't something that makes him entirely splashable into just any list. But, if you consider his utility abilities creating a fantastic Secret Action engine, you realize that he has fantastic potential. Now, it is currently unknown whether or not you'll be getting much use of him currently given the fact that the Secret Actions we know of are limited in use, especially with how Actions work in this card game, but I can definitely see him being a huge mainstay in certain future archetypes if the Secret Actions we get will allow.
I mean, consider: What if we got, essentially, a Counterspell or a Power Spray? A Secret Action that says, "Negate your opponent's next Action" or "Scrap the Upgrade your opponent attaches" or even "Negate the next character ability your opponent activates"? Skywarp would not only be able to refund your playing of that card, but also return them to your hand at any time. Plus, you can play him in a Tall list alongside Shockwave to extend your hand even further to play even more Secret Actions.
Now, again, this is all speculation. If you couldn't tell, I am wearing a tin-foil cap. But, it isn't too far-fetched that any of those could be printed. I'm just saying, but Skywarp might just be the engine that makes a lock deck go around.
"I'm blue / Da bo de da bo die
Da bo dee da bo die / Da bo dee da bo die"
I was about to say that Chromia is like the weird, estranged daughter of her Wave 1 iteration, but that wouldn't be entirely correct, now would it? This Chromia is entirely unique, especially with her robot mode. In fact, she's the only character who draws you cards when you are attacked so that you may use them on your next turn like a Security Console.
Of course, her stats are not the best, and she relies upon the armor that you will no doubt be playing through her vehicle mode effect, but sadly her stats are not good otherwise. In fact, a simple Bashing Shield will open her up for massive damage. This is somewhat amplified by he rather awful offensive stats, and even worse defense. Her HP is good, and she is a Specialist, but that's pretty much the end of her usefulness.
That being said, her armor ability is pretty alright, but I can't see her being played that much. Although, every ounce of me wants to build a full "fembot" team. How would I do that, you ask? Well...
That's a car? She turns into a car? Sure. We'll go with that.
There are so many things to unpack with Elita, much like my previous girlfriends.
First off, let's look at the obvious: Her stats. Her offensive stats are somewhat middling, and her defense stats are about as bad as you can get, but her HP is one of the highest in the game outside of Combiners. In fact, outside of larger characters, I believe she is tied with Magnus as having the highest HP in general. She's also a 12 Star Specialist, which means she can do Specialist things as well as use Car-based effects including Start Your Engines. But that is not her strongest suit.
Well, let's look at her vehicle mode. She has a "Sludge" effect, where you can move as much damage from one of your characters to her as you want as long as it doesn't KO her, making her a fantastic partner to smaller characters. But, even that is not her final form, her strongest ability.
What is her strongest suit, you ask?
Well, let's take a look at her robot mode for a clue. You see, her robot mode has the effect of whenever she's KO'd, you essentially activate a "free" Leap of Faith, playing the top two cards of your deck. So, if you look closely, it also turns "I STILL FUNCTION!" and Peace Through Tyranny into Leap of Faith added on to their already powerful effects. So, in a Car list based around Elita, you can use her as a sort of "sacrificial lamb" where you can let her soak up a ton of damage through her vehicle mode, and once you're done doing that, you can use her to play more cards out of your deck.
I think you can guess where I'm going with this. Elita is a Specialist Autobot who is over 6 Stars who also plays a bunch of free cards when she's KO'd. Infinite can go infinite very easily with this effect, and with the right partners, you can force your opponent to attack into her massive HP. Now, with Red Heat, infinite has a practically confirmed comeback into the metagame, albeit with quite a bit of clunk given the current partners. With Elita, there is 100% another infinite archetype with her as the centerpiece.
Now, whether or not Red Heat is nerfed by the existence of another anti-Micromaster character or upgrade remains to be seen, but regardless, Elita will definitely be a mainstay in that archetype. Regardless of that, I still think that Elita can definitely see a lot of play in a Car list that wants to build around her. Something else you can pair her with is -- unsurprisingly -- Optimus Prime: Battlefield Legend, or in a twist of fate, Megatron: Living Weapon, essentially acting as a battery to her larger friends, essentially increasing their HP to a staggering level.
There's a whole lot to love about Elita, and I don't think this is the last we've seen of her.
"RED A-LERT! WEE WOO WEE WOO WEE WOO!"
This reveal is brought to you by... Wait, it's brought to you by me!
That's right, Wizards sent me an exclusive reveal so I can show it to you on my YouTube channel! I'll drop the link below so you can hear my rather long-winded thoughts on him:
Tote the GOAT.
Tote is surprisingly interesting in decks that play a lot of cheap attackers, being a "free" untap effect for one of your other characters. I mean, sure, he's effectively useless on the stat front, but you're never going to play a Micromaster for their stats.
Now, when I say, "you'd use him in a cheap attacker list", I really mean lists that play cards like Demolishor or Ransack. A cheap, five or six star attacker who swings for way more than they should. You deal a whole lot of damage with certain characters, and you have characters like Tote as support to keep them swinging. The fact that Tote is only four stars makes this idea even better, making it possible to cram as much value in your list as possible.
Now, you do need to play black pips in order to make use of him, but there are several good black pips that I could see you playing to use for both their effects and for his, like RR Disruptor Blade or Device Virus.
The thing is, he's a one and done -- your opponent is likely to KO him or his target, and then you're left with nothing. You really need to ask yourself one question: Is he worth the point investment?
"Nani?! Kansei dorifto?!"
Detour is a very good card.
For starters, he is a four star Specialist Car, meaning that he can use all the Car cards that can untap him. This means that you can use something like Start Your Engines to transform him, untap him and reuse his tap effect next turn. Played in Cliffjumper, you can draw a card for transforming him, tap him to draw two more cards, then use a Field Communicator to potentially draw even more cards.
Speaking of Cliffjumper, you can pretty much guess that Detour is going to be targeted by your opponent for a cheap KO. Cliff especially makes playing the tiny Micromaster well worth it, that when Detour is KO'd, he can fuel Cliffjumper's offensive stats. This makes Detour one of the best car Micromasters not only for Cliffjumper lists, but also one of the best for regular Car lists. Roadhugger may still be on the top of that proverbial ladder in terms of power, but it's good to know that there's a lot of value to be found elsewhere, too.
Detour has a lot of value in a tiny package, and whereas you can at least use him as a nice point filler in other lists, Cliffjumper is the one who will find Detour the most appealing because of his point cost and Specialist nature. Detour is definitely not going to survive any damage whatsoever, but you can pretty well see the value -- like Roadhugger -- that he's going to give you until that happens.
He's pretty fire.
The...? The Firecons? Jinkies, that's a deep dig. Revealed in a recent article by Kotaku, the Firecons, i.e. Sparkstalker, Flamefeather and Cindersaur, have each been modernized by the guys over at Wizards who even got to spearhead their modern redesign! The article is an interesting tidbit into that development, and you should definitely read it if you'd like a peek behind the curtains.
But, let's go through them one by one and see what they're made of!
First off, Sparkstalker is a moderately costed character with moderate stats, but there are two fantastic things about him that make him a very interesting partner in aggressive decks. The first of these is his impressive draw effect in his robot mode, effectively refunding whatever cards you played on that turn with a Draw 2 when you flip three orange pips. Now, if you haven't played much aggro, you should know how easy it is to flip three orange pips between Bold effects, white pips and double orange pips. In fact, I'd be shocked if you didn't hit the Draw 2.
Sparkstalker's second form of value comes from his great vehicle mode transformation effect, scrapping an Armor so that his teammates can continue to pop off. He isn't the best outside of Firecons, but he's certainly playable in aggro lists that needs just a bit of draw power. Plus, his vehicle mode effect is quite a bit useful in other aggro lists that don't already play a few Bashing Shields. You can't really go too wrong with him, especially with his powerful draw. That being said, of course, the Firecons love him the most, but it's good to know that he has a home elsewhere.
You'll find that all three of them have a great alternate mode effect that fits well with the archetype, with the potential for a nutty amount of power with the playing of a Roll Out. But don't just take my word for it! Let's dive in to the next two:
Ah, I see he's a Ravenclaw.
Flamefeather is an extremely thick boy and I love him.
So, let me explain what he does real quick so there's no confusion. Basically, when defending, he turns all orange pips into blue pips to a cap of five of the converted pips. This does not include any blue pips you flip (from a Roll Out, for example), making his potential defensive capabilities astronomical. I mean, consider: You fill your deck with orange, double orange and half n' half cards, you could potentially deny a massive amount of damage through Flamefeather.
But that's not to say that he lacks offensive power. Even though he has a mediocre offensive stat, you are playing aggro, and that means that you're going to be able to do a massive amount of extra damage with your weapons and your heavy orange deck. You're not going to be doing the most damage with him, but it isn't like he's an invalid target for some of your resources. Plus, when you have Sparkstalker refunding that expenditure with his draw during the next turn, you're free to use him how you please.
And, when you're done with that, you can flip Flamefeather to his vehicle mode, using his ability to add just that much more Bold than you're already going to be adding with your Supercharge and Power Punch. Unfortunately, this bird-brain doesn't have too much potential outside of Firecons even with his damage denial effects and his Bold, something that's amplified by the stipulation in his vehicle mode that his Bold is only applied to Firecons.
To be frank, I don't think he'd be played all that much outside of Firecons anyway unless one wanted to pair him with Flamewar or something similar to that composition. Although, there is nothing stopping you from doing that, anyway, it's just that he won't be as effective as he could be in a pure Firecon list.
"Oh, no, they say he's got to go / Go, go, Godzilla!
Oh, no, there goes Tokyo / Go, go, Godzilla!"
Cindersaur gives you free damage and Actions and I literally can't think of many things better than that.
So, if you couldn't tell, Cindersaur really likes orange pips and high Bold. When you attack with him with a Bold card having been played, you have a chance to deal a massive amount of damage between the flood of orange pips you'll be flipping and the free damage you'll be getting when you do. In fact, if you only flip the base four orange needed to activate his ability, you'll be dealing a total of nine damage when you count the two direct damage you'll be dealing. Since you can flip that without a weapon through a lucky white pip, you can imagine what kind of damage you'll be dealing when combined with a weapon or an Action.
Cindersaur's value doesn't end there, however -- in fact, his best value comes from his vehicle mode! Playing a free orange-pipped Action is impressively powerful given that cards like Supercharge or Reckless Charge both have their respective pips. But, I'd like to point something out: When you flip to Cindersaur's alternate mode through the use of Roll Out, it effectively refunds your Action for the turn with the ability to use a damage-boosting Action to boost your damage more than Flamefeather already will be boosting you.
With all of this in mind, Cindersaur is a lot of value for the Firecons in one package. In fact, you might even play him in other aggressive lists to make use of that free Action that he provides in the late game and the offensive power when properly equipped. But that being said, wouldn't you rather just play the whole of the Firecons to work with their synergy? I mean, just consider: Flamefeather is very good for Firecons, and you may as well take him along because you're playing one already. After that, you could always play two smaller characters to take up Sparkstalker's slot, but why? Wouldn't you rather keep that draw power and Armor-scrapping in your aggressive deck?
I think we might be seeing the rise of a standard-sized Insecticons in the Firecon strategy. They're thick enough to take a hit or two in order to take them down (especially in the case of Flamefeather), and they're powerful enough offensively to make their opponents... Ah, feel the burn if you will. Now, their stats across the board could be just a little higher to make me comfortable saying that they'll be a meta mainstay, but that being said, they are a full team of themed characters with interesting and potentially powerful abilities; I'd be surprised if we didn't see them at a tournament or two!
BATTLE CARDS
Another day, another time I wished we had more Flamewar figures...
Remember when I said that playing all Motorcycles had no real point to it? I've never been more glad to be wrong.
So, in case you needed an explanation on what Pop A Wheelie really does, basically think of it like a baby All Out Attack. You can attack twice that turn, but only if the extra one was a Motorcycle, put simply, in their vehicle mode. This is both very good and very mediocre, and I'll tell you why.
First off, it's fantastic because there are going to be many points where you have to attack twice in order to get a KO on a very important character, or on a character that has a Force Field or a similar effect. Further, in matchups like Insecticons or Combiners where the characters are notoriously fragile, you can potentially score two KOs in one turn, sometimes being able to KO an untapped character after KOing the only tapped character. To make things even better, you can play a Bravery and attack with that character to potentially save a damaged teammate, forcing your opponent to attack the newly tapped character. Furthermore, in the Motorcycle list, W1 Flamewar has the ability to give all of your characters Bold 1 until end of turn, and when you get to attack multiple times in a turn, you're going to start seeing that effect pile up.
Now to the down side. Remember how you have to be in your Motorcycle mode to get that spare attack? Well, if you remember, many vehicle modes have a middling to mediocre attack stat with few exceptions. Meaning, the attack you're going to get is not likely to do much without weapons and high orange counts in your deck. This is not to say that playing an all orange is a necessarily bad thing, it's just that it limits your options. Plus, Pop A Wheelie somewhat necessitates the extra character to be upgraded, and that can be a difficult balance to strike.
But that being said, I think it should go without saying that getting another attack during your turn is a very good thing that can swing entire games. Even more than that, imagine when all characters are untapped and you're able to KO one of your opponent's fresh characters out of nowhere before they can use it to attack you. Or perhaps just eke by a KO on a character that will certainly demolish whomever they're about to attack, like a Cosmos or a Nemesis at the end of their deck.
All in all, I love Pop A Wheelie. It's a great boost of power to the Motorcycle archetype and it adds a nice layer of synergy between the 'cycles. Even Chromia can get in on the action by returning Pop A Wheelie from your Scrap to your hand to be used on that turn or the next. Whether or not Motorcycles will be next in line to try and dethrone Insecticons as the premiere aggro deck remains to be seen, if aggro is even the best way to play Motorcycles (though if I recall correctly it was mentioned offhandedly by the developers that it is), but I know one thing: More attacks = More damage, and that's always a good thing in my book.
"For the last time, Arcee, use the seats! I said, 'USE THE SEATS'!!"
Heroic Team-Up is the best Autobot Action. There; I said it.
It may be a Star Card, and that innately limits how many decks you can play it in, but its effects are so good that it makes me want to play it in almost every deck. First off, half-n-half pips are always welcome no matter what, and it being an Action in an Autobot list makes it easy enough to pull off in a turn through Confidence and other Autobot Action love. There are plenty of decks that love the extra damage that Heroic Team-Up can give them, but I think the one that can make the most of it is Cars.
For your consideration, Cars. You have access to high draw, meaning you'll be able to draw into your Heroic Team-Up, and the Car character pool is deep enough for you to shave off enough points to play a good portion of them. But perhaps the greatest reason of them all is that you have access to Turbo Boosters, an untapping effect in an Upgrade instead of the normally Action-based untapping effects. This allows you to use a Heroic Team-Up to tap a character, then Turbo Booster them to untap them, then use an extra Action effect like Mirage's alternate mode ability to use a second one and tap that same character a second time, adding even more damage to one of your characters.
Now, this is not going to happen all the time, of course. But it is nice knowing that a crazy combo like that can happen, and the mere presence of Turbo Boosters will save you a lot of heartache by refunding the tap effect and preventing your opponent from punishing your overextension.
Cars, of course, is just one of several different archetypes that would love to have Heroic Team-Up, including decks that play Battlefield Legend, Alpha Trion or other characters that would like an extra boost in damage. To be perfectly frank, the only bad thing I have to say about Heroic Team-Up is that you can't play it in everything. Will it trump Leap of Faith as the best Star Card? Not likely, but that's like asking "Will any movie series ever come close to the success that Marvel has?" -- some hurdles are just too high to leap.
Be that as it may, Heroic Team-Up might just give Leap of Faith a run for its money in Autobot lists, especially with ones with fewer stars to spare. You can't beat half-n'-half pips and their value, after all.
"Power flows to those who know how to use it. Desire alone is not enough."
Finally, Decepticon Leaders get their day!
Callous Leadership is a shockingly powerful "healing" card that can be used to help your larger, more important characters online. For instance, Shockwave, Soundwave or Megatron -- Living Weapon; all necessitate a list being built around them, and all would very much like to stay alive. Living Weapon takes up a lot of investment to swing with effectively, and Soundwave kinda makes the entire Cassette archetype go around. Using Callous Leadership, you can move that damage to a squishier character to make the damage meaningless or to transfer it to a character that you managed to I STILL FUNCTION! to wipe away the damage entirely.
This massive amount of healing can be compounded with cards like Cooling Vents that heal one when you attach them or characters like Red Alert or Arcee who heal your characters when you Transform them. As I spoke about in my Red Alert video, healing can stack in the same way that damage can. It's usually not as powerful as simply damaging your opponent because there is so much burst damage in the metagame that it becomes a bit irrelevant to heal anything.
But, Callous Leadership allows you to heal off your more important characters with a huge burst of healing, much better than the healing over time effects that we've been accustomed to. I realize that it's technically not healing per se, but when you move damage from an important character to an unimportant one, you can effectively call it "healing" from there. I can't wait to find out how much this will be played, especially when you consider the power that large Decepticon Leaders like Starscream or Megatron hold -- and how frustratingly unkillable they're going to feel when you heal off over half the damage that your opponent dealt to them.
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control / I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way / And the stars look very different today"
Unconventional Flying Object -- UFO for short -- has probably the most hilarious artwork of anything in the game. Just the mental image of Alpha Trion just supermanning it through the atmosphere gives me a good chuckle.
But, anyway, UFO itself is a pretty neat little Action that literally every Spaceship will love to see. Whereas Rapid Conversion was a good little card that most Spaceship lists like Cosmos played, it always felt lacking because you still needed more Transformations in a turn than you were given. Further, you can use UFO in Cosmos to burn through your deck even faster, then to use his robot mode's ability in the same turn. With Alpha Trion, you can use it as a sort of "junk hunt" effect where you can simply replace it with a card from your Scrap Pile. With Shockwave -- Cybertron Commander? You can essentially use it as a Testify, then still having the transformation to flip him to robot mode in order to punish your opponent's large hand.
Now, does this make Cosmos or Shockwave suddenly good? No, I don't think so. But, does it make them better now that you can use their flip effects more effectively? Oh, absolutely. I think Cosmos in particular has to get a second look after Siege comes out -- his value it simply too high to ignore, and I think UFO will make that obvious for all to see.
"You did it, Scoob! You caught those spooks!"
And just like that, the Firecons were captured and hauled away. No one saw them again!
Anyway, just in case you wanted another card other than Acid Storm to utterly demolish Dinobots or Firecons, look no further than Dampening Field. Dampening field, Secret Action 2 of apparently 8, is a doozy for Bold decks or other aggressive archetypes because it effectively turns off their Bold or other flipping effects like Kickback or Demolishor.
Even better, it's a white pip -- meaning, you don't need to force yourself to play blue pips in an orange deck or orange pips in a blue deck to tech in Dampening Field. In fact, I can see playing this in Insecticons for the mirror matchup just to effectively confirm one of my character's survival without taking up an Upgrade attachment for the turn in Force Field, their Bold notwithstanding. Of course, Grenade Launcher and Reckless Charge can both be used regardless of Dampening Field, but it's an interesting thought regardless.
I can see a lot of decks playing Dampening Field to slow down the meta, forcing their opponents into moments of weakness, potentially forcing them to whiff KOs that they normally would have been confirmed. I am extremely excited for it, in fact, and even moreso when you consider all of the Secret Action support we have in this set in Laserbeak, Shockwave and Skywarp to name a few.
Could Dampening Field slow down the meta through its presence alone? Maybe, maybe not. I think aggro decks are still going to be the best kind of deck out there at the moment, purely because they chase the win condition the fastest. Plus, it's always fun to flip half of your deck and look at all the pretty colors as you blatantly murder your opponent's characters. However, I have a feeling that Dampening Field might just have something to say about that.
The three most important words in the Cybertronian dictionary: Wheeljack, Wheeljack and Wheeljack.
Ever get one of your Battle Masters scrapped by some scrub and their Enforcement Batons? Ever sit down and wonder, just why was your opponent playing Scrapper Gauntlets of all things to scrap your hard-earned Battle Master? Have you ever been attacked by an Air Raid, like, at all? Then Quartermaster is for you!
Quartermaster allows you to reuse Battle Masters from the grave, drastically improving their overall viability and usefulness, but also allows you to move upgrades, reactivating Put effects and allowing you to move a Battle Master from one location to another. If you're like me and you're constantly on the lookout for things that can be broken, you're getting some alarms right about now.
If you remember Swap Parts and how oppressive that card was in the infinite combo deck, you see the words "move an upgrade" and you start to sweat. No worries here, though -- it's only one Upgrade, and unless the upgrade is the most broken upgrade on the planet (Hello, Cog) you won't be winning any games off the back of this card in that way at least.
That being said, cards like Lionizer or Aimless will get much better now that they have the power to come back from the scrap heap and reequip themselves. Now, every one of your characters have the potential to use Lionizer multiple times, and with his effects of Bold 4 and Plan 1 being as they are, I can't wait to find out how much he'll be played. Aimless, too.
Battle Masters in general were a bit inconsistent in the amount of value they give, but now? Now there's room for their power to spread to other characters, and that's about as good as you can imagine it to be and I, for one, am extremely excited about it. Plus, if your area is flooded with them, you can even tech in anti-weapon cards to potentially make your opponent whiff attacks with their Battle Master. You never know!
Not Leap Into Battle, rather, a light saunter.
For blue/black, Steady Aim could not be better. Trading out one of the extra damage for a black pip, Steady Aim has nearly all the power of Leap Into Battle and maybe even a bit more power given the Pierce. Blue decks usually need Pierce in order to do much damage unless they have a high base attack like Optimus Prime -- Battlefield Legend or Nemesis Prime, making the Pierce that one would get from playing blue/black extremely effective at keeping damage from falling too low.
The damage boost isn't going to be as high as Leap Into Battle, but it's definitely going to be just as useful. Put simply, there's really no reason not to play Steady Aim in a blue deck -- it's just one of those cards that will nearly always be good.
"If you are looking for the weak spot, just aim for the glowy bits and you can't be far from wrong."
This is just Steady Aim but with more words and less colors. I think, between the two, Steady Aim is slightly better because of the blue pip. You're far more likely to flip a card than draw it, and for that reason you're going to want the pips instead of the slightly more Pierce.
There's really not much else to say since the two cards are so similar. However, if you have room for both, I don't see why you wouldn't want to play both.
What a gas!
Similar to Combat Dagger, Smoke Cloak is a slightly less effective Reinforced Plating with a black pip. There really isn't too much to note on about it, other than the fact that it makes blue/black just slightly better. Pretty much, so long as there are blue and black combo cards, the better the deck archetype becomes and the more playable it will be.
I'm extremely excited at the notion of slower decks that would play cards like this because it diversifies the meta. It makes plenty of the more niche rogue decks better (especially because they aren't being one-hit every attack) and more combiners can be played. I'm ecstatic about the prospects of that notion, and thus, I am ecstatic about this card; not because of what it does per-se, but because of what it represents.
Hit or miss, I guess they never miss, huh?
Emergency Defense Field is a funky, funky card. On one hand, it's a worse Force Field. On the other, it's completely busted and makes certain archetypes way better.
Let me explain. You see, Force Field is usually better in most circumstances. The higher HP you have, the better Force Field is. If your opponent has to wade through fifty Force Fields to finally get the killing blow on your Nemesis Prime, you're probably winning that game. That being said, the lower HP you have, the better Emergency Defense Field is. For instance, you could attach it on a character that has less than 4 HP remaining to potentially defend them, or you could attach it to a character who has 8 or less HP in an attempt to force a two or more hit KO.
Now, the big problem is that EDF is not surefire. You see, if your opponent just so happens to hit an odd number at the wrong time, they totally dunk on you. You always run the risk of your opponent playing a Bashing Shield or something similar, but here, you run the risk of your opponent just attacking you through your shield just anyway.
For instance, if your opponent can easily hit 13 and up damage, and you have 12 HP characters, wouldn't you rather just attach a Force Field and avoid that high damage altogether, take your 4 and move on? Kinda thought so. I find the small damage that Force Field affords you is way better than essentially flipping a coin and seeing how well or how poorly your opponent flips cards. In fact, Force Field even has a white pip, and EDF doesn't have any pips whatsoever.
Either way, it isn't like you can't play both in lists that either really don't value their opponent's sanity or just like looking at pictures of Trailbreaker. It's a funky thing, but I'm really quite middling on Emergency Defense Field. You could probably play it in lists with small characters like Combiners (Devastator especially), but outside of that, I doubt it will be played all that much.
"Look out! She's got a sword!"
"You idiot, we all have swords!"
This card is an over(under?)glorified Fusion Cannon of Megatron for small characters. There are good things about it, of course, but I just find it hilarious that a sword has the same destructive power as Megatron's Fusion Cannon.
Anyway, as to the playability of Laser Cutlass, you may find that certain Combiners really adore this card. For example, Aerialbots deal their damage through two means: Direct Damage and Pierce. They are a very defensive list that loves their blue pips, and I can see them absolutely adoring this card.
However, we have two very interesting cards for low damage Combiner teams that were printed in Rise of the Combiners that are way more consistent than Laser Cutlass: Noble's Blaster and Scoundrel's Blaster, both of which are Blue, deal more damage and have similar levels of Pierce. Oh, and they have green pips, too.
It really depends on what you're planning on doing. Sometimes you need redundant Upgrades or Actions to make things just that much easier to draw into them, but other times they can just end up making your deck inconsistent. I would say that Laser Cutlass as a whole is in the same niche as Scoundrel's/Noble's Blaster, with the only noticeable differences being that the Cutlass can be attached to anyone, not just a specific faction, and that the Blaster has a green pip.
Which one you play really depends on the deck you're playing and what you want to do with it, but until then my money is on Scoundrel's/Noble's for their consistency alone.
"Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back."
Energy Pack is kind of nutty when you think about it in certain cases. I mean, think about it. Nemesis Prime has 16 HP; slap one of these bad boys on him, and he has a frankly disgusting 20 HP. Metroplex? Oh, he just has a tiny, teensy weensy 39 HP. Dreadwing? You can attach two of these things, giving him 32 HP in total. Jetfire can attach Energy Pack from the Scrap Pile and grow his HP whether your opponent likes it or not, and he has 15 base. Big characters get bigger, and smaller characters weep in jealousy.
I've oft thought about HP and defense as one in the same in most circumstances. If you're going to one-hit Kickback, you'll need to hit 10 damage, even though his HP is only 9. That's because his defense is only 1, and if you're going to OHKO him, you'll need to factor that number in. However, when your HP is higher -- for instance, Nemesis or Metroplex -- that defense is going to reduce a lot of damage over time because nobody is going to be able to one-hit you unless they're Predaking or Volcanicus.
So, when you add to your already titanic HP, you're also effectively adding on to your defense as well. The longer it takes your opponent to KO you, the more your defense is going to defend you. You're not going to always want it, of course; sometimes a Data Bank, a Field Communicator or something similar is going to give you more value in certain scenarios. But, that being said, you can't tell me it's ever bad to have more HP.
CLOSING
First off, sorry this article took so long to put out. It seemed like whenever I was just about done with it, more cards were revealed. I guess that's a good thing -- it helps keep me up-to-date and it keeps me honest!
As for the cards themselves, I am convinced that the Firecons are going to be a meta deck. I'm not quite sure what tier they are particularly, but I am convinced that they belong on the list. Motorcycles, too, have quite a bit of potential with Pop A Wheelie -- a "boost" they've been needing for quite some time now. I also can't wait to see where Elita goes from here; whether she's only playable in Infinite or if she's going to be a bodyguard for her partners is beyond me, but I just can't wait to see what people do with her.
Revealing a card for Wizards, as well, was definitely a highlight of my run in this community. I've been ecstatic to work with Wizards on it, and I've been super thankful that they allowed a tiny channel like mine to show off a reveal, a character reveal at that. I am constantly impressed by the transparency and openness that Wizards has been gracing the community with, and I am proud to help with that. I even got to flex on my Red Alert figures! Even the one that wasn't named Red Alert!
Of course, the grown video player shows my shoddy thumbnail work, but you can't win 'em all, right?
What about you? Are you fired up for the Firecons? Elated for Elita? Pumped up for Pop A Wheelie? Let me know in the comments below, and I'll see you next time!
'Cause I'm a cowboy / On a steel horse I ride
And I'm wanted / Dead or alive
So many reveals so little time. But before we get into them, I think we should probably address the elephant in the room -- or to be more specific, the cassette player in the room!
If you couldn't tell from the teaser up top, we're going to be getting Soundwave as well as his cassettes this wave! Now, it is currently unknown what they're going to look like given the line "drastically altered their appearance", but we can guess that they're going to look something like their Siege incarnations. We also have literally no idea how they're going to work given that the guys at Wizards have stated that they had a specific playstyle that was unlike anything we've seen before.
My mind is reeling this early in an article? Criminey Christmas! Someone, start the spoilers, quick, before I start speculating... And hey, what's with this cassette deck on the table? I thought those were out of style since... Bah. Let's get to the reveals!
CHARACTER CARDS
I, for one, look forward to the Robo-Smasher card.
Arcee is an interesting, and a surprisingly competent, character. This is the second Arcee card we've gotten, with this form being in the form of her G1 design. With her comes Focus, a new type of keyword-based ability. Let's dig into that, shall we?
Focus, when used, is a pre-attack ability similar to Plan where you look at the top card of your deck and decide whether or not to keep it. Basically, just think of Aerial Recon where you can Surveil the top card of your deck to hopefully make your next attack better. But here's the thing. I've said this time and time again, even with Recon System: Focus and other attack-based effects like it, if you really think about it, are just worse versions of Bold.
Put it this way; which of the two would you rather do?
Focus: Look at the top of your deck, decide you don't like it and scrap it. Then, you flip the next two cards, with the end result being you seeing the top three cards of your deck with the standard two flips.
Bold: Flip three cards. The top card of your deck wasn't what you wanted, but the other two were. The end result is that you see three cards off the top of your deck with Bold 1 and and the standard two flips.
If you think those things are anything other than exactly the same, then you're fascinatingly wrong.
But here's the thing: If they're the same, then what makes Focus worse? I must have been exaggerating, right? Well, let's take a look at that same scenario again but let's change the top of the deck to something we want to keep instead of something we want to scrap. Let's see what happens:
Focus: You look at the top card of your deck and you decide to keep it. This means you won't be seeing another card off the top card of your deck, and this means you're only seeing two in total and you're doing the damage that would entail.
Bold: You flip three cards, including the card you wanted to keep, dealing more damage than Focus would allow.
Empirically speaking, Focus is worse than Bold. Now, this is not to say that Focus in itself is bad per se, in fact, I'd much prefer Arcee to have Focus instead of being vanilla, but you have to understand that unless it's in extremely high numbers, Focus won't do much for you outside the first turn or two.
Now, where does that leave Arcee? Well, since we know that having Focus is better than nothing, we can safely say that her vehicle mode lands solidly in the "somewhat mediocre" slot. Hey, it's better than "bad" or "unplayable", right? I may be harsh but I'm not heartless!
But what of her robot mode? Well, my friends, that's where I'm actually slightly excited. Now, I am an excitable person, but in balanced builds Arcee might actually see value. You see, we're in an anti-Armor meta with Bashing Shield making aggro decks extremely powerful against their more defensive opponents. It's why Force Field isn't as powerful as it could be.
So, when I saw that Arcee could retain Tough with only a weapon, I was intrigued. There is no anti-Weapon cards that are played to any notable degree with the innate lack of permanence that many of the most powerful weapons have. So, you could make whatever armor you have on you far more potent, or you could play her in an all-blue list to make her mediocre defensive stats higher.
But here's another reason to be excited for Arcee in aggro lists, as well: She makes every weapon attached to her provide Bold 1. You could use a Power Punch to give her Bold 3, stacking with her innate ability to give her a thick total Bold 4. Which reminds me, if you manage to put a Superior Blaster or Lionizer's weapon mode, you can give her a monstrous Bold 5 not even counting any Actions you've played.
Of course, one could make the argument that one could just play Wave 1 Wheeljack. He has Bold 3 innately, after all. Naturally, I agree. If it's one or the other, Wheeljack is definitely the better option. However, I wonder if she won't have a claim to a spot alongside him instead of Wave 2 Prowl thanks to her Tough and higher HP adding to her survivability?
Who knows? I just write here.
All in all, she's interesting. I can definitely see her getting played in certain balanced lists for her Bold/Tough split, but I can also see a case for her use in Cars. I wouldn't count on it, of course, but she certainly has potential.
Can we please get more Flamewar toys? Other than BotCon exclusives, that is.
Flamewar has as many cards as her toys. I really don't have that much to follow that up with, but I just thought it was an interesting point at how we have a hilarious lack of Flamewar representation in the toyline. But, is her card just as dismal as her representation?
Well, not really. Somewhat. Kinda. That'll take some explaining.
Firstly, I've spoken at length about low numbers of Focus and how it's basically just Bold but with more steps and less payoff. Now, with Flamewar's Focus 2, you can still look at the top of your deck to arrange them however you want or scrap them. Something about Focus that I didn't exactly touch on is that the high number of Focus (say, for instance an Upgrade gives you Focus 3 plus the innate Focus 2) you can potentially arrange not just the next attack but potentially the defense afterward. I'm not saying that this is confirmed to happen, but it would be fascinating if it did.
I mean, you could pair it with Plan 2 to put two cards for Flamewar's attack on the top of your deck after arranging the next two cards for defensive purposes. I don't know if that's viable given Flamewar's... Rather dismal defense to say the least. Arcee could get away with it with her Tough 1, but Flamewar isn't so lucky. Of course, you could always try out the Plan combo I was talking about to hopefully rig the topdeck to your defensive purposes, but that only goes so far.
But enough about Focus! Let's talk about the stats of everyone's Decepticon waifu: Flamewar! If you couldn't tell, Flamewar is a cheap-ish Motorcycle, which means she can finish out a full team of Motorcycles worth 25 Points with Chromia at 8, Wave 1 Arcee at 5, Wave 1 Flamewar at 5 and using those 7 points, Specialist Flamewar to round out the whole list.
Now, is there any point to a full Motorcycle list other than the novelty of saying that you, in fact, have four Motorcyles on the field?
Not anymore. You remember Swap Parts, right? The banned card? Yeah, that card was kind of important for the Motorcycle's explosive playstyle given the Specialist support that the archetype relied upon. It kinda stinks because Motorcycles were seemingly about to get their hayday with a fourth Motorcycle Specialist to join their ranks and more cards to use in their combo. Now that Swap Parts is banned, who knows if they have the power to be viable anymore?
Who knows? Either way, I just know that Specialist Flamewar will be played in the list. Will she be played anywhere else? Probably not. She doesn't have the amount of power that other seven starred characters have, and despite her Stealth in vehicle mode, not that much bulk to back up the opposite end of the spectrum.
Let's just agree that Ironhide is basically the Doomslayer but with a Southern accent.
Something about Infinite Combo being uncounterable?
Let's be honest, here, this is the epitome of a hard counter to the Infinite Combo. Ironhide can't take non-attack damage, which is kinda the entire win condition of the Combo deck, and his stats are high enough that we can pretty well say that Combo can't pull off the KO on him pretty much no matter what. Remember, Combo is not dead -- it's just more complicated. Red Heat makes it a competent composition, albeit a more counterable one.
But Ironhide? Ironhide counters it in the same vein that Acid Storm counters Dinobots. His very existence means that, in all likelihood, you will be able to punish their flimsy composition. This is not to say that it's an autowin, but you're guaranteed to at least have Ironhide alive and likely at nigh full HP when their combo inevitably ends. When it does, Red Heat is going to be tapped, and as such, you can more or less annihilate him and his flimsy stats, likely ending the combo for good.
Ironhide can also do a good bit of work against Aerialbots and similarly geared direct damage decks. These aren't played as much as other decks, but it's nice to know that Ironhide is roughly impervious to their entire deck in the same vein that Motormaster makes the rest of his team effectively invincible to direct damage.
Of course, there is more to Ironhide than his vehicle mode. His robot mode is something of an interesting novelty. With the weapon trading effect, you can retrigger weapon effects like Armed Hovercraft, or swap an Armed Hovercraft for a more potent weapon like Energon Axe. Sadly, this happens before flips, meaning you can't swap a Bold weapon with a damaging weapon after the Bold triggers.
Regardless, the Armed Hovercraft combo is something that I'm fascinated by. I've always loved Armed Hovercraft and cards like it such as Photon Bomb, and his synergy with them is titillating. I just wish that it could be with any weapon, not just blue weapons. That way you could put a Superior Blaster on him, bypassing the Tech Research stipulation.
Either way, Ironhide is an interesting little Rare card. I'm not quite sure if we'll see him out in the field thanks to his middling stats and above average cost, but in his own deck or maybe partnered with Ultra Magnus? Now you're cookin' with gas.
Contrary to popular belief, he's not much of a hugger.
Roadhugger is basically baby Thrust and I love him.
I know, I know, I said the same thing about Storm Cloud, but let's be fair here. What you lose in a single point for playing Roadhugger, you could say that you're gaining consistency. Instead of requiring you to discard three green pips (in some cases three of the same green pip), you need only to discard a single blue pip to get roughly the same value. If you consider that most of the time Bold is just +1 damage (not counting extra white pips, blanks or double orange cards), you're effectively getting the same value for a much more manageable cost.
Roadhugger, however, does require you to play blue cards in an orange deck and I am not super in love with that. However, there is a silver lining. There are cards like Matrix of Leadership or Roll Out which have one of each, as well as playing Backup Beam or Scoundrel's Blaster to have a green pipped green that doesn't really make you lose out on damage with their being weapons.
Plus, he's a Car, which means that you can untap him in a car deck rather easily to be used again (if he survives)! All in all, I think Roadhugger might replace Storm Cloud in most lists that don't care about alternate modes. In decks that want to field a lot of planes, Storm Cloud's your guy, but if you don't care about that single point and you don't mind having a car... Well, look no further.
Can we all just agree that Laserbeak was the main antagonist of DOTM?
Hey, wait a minute! Laserbeak? Where's your...? Ah, nevermind.
Laserbeak is both amazingly good and amazingly worrying at the same time. On one hand, you have Laserbeak's horrible stats in both modes. On the other, however, you get to play a "free" Secret Action during your turn as well as a little extra draw support with his neat little draw ability in alternate mode. Now, this would be even better if we knew what kind of things we could look forward to in terms of Secret Actions. But, as it stands, we have no idea other than a simple Draw + Plan card as to what we're going to have access to.
But, to be perfectly frank with you, Laserbeak was probably not meant to be played alone. Even though he actually could be competent in terms of his Secret Action engine, he's basically just a slightly worse Micromaster at that point. Why do I say this, you ask? Well, look closely: He's a Micromaster in all areas except the most important: Stealth.
On the first turn of the game, Laserbeak has a great many chances to get annihilated by any and every aggro deck you ever have the displeasure of facing. I gripe, of course; with proper blue support, you have just as many chances at survival, as well, but I can't help but to be worried about the little guy.
In closing, Laserbeak may be frail, but he brings unquestionable utility with his Secret Action ability. We don't know all of those Secret Actions, or any beyond the first to be exact, but playing free Actions never hurt anybody.
"Check out my mixtape, man, it's pretty catty!"
Ravage is surprisingly good, and he makes up for Laserbeak's less-than-stellar offensive power and bulk by being... Well, both of those things. In terms of five star cassettes, he's going to be able to take quite the beating in his alternate mode. But that's not all that this little bugger can do: In his robot mode, he can do a bit of chip damage here and there, and start pounding on some more dense targets.
I do realize that his chip damage makes him a bit lackluster in many (most) compositions, but do keep in mind that his chip damage actually turns out to be a bit useful in certain scenarios. For instance, he can turn Skrapnel into a 2HKO, and he can pop Six-Gun for one damage to negate the Force Field. Sometimes one damage is all you need, and whereas I still stand by Zap being one of the worst Actions in the game, I can still find justification for Ravage's abilities seeing as he's always there and not a constant threat of cluttering your hand.
Now, the down side. His stats are nothing to write home about other than his high defense in cassette mode, and his survivability in robot mode is actually markedly worse than Laserbeak's. In fact, Laserbeak is actually better at attacking than Ravage could ever hope to be with his innate Pierce 2, but with any luck Ravage won't need to be doing any head-on attack damage, anyway.
All in all, I think that Ravage will probably be passed up on in most compositions outside of cassettes. Laserbeak is just better value for his point cost, including the ability to deal two damage to a high-armored target through Pierce. Plus, there are just better Micromasters, including Roadhugger, in defensive lists for the same cost.
Okay but real talk: We can now have just an entire team of cats. Lionizer, Rampage, Razorclaw and now Ravage. There is literally no actual reason to have that team other than the fact that they are all cats, but like... You have an entire team of cats.
The big question is, does he have a good Constructicon matchup?
Soundwave? Wait... Soundwave? Hey, wait a minute... Where'd that cassette player go?
Oh. Well, my own blindness aside, let's peel apart the mystery and see just what Soundwave can really do!
Looking over his stats to start off, we see that he is 11 Stars -- not bad, but still not that great for having three five starred characters paired with him. But there's more to him than meets the eye. You see, he also has two abilities directly tied to another team keyword: "Spy Patrol". These are undoubtedly his cassettes (see below) and both of his abilities are equally as powerful.
First, I think I can safely state that giving passively +1 Defense to your cassettes is absolutely insane. Now, sure, your opponent is probably not going to use much effort in KOing them and instead focus on Soundwave given their high defense (especially Ravage), but it's a very interesting idea to transform Laserbeak to robot mode on the first turn and attack with Ravage, forcing them to attack into his monstrous defense. After all, Soundwave can use his robot mode the next turn to completely refund that entire transaction.
How? Well, when he attacks, he untaps your cassettes. Thus, after you've tried to punch your opponent with a literal cassette tape turn one, you can prevent Ravage or Laserbeak from being double targeted and reuse their tap abilities to boot. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but this effect is extremely powerful.
Something else that is worthy of note is that Soundwave doesn't have any innate effects to force you into playing orange or blue. Thus, I would probably say that the best way to play Soundwave is defensively so that Ravage or Laserbeak can survive their first hit, and Soundwave can get more value. This lower attack in the blue version is mitigated by Ravage being able to put out some surprising amounts of damage on heavily armored targets. Now, I realize that he's not going to be winning any awards or dominating any games, but adding on a little bit of damage on a turn where you can't or don't want to play a Secret Action with Laserbeak can't be understated.
But finally, something that I want to touch on slightly is this: Soundwave and his cassettes are entirely 21 stars. This means that, unless you wanted to play four Star Cards, you could play Storm Cloud or perhaps -- and no, the irony is not lost on me -- a Constructicon. Now, again, we don't have all the facts. Buzzsaw could be revealed tomorrow, Ratbat the next day, or perhaps Frenzy, Rumble or even Overkill. There are so many options to fill that fourth spot, but the big question I want to ask is... Just who could it be, and just what could they do?
I think I'll leave that question unanswered for now. But I for one welcome Soundwave. He might be janky, but you can't deny that his monstrous 15 HP and his cassettes' utility is not to be understated. I worry about his low damage output, but perhaps there could be Secret Actions to save him from that fate? Or perhaps a third cassette? Until we know, there's no way to tell. But that being said... I can't wait to see how Soundwave does in the meta. I think we're going to see a lot of him, jank or otherwise.
STARTER SET
So, I might have forgotten to show off the starter set when it came out, but I figured I might drop them here and share my opinions on them anyway just to get the news out there! Remember, you can buy the starter set in stores now, and it's a good start to teach people how to play the game!
Just as a disclaimer, my opinions below only reflect the constructed competitive mentality, not from a new player, casual mentality. The set is still a good start to get people into the game, but I fear that may be the only use for it.
_______
"Another one."
No.
Just say no.
There are just so many better options, like W2 Prowl, Hot Rod, Sunstreaker... Well, you get the picture. He might make a good proxy back, though!
"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was: 'Oh no, not again.' "
One day we'll get a good Windblade. One day.
So, I suppose one could make the argument that she is an Autobot Plane who also happens to cost a solid 5 Stars. Now, that's actually quite something, isn't it? Of course, we could try putting her in a five-wide Autobot Plane list, essentially cutting Alpha Bravo from the Aerialbots and making a passing attempt at pulling off the fabled Photon Bomb + Bombing Run combo with five Planes in play. Of course, it's hard enough to pull that off with the Aerialbots on the regular that I daresay that it wouldn't be any easier taking out one of the Aerialbots -- a Specialist at that -- and replacing him with someone who is essentially a vanilla.
To make matters worse, Aerialbots get a lot of power out of Superion, especially on the turn of combination.
I just can't imagine her in anything else, and it sucks because I do love Windblade as a character. Hopefully, one day, she'll have her moment in the sun; but for now, it looks like she'll just have to keep having her moment in the tsun tsun.
Remind me to never make that pun ever again.
"Big things from small beginnings..."
Megatron might actually have some potential. Think about this: Demolishor has 6 points. Flak has 5. Warpath has 6. Those tanks total 17 points, and you know what that means? You can fit a fourth Tank in that list.
Now, quad tanks might be lacking in quite a bit of defensive power, but consider for a moment the idea of running offensive tanks, with Demolishor being the mainstay. You can Hunker Down your whole field with Force Field as well as Bashing Shields to make your life easier, and your spare Armor could be Scrapper Gauntlets to draw even more cards than you already will with Demolishor. You can even play a Full Loadout with your spare Star to make Demolishor hit even harder.
And, backing him up, is Megatron. Megatron can be used in tandem with Full Loadout, Attack Drones or Flak to boost his damage to similar levels that Thundercracker has. Megatron can boost his damage to startlingly high levels for his point cost when you crank out several Upgrades at once.
The Bold in his vehicle mode won't do you much good, sadly, given his measly 2 Attack. But, at least he is a tank. Demolishor couldn't be happier for it.
But, that being said, I could also see playing him alongside Megatron -- Living Weapon. You can use Living Weapon's alternate mode to boost Baby Megatron's damage, with the two Upgrades from that alone boosting his attack to a very respectable 5, not counting the weapons. Plus, you can use Flak to put a third Upgrade on him, boosting his damage to 6, still not counting the Weapons. Fully stocking him with Upgrades certainly sounds nice, though I do worry for his staying power given his mediocre stats otherwise -- I mean, it always sucks to put all of your eggs in one basket; sucks even more to do it twice. But, he might just have the power necessary to have the payoff.
In total, Megatron alone might make this set purchaseable. He can be used as a nice backup attacker, something similar to Baby Buzzwole in the Pokemon TCG in many fighting decks. Good as a one-and-done, but has diminishing returns. Whether he's in as a fourth member to a Tank list or as a backup to someone double his size, Megatron has a lot of value in a little package.
Same song, second verse.
Starscream might have potential. Stop laughing, I'm serious.
Okay, so, remember when I talked about how Megatron could fit into a quad list? Or Windblade in a five-wide? You could say the same thing about Starscream, here, except he has something extremely powerful going for him that Windblade doesn't have, and that Megatron can't take advantage of in the same way:
His name is Starscream.
So if you remember, way, way, way in the past -- around September -- you might remember a Starscream being released that had Bold 2 innately, but more importantly had a very special vehicle mode ability tied to how many Planes you had on the field. Now, back then, the Planes list was something of a misfire. Starscream loved having Planes, but he couldn't get the right planes.
Thundercracker just didn't belong in the list despite his vehicle ability, and Skywarp was... Well, W1 Skywarp was W1 Skywarp. Thus, Starscream rather fell into the wayside for other lists. I still tried to keep the dream alive with more and more variations, but all fell rather flat on their faces.
So, then, how does Baby Starscream help with that?
Well, for one, he has five stars. This means you can play Starscream -- Air Commander at 11 stars, Starscream -- Decepticon Lieutenant at 5, Storm Cloud at 4 and Fireflight at 5 to round off the list with a solid Brave effect to keep both Starscream safe. This means you have four Planes on the field, which means you can use Starscream -- Air Commander's vehicle mode effect to its fullest potential of a good three damage. I don't think you'll be progressing too hard in the direct damage route for this build, though, and that's for good reason.
Reason being, you now have two Starscream in the list. Meaning, you can make full use of Null Ray of Starscream to add a whole mess of damage to Air Commander as well as making Baby Starscream's competent four attack an astonishing 5 base with Bold 2 stacked on. Just imagine Storm Cloud getting involved in that mess with his Bold effect, too!
Now, I realize Baby Starscream is about as frail as one can be, likely being in an all orange list to make your Bold deal the most it can, and his Tough 1 can't make his 7 HP last through a soul-shattering 0 Defense. But that being said, you will likely get a lot of value out of him before he falls, potentially one-hitting many threats out there.
Don't mark this guy up to binder bait just yet. I think he might just have a bright future ahead of him.
BATTLE CARDS
Shortly thereafter, Optimus put together an " Avoiding Sexual Harassment Class", to which Wheeljack was invited.
Full Loadout is kind of nutty. Not only is it a double orange pip -- a blessing in aggro decks with one star to spare -- but it has an effect that is quite ridiculous in many decks.
So, I want you to imagine something. You're sitting there across from a Megatron -- Cybertronian Tyrant and you just went first. You think that your Battlefield Legend is safe, and you decide to swing into their Warpath with just enough to KO them. Not a bad start, and Megatron is too slow to possibly get up enough Upgrades to threaten you on the first turn of th-- Surprise! He is completely powered up with three Upgrades, boosting his damage to 6 base plus a Grenade Launcher and his level of damage and survivability go through the roof with his Force Field and Data Pad.
Battlefield Legend is nearly one-hit out of nowhere.
Now, the effects of Full Loadout are a bit amplified on my cherrypicked Baby Megatron scenario, but playing three Upgrades for essentially free should not be understated in its usefulness, especially if it's on a double orange pip. Now, again, you need to have the Weapon, Utility and Armor in your hand in order to get the full effect of its power and that means you're highly unlikely to get it off on the first turn of the game. But, later on, you can get some shocking comebacks by exploding upgrades on a character out of nowhere.
As for which is better between Mounted Missiles or Full Loadout, I think that should be fairly obvious. Mounted Missiles is neat, but they've never had that powerful burst that you really need to justify playing them on your turn. Sure, you can play it in a Utility or Armor slot, but really, wouldn't you rather just play a regular weapon? Or rather, wouldn't you rather play a Weapon, a Utility and an Armor?
Just saying.
Everyone at the ice cream eating contest was quite confident until the third bowl produced some unforeseen consequences.
This card is lying to you.
EMP Wave taps all characters, both yours and your opponents. So, what happens when all characters are tapped? Everyone untaps. This means that you are untapping all characters on the field going into your opponent's next turn, effectively giving them their choice of whomever they want to attack on their turn. You don't get to attack with one of your characters -- instead, you're forfeiting that last attack to tap everyone.
Now, there is actually merit to doing so if you happen to be behind in the character trade or the untap game. If, say, you face cars and they're -- per usual -- more or less completely untapped during the turn where you would be completely tapped out, you could potentially play an EMP Wave to negate your opponent's trademark Car Dogpile where they get to attack you with all of their characters.
But, to be perfectly frank, is that worth the star? Maybe. I don't really like Energized Field that much, especially given that it flat out begs you to play orange cards in a blue deck, and EMP Wave's limited use is probably better than Energized Field's practical disuse. Regardless, it's an interesting card. Whether or not it'll see play for its effect or just its pip still remains to be seen, but I think we'll probably see it over Energized Field regardless.
Gives a whole new meaning to getting a "Ram Truck".
Battering Ram is not the best at everything, but it does its job very, very well. Now, you might be asking, "Hey, what is that job, exactly?" and that is a good question, and I'm afraid it has a simple answer.
Combiners hate Battering Ram because they really, really like being able to combine during a game. Battering Ram not only slows Combiners down to a crawl, but in some cases outright denies combination in general. I mean, think about it. Every time you attack with your truck, you keep undoing their hard-earned flips and it stalls their combiner for another turn.
Wasting turns combining is the kiss of death for many Combiners, and I can definitely see running Battering Ram for the combiner mirror in many decks. Take Stunticons, for instance, who have two Trucks that can use Battering Ram, with Motormaster being effectively unpunishable in his robot mode. You could also say the same for a control-based Sentinel list, though that is played to a lesser degree.
Battering Ram, however, can also be something of a double-edged sword. Take, for example, Metroplex. People love giving Metroplex a seizure and flipping him multiple times in a turn. With Battering Ram, you effectively give them a free transformation into Base mode, spitting out another one of his smaller characters.
This isn't the only case, either. Like, for instance, Megatron -- Arrogant Ruler can play a free Upgrade when Battering Ram swings into him, or returning a non-pipped card from your Scrap to your hand in terms of Skywarp. A double-edged sword, it is.
But, honestly? I think Battering Ram's usefulness against Combiners more than makes up for its peculiarity against other lists to include it in any Truck-based deck. I could even see a case for it in non-traditional "Truck" decks, like Nemesis Prime. After all, slowing your opponent down is something that Nemesis will always enjoy.
"Yes. My perfect plan. The virus will be on the computer, and the only clue they'll have to the infection is the giant Decepticon logo on the background! I am a genius!"
Device Virus is coming from fellow content creator "TCG Roll Out!" on Twitter, and I have to say, Device Virus is probably the best black-pipped Action we have by a large margin. Everything else is either split colors with a black pip with a lackluster card effect when you play it, but Device Virus is different.
It's basically Super Energy Removal, something you'll remember if you played Pokemon during the fledgling years. Of course, there's a big difference between Energy and Upgrades, but it's pretty much the same effect. But, when you realize that you can combo Device Virus with other Upgrades, things start getting a little interesting.
You see, Device Virus has the potential to remove three Armor cards in one turn when used in tandem with Bashing Shield. You can play a Bashing Shield, scrap an Armor, then Device Virus the Bashing Shield to scrap two more Armor. You could say the same about Weapons with Enforcement Batons or Utilities with Crushing Size.
Of course, such an effect necessitates playing all of those things, so it really depends on what your deck looks like and what matchups you want to beat with it. But, if you're afraid of decks like Predacons which bust out the Upgrades -- usually weapons -- quickly, especially when combined, Device Virus might be for you.
At the end of the day, though, it's a black pip and we still have yet to see how good it is in a blue/black or mono black deck. But, if the black pips we have yet to see are anything like Device Virus, I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of them in lists.
"Thinking quickly, Wheeljack constructs a homemade megaphone using only some string, a squirrel and a megaphone."
Repurpose is the only black draw card we've seen thus far, and I can't mention too much about it because it's nothing too much to write home about. It's a very basic cycling card that replaces itself and one other card in your hand with the top two cards of your deck, essentially.
It's a black pipped card that also happens to draw cards. I mean, in a black deck, do you really want too much else out of it? Let's be fair here. You won't play it in any other deck that doesn't play black pips, but if you play black, then you'll be needing this.
CONCLUSION
Can I just say this?
Soundwave.
That is all.
But in all seriousness, I can't wait to see how Soundwave will be playing out in this meta. Perhaps more than that, I can't wait to see how his cassettes will fare under stress. The whole composition just seems a bit frail from my perspective, but I haven't really touched it in physical form (yet) and I suppose we won't find out for sure how good he is until we see him in action.
The other characters aren't too much to write home about save the Ironhide. Being able to dance Armed Hovercraft makes me happy, and having an effective autowin against Red Heat Infinite is a brilliant thing to have just as an alternate mode.
As for his female compatriots, Focus is an interesting new mechanic, as well. I think, if we get effects for high Focus, we may very well see balanced decks other than Metroplex make a comeback in the game. Until then, however, just give me Bold and call it a day, hm?
As for the Battle Cards, there were a ton of reveals. I can't say that some of them were overtly good or overtly bad, but I can definitely say that many of them had a ton of potential like Device Virus.
What did you like the most? Roadhugger? Soundwave? W2 Starter Bumblebee? Maybe not that last one. Let me know in the comments below, and as always, thanks for reading! If you want to check out more of my content, go to my YouTube Channel, Nanomachines, where I do deck profiles and other competitive content.
You never know... Something interesting might happen there in the next few days. Who knows?
While we revealed [url=h]the two newest Combiners to hit the Official Transformers Trading Card Game yesterday[/url], today we have some new (and old) characters getting in on the action! These come couresty of contributor and fellow Seibertron user, #Sideways#, who also provides in-depth analysis of these and Superion and Devesator.
Without further ado, over to you #Sideways#!
______________________
"For you, the day Devastator destroyed your village was the most important day of your life. But for me? It was Tuesday."
There is a massive amount of news to go over this time, including TWO new Combiner teams, but even more than that we have some extremely exciting news!
First off, let's get to the thing that I know a lot of people are awaiting news on: Competitive. You heard me right, we have a bit of news on that front. Before, the brand managers have been extremely open about having zero plans for tournament support, but as of a surprisingly under-the-radar podcast/interview with Drew Nolosco, we now have a revelation in the fact that they are currently working for support down the line! In fact, most recently, local game stores have been finding a reporting system to register players for Transformers at their stores to keep track of active players.
Why would they do that if they weren't going to make Competitive? Drew was tight-lipped on specifics, and stated that "large tournaments with large prize support is more of a convention thing", but noticeably avoided discussion of Friday Night Magic-esque tournaments. This means that they are at least considering the possibility, which is lightyears more than having no plans for competitive at all.
The podcast as a whole was a good peek into the mindset of the developers, and is a good watch if you're interested. Drew mentions Soundwave and how he was meant to come out in this set, but that his playstyle (shockingly not mentioned as a "deployer" like Metroplex) was discordant with Rise of the Combiners, where he will be pushed back to a later date even though Drew himself is a massive fan of Soundwave.
Drew also mentioned directly that "you guys haven't even seen triple-changers yet" when talking about the contents of Rise of the Combiners, which confirms that we will be seeing them in this set! I, for one, cannot wait to find out who they will be. Blitzwing, anyone?
Speaking of upcoming characters, let's dive right in to the massive roster that was revealed!
__________CHARACTERS__________
"I... See... Stars...!"
Bombshell is coming out of another reveal from VectorSigma.info, and I couldn't be more confused at whether or not this card is good. I mean, I don't really think it will be meta, but I think it will be as niche as Cosmos is right now. Cosmos is actually a fantastic simile, as both live and die based on their teammates that support them and how their abilities pop off. Bombshell has absolutely abysmal offensive and defensive stats but an HP that makes me swoon, and he even has a draw ability in his alternate mode.
But the real Cosmos comparison comes from his robot mode ability, which has the capability to KO literally every character in the game in one hit. Of course, one-hitting Optimus Maximus is about as feasible as getting the Pope to do the Fortnite default dance, but KOing smaller characters like Skrapnel, Thrust and even Optimus Prime? Well... That's a bit more doable.
So, what exactly does he do and how can you facilitate that effect? By discarding as many cards as you like from your hand, if you discard an equal amount of cards as your defender's stars, they are instantly KO'd. This means that your hand becomes a valuable resource, which makes playing cards from your hand even less of a good idea than in other, similar hand-based builds like Sunstorm. Your entire team has to facilitate hand growth to hit those magical numbers, and it's a fascinating prospect to think about.
There are a few partners for him, including Chop Shop and Skrapnel for a fascinating defensive Insecticon concept, but that's just theorycraft for the moment.
Now, it's hard to appreciate the amount of effort it takes to get to 13 stars -- let alone 25 in the case of Combiners and Metroplex -- especially in a game like Transformers where draw is few and low in number, so the feasibility of pulling off large discarding attacks with Bombshell will forever be in the realm of variance. Some days you hit all of your Data Bank and you draw half your deck, but other days you don't draw any of them. It's always a coin flip, I find, when it comes to hand-based decks like this, and it's unfortunate considering how interesting their playstyles are.
Although, that being said, he is a Specialist, and being able to play multiple Equipment Enthusiast or Treasure Hunt in a turn via Multi-Mission Gear or Field Communicator is always a good thing. To what end in the realm of interplay remains to be seen, but I can't help but thinking that it's all pie in the sky.
Trust me, I've been trying to get Sunstorm to work since he was first seen as a blurry picture from Gamestop. High numbers are usually a pipe dream. But smaller numbers, like 8, for instance, is actually surprisingly doable. That alone makes him better than Cosmos, in my opinion, and the two share the same point cost. Being able to KO smaller characters without the massive setup requirement from Cosmos makes Bombshell's matchups against Combiners and Insecticons way better than Cosmos' ever could be, and having the eventual option -- albeit an unlikely one -- to be able to KO Battlefield Legend Optimus Prime automatically makes him better than Cosmos, who cannot no matter what.
Of course, this is all theorycraft. I could simply be talking out of my exhaust pipes here -- Bombshell could be really good, or he could be simply be a nice thought. I'm leaning toward the latter.
What is a worm to a man? What is a man to a king? What is a king to a god?
A mech known for his bad comedy routines rivaling that of modern day Saturday Night Live, Starscream is the second Super Rare Transformer coming out of Rise of the Combiners and goodness me, this guy is actually kind of insane.
Before we get into why, let's go into his stats as I try to justify his 13 Point cost to you. Firstly, his high HP makes me happy as most Planes have been known to be rather frail, but the real juice comes from his high attack stats in both modes. You won't be attacking in vehicle mode, though, because his robot mode has one of the most powerful damage boosting abilities I have seen in this game thus far.
High praise, I know, but let me explain.
So, if you recall, Decepticon Crown is a Utility that has a green and white pip. Its effects are slightly lackluster, though sometimes being able to Plan on anyone is better than not being to Plan at all, but it was an interesting card that made certain decks happy to play it. Not an extremely noteworthy card, to be frank, but a pleasant one to consider for certain lists.
But what other decks might find less than useful, Starscream finds as his life-blood. You see, whenever you flip a Decepticon Crown when attacking or defending, you gain a stat boost of +3 in both attack and defense stats. That's fantastic when you consider that he starts out at 6, and when you boost to 9, you are going to start seeing a lot of value coming out of him when he hits some ridiculous numbers through the use of Null Ray orange pips. But that's not all -- he's also going to be a bugger to take down thanks to a potential 4 defense. Sure, you aren't going to be able to find a Crown each defense, but you will if you try and help him along with some Reinforced Plating or perhaps some Evasive Maneuvers.
But that's not the best part. Since you can use the Crown's green pip, you can use one of many Plan effects to return it to the top of the deck to use again, practically permanently boosting your offensive stats. In fact, if we happen to have an Armor that has a Plan effect, you can practically stay at four defense indefinitely, but that's just speculation.
But most of all? You can potentially hit multiple of these off larger Bold flips, making his damage skyrocket to even higher ludicrous numbers. But you might be saying, "Won't that discard the other Crown?" and you would be right, but when you Transform Starscream into vehicle mode during his down time, you get to return a card with the keyword "Plan" to your hand -- which includes the Crown!
Something else that I would like to point out is that you can also return Mining Pick and certain Action cards, as well, making the ability to put a Crown on the top of the deck that much easier. I shudder to think about using Plan 2 on a Mining Pick to put two Crown on top of the deck.
All in all, I would be extremely surprised if Starscream didn't become a mainstay in the meta almost instantly. The amount of combos you can pull off with the potential partners is actually insane, and I can't wait to see where he'll end up next. Let's just hope it won't be a pile of ash on the floor.
"We all sang Dirges in the Dark / The day that music died"
Dirge (revealed HERE) is really, really niche and if not that then
he's really, really terrible. The problem with him is that he requires his opponents to be nearly dead in order to get value. Sure, you can play him with Thrust to maybe make a magic number or two, but wouldn't you just rather just one-hit them? Or play a Car, who can untap and deal markedly more damage than Dirge?
But that's the thing, right? His effect of untapping himself is too weak of an effect to justify basing your strategy on that. But the problem is, his vehicle mode ability is only good against combiners and only then before they Combine.
Dirge is unfortunately not the best, and that's a shame. But it makes me wonder if we're about to see an 8 Star Ramjet in this set. I don't know if the set numbers allow for that, but it would be interesting if Ramjet allowed some interesting plays with his other conehead brethren.
"To compensate for the nosecone, we made the Droop Snoot."
"A 'Droop Snoot'?"
"The snoot drooped."
Did I mention that we have Aerialbots? Because we have Aerialbots.
So Silverbolt is the leader of the Aerialbots, and we already see a bit of what they're going for in terms of win condition: Direct damage. You see, Planes have always been about the non-attack damage as part of their archetype. Armed Hovercraft, Photon Bomb, Thundercracker, Starscream, Slipstream, Bombing Run... They all deal damage to their opponent before they attack. The same is true here with the Aerialbots and that will become evident as we go through them together.
See, Silverbolt is actually one of the weakest of the bunch in terms of both attack value and defensive potential, but he makes up for that with being able to supplement other attacks and your amount of spread damage that you'll be doing.
Now, his vehicle mode ability is actually one of my least favorite for this team. In any other team being able to get an extra transformation seems utterly fantastic, but when you consider that the Aerialbots will actually be a primarily defensive team, you realize that playing orange-pipped cards in your list will become more of a liability. Of course, you could always play Roll Out or the Matrix of Leadership to attempt to give options to Silverbolt, I find it's better all around to build a list for consistency. Of course, a balanced list might end up working -- but I push back at that given what Superion actually does and how much damage you can do through your Actions and Upgrades.
Silverbolt, if you build a balanced list, will definitely benefit your combination speed, but in a purely defensive list he can also be transformed outside of combat to supplement someone else's attack which -- in my opinion -- is for the best. This might change, of course, but I honestly do believe that defense is the best way to play Aerialbots from the get-go.
Why? Well, that's for a few reasons. Such as...
"Take my love / Take my land / Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care / I'm still free / You can't take the sky from me."
I find that Combiners with someone that has Brave are instantly all the better for it. Certain lists like Devastator and Stunticons are incredibly weak to being attacked on the first turn of the game for massive damage to their important combiner parts, and an early (albeit lucky) KO would mean a severe handicap throughout the remainder of the game.
Predacons and Aerialbots both have a built-in remedy to this problem in Headstrong and now Fireflight, who have built-in Brave in their vehicle modes. This is so, so good for the consistency of the list as it forces your opponent not just to waste one attack, but potentially two attacks on the Brave character. In Predacons that usually means that they lose the game because you get more attacks than them, but in this one, it means you have more ammunition to use with Bombing Run and you have more power in Fireflight's offensive capabilities.
Sure, his stats are low -- but if you're playing all blue, your opponent will have a tough time KOing this guy on the first turn of the game. Whereas his robot mode ability seems lackluster, and it is, but being able to use Piercing Blaster or Noble's Blaster on him turns him into some good chip damage once he's used up his usefulness.
Something that's perhaps even better than that is that it makes your Predacon matchup much better, since Razorclaw won't have the option to KO a defenseless untapped character like he normally could because Fireflight is on the field with Brave. In this matchup and in similar matchups like Cars with the SR Bumblebee, it's best to leave him untransformed if your opponent might be gearing up for some untapped KO plays.
Being that he is a Plane and five stars, you can also splash him in certain Plane lists to take the heat off your more important Planes. He won't be making any big plays, but his presence on the battlefield shouldn't be discounted when considering building any Plane list. Whereas it's likely better to simply take Acid Storm and beat Dinobots more or less outright, it's an interesting thought to play Fireflight to abuse that Brave ability in certain lists. Food for thought.
"Yeah. Uh huh. / You know what it is.
Black and yellow. / Black and yellow.
Black and yellow. / Black and yellow."
Skydive is my favorite Aerialbot, and I'm not just talking about this archetype. Back in the mystical era of 2007, I had this DS game for the Transformers movie and I loved it dearly. It was a big sandbox in most regards, with story-based missions to fight Decepticons, blow up "robot" tanks and romp around a wide-spread city-scape, climbing around buildings and suburbs. It had some great G1 voice talent in it, but it also had the best voice for Barricade in anything ever and you cannot fight me on this. Keith David is not only the Arbiter from Halo, but his silky tones just made Barricade the best.
Anyway, your self-insert character had a final form, and that final form was "G1" Skydive in the Autobot version where the Decepticon game had "G1" Starscream. He was the only jet that the Autobot game had, and he was basically my favorite from then on. He still is my favorite Aerialbot, and this game changes very little about that opinion.
Why? Well, his stats aren't anything to write home about, and his Specialist nature -- whereas that makes me extremely happy to see in any archetype because of their utility -- isn't exactly special given the next character we're going over, but the fact that he has built in Tough 2 is actually insane. You're going to be playing a lot of Armor in this list, including Reinforced Plating, and that will quickly boost him to Tough 4 and that makes him withstand a ton of punishment right off the bat.
Skydive also has the ability to heal off an Aerialbot, but that doesn't really matter all that much given Bombing Run already does that for you and you'll want him to stay in his vehicle mode given his high levels of Tough.
Of course, given that he is a Specialist, you have access to Multi-Mission Gear and Field Communicator both, and in this archetype having that Specialist support is impressive given that you can use Photon Bomb and Bombing Run in the same turn, moving four damage counters from your characters to one of your oppponent's. In fact, so long as we're talking about Narnia and other impossible things, if you Brainstorm a Photon Bomb and you happen to have two Bombing Run in your hand with a Multi-Mission Gear, you can deal 10 damage in total to an opponent's character without attacking (2 from Photon Bomb, 4 from one Bombing Run and 4 from the other).
Skydive definitely won't be played outside of Aerialbots, but being a tough Specialist means you're almost definitely going to get the Specialist value out of him during the game. Plus, when your opponent two-hits your Combiner pieces, your opponent is automatically in a bad spot since they're putting so much effort into KOing one of five others. It's just a poor trade and you'll eventually come out on top in that value, at least that's the hope.
Now, you might be wondering why I say that you're only going to be getting four damage out of Bombing Run at maximum. It could be that I'm simply thinking about your opponent being able to KO Fireflight, but that isn't the case -- I'm actually thinking about how one of your Aerialbots isn't even a plane at all.
You'd think they would eventually stop snubbing my boy Slingshot, but maybe they don't want to dredge up memories of Carbombya.
Hey, a helicopter! Fascinatingly, this is the first Helicopter we've seen out of this game, and that's a good thing! It means that the potential for him, Blades, Vortex and Springer to potentially get support is pretty high, and that makes me happy. The rest about him is pretty lackluster, if I am to be perfectly honest.
Alpha Bravo is another Specialist, which is definitely a good thing, and it almost confirms you'll be getting the 'ol Multi-Mission Gear combo off sometime during the game, but the rest about him is a little underwhelming. First off, he does chip damage to opposing Planes which can definitely backfire given Planes' damage moving abilities, and his stats are pretty abysmal.
Something that is worthy of note is his Pierce is actually really good, and can combo with Energon Axe to give him an unblockable Pierce 5. That's great, and since you'll be using Photon Bomb to set up some Bombing Run plays, Alpha Bravo will be damaged enough to use it almost off the bat. Whereas this is a small victory for the Little Helicopter That Could, the rest of his kit can really only be useful against opposing Aerialbots where that single damage will be meaningful to their -- and by extension, your -- low health pools.
He can also be used as a counterpick against Aerialbots if they become a big part of the metagame. You run the risk of powering up their Bombing Runs a bit, but hopefully with him on a standard, non-Combiner list you can definitely have the offensive power to capitalize on the weakened states of the Aerialbots. It's an interesting thought to think, and I can definitely see him teched in to certain lists for that reason alone. It remains to be seen if Aerialbots will take over the metagame, as with any new card reveal, but it is nice to know that Alpha Bravo will be there just in case they do.
Vanilla spice.
Air Raid is kind of that guy you send into combat with a smile and a "good luck" because deep down you know you'll never see him again. This guy is going to get dumpstered by everything. He'll hit pretty hard, sure, but with zero defense he'd be extremely lucky to make it out intact. Naturally, you can improve his defensive capabilities with your Armor cards, but I wouldn't waste my resources on that aspect to his kit. I would be much more likely to attack with him with a weapon like an Energon Axe to get the most value out of him as possible before he inevitably goes down.
Fireflight also makes him more survivable if (likely when in some cases) he survives your opponent swinging at him if you went first. Air Raid can survive attacking, yes, but it just isn't likely enough to warrant too much defensive resources being used on him. That being said, offensive resources is something that our boy in black can use to the fullest extent. With a Leap Into Battle and a Noble's Blaster on him, it boosts his damage to a healthy 9. With the setup damage you've been (hopefully) doing through Armed Hovercraft, Photon Bomb and Bombing Run at this point, 9 becomes a massive threat to a lot of characters.
You're going to be using him to trade KOs more than likely, and that's definitely fine in my book. On top of that, you get to scrap an Upgrade when you damage your opponent. I am unsure if that means that Force Field will be scrapped before it takes effect, but it's an interesting note if it does which opens up even more options.
From the start of this, you might have thought that I was going to be talking extremely negatively of Air Raid. You couldn't be farther from the truth -- whereas he will be instantly vaporized by your opponents, the best part about his kit is that he capitalizes on the damage you set up, and he even scraps an Upgrade while he's at it. This is a great card, to be honest, and he adds in a good level of punch into the mid to late game for the Aerialbots, though I wouldn't expect much longevity from him.
In other lists, Air Raid can also be used as an Upgrade scrapping character, but there are better options to take care of those. He won't serve you better than -- say -- Flamewar, Alpha Bravo, Arcee, Torox or even Headstrong/Fireflight, but as a five star tech in certain lists, he could be used somewhat effectively to scrap certain upgrades before your larger characters swing. He can be useful, which is more than most other combiner pieces can say.
"I am not Ultron; I am not J.A.R.V.I.S.; I am... I am."
Superion is freaking insane. He's huge, bulky and he is one of the most defensively inclined Combiners in the game. With a built-in Tough 2, you can plop an Armor on this guy and he becomes an even bigger version of Skydive. More than that, you can target three damage on an opponent when you combine, potentially finishing off a KO after the setup damage you've done over the course of the game.
In fact, you can transform Silverbolt last, using his damage ability to compound with Superion's, dealing 4 damage instead. Then, you get to use an Armed Hovercraft and spread even more damage -- a total of five on one character in one turn. After that big turn of non-attack damage, you get to double down and attack with an albeit middling attack stat, but with Pierce he confirms at least three more damage on a character.
Superion can one-hit Skrapnel with that damage. With four damage from simply combining and transforming Silverbolt, then following up with Superion's attack, you can clean out a completely fresh Skrapnel who is a known harasser of Combiners thanks to his damage mitigation ability.
But beyond that, you do have Bold 1, but I wouldn't pay too much mind to it unless you're playing balanced. It's a bad idea to go full Orange with this guy just because of that one instance of Bold. Whereas it might get you somewhere against non-defensive lists, you're going to be ramming your head against a wall if you face an all-defensive list.
With his Pierce 3, you can even use a Noble's Blaster, Piercing Blaster or Energon Axe to boost it to even larger numbers of Pierce to make him threaten even defensive lists. That, combined with the fact that he's incredibly hard to take down with his Tough Stacking, your opponent is going to be on a clock when facing him.
The only problem I see is that Bombing Run really necessitates using your Planes in vehicle mode, and combining requires all of them in robot mode. It's unfortunate that the two discord, but when you realize that certain matchups necessitate not combining, it becomes an option and not a strategy. Most Combiners want to combine as soon as possible, but in this case, I can't say one way or another. Superion is a beast, yes, but sometimes just using Bombing Run is just better.
It's up to you whether or not you want to combine, but I find that having the option to combine into someone as beefy as Superion is almost never a bad thing. I could be wrong here; I never said that I'm always right -- in fact, I once said that Metoplex was terrible, but he ended up being a top deck. Theorycrafting this guy, however, has simply brought me to the conclusion that he's mostly an option, not an end-goal. But, it cannot be ignored that having Tough 4 with a Reinforced Plating is extremely powerful when you use him to finish off your early game set up damage.
Aerialbots really seem to be a great archetype in my opinion, and it feels like he will swoop down on the unsuspecting like a vast predatory bird. I can't wait to see if I'm right.
Four Man Foreman for man, man!
Scrapper isn't too much to write home about in the stat territory, but he has a ton of usefulness with the exclusive mechanic to the Constructicons, the "Tower" card. We have no idea what this looks like -- or if it will look like anything at all, to be frank -- but we do know that his robot ability will facilitate its growth from even the KO pile. This makes it easy to grow your tower even if Scrapper gets KO'd on the first turn of the game, for instance, by a Battlefield Legend Optimus Prime or a very angry Insecticon.
Scrapper also has one of the highest HP from his comrades, so it's best to keep either him or Hook alive as long as possible before you combine into Devastator. But before you do, there are a few things to note:
Every character other than Scrapper grows your Tower the same way, by attacking in their vehicle mode. Scrapper combos that by allowing them to be KO'd, building your Tower even higher. More than that, you can even use I STILL FUNCTION! to "force" your Tower higher by KOing one of your Constructicons again after using them to attack from the grave. Scrapper doesn't value the lives of his workers at all, and when you see the final result in Devastator, you'll see why.
The general strategy for the Constructicons is to attack with three Constructicons in vehicle form while transforming three others to robot mode, then attacking with the rest while transforming the KO'd three. This allows you to pretty much always get Devastator off at a rather tall tower, coming in at 8 when only Scrapper remains. Any plays with I STILL FUNCTION! before hand can give you more wiggle room in terms of robot mode attacks, and it also builds your tower taller since it triggers Scrapper's effect a second time.
So, speaking of these composite parts, just what am I talking about when it comes to their Tower building effects?
Think he makes a good martini?
Mixmaster is extremely expendable. His vanilla robot mode with zero changes to his stats make him a perfect candidate for a first attack role, with his vehicle mode ability building your Tower even higher. Then he dies. Simple as that. He's a small guy, and he will do a mediocre amount of damage, but with an all orange build with a weapon, he can do some considerable numbers, especially five other guys following suit. He's also four stars, which is the same for all other members of this team other than Scrapper, which means that they could be used as a better point filler than Metroplex's deployers. Food for thought.
Other than that... Well, he's just kinda vanilla. Not much else to say about him.
Something about expendable?
Don't believe his lies -- he's not Tough at all. You might say that allowing him to take a hit in robot mode allows you to dig deeper in your deck for your Enigma, but that's what I like to call being wrong. You have five other attacks, not even counting Supercharge, Flamethrower and white pips -- you're going to hit your Enigma.
Something worthy of note is that he -- like all but Bonecrusher -- has above 4 HP, which means you can continue to offset your opponents offensive power by putting a Force Field on him to save his life. It's almost always a good thing to do in a Combiner list, and having multiple living Constructicons at the time of Combination is always a good thing.
But other than that, just swing with him in his vehicle mode and be done.
THE CROTCH MAN COMETH
You'd think with the run of bad luck Long Haul has, he would have gotten another short end of a stick, but in this case, he's one of the best members of the team. Since he has an innate Bold 1 in his Robot Mode, you can stack that with Flamethrower and Supercharge to do a massive amount of damage to unsuspecting foes.
Long Haul is one of three characters you will be wanting to put into Robot Mode when they are alive, and you would be severely missing out if you allowed yourself to attack with his vehicle mode. He deals so much damage considering the power level of his comrade that, with his other comrades having attacked before him, he can more than likely eliminate weakened threats rather easily.
But, again, he won't be living through it unless you have a Force Field, but that's to be expected. More fuel for the fire, or rather, the Tower.
"BOOOONE SAW'S READY!"
Bone Sa-- Bonecrusher I mean is another one of your team you'll have in Robot Mode at the start of the game. He's especially useful against high defense teams with his Pierce 2, but Long Haul remains the king of damage in that regard. He has his uses, but sadly, his death is all but confirmed thanks to his dismal 4 HP. Not even a Force Field can save him from himself.
But, that's not why you play him, after all. Fuel for the Tower!
"The hooks, boyo! The hooks!"
Hook is the only Ranged member of this crew, but it matters little. You won't be doing too many things with that, but it does mean that Thundercracker can't place damage on you. He has that going for him, but the rest of him screams "backline" with his zero defense and abysmal damage stats.
Sure, dealing Pierce is good, but one Pierce? Yikes.
But the good news is that he has 7 HP, which means you can save even more HP for Devastator when you combine, and believe me, you'll need it.
"I am fire. I am death."
Devastator is a freaking huge boy who only gets bigger. You were wondering why we were building that tower? How does dealing 10 damage sound? How does healing 10 damage sound? Sound nutty? You'd be right.
Simply playing the deck out without any I STILL FUNCTION! or Rapid Conversion to speed up your Combination allows you to come into 8 total Tower points, healing him by 8 and giving him Bold 2. That is why it is so important to use I STILL FUNCTION! to get higher Tower early, to heal off more damage and to put him at a towering 10 attack base.
As you have Scrapper or Hook as the last member of your team alive, you can Combine and heal off 8 damage, putting your HP at 15. A 15 HP Combiner off the bat! That is extremely impressive. If you manage to build up to a 10 tall Tower, you have access to a 17 HP titan of a mech.
It is here where you can claim some real damage out of him, potentially one-hitting some of the largest characters in the game by brute force alone. At an average 8, you have Bold 2, and with a Flamethrower or Power Punch (look in the Battle Card section), you can put that to much higher Bold numbers and much higher damage numbers. If you have ten attack, it's staggeringly powerful from there, too.
But the best part about him is that your opponent will almost definitely not be able to retaliate. For instance, if you swing at the same guy all game with your Constructicons, you will inevitably KO it before you Combine. Then, you Combine into Devastator and likely one-hit another character, leaving your opponent with likely one character that will likely never burn through your 15 HP and two defense. At that point, their defeat is not a question -- it's an inevitability.
That being said, Aerialbots kind of eat him alive. You dominate regular lists in certain regards, but when they start putting damage on you without attacking, you get a little scared. Aerialbots can one-hit most of your characters by chaining Photon Bombs and Armed Hovercraft, and there is very little if anything you can do to stop them from doing that. That matchup seems pretty unwinnable, but Aerialbots are unproven in the meta anyway, so you never know if they won't fall through the cracks.
But Devastator? I honestly don't think he will. I honestly believe that Devastator is a strong archetype that should not be underestimated. From my experience, it's a scary thing to face down a Combiner, an inevitable end in certain cases. I really hope Devastator lives up to my hype for him. After all, he's the best Combiner character, anyway. I mean, who else can pull off lime green and purple?
__________BATTLE CARDS__________
Hey, an Enigma!
Hey, look, it's a card that does something! To be perfectly honest, it's best not to have too many Enigma in a list, but in Devastator I might make an exception. This card, after Combination, can finish off your Tower and potentially put you at 10 to practically win the game. Unfortunately, you can't recombine Devastator to get that healing effect again, but honestly, at 10 attack, there isn't too much else you need.
But other than that, it's an Enigma. What else do you need it to do?
Hey, an Enigma!
Hey, look, it's a card that does less things! This card can help you finish off some characters an inch from death, but that's also what Armed Hovercraft and Photon Bomb are for too. I suppose it's just -- after combination -- a more consistent Strafing Run, but it's honestly a worse Photon Bomb in most cases.
I'll give this one a solid: "Enigma/10"
I mean, it's an Enigma. What else do you want from it, right?
"Blue Leader, standing by."
Aerialbots like having Aerialbot Formation, but not a lot. Almost at all. It might seem like a Grenade Launcher in certain regards, but it's really not anything close to it. Whereas it is a Blue pip that lends itself to the Aerialbot defensive playstyle, it also highlights another weakness of Combiner lists by showing off the frailty of their composite parts.
Let me explain. Remember my boy Air Raid? Remember how he blows someone up and then goes down himself? That's what I mean. You attack, and then you die. Of course, in Aerialbots you're probably going to tank a hit pretty hard with your characters and defense-centric list, but the problem is that your opponent is not going to allow your Aerialbot Formation to reach its fullest effect. They will either double target or play direct damage abilities to soften you up. Of course, you have Bombing Run to add to your survivability slightly, but not by a lot. In fact, since you're going to be damaging your own characters with Photon Bomb in all likelihood, you're going to be even weaker than before.
All of this culminates into Aerialbot Formation not receiving the full benefit. There are so many better weapons to play, in my opinion, and Superion can't even use it. I'm not quite sure if I would play it for that reason, in fact. Quite sad indeed.
BUMP
Bumpers comes out of the Team Covenant Webcast, and this card makes me extremely happy because it allows Cars to be able to beat back Aerialbots. Motormaster already does this for Stunticons, and Bumpers makes it an even better matchup. Stunticons already are a defensive, denial type of deck, and Bumpers allow them to not instantly die to Planes as soon as Motormaster goes down, and he will go down eventually. Bumpers makes it even harder for your Stunticons to go down to them, and that makes me extremely happy because I know that -- no matter what -- there will be a bad matchup for something.
I'm always excited when I know that there are bad matchups for something that is a little bit hyped because I know that it will never be able to be the best deck. Of course, I don't know if Aerialbots are going to be super good -- or good at all for that matter -- but either way, it's always good to know that things aren't invincible.
"Super stealthy boi"
I'm going to combine my thoughts on this card with the thoughts on the next card. Read below!
"ALRIGHT TIME'S UP LET'S DO THIS! LEEEEEROY JEEEEENKINS!!"
"Oh my god, he just ran in."
Bravery and Stealth are pretty darn okay, but I do wonder whether or not Heroism isn't just a better card. I mean, I get it, Heroism doesn't count the defensive stats of the character that it's attached to, and Stealth is a big "no button" that says that your opponent can't attack you at all, but both require that character to be tapped (or targetable in general) in order to be of use. Heroism does not.
This is one of the reasons a character with Brave on their alternate mode is so good, because at the start of the game your opponent has to attack them. If it's an Upgrade, then it might be too late because the Brave and Stealth will only be useful when two or more characters are tapped.
I don't know if these are going to see play, especially over Heroism, but when you see that Stealthiness has an Orange pip, I can definitely tell the potential here.
For some food for thought, consider what Stealth would look like on a Metroplex. Also, just think about Metroplex trying to be Stealthy.
"One hundred push-ups! One hundred sit-ups! One hundred squats! Run 10 Kilometers! Every! Single! Day!"
Power Punch is freaking insane and I love it. It's just another Grenade Launcher! I'm being serious when I say that Power Punch is probably going to be a staple in Orange decks like Insecticons, Predacons and other, similar lists. Power Punch does similar levels of damage, especially if a character has innate Bold like Long Haul or Metroplex, same with the entire list of Dinobots.
Power Punch makes me so happy. Now, that being said, it is not good against anything that plays Acid Storm. Once Acid Storm hits the field, this becomes a blank card. It's sad, to be frank, but I do love that level of interplay to make you question if you should play certain cards in your list lest you face a certain deck.
It's a great, great card that I am almost certain is going to be a staple, but Acid Storm makes you wonder for how long.
'Underhanded Tactics'? You'll need them if you want to get value.
One damage? One damage? A single damage. You deal one, and you heal one but only if you KO someone? Dear god, this is one of the worst cards I have ever seen.
I am not exaggerating here. Even Zap is more playable in offensive lists like Insecticons because it has an orange pip.
I'm sad.
So, the biggest problem about it is that you have almost zero payoff to its effect. You have to put someone at 1 HP, and that is extremely difficult, and when you play this card to only heal a single damage counter and only when you KO them, wouldn't it just be better to play something like, I dunno, MEDIC! or perhaps Emergency Repairs? If you need healing, play some healing!
This is not healing. This is a fool's errand.
"BLLAAAAAEEEERRGGGHHHHH"
Inferno Breath (revealed from THIS INSTAGRAM POST) is so freaking good for Aerialbots. Aerialbots have always been about that non-attack damage, and when you use it in conjunction with Silverbolt to deal four damage to something, I get a little weak in the knees. It also boosts Aerialbot Formation, but it's already established that that card is not the best anyway.
Now, all of that being said, it also allows some powerful combos with Brainstorm, as well, actually one-hitting Skrapnel and other 7 HP characters without attacking. How? Well, you Brainstorm a Photon Bomb and an Inferno Breath, then you attach an Armed Hovercraft, then you Transform Silverbolt to deal a total of 7 damage to a single target and 3 to all others.
That combo sounds absolutely disgusting and I am actually super spooked about the possibility of Aerialbots outright abusing this card to its maximum potential. It's not a Star card, though we don't see the bottom of the card, but it's honestly pretty much as good as one.
Speaking of cards that abuse Aerialbots...
Defensive Driving, a card first revealed HERE isn't the best at stopping Aerialbots, but it certainly prevents Silverbolt, the Enigma and Armed Hovercraft from taking over a certain character on your field. I could see attaching this card to Bonecrusher, in fact, to attempt to make him survive a turn against the Plane Onslaught, but the problem is finding it, and attaching it while still finding value out of your other characters.
I don't know about this card. It's okay, but honestly sometimes you should just bite the bullet and accept a bad matchup for what it is.
__________CONCLUSION__________
These new Combiners are magical. I seriously wonder if they won't be a major part of the metagame, especially the Aerialbots. Devastator is also extremely unique and if you don't think I won't be building it and probably bringing my G1 Devastator with me to tournaments we can't be friends.
But in all seriousness, almost all of these cards have merit in many different degrees. I absolutely love what they're doing with this game, and I can't wait to find out what's next.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, please check out my YouTube Channel where I go over deck profiles and other meta discussion regularly. Check it out if you have the time (and to be fair, if you have read this far, you have more time than most!) and let me know what you think in the comments below!
Thanks for reading guys, and as always, I'm going to go to sleep for the next 18-32 hours after writing this behemoth of an article.
__________
What do you think about these reveals? Excited by them? Let us know in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
Who would have guessed Streetwise & Sinnertwin are the new recruits?!
Yes, they are joining the Earth Wars at the end of the current saga!
Streetwise (sometimes also known as Streetstar or Streetsmart) is a member of the Protectobots, a team of emergency, rescue and law enforcement bots. Other Protectobots already in the game are Hot Spot and First Aid. They were designed to protect humans from the Combaticons team that can combine into Bruticus.
In the case of Streetwise, our design was informed by the car whose design we thought looked really slick in the Generations Combiner Wars toyline.
Sinnertwin (sometimes also known as Twinstrike) is a member of the Terrorcons, a team of positively insane and exceptionally cruel Decepticons. They all have personality disorders and Sinnertwin’s resides in his sadistic nature when it comes to killing. He is the fourth Terrorcon to join the game after Hun-Gurrr, Cutthroat and Rippersnapper.
Our design for the game was also inspired by the Power of the Primes toyline.
Under investigation
Here is the issue reported that we've been investigating:
Players have reported that the amount of healing provided by First Aid/Reflectordoes not match the value displayed on the character’s screen. We are working at aligning these values in a future content update.
This is just an example of the reports that we've received from you and we continue to work hard to improve your experience with the game every day.
We would like to thank you for your time and patience, and if you have any issues to report, please get in touch with us here: [url=mailto:support@transformersearthwars.com]support@transformersearthwars.com[/url]. Alternatively, you can reach out to us in game via Menu > Community > Contact Support.
Bug Fixes / Balance Update
The following bug fixes and balance update are coming to the game!
G1 Prowl ＆Brawl power core
We have updated the description of the G1 Prowl and Brawl power core. It now reflects more accurately the amount of extra damage dealt for every level of the core.We have fixed a bug affecting the duration of the fire effect created by the G1 Prowl/Brawl power core. Previously, it could last up to 12 secs doubling the amount of damage provided over time. It now lasts for 6 secs as per the description.
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White Kremzeek
We decided to disable the ability of White Kremzeek to target the HQ directly. Taking down the HQ easily from afar goes against our design idea of battles and unfortunately the Adaptive Shielding core did not prove to be a sufficient counterbalance. We are putting the White Kremzeeks in line with similar strong effects like Death Ray. The White Kremzeeks will stay as they are in any other aspect and will still be very useful against other targets than the HQ or in raids.
This balance update will go live at some point this Thursday.
Twitch
King Starscream has summoned two new recruits to join his Cybertronian army. They are ready to fight and their identities will be revealed during the next stream!
Join Deb, Ioannis, Fabien and Jairo who will be talking about game improvements, new features, upcoming bots and more!
Next stream will be LIVE Thursday, January 24 @5pm UTC!
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Date: Friday, January 18th 2019 6:59pm CST Categories:Game News, Collectables Posted by:ZeroWolf | Credit(s): #Sideways#, Wossy Plays and Wreck n' Rules from YouTube
It's that time again folks, thanks to the hard work of fellow Seibertron user, #Sideways#, we have more reveals for Wave 2: Rise of the Combiners to share with you all!
Wave 2: Rise of the Combiners is the newest set for Wizards of the Coast's Official Transformers Trading Card Game.
#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.
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!
What do you think about these reveals? Let us know in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
We thank #Sideways for this review of the new combiner features and battle strategies in the second wave of the Transformers Trading Card Game.
"Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives."
I thought that Combiners could never be in the Transformers Trading Card Game. I thought they were impossible.
I thought wrong.
Combiners are coming in Wave 2 of the TFTCG, aptly christened "Rise of the Combiners", it features 46 character cards and 81 Battle Cards, with 6 full teams of Combiners. That's right, with six teams and more or less five members per-team, we're looking at a solid 30 characters devoted to Combining.
So. How do they combine? Cards only have two sides, ergo they can't have a robot, alternate and limb mode, right?
That's where you'd be wrong.
See, Combiners are made up of smaller characters in more way than one. These Combiner Teams are comprised of unique folding cards, with one side having the limb mode and the other side having the robot and alternate mode. Simply fold the card in half with the specially designed crimping and you have a character -- albeit smaller than others -- who has three modes.
To show this off, the TFTCG Facebook page has posted a video showing off this feature HERE.
To combine into their gestalt forms, all Combiners are printed with another companion Battle Card called an Enigma. To use this Battle Card, it requires all of the team members to be in robot form, though it does not require them to be currently among the living to combine.
Damage and some Upgrades carry over, including the damage from the currently KO'd, so it's best not to be damaged when you finally combine to make use of your massive health pool, especially since you're likely to start taking a lot of damage from plenty of other sources when you finally combine.
But that's enough on the rules. Let's do a breakdown of the cards we've seen thus far. They all have 5 Stars, of course, so there aren't too many standouts in terms of power -- but there is plenty of utility to go around here.
__________TRANSFORMERS__________
He's the leader of the bunch -- you know him well -- now he's finally back, to kick some tail!
Razorclaw should be respected, and not just because he's a Leader. Leaders -- more specifically, Decepticon Leaders -- might get their turn for the limelight in this wave, especially with how many Leaders are going to be present. But aside from speculation, there is a very important ability that he has that is worth noting.
Razorclaw, like the Super Rare Bumblebee, can attack untapped characters. That means, turn two (or one if you went second), he can attach a Grenade Launcher and deal 7 base attack against something squishy on your field, like Arcee. He's going to be an utter nuisance to people who play glass cannon decks with a specific order of operations, like Cars or Insecticons.
But, his stats aren't much to write home about. You'll notice that same thing with the other members of his team, but they are all 5 Stars, so that's something you should definitely consider.
Since he's 5 Stars, you can splash him onto teams very easily, making him a contender for other teams even outside of his Predacon archetype.
He doesn't dive, nor is he the bomb.
Divebomb doesn't really do anything. In his bird form, he's a painfully average vanilla. If you Transform him, he's even worse. His only saving grace is his ability, which can Scrap an Action from your opponent's hand if they happen to reveal one by chance. If they don't, then... Well, he has 7 HP and 0 Defense. He's going to die if you attack with him in robot form -- it's a done deal.
My best guess is that you're supposed to transform with Divebomb last, making use of his effect and then combining everyone into Predaking. But other than that, he's really nothing to write home about. Outside of Predacons, he's a simply waaaaay worse pick than Flamewar. At least Flamewar gives your team buffs. She's even a Specialist!
All in all, his only niche so far is in Predacons. But that isn't the most interesting note about this picture. If you notice, there are six icons pictured when showing his place on Predaking. This doesn't mean there are six members -- it was a Photoshop mistake by community manager John Schork, inadvertently revealing that there will be six-man teams, with Devastator being the most prominent of these.
A goof, yes, but a good goof for those of us who crave more information!
Head strong! Strong and brave! Brave strong!
Headstrong brings us one of our first looks at a new mechanic, "Brave". Brave reads that all characters that can attack Headstrong, do so. This is an amazing ability. This means that explosive turn one plays by high attack characters like Kickback or Optimus Prime -- Battlefield Legend are going to be directed not at your important characters like Razorclaw, but rather at this poor sod.
Sure, he doesn't have much punching power. At all. But as a sacrificial lamb so that his teammates can get their Transformations in? He may die, but that's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make. Especially if you happen to place a Force Field on him, he won't be able to get OHKO'd.
Brave is a great mechanic, and I honestly love this little guy. He'll probably even see play outside the Predacon archetype, with that Brave utility coming in handy with more "protect the president" styles of decks, like OptiCars for instance.
Where's The Rock?
Rampage is a fascinating character. His effects aren't actually that important, when you consider it. He heals one damage from each of your Predacons when an enemy is KO'd, which would be easy if you weren't doing two damage. He's great against other Combiners, but when you face off against a larger opponent, you're going to be hard-pressed to survive with these low health pools.
Against opposing Combiners, though, we can assume that they won't be OHKOing you like you to them, so Rampage becomes quite the important character in that regard, since enemies will be likely to be KO'd far easier than some of your larger friends.
Other than that, there's not too much to consider outside of the Predacon archetype.
This whole naming thing makes me want to throw a Tantrum!
Torox has a very interesting ability that prevents healing. There isn't too much healing going on in the game at the moment, especially with the high damaging meta we find ourselves in, but if there ever was a prevalent healing deck... I know who I would tech in to counter it. Torox's alternate mode stops all of your opponent's healing, which also makes me wonder if we're going to be seeing more healing in the game. He's also hilarious against the mirror match since Rampage wants to be healing everyone.
To make him even better, he draws a card when you Transform him to robot mode, and then we get another "new" mechanic, which is just a keyword for placing a card from your hand on top of your deck. It's good to know that there's a keyword for this common effect, since it will clear up card clutter.
The only bad part about this guy is that he has zero defense in both modes, meaning, even though he has 9 HP, he's going to be dumpstered any time your opponent can take a random potshot at him. Sad, but Force Field and Heroism mitigate that to a large degree.
I honestly would love to see this guy in other lists if healing ever became a mainstay in the meta -- he provides too much utility to ignore.
"Balancing the universe in your hands isn't usually associated with 'fun'...
But this does put a smile on my face."
Dear god, this is happening.
Predaking is honestly a very, very big boy, and not just in terms of physical size. Mind you, each part of this guy is about six inches wide, and there are five parts to this guy -- he's freaking ginormous. Just turn the playmat -- you're never going to tap him all the way.
So, as for his stats, they seem underwhelming at first. I know, 37 HP? Underwhelming? Well, when you combine, you carry over damage, even from KO'd characters. So, that high HP definitely chews itself up over the course of the game before you can ever hope to Combine. But the real staying power of Predaking is in his offensive prowess.
It should be noted that Combiners begin untapped and keep 1 Upgrade in each Upgrade slot from its individual pieces. But this guy has 5 Weapon slots. You can attach multiple Grenade Launcher, Energon Axe, Flamethrower, anything like that. His already high attack doubles to triples in mere moments, and if something isn't dead by the time you're through attacking, there is something very wrong.
Of course, getting all five on my boy Exodia here can be a challenge, which is why he has the effect of being able to draw a card when you combine, and then play a card, including an Upgrade, for free. That's fantastic. Predaking is fantastic.
But there's a problem: He's the epitome of "tall". His defense is middling at best, and with all that damage you have no doubt racked up over the course of the game, you won't live for long. Either you combine early, or you combine as a last resort. Either way, Predaking is a beast of a Combiner. I just fear that, without proper support, most decks will be able to walk over them before they get a chance to set up.
"Come out of the bathroom, Predaking!"
"PUT DOWN THE TRIDENT!"
Windblade makes her debut in the TFTCG by doing the thing she does second-best: Make mince-meat out of Combiners. She's expensive, coming in at 12 Stars, and she's a Super Rare, but most importantly, she's actually very good at playing with smaller characters who wouldn't like going up against a big dude like Predaking.
She has an ability in robot form where, when she attacks a Combiner, each of your characters get Pierce 4 -- meaning, if you're still alive when that happens -- you're going to deal a massive amount of damage with a swarm of Pierce taking likely a good third of Predaking's health in one blow.
She's a combiner huntress, but I fear she is also just as much a one-trick-pony. I mean, what else will she do during the game? Won't the Combiner team just focus her down and then combine? It's an interesting dynamic for sure, but I'm sure Razorclaw is up for the challenge. It's good to know that someone who clearly is meant to nerf the Combiner's effectiveness isn't without her counterplay.
Windblade also has access to a very interesting ability in her plane mode, where she may reveal the top card of your deck, and if it has more than one pip color, you can play it for free. i.e. Cards like Roll Out. This is a really interesting ability, but without more cards that have multiple colors, I can't see her making much use of this ability. Although, you can pull it off without a hitch with Planning effects, but the extent of those remains to be seen.
She'll be difficult to fit anywhere else but her own archetype, sadly. But she's definitely one to watch.
__________BATTLE CARDS__________
An enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in bacon.
This is the first of the Enigma battle cards we're getting for our Combiners, and you'll notice something straight away: That's a green pip. There is not a green pip in the game yet, and there has already been speculation all over the place.
Could it be healing? Could it be draw? Could it be placing that card in your hand instead of Scrapping it? There are countless opinions in the game of speculation, but one thing remains a constant: It's the only way to combine your Combiners.
Also that is a garish orange background.
You may also notice that it's a very good card that acts like a New Designs on freaking speed. You have the ability to draw a card, then play an Upgrade, so not only is this card not completely dead in your hand after you combine, but it is your lifeblood while setting up your Predaking.
This card is nutty -- and I can't wait to find out what that green pip does. My money is on healing, especially with Torox.
UPDATE: It's been revealed that this green effect is putting it into your hand when you flip it! You have to discard a card first, but this is a fantastic idea for the health of the game! I'm so stoked for this!
__________CONCLUSION__________
All in all, I think the Combiners will likely be the most difficult combo to pull off. I mean think about it. With stats that low, turn one your opponent can KO a piece of your team and you would have little to no say in the matter. You can try to build your deck to counter that, but that's neither here nor there.
The fact remains that when you combine, you are built Tall. Exceedingly so. You'll be very weak to wider compositions, as they will be able to punish your inactivity with their overactivity. I can almost see times where I don't want to combine at all, which is actually a good thing; I dislike one-trick-ponies that play the same three cards a game and try to win that way.
That being said, I do play the Pokemon TCG, so I'm a hypocrite.
Either way, there are so many things to love about this next wave and I am extremely excited to play with the Combiners. I'm just hoping that they're well supported -- otherwise, Nemesis/Optimus and Insecticons will remain on top.
Thanks for reading. Hope you learned something from my endless ramblings!
Well the 28th September is upon us, and that means, in America at least, Wizards of the Coast's Official Transformers Trading Card Game has launched! To mark the occasion, the last few cards from Wave 1 have been revealed over at the Official Transformers Trading Card Game Facebook page and we are sharing them with you, courtesy of fellow Seibertron user, #Sideways#, who also shares his thoughts on these.
To start with we have the last announced super rare card for the set, Bumblebee/ Legendary Warrior.
Bumblebee/ Legendary Warrior
#Sideways# wrote:Another one.
But here's the thing about this Bumblebee: He's Wave 1's second and final Super Rare. A little pretext about Super Rare cards, they have a 1-79 pack pull ratio, making them a one-per-two boxes of product rarity. This is a really, really rare card and should be sleeved or protected as soon as you open him. There's no telling how much value they'll end up having, but with a ratio that low, it's a good idea to protect them.
So, anyway, this card is pretty darn good. He's less of an add-on, though -- he's kind of the start to his own version of the Car archetype. Cars can be pretty interchangeable, but when it comes to having a proper team composition, I find that the strategy should usually revolve around one character. Nemesis Prime is supported by his teammates, Shockwave by his, Megatron is your main damage dealer in Tanks... You get the picture.
BumbleJumper can definitely be one of those archetypes. With the advent of Jazz and Prowl (revealed below), you can fulfill your full team of cars in a lot of different ways with that leftover seven points. It's a very versatile list that will likely have several iterations with several different characters before someone finally figures out the optimal way to play it.
But more on Bumblebee. This little guy is a thick, thick boy and can take a lot of punishment at an astounding 15 HP. The biggest Optimus Prime has 14 HP, for reference. He can also put out a lot of punishment at the end of a game with his loner ability amplifying his already moderate stats to something worthy of the greats. But his vehicle mode has one of the most interesting abilities I've seen thus far, being able to attack characters before they, themselves, have attacked.
This means that you can always pick off the weak links on your opponent's field, and more importantly, can target them down before they get to attack you. Goodbye, Ransack, it was nice knowing that you could have attacked this game. What's better is that he can fully take advantage of Start Your Engines in the latter stage of the game. Allow me to explain. It functions as a way to use that car mode's ability to give him the option to attack something that's untapped, then manually transform him to Robot mode to give himself the boost of damage.
It's a frankly great ability that makes him a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Oh, and he can also carry the Matrix of Leadership, just in case you wanted another reason to like him.
Deadlock
#Sideways# wrote:Deadlock gives you very little for his high point cost. I'm not joking, this guy is a big disappointment when it comes to abilities -- even moreso when you consider that he's fighting for space in a Car list.
He's less lackluster in the stat category -- actually having some of the highest when it comes to Car standards -- but it's the fact that he has no utility that makes him a hard sell when compared to the likes of Mirage, Wheeljack and Cliffjumper. Deadlock has draw over them, sure, but Deadlock's ability only activates when you flip to your Car mode, and only when you're going to KO someone.
That's wholly underwhelming, if you ask me, especially when you can compare him to his peers. Wheeljack draws when you Upgrade a car, Mirage can just straight play an extra Action, Cliffjumper draws when you Transform which is as broken as it sounds... He's too much points for too little utility.
I would very much consider him if he costed six stars, but other than that, the only thing this bounty hunter is hunting for is a way to stay out of my bulk bin.
Armed Hovercraft
#Sideways# wrote:This card is kinda nuts. Being able to do indirect damage is already pretty good, but being able to spread it amongst your opponent's entire field is another thing altogether. There are a lot of reasons to like this card, and a lot of decks that will be using it. For instance, you can play this in Planes which already likes indirect damage.
You can use it to soften up Tanks, laugh at the foolish Motorcycles that want to try swarming you and try setting up KOs on Cars. But one thing you should watch out for is using this against Planes, who absolutely love it when their characters take minimal spread damage since it allows them to use Bombing Run to both heal them and deal that damage back to you.
Disarm
#Sideways# wrote:You'd think this card would be good, wouldn't you? Well, in most cases, you might be right. But in this one? No. There is so much Upgrade scrapping in this game that it is simply better to use those cards, like Drill Arms, Crusher Gauntlets, Ramming Speed... The list goes on.
Why is it better to discard than to put it back into its player's hand? Well, that should be self-explanatory. It is functionally the same for board state, but you force your opponents can't play them back down.
Now, that doesn't mean that this doesn't have its niche uses. Shockwave wants to stack as many cards as possible in his opponent's hand so that he can discard them. But remember, this is an Action, not an Upgrade. That means you're unlikely to play both a Disarm and a Security Checkpoint/System Reboot in the same turn. It's possible, but it's strenuous.
All in all, it's niche, but still kinda bad otherwise.
Disruption
#Sideways# wrote:Literally just play Security Checkpoint. It discards both player's Upgrades, but you still get to play yours before you do. This is one of several "budget" versions of other cards that you might notice. Sometimes, though, they have attributes that makes them slightly better than their counterparts in certain instances.
This is not one of those points.
Security Checkpoint is a double blue pip, and that's as rare as it sounds. When I say, "just play Security Checkpoint", I mean it wholeheartedly.
Disruptive Entrance
#Sideways# wrote:This, however, I can see getting some play in certain decks. Right now there is no parallel for Disruptive Entrance, meaning it's the only card that can look in your opponent's hand and discard a specific Action.
I honestly think that this card is great for disruption decks, like Shockwave. Keep in mind, though, just discarding a card at random is not damaging -- but when you take away their only draw Action, that game-winning Peace Through Tyranny or their last "Dino-Chomp!" card, they'll be hurting.
Niche, for sure, but I still think it's way more viable than people might give it credit for.
Emergency Maintenance
#Sideways# wrote:I'm not really sure what I think about Emergency Repairs. Some part of me thinks that this could be pretty niche, like with the new Bumblebee, but let's be honest here, you could call almost every card in every game "niche" just because it fits in one deck, even if that deck is non-viable.
Emergency Repairs is just one of those cards that you look at and think, "hm, this could be good!" and then you read it a second time and think, "goodness, that's awful" and proceed to go back and forth until you pass out. It's not a bad card, but it's not a good one. It's just kind of... There, you know?
Repair Bay or "Medic!" is likely to suit you better, though I can't say that Emergency Repairs is without merit.
Fusion Cannon of Megatron
#Sideways# wrote:Fusion Cannon of Megatron is... An interesting card, mostly in the same vein as Null Ray of Starscream. It seems like a card you would instantly play in any deck that plays Megatron. Sure, there might be instances where you might outside of the Tank archetype, but I'm going to be perfectly honest with you: You don't need it.
Fusion Cannon is just an overglorified Piercing Blaster, which gives you Pierce 3 anyway. Megatron might like it, but no one else will, and when you already have Crushing Treads giving you plenty Pierce, what's the point of playing this card?
Sure, you can tech it in if you want your Tank list to have even MORE Pierce, but it really just seems redundant. Something I've found is that Optimus' Ion Blaster is the best exclusive weapon because it both gives a high damage buff and a defensive buff, making his stats even better than they already were.
Food for thought.
Heroism
#Sideways# wrote:I absolutely love this card. It's not for every deck, but let me tell you, this card makes me so happy. Let me explain.
Your opponent can only attack tapped characters, right? That means you should generally attack with someone who can take a hit (more or less cannon fodder) first. This protects your valuable, more expensive characters from damage and gives you a little breathing room.
Heroism allows you to attack with your first, high damaging characters first. You get to attach it to your cannon fodder and fight with your big, beefy characters without any repercussions. Your opponents may be trying to attack your important units, but with such heroic nonsense on your side, your opponent can't attack what they want to attack and that makes this card frankly amazing.
Of course, it can be scrapped and your bold play can -- and will -- be punished, but let's face it, who ever got anywhere without risking something first?
Crushing Size
#Sideways# wrote:Like Drill Arms and Scrapper Gauntlet before it, we come across our third and final "scrap x, else draw 1" card. I love these cards, a lot, but this one is sort of a middle child.
One one end, you have Drill Arms, which is the best of the three by far, and on the other end of the spectrum, you have Scrapper Gauntlets which are the worst (But are still good in Tanks!), and right in the "meh" area is Crushing Size.
It gives you Pierce, which is nice, but being able to scrap certain Utilities like Matrix of Leadership and Heroism is pretty handy, much handier than weapon scrapping. The problem is, Scrapper Gauntlets gives +1 Armor and Drill Arms gives you +1 Attack, both being very good, but Crushing Size gives you a measly Pierce 1.
Pierce 1 is terrible. Pierce 2 can have a case made for it, Pierce 3 and up is good, but Pierce 1? If you're having trouble doing one damage in a game, you're not going to win. That's kind of the thing with this guy; if you're playing a lot of Pierce, go ahead and play it. Otherwise, I'd probably look elsewhere for a spot in my list.
Combat Training
#Sideways# wrote:Yay, more Arcee artwork!
So, Combat Training is strictly "meh". Tough is decidedly not that great, and Bold 1 is okay when you have cards like Power Sword adding Bold 3 on that, but it seems like you're giving up a useful Utility spot for something approaching a filler card. I could be being a bit harsh on Combat Training, but in the highly competitive Utility space, there are just better cards to play, like Data Pad or Data Bank.
Collateral Damage
#Sideways# wrote:This is what I like to call a bad card. Your opponent gets to choose the Weapon they scrap (which will be a Drill Arms that has already outlived its usefulness), and they also choose the card in their hand to scrap. Sure, you're getting rid of an Upgrade attachment and in Shockwave you're dealing one damage, but even then, it's morbidly underwhelming in terms of playability.
But hey, not every card needs to be playable -- not every card has to be -- and I shudder at the thought of every card in a set being absolutely must-picks for a deck. Imagine what kind of horrible metagame THAT would be.
Body Armour
#Sideways# wrote:Now THIS is how you use Tough. Tough 3 is very good. No, it's not the best Armor, and you wouldn't play it in Tanks where Armor is kind of a necessity, but in decks that don't really play a lot of Armor, I can definitely see this one taking up a spot in a lot of lists. Sure, it's only attachable on Melee characters, but I can think of very few characters that aren't Melee in at least one of their modes.
Remember though, you're not confirmed to take less damage just because you have Tough. But decks that like taking less damage and cycling their deck a lot like Nemesis or Cosmos, this is a must-pick.
Cargo Trailer
#Sideways# wrote:With a name like Cargo Trailer, I was really looking forward to being able to hold more Upgrades. Unfortunately, I was disappointed that it could not fulfill my desire. Then I read the card and was disappointed a second time.
Then I read the card a second time and I was floored by how FREAKING GOOD IT IS. Okay, after some calming breaths, I can explain why this card is so good.
Every instance of this card gives the damage buff, not just one. So, when you have one on your character, it will give +1. Then, when you attach another, you get +2. On each Trailer. This will give you a combined +4. If you attach all three, which is unlikely, sure, but if you do, you have a +9(!?!) damage!
Since each instance counts each instance individually, each card gives its own damage value. That means you can stack a lot of damage potential on your characters surprisingly fast. Optimus Prime, Nemesis Prime, Hound, Ironhide, the list goes on. But all of them want these trailers just as bad as the last.
You just really need to make sure you know who you want to stack them on before you do it.
Computer Sabotage
#Sideways# wrote:Perfect Cell anyone? What, no one plays Dragon Ball Super in this place?
This card has great potential, but I doubt its usefulness in this card game. One thing I noticed about TFTCG is that you will have a normal hand size of roughly four to five depending on the deck you're playing. Sure, you're forcing your opponent to discard a couple of cards, but Cell Chain of Dragon Ball fame did the same thing -- and acted on it, by discarding the rest.
If you can figure out how to do that, you'll do great. Your opponents won't be able to upgrade their characters nor play any support Actions, but remember, a lot of cards have innate draw so it would be nigh impossible to keep them down indefinitely.
Definitely has potential, especially with a deck built around it.
Battle Ready
#Sideways# wrote:Why?
No, really, why would you play this? You're almost never going to have the chance to attack with more than three characters at once, and you're not going to be able to stack these, so why not just play Leap Into Battle which gives you +3 on a single character?
Again, there are "budget" versions of cards, or cards that are similar but different for the merit of being different. This is one of the latter, I think.
Backup plan
#Sideways# wrote:Speaking of, why would you play this when System Reboot exists, which scraps BOTH player's hands and draws four cards each?
Well, for one, you might not want to give your opponent a better hand, or a hand at all in some cases, but let's be honest -- it's almost always better to disrupt your opponent's hand.
Then again, there's no rule in playing both this and System Reboot in the same deck. Have fun drawing your deck, I guess!
Agility of Bumblebee
#Sideways# wrote:Agility of Bumblebee is pretty okay, actually. I would definitely play this card in Bumblebee-centric lists. For instance, decks that play the new Super Rare Bumblebee. If you're just casually playing the Starter Bee, I don't know if I would play it, but it's better than most utilities that you can put on the little guy.
Generally, I would rather put a Data Pad or a Matrix of Leaderhip on him, but if you have the extra space, then why not throw one or two of these cards in to supplement your draw? At worst, you can just attach it to someone else to give them another +1 to their damage through their Utility slot.
Aerial Recon
#Sideways# wrote:Now, if you know what Scrying is, you'll love this card. Sure, it's slightly worse than Scrying, but this does the job well enough. Planes have a distinct lack of draw power, and this doesn't really help to mitigate that, but it does let you discard the cards you want with your attack flips.
It's a good card, one that gives the Planes a distinct damage mitigation ability that they normally would not have.
Zap
#Sideways# wrote:Literally just play Plasma Burst. It's true that Plasma Burst doesn't have a pip and Zap does, but Plasma Burst is lightyears better than this card just because it does two damage instead of a silly one. And in my opinion? Photon Bomb is better than Plasma Burst, so that just shows you how useless Zap really is.
At least it makes a good proxy for Photon Bomb!
(Or Piercing Blaster, actually, since they have very startlingly similar card artwork.)
Swap Parts
#Sideways# wrote:Swap Parts isn't that good in many lists, but it's very good where it counts. Trucks, for one, love this card because you can use it to move a misplaced Cargo Trailer. You can use it to move Heroism, as well, when things get a little too hot for your damage soaker. Most decks won't use Swap Parts, but the ones that do love it to bits.
Much like me and that, frankly, adorable artwork.
Strafing Run
#Sideways# wrote:This seems like a budget Photon Bomb, and you're kinda right. But that also kind of makes me want to play it in Planes because when used in tandem with Armed Hovercraft, it makes for a Photon Bomb but just for your opponents. Not bad, if I don't say so myself.
Not too much to say about this card otherwise, since in any other deck it is a simply inferior Photon Bomb. Treat it as such, unless you're playing Armed Hovercraft.
Salvage for Parts
#Sideways# wrote:Boy, is this card a doozie. Scrapping all upgrades seems to be a stiff cost to repair a little damage, but when you consider the healing as a side-effect, what you end up with is a powerful Scrapping card, especially against Trucks that will be having a lot of Upgrades on the field. Moreover, Tanks also has a love-hate relationship with this card since they don't usually play healing themselves, but hate to see all their hard-earned Upgrades go down the drain.
Salvage For Parts is a card that I can't see putting in too many lists as it doesn't really serve a purpose, but if you're ever thinking how much you hate Upgrades and really like long games, this card is for you.
Reinforced Plating
#Sideways# wrote:Just play Body Armor, though? It's not overly bad, of course, it's just the equivalent to Flamethrower and Power Sword. One is better than the other most of the time, but the other isn't necessarily bad, either.
Let me be frank. Sometimes it's good to put in a bit of redundancy in a deck just because you mill yourself when you attack and defend, but that being said, you may find there isn't much room for redundancy in this game's deckbuilding.
It certainly isn't bad, but there are many other cards that you want to play in lists, making it hard to find room for redundancy. Remember, almost everyone has Melee sometime -- but for those who aren't, and want Tough, look no further.
Medic!
#Sideways# wrote:I don't really know if "Medic!" has a place in many if any lists. Team Up Tactics does its job but better, Repair Bay does one less but it does a collective heal which is way better than single target in turn based games, even Emergency Repairs does "Medic!"'s job better than it. Emergency Repairs is more situational, of course, so your mileage may vary.
All in all, this is probably not going to find its way into almost any lists. Not unplayable, just is outclassed.
Thermal Weaponry
#Sideways# wrote:Now that's a lot of Arcee artwork.
I really like this card in both Dinobots and Tanks. Decks that play a lot of blue cards in general are going to love Thermal Weaponry since it compensates for that potentially lost damage you will face when you flip blue cards on offense.
This mitigates the effects of randomness and I definitely love it. Of course, in Dinobots, you might want a Power Sword anyway, but there's always room for a backup weapon.
Treasure Hunt
#Sideways# wrote:So here it is.
This is our only search card in the game. Treasure Hunt discards the top four and puts any Upgrades into your hand, which is okay if you already have a large hand size, but in other cases simply playing a System Reboot would be better to just draw all the cards you're milling.
Of course, sometimes you'll just be drawing four cards as they'll all be upgrades. But I doubt it. There will be just as many times where you'll mill all Actions, but I suppose it comes down to pure deckbuilding at that point.
If your list can support Treasure Hunt well, look no further for the best card in your deck. If you're running a half-and-half Action/Upgrade or more on the Action side, you may want to rethink this card.
Then again, several lists want to use this card anyway, like Nemesis Prime or Cosmos, who don't care what they draw just so long as they burn their deck quickly. It's certainly something to think about when building your deck.
Otherwise, though, I think this card is a very good card that should belong in several lists. But not all lists are created equal.
Swap Mission
#Sideways# wrote:Swap Missions is a very, very good card. Now you might say, "Hey, Sideways, isn't this a worse Ready For Action?" to which I would say, "How dare you speak to me. Also, not really."
So what makes this card so good? Well, in a word, Cars. Cars have the pleasure of having the most concentrated amount of untapping abilities in the game. This allows Optimus Prime -- Freedom Fighter and other expensive characters like Nemesis Prime, Megatron -- Living Weapon and Sunstorm to all have the ability to untap.
Optimus Prime in particular can straight up abuse this card as he gets to play it for free if you flip it on his attack flips. Plus, you have Team Up Tactics synergy with both he and his car friends. This is why you would want to play him with Cars. Since Cars have Turbo Boosters (which untaps Cars on an Upgrade) allowing you to Swap Missions with one of your newly untapped Cars to attack with Prime once again.
Swap Missions hasn't seen a lot of hype lately, but I think that they just don't see the potential that Swap Missions has to really become a huge card in several lists that play more expensive characters.
#Sideways# Final Thoughts
#Sideways# wrote:So, that's it. That's all the cards in this set, and for the moment, in this game. My fingers just started a workers riot for writing all of this in one sitting and my eyes are rebelling against me for doing it at two in the morning. I have opinions, okay? I just can't help when I can share them!
This game is very fun and has shaped up to be a very well thought-out game. Drew, Matt and all the other developers have done a splendid job at creating an addicting and fun game. I can't wait to get my hands on Metroplex this November, and I can't wait to battle in some tournaments.
But that's where you come in.
Wizards will only support competitive play if there is a large enough desire for it. The playerbase needs to be active enough that Wizards realizes that it is worth their time to hold sanctioned events. To help make this a reality, and if you want to play the game yourself, please, please stop by your Local Game Store and pick up some product. The game needs to thrive in Wizard's eyes if they're going to continue to produce it!
So, that brings me to myself. I do, in fact, have a YouTube channel that I will be using to cover this game. If you would like to check out some deck profiles (and other variety gaming content) in the coming days, don't hesitate to drop by Nanomachines, my YouTube Channel and say hi.
Thanks for reading my ramblings on this card game, guys, especially this one that's so... Well, long. See you in the Energon Pub!
#SW#
Will you be playing this game then? Let us know in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews.
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