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Thursday 20 June 2019

Transformers Trading Card Game: Data Analysis

After my previous post, where I started playing the Transformers Trading Card Game, I started looking at the types of battle cards and doing some back-of-the-envelope data analysis.  I don't expect to find any trends, but I wanted to take a look at how the battle cards break down by type (colour, and action vs upgrade, and type of upgrade).

In my previous post, I carried out some quick high-level analysis: how many of each type of card are there?


I was surprised to see that more than half of the cards are in the Action group, while less than one in eight is Armour.  It certainly made me pay more attention to the cards I was choosing for my deck, and to consider the types of cards I was using (and not just if they would be fun to play - in theory).


Let's break them down further - what colour icons do the cards have?  White; blue; orange or green?

I know tables aren't to everybody's liking, but here's a quick, simple table that breaks down the card colours and types:



Some thoughts (from a data perspective)


- There's an approximately equal quantity of pure blue cards and pure orange cards (46 and 48); twice as many as pure white (24).  
-  White is only combined with green, not with blue or orange.  That makes sense from a game-play perspective; when attacking or defending, it would be too much to get the benefit of an orange (or a blue) and then also draw two extra cards to further add to your total.
- There are three cards which are blue/orange (an interesting and useful combination in the game); these are Recon System (which is a star card); Matrix of Leadership (can be used only on Autobots) and Roll Out!


Now, these are all great cards since they provide both defence and offence boosts.

- It is possible, but not necessarily desired, to play all white; all blue; all orange; or all blank (no icons) - any row that sums to 14 or more will produce a complete deck of that type.  There has been a lot of play with all-blue (or mostly blue) 'defensive' decks, and all or mostly orange "aggressive" or "aggro" decks.  My personal preference is towards a mixed deck with a lot of white, but I'm still working on it (I'm looking to play Mirage; Hound and Jazz, and other 'white-friendly' teams).

Wave 3 of the Transformers TCG is coming up in less than two weeks, so I'll probably be doing further analysis on how the overall card profile changes.  I'm personally looking to get the new Red Alert (with his liking for mixed decks) and Private Stakeout (who likes white), and to play them with Hound and Jazz; or Mirage/Bumblebee BW/Jazz/Private Stakeout.  We'll see!




Tuesday 4 June 2019

Transformers Trading Card Game: A Newbie's View

I have long been a fan of Transformers.  I was in the target audience age of 6-10 when the first comics came out, and my first issue was issue 4, back in November 1984.  I was delighted (but mostly interested and curious) when I learned of the Transformers Trading Card Game a few months ago, and after watching quite a few YouTube videos, decided to take the plunge and buy some of the cards on eBay.  It's all relative, but £4 for a pack of cards seems expensive, while buying one or two on eBay seemed less so. 

I was impressed with the size, colouring and designs (very reminiscent of G1), so I bought a starter pack (Wave 1 Autobots), and tried my first player-versus-player match with the starter pack cards (I played both players), working through the game mechanics, keeping track of damage with a notepad and pencil, and observing while playing.  I'm no expert at card games (this is my first, and will be my only), but I started to notice a few issues with the way I was playing.

A brief summary of my first game: 

Decepticons:  Flamewar, Starscream (Scheming Second in Command), Megatron (Decepticon Leader)

Autobots:
Autobot Hound; Optimus Prime (Autobot Leader); Bumblebee (Courageous Scout)


The Autobots took a pounding due to Megatron's pierce ability; Optimus and Bumblebee were KO'd with just two turns.  Autobot Hound lasted a little longer due to his better health and I was able to repair damage from him a couple of times.  It was a narrow Autobot victory.

In between games 1 and 2, I purchased an additional 58 battle cards - a mix so that I can understand what style suits me, and what I need to play.  I also purchase the Stunticons, so I make sure I have the relevant Stunticon cards to form Menasor.

Game two
Changes from previous game: 

Decepticons 
Exchange Starscream (SSIC) for Ramjet;

Autobots change to Dinobot Swoop (Fearsome Flyer), Optimus Prime (Freedom Fighter)and Optimus Prime (Autobot Leader). 

I modify the decks to make the Decepticon deck more aggressive, while the Autobot deck includes cards like Fling, Field Repair and Repair Bay so that I can last longer in battles (in theory).  At this point I'm still not overly worried about the colours of the icons, I'm just selecting battle cards based on their abilities.


There were a number of issues I had while playing the game here:
- I was getting handfuls of action cards and almost no upgrades.  The action cards enabling me to "Play an upgrade" were useless, and the ability to play an upgrade each turn was being wasted
 - The other hands I were playing ran out of cards.  I wasn't drawing enough  - and this makes sense:  if I can only draw a card, but play an action and an upgrade, I was going to be decreasing my hand by one card per turn until I ran out.  I needed more draw capability.

I did some analysis of the overall cards in Waves 1 and Wave 2, just as a brief diversion:  There are 172 battle cards in total, of which some are duplicates.  I'll produce a deduplicated list another time:
90 (over half) are Action cards
31 are Utilities (and I was not putting enough of these in my decks)

30 are Weapons
21 are Armour


Just based on random sampling, it was no wonder that I was running out of upgrade cards (with so many action cards to choose), and then running out of cards altogether.  I had to re-balance my decks to include more upgrades and fewer actions.

And I needed more draw capability.

Game three
Decepticon PowerHouse versus Mixed Drawers

Decepticons
Megatron (Decepticon Leader)
Ramjet (Sky Smasher) - who needs abilities when you have 7 attack and 14 health?

Flamewar  - a trusty sidekick who brings the star count up to 25

Mixed DrawersAutobot Hound (Long Range Scout) - when you flit to alt mode, possibility to scrap one and draw two
Optimus Prime (Autobot Leader) - when you flit to alt mode, draw a card
Dead End - when you flip to bot mode, draw a card
Decepticon Drag Strip - brings the total to 25 stars; and when attacking in alt mode and you get a blue and orange icon, draw 2 cards.



Results

Better.  Ramjet and Megatron are still lethal, especially when given upgrades (Ramjet especially, as he has no abilities of his own).  I drew a "Disarm" for the Mixed Drawers, which ended Ramjet's resistance, and they eventually won.  I like that card!

I know I'm probably playing a biased game, but it's not completely deliberate.  I'm just subconsciously rooting for Optimus and Hound (my favourite G1 characters).

Questions

However, all this single-handed playing has led me to ask some questions:

1. How do you (as a player) select your characters and battle cards?  Do you pick characters with cool abilities, and then build a deck around them?  Or do you look at the battle cards and think "That would be fun, if I could find the right mêlée/ranged/leader character to play it with"?

2.  How do you balance the proportion of actions/armour/utilities/weapons?  What split do you use?

3.  How do you increase your draw capacity?  Cards, or flip abilities?

My ongoing battle card deck

This is still a work in progress, but here's what I'm going to try in my next game

Actions

Inspiring Leadership x3
Repair Bay x3  (actually, I only own 2 at the moment... need to fix this!)
Rest and Relaxation x3 (I know it's a green icon, but that much repair is very useful)
Fling x2
Field Repair x2
Treasure Hunt x2 (still upping my upgrade count)
Disarm x2 (this was a killer against Ramjet and I liked playing it)

Armour
Evasive Maneuvers x2

Body Armor x2
Scrapper Gauntlets x3
Reinforced Plating x2

Cooling Vents x2

Weapons
Grenade Launcher x2
Handheld Blaster x2
Enforcement Batons x2

Utilities
Debilitating Crystal x2
Security Console x2
Data Pad x2

17 Actions
11 Armour

6 Weapons
6 Utilities
40 total.

Any thoughts?