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?
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?
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