Friendly Fire

The glory days of Transformers TCG featured deck building challenges held by the community.  Well, those days are back thanks to the Energon Hustlers.  This challenge involves using either Inferno or Private Red Alert and either Salvage for Parts (Wave 1) or Step Forward (Wave 4).  While the challenge only requires one of each, I took it upon myself to work them all in because I found the perfect episode to base my deck on.

Red Alert serves as the security director of the Autobots and is "paranoid."  Inferno is "fearless" which is kind of the opposite of being paranoid.  Despite these differences Red Alert and Inferno are described as "close friends" and actually have teamed up in quite a few Transformers episodes.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are both fire vehicles or maybe it's a case of opposites attract.  Either way, they are featured in so many episodes together (see Dinobots Island, The Revenge of Bruticus, Blaster Blues), I had no choice but to work with them both even though the challenge only required one.  But which episode would form the basis of the perfect deck?  After extensive research and my inability to fit a Dinobots into the team stars wise, I settled on the perfect episode: Auto Berserk.

In Auto Berserk, the Autobots thought it would be a good idea to create a super-weapon creatively called the Negavator (which I will work in as many times as I can because it is fun to say).  As literally anyone could predict, they were attacked by the Decepticons who tried to steal it.  Buddies Inferno and Red Alert stayed behind to guard the Negavator while the rest of the squad met the Decepticons in battle.  Inferno got lured away to help fight (not sure why they didn't just use the Negavator if it was so legit, but whatever).  The Decepticons lost, but in their retreat they managed to injure Red Alert.  His logic chips were screwed up, making him more paranoid than usual.

When the Autobots set out to take the Negavator back to headquarters, the Decepticons attacked again.  The Autobots beat them and the Decepticons booked out a second time, except Megatron ditched Starscream because he's kind of annoying.  Optimus asked some pretty reasonable questions about Red Alert's inability to detect a completely predictable attack, but Red Alert's paranoia caused him to run off.  This is where Starscream comes in.  He was able to bond with Red Alert by probing the depth of his Megatron insecurities.  The two erstwhile enemies were able to bond over their common ground, which is kind of heartwarming if you step back and think about it.  They decide to become bros and steal the Negavator and teach their respective horrible bosses a lesson.

The dynamic duo managed to snag the Negavator.  Megatron caught up to them and Starcream wussed out and said he was tricking Red Alert to get the weapon for Megatron (Starcream has a habit of doing this).  Then he shot Red Alert with his patented Null-Ray, which seems like a crappy thing to do, but it ended up stabilizing his logic circuits (kind of like when you hit someone on the head and they get amnesia and then hit them again and they are cured).  This is where Red Alert's original bro comes in, as Inferno saved Red Alert from being crushed.  Everyone apologized for their role in this fiasco and the world is all good again.

In addition to the rules of the challenge, I constrained myself to using official game cards to enable me to build the deck using the app.  The fortressmaximus.io visual depiction of the deck is included at the end of this article.  Behold, Friendly Fire (see what I did there with the name? It's very nuanced).

Characters (Stars):
Inferno (12)
Private Red Alert (7)
Starscream Decepticon Lieutenant (5)
Mounted Missiles (1)

Battle Cards (number)(pip):
Data Pad (3)(W)
Drill Arms (3)(B)
Field Repair (3)(O)
Hand-To-Hand Combat (3)(B)
Increased Durability (3)(BL)
Kinetic Converter (3)(W)
Mining Pick (3)(O)
Rapid Conversion (3)(W)
Ready For Action (3)(none)
Roll Out (3)(OB)
Salvage for Parts (3)(none)
Security Checkpoint (3)(BL)
Step Forward (3)(B)
Mounted Missiles (1)(OO)

Breakdown: 11 Orange, 18 Blue, 9 White, 3 black, 6 blank.  24 Actions, 6 Utility, 7 Weapons, 3 Armor

Why these characters: Well, to be honest, there doesn't seem to be a lot of synergy between Inferno and Red Alert. But they are buddies, so I had to keep them together.  I needed a Starscream to be Red Alerts new best friend, and the only one that can fit stars wise is Decepticon Lieutenant.  With these mismatched bots smashed together on a team, I had my work cut out for me with my battle cards.

Why these battle cards:  Red Alert has two abilities.  The first is pretty lame.  You need to flip at least an orange, white, and blue to get him a +3 attack.  That isn't very likely but I did try to have a fair amount of each color to give me a chance in case I wanted to go for it. I also added cards that let me stack the deck to give me a better chance - Data Pad, Field Repair, Mining Pick. 

Red Alert's other power is better (and more thematic for a fire chief's car).  When you flip, you get to repair one damage.  This led me to add a bunch of flip cards, as I now perceived my best chance at success as crafting this as a healing deck - Rapid Conversion and Roll Out give me good chances I can flip Red Alert a few times for some healing.  Field Repair and to a lesser extent Increased Durability also help. 

It turns out all this flipping is potentially good for Inferno as well.  His bot mode has no powers, but flipping to alt-mode allows you to return a characters upgrades to their owners hand.

I decided to add cards to my deck that interacted with upgrades. Drill Arms allows me to scrap an owner's armor. That's kind of duplicative of Inferno's powers.  But the kicker is, if there are no armor to scrap, then I can draw a card.  This would allow me to flip Inferno to knock off an enemy armor, and then play drill arms to snag a card.

Salvage for Parts and Hand-to-Hand Combat also has some interesting synergy potential with my healing deck and Inferno's ability.  First, I use Inferno's flip to knock off one of my enemy upgrades - the one with the most upgrades gets targeted.  Then I use Hand to Hand Combat on one of my weaponless characters to attack a different defender, giving me +3 attack and knocking off their weapon.  In the alternative, I can use Drill Arms to knock off an enemy armor.  With these upgrades gone, I can play Salvage for Parts on my next turn.  This card scraps ALL upgrades, and gives a +1 healing for each upgrade scrapped.  In this case, I have reduced the healing from my opponent while getting the maximum healing for my team.  Because I'm knocking off my own upgrades, I included cards that get me more cards such as Data Pad.  Kinetic Converter is there to help gain additional benefit (a card) from all the flipping I'll be doing.

Inferno also loves Security Checkpoint.  After Inferno returns a character's upgrades to their owner's hand, I can play this card to force them to scrap them all, ensuring they won't simply be added back on.

Ready for Action is included to try to squeeze the most out of Red Alert (or Starscream if need be).  Step Forward is there for one purpose.  Sneaky Starscream is pretty weak, so if someone is going to come after him, this would allow me to route the attack to one of my Autobots. This fits the theme of the episode - Starscream is using Red Alert for his own nefarious purposes.  

Strategy: Starscream's team up with Red Alert means you try to keep him alive as long as possible but once he's done, Red Alert can be free to reunite with Inferno.  This has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with theme.  Starscream has to be the guy who bites it first if you are trying to follow what happened in the episode.

Your first move will probably be dictated by what cards you draw.  If you get healing cards, you're going to probably flip Red Alert first to set him up to heal when he flips back.  If you get some of the card that work with Inferno, you'll want to flip him first to take advantage of them the next turn.  Field Repair only works on Autobots, so if you have that, you may want to route the attacks towards the Autobots if you get that card in the early going.

If you manage to collect a ton of cards and you have some of the 'plan' cards in the deck, you can try for Red Alert's orange, white, blue attack bonus.  This would be a nice surprise if you can get it, but I wouldn't count on it happening as you form your strategy.

Ideally, you can get both Red Alert and Inferno into bot mode when you have Roll Out, which allows you to flip both of them at once, taking advantage of both of their powers.  How cool would it be to have Starscream get KO'd and then they reunite for a cool heal and upgrade stripping combo move?

Conclusion: While Inferno and Red Alert's cards, like their characters' personalities, don't seem to have much in common, this deck sets up some opportunities for some cool combo moves. You might not win, but you do have the opportunity to make a lot of fire quips when you attack - like "Fire in the hole!" "Where there's smoke, there's fire!" and when you KO someone "You're fired!" If you like this deck, you may like some of my other Starscream decks: Starscream's Ghost, Oh How It Pains Me To Do This, and Starscream's Brigade.  This deck has a lot of flipping.  For a deck with literally NO flipping, check out Un-Transformers.

Un-Transformers

One of the defining traits of the Transformers is how they ... transform.  The card game is so excellent because the flipping mechanic effectively stands in for the transformation. But some characters in our beloved TCG actually do not flip at all.  Battlemasters and Weaponizers are one example, as they only change when they are knocked out.  But the game also has some characters that don't even do that - Brunt Artillery Drone and Slammer Combat Drone never change into anything - the back of their cards doesn't even have anything!  The challenge in this article is to build a deck around bots that don't transform.

For purposes of this exercise I am limiting my cards to official TCG cards (wave 1-5).  There are a lot of excellent fan cards out there, but since not everyone has or can get them, I'll stick to the ones everyone is familiar with.  The fortressmaximus.io visual depiction of the deck is included at the end of this article.

Characters:
Brunt Artillery Drone (4)
Slammer Combat Drone (4)
Private Smashdown (5)
Raider Blowpipe (5)
Private Turbo Board (7)

Battle Cards (Number)(Pips):
Ancient Wisdom (3)(o)
Bravery (3)(b)
Composite Armor (3)(o, bl)
Emergency Maintenance (2)(o)
Immersed in Shadow (3)(o, bl)
Peace Through Tyranny (2)(oo)
Point Position (3)(bl, b)
Precision Fire (3)(o, bl)
Quartermaster (3)(w)
Stealthiness (3)(o)
Step Forward (3)(b)
Unleash Potential (3)(b)
War of Attrition (3)(bg)
Wedge Formation (3)(o, bl, g)

Breakdown: 25 actions, 3 armor, 12 utility.  24 Orange, 15 Blue, 3 White, 6 Green, 15 Black.

Why these characters:

Brunt and Slammer are two of the lamest characters in the game, but that's the whole point of this deck.  I then tried to pick battle masters that would complement them and each other. Smashdown and Blowpipe likes having lots of colors being flipped. Turbo Board rewards flipping a blue and orange pip when you flip.  These three guys seem to play well together (as a side note, they'd really be a killer team with Brawn)

Why these battle cards:

Quartermaster is easy - since my team sucks, I'll need to reclaim Smashdown, Blowpipe, and Turbo Board (in their alt forms) from the KO pile if they get scrapped.  Because I want them to die first so they can become upgrades, I am using stealth and bravery (Stealthiness, Bravery, Immersed in Shadow, Point Position, Step Forward) for probably the first time.  I also tried to get cards with multiple pip colors. The best of these for this deck is Wedge Formation, which has three colors and rewards the fact that I have melee (Smashdown), Ranged (Brunt, Slammer, Blowpipe), and Specialist (Turbo Board) characters on my team.  Both of my main characters are tanks, so Composite Armor seemed like a good choice, especially since it has two pip colors.  Given the fact that my guys are going to die fast, I thought Emergency Maintenance would help.  Peace Through Tyranny gets me two orange pips and also allows me to KO Turbo Board if I want to get him into upgrade mode.  Finally, I am a sucker for the Ancient Wisdom/Unleash Potential combo. I tried to get plenty of blue and orange pips to help with the three battle master powers.  When Turbo Board is in Anti-Gravity Turbo Pack mode, he allows you to play an orange or blue card you flipped, so I leaned pretty heavy into actions.  Since Smashdown and Blowpipe turn into weapons, I didn't really put any into my battle card deck.  This may be a dumb move.

Strategy:

Well, at least you don't have to figure out who to flip... This deck feels cool because I pulled off the gimmick, but you have only 31 total team health and 12 ATK (prior to upgrades) so you are pretty much going to get blasted.  If you get a bravery battle card, use it on the battle masters. If you get a stealth card, use it on Brunt or Slammer.  Maybe if you convince your opponent before the game to try a game where neither of you flips any characters you might win.  Either way, you can revel in the fact that you made the most un-transformers Transformers TCG deck possible.