New Game Mode: Frankenstein Combiners

 Combiners are pretty neat in concept, if not necessarily meta relevant. Unfortunately you are kind of locked into a set squad of characters to use them.  What's the fun in that?  This is why I am proposing another new game mode to use the five waves of official game cards - Frankenstein mode! 

But what exactly IS Frankenstein mode?  Glad you asked.  Frankenstein mode allows you to combine parts from any of the combiner teams.  The rules are as follows:

Game mode allows 27 Stars to account for higher cost combiner parts, but the two extra stars can only be used to fit bots on your team and not star cards.

Five and Six bot combiners:

* Can use any set of arms and body, with the following limitations.  First, the section of the combined bot that has box spelling out its power must be consistent such that you can read the text.  This means in practice you are likely using legs from the same team.  Second, the pieces must line up to the right spot (right arms, left arms, bodies).

* Combining can be accomplished by using any enigma on your team, which allows you to get more enigmas in your deck.  This has the advantage of making it easier to combine.

* Frankenstein takes the traits and affiliation that is visible on the card of the combined bot (usually the left side of the card).  For example, Air Raid is the card that says Superion, Aerial Bot, and Ranged, so if he is part of your team, your Frankenstein becomes Superion when you combine.  At that point, only the Aerialbot enigma would help you.

* Frankenstein can keep upgrades that were specific to other factions/groups when it combines.

Two character combiners:

* Can be mixed and matched, with the combined bot taking the characteristic in the text box (the bottom bot).  The only limitation is, you must use a top and a bottom and not two bottom characters.

* 2 star combiners can be combined by as if the second character name replaced the natural partner in the combining instruction box. 

* Unless it wouldn't work (see Sky Shadow combination), either bot's transforming method can be used.

Let's take a look at how this might work and what amazing fun can be unleashed.

Frankenstein Deck 1

Scavenger (4 - Leg)

Scrapper  (4 - Leg)

Silverbolt (5 -Body)

Rampage (5 - Arm)

Sunstreaker (7 - Arm)

Battle Cards:

3 Aerialbot Enigmas (G)

3 Constructicon Enigmas (G)

3 Predacon Enigmas (G)

3 Sentinel Enigmas (G)

3 Builder's Tools (O)

3 Reclaim (B)

3 Heavy Landing (B)

3 Heavy Handed (B)

3 Squish Them Like Bugs (O)

3 Emergency Repair Patch (B)

3 Energy Pack (O)

3 New Orders (BL)

3 The Bigger They Are (B)

1 Rapid Conversion (W)

How this plays out:

First, as you can see, we now have 12 enigmas in our deck of 40. This maximizes our chance that we can get these guys to combine and I have added a Rapid Conversion to help get your team lined up to do so.  You WILL combine! At that point, you will be huge, so I added Heavy Handed and Squish them Like Bugs to the deck.  Your only chance to use them will be if you are the first to combine.  This could lead you to try to combine fast, or you may want to remain wide to keep your opponent from ganging up on you.  This adds another element of strategy. If you want to hedge your bets, you can use New Orders to untap anyone but Sunstreaker.  This deck also has The Bigger They Are to hedge your bets in case your opponent combines first.

Our combined bot will become Optimus Maximus, Leader, Sentinel, Ranged, thanks to Sunstreaker being on our team.  After combining, only the Sentinel Enigma would trigger.  

But we also follow the powers of Devastator and have his 6 attack, 33 health, and 2 Defense.  Thanks to the text box that controls the bot, the Constructicon Tower comes into play.  This is  why I added three copies of Builder's Tools and Heavy Landing to the deck.  The individual pieces are interesting as well. Sunstreaker can flip when he's in the KO pile to help you draw a card.  Silverbolt adds chip damage when he flips.

With the near certainty that our big guy will come to life, we can use Energy Pack (he'll be more than 11 stars) and Emergency Repair Patch (he'll be an autobot) to keep him alive.

Frankenstein Deck 2

Sky Shadow Tank (7)

SkyTread (Tank) (6)

Sky Shadow Sync (1)

Captain Impactor (7)

Private Sidetrack (4)

Ominous (outside game)

Battle Cards: 

3 Composite Armor (O, BL)

3 Crushing Treads (O)

3 Escape Capsule (O, BL)

3 High Five (G)

3 Hull Down (O)

3 Hunker Down (B)

3 Last Stand (BL)

3 Peace Through Tyranny (OO)

3 Hiding Spot (BL)

3 Point Position (BL, B)

3 Stealthiness (O)

3 Armed Hovercraft (B)

3 Anticipation Engine (W)

1 Energon Axe (B)

How this plays out: Per the Stratagem under these adapted rules, when your Sky Shadow tank is KO'd you can combine him with Ominous and your bottom character, in this case Skytread.  If you had chosen a different top teammate, Skytread's Revenge ability could make you combine, but if you did so, you would be headless.  Because Ominous is on the squad, I added Escape Capsule.

What has our Frankenstein gotten us?  Well, it allowed me to shape a tank deck around a combiner because all my characters are tanks.  In addition to helping create a tank team, I get the Skytread power on the combined bot.  It also lets me bring in Ominous from outside the game to help. In addition to Crushing Treads, Composite Armor, Hunker Down, and Hull Down I added High Five because everyone shares at least one trait.  Go tanks!  This team is heavy on ranged characters, so I included Armed Hovercraft.

I also added cards to help kill Sky Shadow to trigger the combination.  Stealthiness, Hiding Spot and Point Position are geared towards funneling damage to him. Last Stand lets him go down swinging and Peace Through Tyranny give you an extra turn as a bonus for combining via ko.

What fun Frankenstein Decks can you come up with?

New Game Mode: Clash of the Titans

Titans. Remember them?  I sort of do, but I can't remember the last time I played with them.  I find they are hard to use because they take up all your stars and they get wrecked by wide teams.  Plus, they aren't always fun to build decks around because you are mostly just stuck with them and the minions that they came with. UNTIL NOW!

This is the second post in my series proposing new ways to play the game using the official cards (the first was a 7, 8, 10 star character draft).  There are a lot of awesome fan made sets out there, but this is a way to breathe new life into the cards we all own.

Rules: The rules to this mode are brilliant in their simplicity (Note: I am not calling myself brilliant, I just like that phrase).  Each team is made up of:

- 50 total stars

- 1 oversized Titan sized extra large character, a 5/6 character Combiner, or the three card combiner Omega Supreme

- The same star rule applies for minion cards (like Metroplex, Trypticon)

- You can either use your stars to include combiners that don't normally fit (combiner Dinobots, Sentinels) or treat them as they are handled in a regular game to save your stars.

- All members of the team must be of the same faction (plus mercenaries)

Why?  Expanding the star count allows you to deploy some bots to help support your titan or combiner.  In the show, the 'regular' characters would be fighting and then the Constructions would combine and start crushing the Autobots until Omega Supreme popped and duked it out with Devastator.   This kind of awesomeness just hasn't been possible to recreate in the card game ... UNTIL NOW!

Requiring a Titan or combiner should encourage the use of Trypticon, Omega Supreme, Metroplex, and the combiners who are not used because they usually bite it before they can do anything.  Requiring all the members be of the same faction makes it feel like it is a real battle that could have happened, while providing a little structure to build teams around.  

This would open up new strategic decisions during team building.  Is it better to use a titan, who is ready to start pounding on people right away or do you go with the benefits of being wide with a combiner and risk failing to combine? Do you support your big guy with a few powerful bots, or do you go as wide as possible? Can you come up with a team that actually fought together in an episode?

Would this actually do anything to make playing with these guys more fun? I am not a numbers guy, but I think having more characters would give combiners more time to dig for an enigma.  It would give Trypticon more time to find the cards he needs to deploy his minions.  The right teammates could enhance Metroplex's deployable buddies.  What is the maximum number of heads you can get to pop in a game if you combined Fortress Maximus with some body/head teammates?  Heck, I bet we could even see Loot Crate Omega Supreme get used to take advantage of his smaller star count for a titan.

What kinds of matchups might we see?  I don't think we could go wrong with Optimus and the Aerialbots against a Megatron led team featuring the Stunticons, flipping the Autobots are cars, Decepticons are planes paradigm.  I'd love to see a Kup, Hot Rod, and Metroplex team against the Insecticons and Devastator (a scene right out of the movie if Metroplex is autobot city, which I've never figured out).  How about a team of wave 1 and wave 2 Dinobots against Trypticon and pals to form a true jurassic battle?

Conclusion: This mode not only forces you to use some characters that aren't meta competitive, it also makes them more viable. This also opens up new potential synergies, as you can now look at the Combiner/Titan powers and see if they mesh well with characters they've never been able to be paired with before.

Hit me up in the comments or on twitter with your epic squads!

New Game Mode: 7, 8, 10 Star Character Draft

With the unfortunate news that the Transformers TCG was canceled, groups immediately sprung up to keep things going with new fan made cards.  This is understandable, as people rightly feel the game can get stale without new content (and frankly the stuff people are putting out is pure awesomeness - see my card spoilers for The Ark's set)  But what if we looked at things differently and instead changed the deck building rules to allow fresh new decks?  This series suggests some new modes to try.  And the first format in my series is a 7, 8, 10 star character draft, where players bring their own battle card decks to the draft.

The Mode: 7,8, 10 Bot Drafting

Explanation: With no more packs being made, the old sealed booster game will eventually be impossible.  When playing constructed, sometimes it sucks to have to play against someone who has all the cool cards.  For this mode, you will put a pool of characters in the middle and take turns drafting to fill your team.  The draft order is: 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1 to reduce the advantage of picking first.  If someone prefers to draft two 7 star bots instead of an 8 star, that is allowed.  This may be desirable for players who want to squeeze a star card into their battle deck (or maybe they they just like the 7 star characters better).  For simplicity's sake, Stratagems are not allowed.  I have a suggested pool of draftable bots below, but you can alter this list as you see fit.  The key is to have  equal numbers of cool cards to choose from and not have one character be overpowered. I have chosen only common and uncommon bots as a proxy for this, plus you are less likely to get nervous about someone else drafting one of those cards and playing with it (because it isn't worth as much and you may have multiple copies of it).

Why the Draft format? There are some wizards at constructed formats.  We will never beat them. But this mode prizes smart drafting and flexibility.  There can be no 'magic deck' that can crush everyone in this format, because it changes every game.  Each player makes their battle card deck in advance of drafting, so you would have to make battle card decks that are flexible because you don't know in advance which bots will be using them.  Plus, if you see what the your opponent is going for, you can try to stymie them.  If you play fantasy sports, you know drafting is fun.

Common/Uncommon 3 Bot Pool: For this pool, each player will have a 7, 8, and 10 star bot from a pool of common and uncommon cards (or two 7 star cards).  Here's who I suggest for each pool, but this can be adjusted.

7 star pool

- Smokescreen: Safeguard is a decent ability to have in a team you can't plan in advance.

- Gears: I don't think anyone will draft him, but I see no reason why he can't be in the pool.

- Crankcase: His draw power could make him a high draft pick

- Snarl: I haven't used him in forever, but his ability to draw cards and stack the deck could be useful. Plus...Dinobot!

- Nova Storm: If you have black pip cards in your deck, she could be helpful.  She heals and gets pierce from them.

- Sergeant Chromia: Like Nova Storm, someone with a lot of blue in their pre-made deck will like her ability.

-Specialist Flamewar: She's nowhere as useful as the other Flamewar, but she does have Focus 2 in bot mode, which could come in handy, especially if you have a mixed pip deck.

- Sergeant Kup: HE HAS TO BE IN THE POOL!  No one will take him, but HE HAS TO BE THERE. One potential tweak to the rules is you get his stratagem for free if you draft him because ... HE'S KUP! The ultimate vanilla card!  To make this alteration, before the draft, one player has to declare it's a Kup match, and the stratagem gets placed with Kip for drafting.

Not included on purpose: Quake seems too overpowered, Battle Masters don't really fit the format.

8 star pool:

-Autobot Hound: Perfect bot for a deck with white pips, which give him a +1 ask/def boost and help him draw cards.

- Bluestreak: There's very little chance his ability will be drafted, because you have to hit on three pip colors. But maybe paired with Flamewar he could be worth a look.

- Deadlock Bounty Hunter: Another guy I never use, but his ability isn't overpowered so he's in the pool.  He has to KO someone to trigger it and draw two cards, which could be useful but may be hard to pull off.

- Dinobot Sludge, Military Stomper: Really only works on Dinobot teams, but if you draft Snarl, you could give him a go. 

- Mudflap: Like Deadlock, I've never really been into trying to trigger bounty abilities. He's a truck so that could come in handy depending on your deck.

- Greenlight: As was the case with Smokescreen, I could see her safeguard ability being useful in this format.

- Private Arcee: Focus could be useful if you have a mixed pip deck.

- Private Sideswipe: I think Sideswipe is more useful in wider decks, because he has abilities that trigger when your teammates are KO'd.

- Dirge: The opposite of Sideswipe.  He does better when there are KOd bots in his opponent's area.

- Triggerhappy: Great flip ability to retrieve weapons from a scrap pile to hand, which could combine well with grenade launcher, which I assume will be a staple in battle card decks in this format.

Not included on purpose: I left out Wingspan because I don't know if his upgrades will be scrapped as often when people build decks without knowing who they are going to draft.  I left Ratchet out because I'm trying to avoid characters who require a certain battle card in their deck  The Firecons work better together and probably need their battle card, so I tossed them out.

10 star pool:

- Apeface: Triple changers are fun, and his abilities aren't really tied to teammate synergy.

- Megatron Arrogant Ruler: His messing around with upgrades could be cool, and if someone comes in with an upgrade heavy deck, he could be a high draft choice.

- Major Prowl: He doesn't get much play, but in a system where you need a 10 star bot, there are worse ways to go than 2 damage every time you attack someone with a weapon.

- Lockdown Bounty Hunter: I've never really played with him, but his ability seems like the kind of thing worth trying if you don't have a honed team/deck. 

Not included on purpose: I am leaving Jetfire out, because I think he'd be too powerful in this format. I'm leaving Trailbreaker out, because his ability is dependent on having Force Field in your deck. Crosshairs is excluded since his ability is Battle Master dependent.

Final Thoughts: I'd love to hear your thoughts on the bot pool and what battle card decks you'd come into the draft with.  Drop a comment or hit me up on Twitter!

Hopefully this game mode will be better than this movie.