Transformers Wave 1

The Transformers TCG is about two months old at this point and this past Thanksgiving holiday, I spent a bunch of time with it. I played a bunch of two person, two pack sealed games (my friend bought a box and we went through the whole thing), as well as a series of games made out of decks I had constructed and he built from the box we had opened. Here's my impressions.

First: it's pretty easy to teach. They were going for people 8 and up and I think they did a good job of keeping the rule set at that level.

Second: it's a whole lot deeper than it looks. There are meaningful decisions to make that provide a lot of depth to the game! Most robot modes do something, either adding an ability or increasing or decreasing attack or defensive values and choosing the correct mode can be a highly strategic moment.

Third: my character cards are bending, just a bit. I get having the bot mode of the characters be shiny is a very cool thing but damnit WotC there is no excuse for this. They've been doing foil cards for nearly twenty years and should have worked this problem out a long time ago. My cards should not be bending slightly after no use and merely hours out of the box-something I noted specifically with my Metroplex deck but with a few others, too.

The positive side to this is that once in sleeves and after a little compression, the cards seemed to flatten out. And since character cards aren't shuffled or otherwise handled roughly, I'm willing to be a little more lenient here.

Fourth: they still haven't figured out not to do 'feel bad' mechanics right. This is a weird moment, I know, because it's something I critique Magic for often: being afraid to give players mechanics that might feel bad initially but can be really powerful if used cleverly. Yet this same company is giving me cards that feel bad to use and not enough tools to really get around those bad feelings. There aren't a lot of cards that do this and there are workarounds if you're looking for them but it's all quite narrow and I'm unclear if it's worth trying to make something work. The initial tests feel shaky, not exciting.

Fifth: on the other hand, it feels like there is just the right amount of variance at the moment. Perhaps this is because it's still a new game, but there's a "wild west" vibe that has me still feeling lucky when I pull off a tough win, but also punished for poor planning. Which is great, because I've been able to recognize where my strategic errors were and change my play accordingly. Seeing rewards when you play well is always a positive.

Sixth: there's a lot of room to grow. I believe there's a bunch of space to work with in this game, between the choice of which characters you want to fight with to how the deck you build will manifest those choices and all the decision trees that will develop from those initial pics. The Transforming mechanic itself offers a ton of flexibility which should keep the game fresher than many of its counterparts and the combat strategies have enough tension between

My final verdict is a positive one! I had a great deal of fun playing and I hope to find more players and continue exploring this game. Bring on Wave 2!