Titan Masters Attack Thoughts

The new Transformers set finally arrives in physical form on Friday! I got thoughts and I think you want to hear 'em.

Stratagems
This is a new and strange card type that was meant to add dimension and/or playability to characters both new and old, but I'm not convinced by them. People weren't not playing Sergeant Kup because they were wishing they could untap it. The character is not good, and the star cost plus the hoops to satisfy the condition to get the Who's Next effect isn't worth it.

That's true for most of them: Jurassic Punch sounds amazing! Except that Bold 10 wasn't what the Volcanicus deck cared about or wanted, it's just the glory of cool things. Most stratagems just don't add something to those characters that they were missing, they instead eat at star values you'd rather put into your deck or characters.

The ones that have potential are the ones that add star value back to your deck: the Spotlights, Science Officer and Stealth Mission, Weapons Cache. Cards that let you cycle through your deck faster, like Systems Enhancement, or offer tempo value like More Guns might have potential but this is not very exciting for a new mechanic that the set wants to highlight. It's generally very, very clear: you don't want them, so there isn't a tension between adding that star card or putting in a stronger character/battle card.

Characters
The clear highlight of the set. I've been reading it for weeks and although I was initially reluctant to believe it, my playtesting has born out the statement: Headmasters are going to change the game.

If two-wide teams are actually three or four, three wide teams actually five or six, that is going to give those decks a lot of wiggle room to outlast the tempo machines of decks that are just naturally two or six wide.

And against natural three or four wide decks, I think they're going to establish a pretty strong advantage. Plus, there are so many mix and match options that deckbuilding really will come with some choices-is it worth running the star cost of 3 for 5 health, instead of just 1 for 2 health? Those kinds of questions make for good play.

The bad characters are still bad-no one is going to convince me that Gears is a good character- and others, like Wingspan, are probably waiting for a time to shine, since having high defense right now really isn't the hotness. But Wingspan fits with characters to keep my eye on, in case the metagame shifts.

There are outstanding characters overall: Wolfwire, Windsweeper, Fangry, Nightracer, Brawn-I mean there are even some not super rare characters in the mix! You can play without having to spend $70+ for a character!

It'll be exciting for people to open a super rare, of course, and I'm glad that big name characters like Optimus or Megatron aren't super rares in this set. It's important to give kids a chance to play with their favorites without breaking the bank.

Battle Cards
Where the soul of the set lies, the battle cards tell us what's possible, and what isn't anymore.

What's interesting is that the designers have talked about how Upgrades seem inferior to Actions, they don't seem to be doing a lot of serious upgrades to Upgrades in TMA. The cards people are talking about are all actions: Tripwire, Belligerence, and End Hostilities are the talk of the day and for good reason.

I'm also looking at Hand-to-Hand Combat, Hold the Line, Hit and Run, Last Stand, Reflect Damage-there are a BUNCH of good actions in this set, including secret actions and characters that interact with them.

By way of contrast, Fusion Borer, Paralyzo Box, and then...maybe Laser Scalpel? Master Sword is great if you can get it to trigger, and Holomatter Projector will probably be a sideboard role player. Regenerative Core has my interest, doing something that hasn't been done before, and it looks like there's a subtheme in this set about damage mitigation, not prevention. But the Upgrades are not as important as maybe they should be, or at least as much as WotC claims they want to emphasize.

The only thing Actions have going against them, is that there are pipless cards, or cards that have conditions on color contributions to combat, making them virtually pipless. No Upgrade has this drawback (unless I overlooked something!).

Which leads me to the one thing I dislike about TMA: the "hybrid" cards. There are memory issues here that are messy, there are rules interactions that are un-intuitive, and visually it's just ugly. I don't like this mechanic and I hope they find a better way to execute this idea.

But there's plenty to dig into, I think, that will reward players for trying new things!