After the last few tweaks, I feel as though Red Alert is in a good position. I used the sideboard a little but I think I need more practice sideboarding. That's understandable, since I just started doing it, so sideboarding will be a new skill.
The maindeck, though, that's in a pretty good spot. Satyr Firedancer keeps shining, and the uses of Dire Fleet Daredevil have continued to surprise me.
The big weak link? Seems to be Samut's Sprint. I wanted to use this card for the creature boost and the scry but...well, I'm sure everyone knew that a change was needed here. I need something that does damage: Damage is always better than not-damage, right? If it drew a card, that might be useful but I've started poking around with something that might be just as good: Bonecrusher Giant.
The converted mana cost for Stomp is just two and the spell can be cast as an instant, which means that I can almost certainly cover that cost if I reveal it off a Light Up The Stage. The added value of getting a cheap creature I can cast to increase my threat count when I have the mana up-if, say, Chandra or Light Up The Stage fail to forward my board state-is a big deal.
The testing so far? It's working. In multiplayer games (where is not, admittedly, where Red Alert shines) both Matt and Caitlin agreed that Bonecrusher Giant was an improvement. Plus, the effect of Stomp gives me an out against certain protection strategies, which wasn't something I foresaw but was very glad to note when Swans of Bryn Argoll hit the table.
Monday, December 16, 2019
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Lessons From The Sideboard
Fortunately, testing seemed to bear me out! I played against Fuz's zombie deck-which is always a good barometer for how solid a deck I play is, as his zombie deck is quite resilient-and I felt good about the performance.
In games 2 and 3, I swapped out Dire Fleet Daredevil for the Firedancers, not having seen any instants or sorceries.
That was a mistake, because he had Nameless Inversion to take my creatures out, and the Daredevil would've given me the opportunity to exile that spell.
The card that really didn't do anything? Abbot of Keral Keep.
Which highlights a specific problem I'm having: Curving out appropriately. The Abbot can get me a land, but it can also just whiff. Either way, I can't play it until turn three. So now that card is questionable.
You know what totally hit the Hexdrinker Rule? Satyr Firedancer. It drew a kill spell as soon as Fuz could find one to play. Because you know what's awesome? Using a Searing Blaze to kill two creatures and do three damage to your opponent. I have to admit, after my first rounds of testing, I wasn't sure that the Firedancer was all I thought it to be but the latest matches really worked!
So maybe the Abbot should be in the sideboard and come in for the control matchups? I can use the extra card advantage and damage in those matches, as needed. Since matches with creatures are more common than those without, that's my plan for the future.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Bad Ban, No Donut
Multi-Mission Gear was banned this week, as a result of the oppressive effect of the Daring Escape combo deck.
They explain it all here.
What they got right: not banning Daring Escape. Going into depth about what their thought process was.
What they got wrong: the card they banned and the reason for it.
The Specialist Combo deck (one I have a version of and love) works by gradually creating an overwhelming advantage of resources over your opponent.You always have options and you can chain together multiple actions/upgrades for free, in order to slowly overwhelm your opponent.
And this happens for two reasons: 1) You get stuff for free and 2) There's nothing your opponent can do to stop it. The resources that players have to impact their opponent's actions is limited to sideboard cards at best or "well timed" (read: lucky) actions. That's not a bad thing, as I believe that getting to take your turn largely unimpeded is a strength of this game, the downside is that it does little to mitigate the two strengths of a specialists deck. That strength is not an issue so long as it takes time to get to where it's going.
The first point is why the deck is powerful but the second point is why combo decks that have alternative win conditions are and will always, inevitably, be broken. Maybe not at first, but eventually, someone will figure it out, because the opponent has a limited ability to shape what I do on a turn and nobody's cutting the fuel line.
So long as Upgrades work the way they do, triggering whenever they re-equipped, this will be an issue. It's why they banned Swap Parts: it allowed for so many re-triggers it locked people out of the game so early (sometimes by turn 2!), which meant that aggressive decks didn't have a chance and control never got to step in.
At the time, I thought banning Swap Parts was bad and they should've banned I Still Function. I was wrong: Swap Parts was the thing that enabled the gamebreaking actions by fueling too many triggers, making the deck incredibly consistent. It was too much, too quickly.
So I understand not wanting to ban Sergeant Cog or Private Red Heat: they went for that effect that already and it didn't exactly work. But let's be clear: It worked just fine until an effect was given to the deck to quickly lock an opponent out of the game by turn two or three, in this case by just winning it outright, instead of taking infinite turns.
I also get why they have decided to move to effects like Anticipation Engine instead. This will also work-until the cards come along to break it again, because of point #1: You get stuff for free.
Free is a very good price.
What this means to me is: as high as they are on alternative win conditions, they are going to need to be a lot more clever and a lot less "play this, you win", IF they want to keep combo as a deck style.
That's very different than Overwhelming Advantage, which can end the game but doesn't outright win it, since there are multiple scenarios where one might get that card to work and the opponent will have a chance to take another turn.
That doesn't happen with Daring Escape, and if it was a slow deck, people wouldn't blink an eye at.
But here's the issue: combo decks, by default, have to be as fast as they can be, because they are trying to win on an axis that nobody else is prepared for, and that often means that they themselves aren't as equipped to deal the standard win method. If they don't rush to the endgame, they frequently cannot win at all. Keeping the speed that they race to that endgame in check is important. It needs to be potentially fast enough to work before an Aggro deck can beat them, but not so fast that a Control deck can't step in a monkeywrench the whole thing.
Heck, one of the designers of the problematic deck replied to me at Reddit that the card that was the problem was Equipment Enthusiast, because of the sheer number of cards that EE gets you: "double digits" was what they said. That card draw is no longer the incremental advantage of Specialist decks, that's a turbo boost. And card draw is the most powerful thing you can do in a game like this.
So, what to do?
Errata the Upgrade cards.
This is a bad idea, for reasons they go into in the article. Adding to this: having upgrades re-trigger is something they've said they want to happen. It's fun and makes the game more interesting. I worry that it will become necessary because so long as one can get something for nothing, then broken things are likely to happen. I've seen this play out in Magic for over twenty five years. For now, however, it's OK.
Ban the Specialist Engines.
That would certainly do it for a time and it's clearly worked in this situation. The lessons they learned from the Specialist Upgrades have been beneficial but it's still likely that if it isn't one of the other two cards (Multi-Tool or Field Communicator), Anticipation Engine or Brainstorm will be cards players break, because free is a good price. However, it's not inevitable just highly likely. The other downside is that Specialists no longer have an "identity" in the game (Melee characters want to flip a LOT more cards, Ranged characters want to have 'passive' attacks/defenses outside of combat, Specialists now...do what?). That is a pretty big issue.
Slow everything down.
This would mean banning Equipment Enthusiast, at least in this instance, and keeping a tight hold on any effect that let you draw and keep more than two cards for a card played. It tracks, because the last time they had to ban a card from an oppressive deck, Equipment Enthusiast was in that one too.
Drawing cards without any penalty for doing so will inevitably break a card game like this because, I repeat: drawing cards is the most powerful thing you can do in a card game.
Stop making "I win" cards.
No more Daring Escapes. This is a tough one, because the additional design space makes for a more interesting game-but this is a design that I don't think the Transformers TCG is currently equipped to handle. Maybe it won't ever be, but I have trouble believing that.
However, we know they like doing these cards, plus there's going to be players who love alternative win conditions, too. Having a little something for everyone helps games like this thrive.
So: If they want to keep making alternate win conditions AND they don't want to errata cards AND they want to prevent future issues from happening, then what is their best option?
I think the best move is the 'slow everything down' one, honestly. It allows for the most decks, while having the smallest downside. The Specialist deck would still exist, have multiple iterations, but could be beaten. Cards work as they are read. Strange win conditions can continue to be made and maybe even pull out victories from time to time.
But keeping the speed of the game down to prevent combo (or really, any) decks from locking people out by turn two or three is critical and if they don't do that, we'll be looking at bans again.
Which is what bothers me: They went for the smallest option, and while that seems like a good thing, I know that the next problem is lurking right around the corner because they didn't rein in the strongest action you do in these games. Combo decks might be the most likely ones to break the game, but card draw is good for every style of deck, threatening the health of the game.
Their argument against banning Equipment Enthusiast-
So it looks like their argument is that there is no middle ground between getting two cards with zero drawback and ten cards with zero drawback? I don't buy that and no one should: there are clearly ways to have card draw in this game that would give decks a reasonable chance without allowing people to draw and keep 1/4th of their entire deck.
And I think they should've taken that path, to keep us from having to have this discussion again, when the next cool alternative win condition appears.
They explain it all here.
What they got right: not banning Daring Escape. Going into depth about what their thought process was.
What they got wrong: the card they banned and the reason for it.
The Specialist Combo deck (one I have a version of and love) works by gradually creating an overwhelming advantage of resources over your opponent.You always have options and you can chain together multiple actions/upgrades for free, in order to slowly overwhelm your opponent.
And this happens for two reasons: 1) You get stuff for free and 2) There's nothing your opponent can do to stop it. The resources that players have to impact their opponent's actions is limited to sideboard cards at best or "well timed" (read: lucky) actions. That's not a bad thing, as I believe that getting to take your turn largely unimpeded is a strength of this game, the downside is that it does little to mitigate the two strengths of a specialists deck. That strength is not an issue so long as it takes time to get to where it's going.
The first point is why the deck is powerful but the second point is why combo decks that have alternative win conditions are and will always, inevitably, be broken. Maybe not at first, but eventually, someone will figure it out, because the opponent has a limited ability to shape what I do on a turn and nobody's cutting the fuel line.
So long as Upgrades work the way they do, triggering whenever they re-equipped, this will be an issue. It's why they banned Swap Parts: it allowed for so many re-triggers it locked people out of the game so early (sometimes by turn 2!), which meant that aggressive decks didn't have a chance and control never got to step in.
At the time, I thought banning Swap Parts was bad and they should've banned I Still Function. I was wrong: Swap Parts was the thing that enabled the gamebreaking actions by fueling too many triggers, making the deck incredibly consistent. It was too much, too quickly.
So I understand not wanting to ban Sergeant Cog or Private Red Heat: they went for that effect that already and it didn't exactly work. But let's be clear: It worked just fine until an effect was given to the deck to quickly lock an opponent out of the game by turn two or three, in this case by just winning it outright, instead of taking infinite turns.
I also get why they have decided to move to effects like Anticipation Engine instead. This will also work-until the cards come along to break it again, because of point #1: You get stuff for free.
Free is a very good price.
What this means to me is: as high as they are on alternative win conditions, they are going to need to be a lot more clever and a lot less "play this, you win", IF they want to keep combo as a deck style.
That's very different than Overwhelming Advantage, which can end the game but doesn't outright win it, since there are multiple scenarios where one might get that card to work and the opponent will have a chance to take another turn.
That doesn't happen with Daring Escape, and if it was a slow deck, people wouldn't blink an eye at.
But here's the issue: combo decks, by default, have to be as fast as they can be, because they are trying to win on an axis that nobody else is prepared for, and that often means that they themselves aren't as equipped to deal the standard win method. If they don't rush to the endgame, they frequently cannot win at all. Keeping the speed that they race to that endgame in check is important. It needs to be potentially fast enough to work before an Aggro deck can beat them, but not so fast that a Control deck can't step in a monkeywrench the whole thing.
Heck, one of the designers of the problematic deck replied to me at Reddit that the card that was the problem was Equipment Enthusiast, because of the sheer number of cards that EE gets you: "double digits" was what they said. That card draw is no longer the incremental advantage of Specialist decks, that's a turbo boost. And card draw is the most powerful thing you can do in a game like this.
So, what to do?
Errata the Upgrade cards.
This is a bad idea, for reasons they go into in the article. Adding to this: having upgrades re-trigger is something they've said they want to happen. It's fun and makes the game more interesting. I worry that it will become necessary because so long as one can get something for nothing, then broken things are likely to happen. I've seen this play out in Magic for over twenty five years. For now, however, it's OK.
Ban the Specialist Engines.
That would certainly do it for a time and it's clearly worked in this situation. The lessons they learned from the Specialist Upgrades have been beneficial but it's still likely that if it isn't one of the other two cards (Multi-Tool or Field Communicator), Anticipation Engine or Brainstorm will be cards players break, because free is a good price. However, it's not inevitable just highly likely. The other downside is that Specialists no longer have an "identity" in the game (Melee characters want to flip a LOT more cards, Ranged characters want to have 'passive' attacks/defenses outside of combat, Specialists now...do what?). That is a pretty big issue.
Slow everything down.
This would mean banning Equipment Enthusiast, at least in this instance, and keeping a tight hold on any effect that let you draw and keep more than two cards for a card played. It tracks, because the last time they had to ban a card from an oppressive deck, Equipment Enthusiast was in that one too.
Drawing cards without any penalty for doing so will inevitably break a card game like this because, I repeat: drawing cards is the most powerful thing you can do in a card game.
Stop making "I win" cards.
No more Daring Escapes. This is a tough one, because the additional design space makes for a more interesting game-but this is a design that I don't think the Transformers TCG is currently equipped to handle. Maybe it won't ever be, but I have trouble believing that.
However, we know they like doing these cards, plus there's going to be players who love alternative win conditions, too. Having a little something for everyone helps games like this thrive.
So: If they want to keep making alternate win conditions AND they don't want to errata cards AND they want to prevent future issues from happening, then what is their best option?
I think the best move is the 'slow everything down' one, honestly. It allows for the most decks, while having the smallest downside. The Specialist deck would still exist, have multiple iterations, but could be beaten. Cards work as they are read. Strange win conditions can continue to be made and maybe even pull out victories from time to time.
But keeping the speed of the game down to prevent combo (or really, any) decks from locking people out by turn two or three is critical and if they don't do that, we'll be looking at bans again.
Which is what bothers me: They went for the smallest option, and while that seems like a good thing, I know that the next problem is lurking right around the corner because they didn't rein in the strongest action you do in these games. Combo decks might be the most likely ones to break the game, but card draw is good for every style of deck, threatening the health of the game.
Their argument against banning Equipment Enthusiast-
If we introduced that constraint on something as ubiquitous and fundamental as card draw, that would prevent us from making dozens, if not hundreds of future cards.-is terrible, because it suggests that we either have zero card draw or double digit card draw. Which is completely silly, since we already have card draw (Pep Talk, Testify, Pocket Processor), filter card draw (Incoming Transmission, Inspiring Leadership, Repurpose) and card draw + cards (Swindled, Confidence, Secret Dealings) in the game.
So it looks like their argument is that there is no middle ground between getting two cards with zero drawback and ten cards with zero drawback? I don't buy that and no one should: there are clearly ways to have card draw in this game that would give decks a reasonable chance without allowing people to draw and keep 1/4th of their entire deck.
And I think they should've taken that path, to keep us from having to have this discussion again, when the next cool alternative win condition appears.
Monday, December 2, 2019
Sideboard Options
Whoa! Sorry everyone; in my hurry to get to the Thanksgiving holiday, I forgot to mention there wouldn't be posts for a little bit. Sorry about that: Let's get back to the normal stuff, getting back to the Magic decks and I hope everyone had a safe holiday!
In the playtests, Red Alert has generally been doing what red decks do; come from behind surprise burn is not uncommon! But being overwhelmed is not unexpected, either.
Removing a Dire Fleet Daredevil became something that was necessary: I want that card on turn three at the soonest, since I cannot cast a spell without the mana to do so. Four clogs up my hand, three seems right-but there's a space now. What to do?
It turns out there is another Chandra that fits the theme: Chandra, Fire Artisan and this was suggested to me by by buddy Tyler. I do not own any copies of that Chandra so...what to do until I get some?
Enter: Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. It's costed for a mono-red deck and it takes everything I have and makes it better. That will totally do until I get some Fire Artisans!
Except...the testing showed Torbran is pretty dang good. Since it boosts any red source I have, that means that my creatures get this impact immediately. If Torbran sticks for a turn, every spell I have does more damage, too. I loved seeing it and opponents did not. He's only appeared in two games, but each game he arrived, I was happy.
I may have to make an rule for cards like this-the Hexdrinker rule. "If my opponents hate seeing the card, I should keep running that card."
I also made a sideboard for Red Alert:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Blood Moon
4 Satyr Firedrinker
3 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens
I relegated the Firedrinker to the sideboard because I still think it's worth testing. The Crypt might help with any graveyard focused decks-and there are a lot of those, and Blood Moon should help stall anything that wants to use more than two colors.
Pyroblast is just good against blue and Smash to Smithereens fits in theme by doing damage and destroying an artifact. Abrade was suggested and while the card is more versatile, it doesn't mesh with the themes as well.
So here we go!
In the playtests, Red Alert has generally been doing what red decks do; come from behind surprise burn is not uncommon! But being overwhelmed is not unexpected, either.
Removing a Dire Fleet Daredevil became something that was necessary: I want that card on turn three at the soonest, since I cannot cast a spell without the mana to do so. Four clogs up my hand, three seems right-but there's a space now. What to do?
It turns out there is another Chandra that fits the theme: Chandra, Fire Artisan and this was suggested to me by by buddy Tyler. I do not own any copies of that Chandra so...what to do until I get some?
Enter: Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. It's costed for a mono-red deck and it takes everything I have and makes it better. That will totally do until I get some Fire Artisans!
Except...the testing showed Torbran is pretty dang good. Since it boosts any red source I have, that means that my creatures get this impact immediately. If Torbran sticks for a turn, every spell I have does more damage, too. I loved seeing it and opponents did not. He's only appeared in two games, but each game he arrived, I was happy.
I may have to make an rule for cards like this-the Hexdrinker rule. "If my opponents hate seeing the card, I should keep running that card."
I also made a sideboard for Red Alert:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Blood Moon
4 Satyr Firedrinker
3 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens
I relegated the Firedrinker to the sideboard because I still think it's worth testing. The Crypt might help with any graveyard focused decks-and there are a lot of those, and Blood Moon should help stall anything that wants to use more than two colors.
Pyroblast is just good against blue and Smash to Smithereens fits in theme by doing damage and destroying an artifact. Abrade was suggested and while the card is more versatile, it doesn't mesh with the themes as well.
So here we go!
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Newbie Issues
I present: two articles on draft picks for the Transformers TCG.
Character cards.
Battle cards.
Let's go through these really fast because there's some unhelpful stuff here and that's a real shame-but it also comes out of a) a new format being new and b) possibly someone who hasn't done a lot of drafting.
First, mentioning rare cards isn't extremely helpful. In a TCG, rare cards are supposed to be good, better than the common ones. That's why they're rare. So informing your audience that Private Hot Rod is good isn't exactly guidance-because of course your top picks should be powerful cards. This is like telling us that Lord Megatron or Pocket Processor is good: Yes, we know, that's why you pick those as soon as you can.
What we need to evaluate, especially with Battle Cards, are the common rarities because that's what we end up using to execute our strategies.
So are there enough actions in the format for us to build around Private Hot Rod? Is the ability actually worth something? No case is made.
Contrast this with the argument for Raider Spinster-at Uncommon, you're pretty likely to see one and while there are only four Battle Masters in the set, you have a decent shot at snagging one of those too, as they are also Uncommon.
This happens a couple times: Mirage is sold as a top pick but if you contrast that with the Battle Cards list, 3 of the 8 have the black Pierce icon, which Mirage does nothing for and zero Secret Actions on that list, of the mere two secret actions at common, only one of which has a blue icon. So where is Mirage getting any of it's power from? Heck, there are only three cards with blue icons in the entire set! With all those black icons, why isn't Raider Nova Storm getting more attention?
And it's important to look at this as a whole: of the battle cards suggested there isn't a single blue icon on them. So how does that mesh with the character recommendation of Mirage? Showing Off is sold as a high pick, but not a single recommended character has a great flip ability! Why would you pick that card unless you had a character like Sergeant Springer or Raider Chop Shop?
Another example: Kinetic Converter and Kinetic Whip need to flip to be really great-where are the Characters that mesh with this, since everyone's going to get a chance to pick those commons?
Where is the analysis of the format at large? It doesn't look like there's much Upgrade removal in this set and this seems incredibly relevant when Captain Astrotrain-at common-is available.
There seem to be some important, overlooked themes from Siege II and I'm not saying that these articles are easy to write. Clearly the author is going of his own experience-same as me. However, it isn't my experience that says there are only three common cards with blue icons: That's just me looking at the set and telling you a fact. Compare that to ten common cards with black icons, three of which have double black! I think you can see how the set is tilted.
And I chalk all of this up to the game being really new, and people still trying to get a grip on how drafting works. Because it's different in this game than in Magic. Character cards and battle cards have to work together, so generating a plan is extremely challenging-as I learned a couple weeks ago.
Hopefully, as more experience is gained, articles with sharper focus will emerge.
Character cards.
Battle cards.
Let's go through these really fast because there's some unhelpful stuff here and that's a real shame-but it also comes out of a) a new format being new and b) possibly someone who hasn't done a lot of drafting.
First, mentioning rare cards isn't extremely helpful. In a TCG, rare cards are supposed to be good, better than the common ones. That's why they're rare. So informing your audience that Private Hot Rod is good isn't exactly guidance-because of course your top picks should be powerful cards. This is like telling us that Lord Megatron or Pocket Processor is good: Yes, we know, that's why you pick those as soon as you can.
What we need to evaluate, especially with Battle Cards, are the common rarities because that's what we end up using to execute our strategies.
So are there enough actions in the format for us to build around Private Hot Rod? Is the ability actually worth something? No case is made.
Contrast this with the argument for Raider Spinster-at Uncommon, you're pretty likely to see one and while there are only four Battle Masters in the set, you have a decent shot at snagging one of those too, as they are also Uncommon.
This happens a couple times: Mirage is sold as a top pick but if you contrast that with the Battle Cards list, 3 of the 8 have the black Pierce icon, which Mirage does nothing for and zero Secret Actions on that list, of the mere two secret actions at common, only one of which has a blue icon. So where is Mirage getting any of it's power from? Heck, there are only three cards with blue icons in the entire set! With all those black icons, why isn't Raider Nova Storm getting more attention?
And it's important to look at this as a whole: of the battle cards suggested there isn't a single blue icon on them. So how does that mesh with the character recommendation of Mirage? Showing Off is sold as a high pick, but not a single recommended character has a great flip ability! Why would you pick that card unless you had a character like Sergeant Springer or Raider Chop Shop?
Another example: Kinetic Converter and Kinetic Whip need to flip to be really great-where are the Characters that mesh with this, since everyone's going to get a chance to pick those commons?
Where is the analysis of the format at large? It doesn't look like there's much Upgrade removal in this set and this seems incredibly relevant when Captain Astrotrain-at common-is available.
There seem to be some important, overlooked themes from Siege II and I'm not saying that these articles are easy to write. Clearly the author is going of his own experience-same as me. However, it isn't my experience that says there are only three common cards with blue icons: That's just me looking at the set and telling you a fact. Compare that to ten common cards with black icons, three of which have double black! I think you can see how the set is tilted.
And I chalk all of this up to the game being really new, and people still trying to get a grip on how drafting works. Because it's different in this game than in Magic. Character cards and battle cards have to work together, so generating a plan is extremely challenging-as I learned a couple weeks ago.
Hopefully, as more experience is gained, articles with sharper focus will emerge.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Klaxions
It's possible I'm wrong about Kari Zev as a creature: Menace is a relevant ability and could mean getting a point of damage in on attacks that otherwise wouldn't happen, allowing me to take advantage of Light Up The Stage. However, I wanted to try another card to help clear pathways to my opponent, Satyr Firedancer.
This didn't work out as much as I wanted it too and a couple days after the fact, I'm thinking it was because of the matchups: Jason decided to treat me to a night of "all mill, no creature" decks, which, yes: Satyr Firedancer isn't going to do much against, and a RB reanimator deck and again, direct damage isn't as helpful as I'd like it to be against Griselbrand.
While Jason's decks are part of my metagame, though, they are not all of the metagame and most of my opponents use smaller creatures to get where they're going. At the very least, Satyr Firedancer seems like excellent sideboard material. I'd like to try them against some other opponents though, to see if they'll be useful in non-reanimator/mill matches.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Siege II Impressions
After a weekend of drafting cards and starting to poke at decks I can rebuild or explore, here are some first impressions.
The heavy black element means games will inevitably grind to their conclusion. That's good, because it means games continually work to the end, but it also renders blue meaningless. Likewise, what orange there is becomes incredibly powerful because you can guarantee hits-Fight For Position is a rockstar and by that same notion, Stable Cover might become one of the more important cards in the set. Tough, unfortunately, is frequently rendered meaningless by this set and I'm not sure what to do with that.
In the bigger picture, I like this: we didn't have enough black pip density to make that something decks could really use. Now that we do, I am hoping for some developments in different decks-people have been talking Blue/Black since Siege I but they never really materialized, even with the Soundwave deck giving people a template.
However, with that black pip density comes a better question: Can Orange/Black decks be a thing now? Because if they are, then what does defense have to offer anyone? Deck diversity is a good thing and what I appreciate is that at least the answers aren't clear to me, yet. I have some concerns, but I'm hopeful that the environment will be an interesting one.
The heavy black element means games will inevitably grind to their conclusion. That's good, because it means games continually work to the end, but it also renders blue meaningless. Likewise, what orange there is becomes incredibly powerful because you can guarantee hits-Fight For Position is a rockstar and by that same notion, Stable Cover might become one of the more important cards in the set. Tough, unfortunately, is frequently rendered meaningless by this set and I'm not sure what to do with that.
In the bigger picture, I like this: we didn't have enough black pip density to make that something decks could really use. Now that we do, I am hoping for some developments in different decks-people have been talking Blue/Black since Siege I but they never really materialized, even with the Soundwave deck giving people a template.
However, with that black pip density comes a better question: Can Orange/Black decks be a thing now? Because if they are, then what does defense have to offer anyone? Deck diversity is a good thing and what I appreciate is that at least the answers aren't clear to me, yet. I have some concerns, but I'm hopeful that the environment will be an interesting one.
The correct way to do combiner characters: Omega Supreme. The incorrect way: Brunt and Six-Gun. Half-characters are awful and should not be there. Nobody should open half a character: as an adult I can say that's a bummer but for a child? How disappointing is that? Deliberate feel-bads are not good looks.
Trypticon-specific cards scattered in the set are awful. Not the cards themselves, but the manner of distribution. Battlefield Incursion and Relentless Invasion coming in packs mean that you automatically have dead cards in Limited. I hope they don't do that again and wish they'd learned that lesson from Rise of the Combiners.
Because RotC was unplayable in 'Turbo Sealed' and didn't get reasonable until you opened four packs! I wouldn't want to try and draft that, ever. While Siege II doesn't have the same number of dead cards, it still repeats this mistake. I don't mind getting a card that says "If you have this theme, I'm playable but if not, I'm weak or not good" but I definitely mind cards that say "I can't be played at all" and the Trypticon cards are constructed only.
Either set up limited environments or don't, but doing it halfway leads to a poor experience.
Trypticon itself, though, invites a different take on deckbuilding since you need Battlefield Incursion to get another character out. Unlike Metroplex, Trypticon wants to get out those characters and then eat them for an edge in the game, which is fascinating to me, because it's a different play perspective while still using the fundamentals of the game to execute its plan.
Mercenaries add an interesting twist on battle card selection: So far, I think those have been really cool and they play well with a challenging risk/reward on their character flips. They're worth considering adding to teams but I'm still not sure if they can stand on their own. I'm interested in giving it a try, though, just to get a better sense of what the Mercenaries can do.
Upgrade removal is extremely lacking. In the bigger metagame this isn't a problem, but in limited it can be a headache. I was definitely surprised by the absence of said removal, when the previous three sets had a lot of it-but again, this is not an issue in the bigger metagame since there's plenty of upgrade removal. It's something to keep in mind for limited, however and it made for some interesting games last weekend. Going forward, I think it's a viable strategy-certainly Captain Astrotrain could be a sleeper hit.
Repair effects are better than you might think! I was surprised by both Safeguard as an ability and any repair card, from Chop Shop to Reprocess, and Medic's Protective Field or Special Delivery and how they helped push the tempo of the game in a way other than untapping a character. The downside: None of these are blue pipped cards, which leads me back to: Will blue or abilities like Tough matter after this set?
I have two major criticisms, however. The upside is that I think they're very easy to address.
First: black pips are still difficult to identify. In a set that wants to emphasize the power of black pips and has them on a ton of cards, asking that they pop out is a necessity.
Second: Star cards do not provide enough signal for Limited. The stars on the Transformers cards is in the lower left corner.
But the things you want to know about a card? Those are the name at the top, pips in the upper right corner, and the text box in middle. There were times in both drafts that I took star cards not knowing I was taking star cards. Talking to people afterwards, I found out I wasn't alone.
With the margin of error being only five cards, I found myself in positions where I either a) didn't have to make any decisions about my deck, because the remaining cards were all starred or Trypticon cards, or b) had to re-evaluate my entire starting character team, because I had too many stared and Trypticon cards.
These are problematic design issues and I hope they address them soon.
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