Published: 2018 by Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast
Designer: Matt Smith
Artist: Variable
How to Play:
In the Transformers Trading Card Game, players will recruit teams of Transformers characters and build battle decks to battle with each. The first player to KO an opponent's team will be the winner of the match.
Building a team: Players build a team around 25 stars located in the bottom corner of the vehicle mode side of a character card.
Building a battle deck: Players will build a battle deck containing at least 40 battle cards. Battle cards consist of action cards and the three types of upgrade cards, Armor, Weapons, and Utilities.
Normal Turns: Players start their turn by drawing a card, the player can then take the following actions in any order.
Play an action
Play an upgrade
Flip one of their characters to it’s other mode
Exceptions: On the very first turn of the game, the player who goes first can’t play any actions or upgrades. On the second turn, the player who goes second may play one card, either and action or an upgrade.
An upgrade will stay on the battle field attached to a character unless it says otherwise. A character may only have one of each type of upgrade.
An action will be placed in a players scrap pile immediately after use.
Attacking: After cards are played it is time to attack.
Choose one of your untapped characters as the attacker
Choose one of your opponents untapped characters as the defender. If none of them are tapped you can target any character.
Tap your attacker
Each player will then flip two battle cards off the top of their battle deck. If a player flips any white icons at the top right of the card they can then flip two more cards.
The attacker adds up any orange icons and adds them to their character’s attack power.
The defender adds up any blue icons and adds them to their character’s defense total.
If the attacker’s number is higher, it does damage equal to the difference. If the defender’s number is equal or higher then the attacker’s then no damage is dealt.
After the attack if your opponent has any untapped characters then your turn is over.
Exceptions: If the attack ends and your opponents characters are all tapped but you still have untapped characters, you may continue attacking untill all of your characters are tapped out.
Once all characters are tapped, players untap all their characters and the turn is over.
KOing a character: If a characters obtains damage equal or greater then its
health it is considered Knocked Out and set aside, no longer part of the battle.
Once a player knocks out all their opponents characters they have won the game.
If at any point the battle deck runs out, reshuffle your scrap pile and start a new deck.
Final Thoughts:
The Transformers trading card game has a lot of potential. Where Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro could have easily taken the lazy route and made this a clone of Magic the Gathering, they instead built a new system, with a very accessible rule set. Games like Magic and even Pokemon can be intimidating for new players due to how long they’ve been around and how they’ve evolved over the years.
Transformers has a very fresh feel to it compared to other systems. Your characters are already out on the field ready to go and you get to focus on the tactics rather then hoping you get enough mana to summon a creature.
The characters themselves having two forms and usually special abilities on each form, offers a great meta game. Picking characters that work well together is much more important then just having the strongest attackers. Although as of this review I only have a limited number of characters to work with, I can already see the potential based on card text and what has been previewed.
The simpler rules make this an easy entry game for kids and adults alike. While you could technically play with just a starter set, to get the full experience you will need to pick up some boosters to really enjoy the game.
This game is not perfect though. I’m personally not keen on the card flipping for the battle system. It’s often frustrating to see cards I would really like to use get flipped and thrown into the scrap pile because they just happened to be near the top when I was attacking or defending. However I’m aware there are characters with abilities to get more cards in your hand as well as pull from the scrap pile, so I’m hopeful this is a gripe that can be mitigated.
My only other complaint would be the character cards, while it’s neat that they are on larger cards to differentiate themselves and offer a nice table presence. storing them can be a little tricky.
The presentation of the game is great, everything is easy to understand and the artwork although mostly recycled from IDW comics is still fantastic. The promise of more characters and even some rather obscure ones being included in the game really adds to the potential of immersive game play and fun factor, for fans new and old.
Transformers is a property that has such a plethora of gimmicks that could really translate to some interesting mechanics in the future of this game. As it is though, this is a pretty solid entry for a trading card game, I don’t see it replacing Magic or any of the other really popular titles, but the short game time, fun meta game, and great I.P. make this a must try. Easily a few rounds of this could be squeezed in between bigger games, or when your in a time crunch and just want to get a quick game in.
My issues addressed above by no means out way the pros of the game, it’s fun, it’s fast, and it has a lot of potential to grow. Recommended for all.
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