Transformers:
TCG Wave 2 & Devastator Set Review
Booster Pack Release Date & Price:
March 1, 2019; $4 U.S.
Devastator Set Release Date & Price:
March 29, 2019; $25 U.S.
Bumblebee vs. Megatron Starter Set Release
Date & Price: May 3, 2019; $20 U.S.
For the second series/"Wave"
of the Transformers Card Game by Wizards of the Coast, they weren't satisfied
with just adding in more Transformers and keeping everything else the same
from the first series; the second series, entitled "Rise of the Combiners",
introduces combiners (of course), triple changers, "star cards", and a
green "blip" on battle cards. The rest of this review will detail only
the changes that have come to the game for this wave; for a review of the
basic mechanics of the game, see my review of "Wave 1" here.
First, before I get
to the "big draw" of the new Combiners cards, a new mechanic needs to be
explained; similar to how there were white, orange and blue "blips" of
color in the upper right-hand corner of Wave 1 battle cards, Series 2 introduces
a green blip. When flipping cards for battle, or when you have them in
your hand, green cards confer no bonus to attack or defense at all; however,
after the battle has taken place, once per turn you can take a card from
your hand, discard it, and put a green-pip card that you flipped for attack/defense
into your hand instead. This is a VERY useful mechanic and really changes
the game more than you'd think; too many times when playing with just Wave
1 cards, I'd get unlucky and see cards I really wanted be flipped only
for battle and I'd never get to use their cool effects by actually having
them in my hand. Now many "valuable" cards have a green pip on them (including
those cards needed to combine characters), so if you come across them at
any time at all and have at least one card in your hand, you can get said
card. This makes combining characters much easier, as well as "stacking"
cards' effects. For example, several of the cards with green pips confer
some kind of bonus or damage to the enemy, and then allow you to play another
of that same exact card if you have another one in your hand, with no penalties.
Thus, it makes collecting 3 of the same exact cards considerably easier
than it used to be (although I still wouldn't call it "easy", since you
can only have a max of 3 of the same card in your deck).
Another, more minor,
addition to the battle cards is the addition of "star cards". Now, a few
cards from Wave 2 (usually rare cards) have a star in the lower left-hand
corner. Remember that, in a normal game, you can have a max of 25 stars'
worth of Transformers cards out. If you put a star card in your deck--
even if you don't actually play it-- it counts towards this total. Thus,
if you put in 2 star cards into your deck, you can only have 23 stars'
worth of Transformers cards out for that game. Honestly, this added mechanic
I'm less impressed with than the green pips-- it's a minor pain to keep
track of how many star cards you've got in your deck and keep that in mind
when picking your Transformers "team" for the game, and although the star
cards are usually a little more powerful than normal cards, they're generally
not powerful enough where I consider it worth putting out weaker Transformers
to put them in your deck.
Alright, now onto the
main attraction: combiners! Each combiner card is folded in half, with
the "regular" robot mode and vehicle mode on each side. (Don't worry about
having to bend the cards-- they're pre-folded in such a manner where you
won't have to worry about any ugly creases.) Flip the card over, and on
the backside is part of the combiner. When you have all 5 (or 6) combiner
parts, you sort of merge them together like a simple puzzle to create one
monster 5- or 6- card mega-robot. The only downside to this design is that,
when they're in their individual robot/vehicle modes, the font on the cards
is harder to read, so if you don't have the best vision this may prove
a problem, especially when looking at your opponent's cards. Among the
regular booster packs, there are 5 total combiner teams (along with plenty
of "normal" Transformers, too), consisting of: Superion (5 Aerialbots),
Menasor (5 Stunticons), Predaking (5 Predacons), Volcancius (5 Dinobots,
based off the Power of the Primes toy), and Optimus Maximus (6 "Sentinels",
based off the Combiner Wars toy). For three of the gestalts, the combined
star value of the team members is 25 stars, so you can play the full team
in a normal game.
To get a team into combined
mode, you have to first flip them all one-by-one into robot mode, and then
play the requisite enigma card (there's different enigma cards for each
gestalt; as mentioned before, each enigma card has a green pip, enabling
you to get it more easily). Then you take all of the team members (even
if some have been KOed by this point) and merge them into the gestalt,
taking the total damage from each member and combining it into the damage
the gestalt has; thus, by the time you form a gestalt, it already usually
has a fair number of hits. A gestalt cannot un-combine; once you combine,
they're stuck like this until the entire gestalt is KOed. Gestalts tend
to have some nice abilities and very high attack numbers, but low defense
numbers. Thus, when you make a gestalt, you're generally able to do one
pretty powerful attack per round, but then you have to wait for all of
your opponent's TFs to attack in turn, so they also tend to take alot of
damage.
It's because of this aspect
that I've found-- everything else being equal-- combiners are not
worth it. Because (for most of them) you have to have entire combiner teams
at 25 stars or less, this means that the individual members are quite weak.
So either you've got weak members that take a lot of damage easily or one
large member with a hefty attack, but who also takes damage easily. Of
course, if you're really good at this game, you can plan decks around this,
but say you and your opponent are given a more-or-less random deck, and
you have a combiner and your opponent has 25 stars worth of "normal" Transfomrers--
your opponent will win a pretty good majority of the time, from my experience.
It's a very interesting, intriguing mechanic, but doesn't work in practice
because the individual components are far too weak to do much damage by
themselves, take damage very easily, and thus your gestalt starts off too
weak to make up for his 1 powerful attack per round (remember that every
TF on both sides has to attack before everyone can untap).
It should be noted,
though, that 3 gestalts are a bit "special" in that they're not 25-star
gestalts, or they have a unique special ability. For two gestalts-- Volcanicus
and Optimus Maximus-- their combined star value is actually substantially
MORE than 25 stars. The way the game gets around this for a normal game
is that a couple of the team members start off KOed, and the other members
have abilities that allow you to flip those KOed Transformers and gain
minor bonuses from those KOed fellow members. When the team combines, the
gestalt just ends up very damaged, because the fully KOed members end up
having their entire number of hits deducted from the gestalt's hit point
total. They're generally a nice invitation to play bigger games with higher
star ratings, but they don't tend to be any better than the other combiners
for their star values-- in fact they're probably a bit weaker, since you
opponent will have even more TFs to pummel your gestalt with if you play
a bigger game. As for the other "special" gestalt, Devastator comes in
his own boxset, and is another 25-star combiner. The interesting twist
to this deck is, it starts with a "Tower" card in play. It starts with
one height counter on it; special cards just for that set can add more
counters to the tower, and most of your individual Constructicons, when
attacking in vehicle mode, also add a counter to it. The tower cannot be
attacked; it's used solely for determing how tough Devastator is when your
Constructicons finally do all combine. At 6-token and 10-token thresholds,
Devastator gains powerful abilities, but even more importantly when he
merges he HEALS a number of hits equal to the height counters on your tower.
This makes him the best gestalt from my experience, as he'll start off
not only with at least a moderately powerful ability (you have to convert
all 6 Constructicons before you can merge them, remember), but he gets
a decent amount of damage healed off of him, as well.
There's another important
reason why I think Devastator is the best combiner in the set; he comes
in his own box set. You get all 6 members at once. The issues I had in
Wave 1 with only 1 Transformer card per booster pack being an issue are
multiplied EXPONENTIALLY for Wave 2, as if you get only 4 out of 5 gestalt
members for instance-- welp, too bad, you can't form the gestalt, and individually
they're so weak they're not really worth playing by themselves. To make
matters worse, 1 of the combiners is made up entirely of Uncommons and
2 made up entirely of Rares, meaning it's already unlikely you're going
to get more than a few of them even after opening a few dozen packs. This
can be quite irritating, and is my main issue with this Wave. Another irritating
issue is that several battle cards from Wave 1 are re-used in Wave 2. There
already aren't enough variety in battle cards in relation to the number
of TF cards available, and this makes it worse. I understand "reprinting"
particularly useful/popular cards in later expansions if the first version
is out of circulation, but this wave was released half a year after
the first. There's no reason to be reprinting battle cards already.
Triplechangers have
been introduced in this expansion, though unfortunately they both are (of
course) Super Rares (they're Springer and Blitzwing). They use the same
"fold one side in half" mechanic as the combiner members, with the robot
mode being on the backside instead of part of a combiner. They start in
one specific vehicle mode, and then can flip to any of the others you choose.
They're pretty solid cards too, with their different alt modes usually
having complementary abilities (for example, Blitzwing has a "Brave" ablity
where you HAVE to attack him if able in one vehicle mode, whereas in his
other mode he has a "Stealth" ability where you CAN'T attack him unless
there's no other option-- a pretty good combo). I hope to see more of these,
and in more common numbers to boot.
One last quick thing
worth mentioning-- a "refined" Wave 2 Starter set featuring new versions
of Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, and a card of Windblade was also released
after this expansion, featuring Wave 2 battle cards, though the abilities
are fairly basic because, y'know starter set. If you already have plenty
of cards it's not worth getting, but I'd recommend it over the Wave 1 starter
set as the abilities are a bit more interesting.
Overall, the "Rise of the
Combiners" expansion has some interesting new additions, and the way the
gestalt members "combine" is ingenious. The green pip is a solid and much-needed
game mechanic, but in general Combiners just aren't worth it, both in terms
of trying to find them all by opening so many darned packs and in terms
of gameplay abilties, as their individual members are too weak and their
combined form is limited to one attack per round. As such I'd rate this
wave just a bit below Wave 1, even though it's still a solid game by any
means.
Overall Rating:
8/10
Great
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