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Reusability of Ready-to-Play Deck Battle Cards

2019.01.16

In addition to the two starter packs and waves of boosters, the Transformers TCG folk provide three Ready-to-Play Decks. These decks come with unique characters and one, or two, decks of 40 battle cards. They also have some special battle cards made for the characters, and what gets really interesting is when those special battle cards are useable by other characters in the Transformers TCG universe. Let's take a look at these unusual battle cards to see which ones are the most useful.

Metroplex Deck (Wave 1)

Metroplex is a giant city sized titan of a transformer. The card itself is also suitably giant, and the deck comes with three special battle cards.

Reusability Rating: ★★★☆☆

"One of your Titans gets Bold 4 until end of turn.": As he was the only Titan, this was a Metroplex-only card until the inclusion of Trypticon in the Wave 4 booster boxes. As it seems likely that there will be more Titan cards, this card will grow in use. Bold 4 is a big number, and the only downside is the blue-pip. If a future Titan wants to get to reshuffling quicker, this card will be even more useful.

Reusability Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

"If the upgraded character would take damage → Instead your Metroplex takes that damage.": Sadly this variant of Heroism currently has no use outside of the Metroplex Deck.

Reusability Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

"If you have Metroplex on the battlefield → Draw a card for each character you have on the battlefield.": This fairly weak drawer of cards also has no use outside of the Metroplex Deck.

Devastator Deck (Wave 2)

The Devastator Deck provides the game's only 6-character combiner. It uses the concept of the Constructicons building a Tower as a way to build up power and comes with five special battle cards. Unlike the 25-star Metroplex, it is feasible to include only some of the Constructicons in a team.

Reusability Rating: ★★☆☆☆

"Put on Constructicons only. When the upgraded character attacks → Put a height counter on your Tower.": As this is Constructicon only, this card will see very limited use outside of a full Devastator Deck. It could be used to build a tower outside of a full Constructicon deck, though it is assumed at this point that this would not be worth doing.

Reusability Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

"... Repair or Build Devastator ...": This is the Enigma card for building Devastator. Utterly useless outside of a full Devastator deck.

Reusability Rating: ★★★☆☆

"Do 1 damage to an enemy. If your Tower is 6 or higher, do 3 damage to that enemy instead.": The first of our generically useful cards. Heavy Landing is a blue-pip version of Zap. That said - it is a weaker version of the Wave 2 Common Underhanded Tactics card, which does 1 damage to an enemy and then, if a KO is achieved, repairs a Decepticon. Both are Decepticon cards, so the only time you'll want Heavy Landing in your deck is if you already have three Underhanded Tactics, or if you (rightfully) prefer its artwork.

Reusability Rating: ★★★★★

"Put an Upgrade from your scrap pile on top of your deck. If your Tower is 3 or higher, draw a card.": While not useful in every deck, the blue-pipped Reclaim is an excellent card for certain situations. Being able to cheat your next card draw is very powerful and some examples of Reclaim being super-powered are:

1. Suiting up Major Shockwave: Wave 3's Major Shockwave can peek at the top card of the deck and play it, as one of their card plays, if it is a Decepticon card. Reclaim is such a Decepticon card. What's more, the Upgrades Major Shockwave most wants are Shockwave's LV Gamma-Disruptor Launcher, which are also Decepticon cards. Adding three Reclaim cards to the Major's deck doubles the already high chance of getting those powerful weapons on Shockwave.
2. Flipped Action Players: Both Optimus Prime Battlefield Legend and the lesser played Alpha Trion can play an action that they flip. A Reclaim flipped during an attack would allow one either to put a nice double-blue-pipped Handheld Blaster on the deck for the next defense, or a white-pipped Piercing Blaster to ensure two more cards can be flipped.
3. Play two cards: Both Leap of Faith and a KO'd Captain Elita-1 allow you to play the top two cards of your deck. If the first card was a Reclaim, you can determine what the next card will be.
4. Metal Detector: The most broadly useable situation for reclaiming is along side Metal Detector. By playing Reclaim you can ensure something nice and Grenade Launchery is lined up for your first battle flip with a Metal Detector wielding character.

Reusability Rating: ★★★★★

"If you have fewer than 4 cards in hand, draw cards equal to the difference.": Work Overtime is a solid card that can be used in any deck. When played it is likely to lead to drawing two or three cards, making it a slightly better Pep Talk.

Blaster vs Soundwave Deck (Wave 3)

This is the only ready for play set containing two decks in the Transformers TCG Universe. It provides an aggressive Blaster cassette deck and a defensive Soundwave cassette deck. It also provides seven(!) special battle cards.

Reusability Rating: ★★★☆☆

"If you have Buzzsaw... If you have Ravage... If you have Frenzy...": This is a very fun card from the Soundwave part of the deck. Outside of Soundwave and his cassettes, it can be played with Raider Ravage to give you a black-pip Zap that only works while Raider Ravage is concious. If we see Raider Buzzsaw and Raider Frenzy as Spy Patrol members in a future wave this card will be a lot of fun there too. For now though, its reuse value is low.

Reusability Rating: ★★★☆☆

'One character gets +1 attack for each Autobot Mini-Cassette in the KO area. If Blaster is on the field, the character gets Pierce-6.': This card is mostly tied to the Blaster side of the deck. Given Blaster attacks for 5 in bot mode, the Pierce 6 is good enough that you could include it in a deck that has Blaster and no mini-cassettes.

Reusability Rating: ★★★☆☆

'Mini-Cassettes get +1 attack, +1 defense.': A useful card anywhere you have played a Mini-Cassette. Both Steeljaw and Ramhorn have been sneaking onto other teams' decks. If you had two mini-cassettes on a team this might be a tempting card to include as it is a guaranteed +1/+1 boost.

Reusability Rating: ★★★★☆

"Play only if Soundwave was on your starting team. Draw 2 cards. Choose a card in your opponent's scrap pile and put it on top of their deck.": A great 1-star card providing double black-pips, card draw, and opponent disruption. It's tied to Soundwave, but it doesn't say which Soundwave. Given that Major Soundwave has issues getting to 25 stars, this is a must include card for a Major Soundwave and the Spy Patrol deck.

Reusability Rating: ★★★☆☆

"Play only if Blaster was on your starting team. Look at the top 5 cards of your deck and put them back in any order.": Another great 1-star card, this lets you plan your next attack, and with Blaster playing a card off the top of the deck when he releases a mini-cassette, it lets you pick from 5 the card you want to play. It's tied to Blaster, and we only have one Blaster currently, so this has little use outside of a Blaster deck.

Reusability Rating: ★★☆☆☆

"For each Mini-Cassette you have on the battlefield → The upgraded character has Tough 1.": Unlike Inner Groove, the value of this card is unlikely to kick in until you have three mini-cassettes on the battlefield. The green-pipped Sparring Gear's Tough 2 makes it a better choice than this card.

Reusability Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

"If you have Blaster or Soundwave on the battlefield → You may put one of your Mini-Cassettes from the battlefield under it. If you do, repair 2 damage from one of your characters then put this card into your KO area.": A very powerful card, healing both the mini-cassette and another character, and lining Blaster and Soundwave up for their cassette deploy side-effects. Unfortunately this isn't much use for Major Soundwave as any hidden mini-cassette would then be stuck.

Summary

There are a couple of reusability take-aways from this review. The first is that the Reclaim and Work Overtime cards from the Devastator Deck are well worth getting. The second is that a Major Soundwave deck should ensure it has a copy or two of Intercept Communications. Hopefully we'll see more Ready-to-Play decks with special cards that can be used outside of their expected situation.