So i'm really trying to be a fan here.
I like this game it's doing good things.

TLDR:

[[Alot of these choices are forcing people to just buy the whole sets rather than work with what they have.]]

[[Customizability of decks seem very limited]]
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It took 4 boxes and some trading to hunt down the two super rares, and complete the first set just cause I told myself; I want to do that. (And it cost a good bit of money)

A problem with wave 1 is you could not play a planes deck or a tank deck AT ALL with out all the right cards. And even the annoying Dinobots and Insecticon you could play with some B list cards but the rares of those Tribes are so outstandingly good you; need to track done the guys that make those decks work. It feel designed that I have track down that Grimlock.
Cars and Truck were a lot better for customizing. But clearly didn't have the hard hitters of other tribes.

Wave two is coming and...problems...problems i hope we see less of in the future...

-4 super rares. They better not be as hard to get as last sets. But I'm sure they will be.

-Combiners who are very specific too each other.
This greatly limits the customizability ability of your game based around strategy and deck building. Not with all of them but with alot of them being very tribal specific it forces you to ether collect and play a whole combiner team.
-Some combine teams sharing the same rarity. Not a problem for commons like Stunticons. A huge problem for a rare team like Dinobots
I've heard WOTC say that they couldn't have made Scrabble city combiner art work. Which many have looks weird. But I think the giant combining card art is spectacle more than customization game play. And just demeaning players have to buy a box to even hope to get one gestalt.
Surly only the leaders of a team needed to be '3 sided' and could be the rare one and all limb-bots could have had a 'Combiner' tag on them and be common. And the team lead only needed 4-5 'combiners' on the table (or scrap pile?) to turn into the gestalt.
Sure using Fireflight, Snarl, Deadend, and Swindle flip under Onslaught to make Bruticus. Sure Bruticus'
art may not be correct but that's fine.
And the gestalt could have a more beneficial ability if you used all Combaticon.
Now your combiner team is customizable. And allows players who don't buy boxes to play with what they have.
As of right now? How many pack do i need to realistic open to get even one combiner? What are the odds?

-Enigma cards: Some of these rare. And I had enough trouble getting even some uncommons battle cards in wave 1. This is just adding to "You need to buy a box or more to get a gestalt" I'm not sure why this needed to be a separate card?
I'm not sure i see why this is an action. If they wanted this to be a counterable thing. I think an upgrade on your character would have been better. Making it an action just seems like an extra card you need to track down.

-Team/tribal specific battle cards...very specific. All rare; in some sense that's good all the most useful cards like rapid conversation are common and the tribal specific are rare soyou don't have 15 copies of a card you'll never use. But I was already worried about this in wave 1. I think the tribal tags in this game are way too specific. And seem to play so strongly towards what a tribe is already doing that you need it.
And some cards are character specific. Metroplex having battle card specific to him and him alone. OPrime, Megz, Starscream, BBee. All getting specific cards. sure. We'll see more of them in the future. Ion Cannon of optimums will always be around. But protected by Metroplex would have been a better card if it used the 'titan' tag instead of this one specific card which i doubt we'll see another version of.
'Combat Commands' battle card for the 'Sentinel' team, are we ever going to see another version of Sentinels again? (One could agree Omega Supreme, but that's only 1-3 more character cards, maybe). So if you want to play Sentinels you have to track down all these cards

WOTC guys have said they want this to be more of a casual game, but the set designs scream to me the opposite. You need to go all in like i did for wave one. Or else you just can't build a decent team

The tags need to be much boarder things. Like "Vehicles", "Wheels", "Wings", and "Beast". Having "Beast" and "Wings" instead of 'Dinobots' and 'Planes'; would have made Swoop a much more interesting card able to be in both style of decks allowing you to build your own mix of decks. But as of right now your either playing dinobots or planes. I'm sure we'll see more planes, but there's only so many Dinobots, making Dinochomp a very limited card. And where does characters like OverKill fit into this?
The motorcycle tag seems like a waste of ink for the 12(?) motorbikes? They should have been labeled under the same thing as cars.
(Ranged, Melee, and specialist are good though)

I wrote this slightly drunk and tired. I hope my worries make sense.


I would like to heard some other worries of people who play and are fans of this game.

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Based on what standard of optimization? You can play planes or tanks with little more than literally just planes or tanks. I don't really understand how you couldn't play one of these decks, let alone AT ALL, without having more than just planes or tanks.

No. You don't need Skrapnel or Grimlock to play an insecticon or dinobot deck. At all. You're projecting this competitive standard on this game that literally has only released one set and has no organized play to pressure people into playing on the best things. You want more options for planes? Oh look, literally the second set, planes all over the star spectrum.

Also cars and trucks don't have hard hitters? Wheeljack, Nemesis and OPBL?

There's literally nothing to go on that it won't be different.

What? No, not really.

Sentinels? 1, Optimus Prime, wants to only be played with the team and no other way.

Dinobots? 1, but really 0 Not even Grimlock requires you to be running other Dinobots to get utility out of his ability. Simply putting wave 1 Grimlock or Sludge for ISF is solid use of him.

Predacons? 1, Rampage, wants you to run other Predacons.

Aerialbots? 1, Skydive, wants you to run other Aerialbots, and even when you're running Aerialbots his repair ability isn't close to being good as keeping him in alt mode. So it's honestly a stretch to even count this one.

Stunticons? 1, Motormaster.

So out of 26 characters, 4 of them pressure you into spending stars on other members of their combiner team. I can't call that a lot. However, I can say that there are plenty that have better utility outside of their combiner teams. I don't understand where you got this idea from.

Common characters are about a whopping dime right now. Can't really imagine getting any combiner at all is going to be that expensive. Dinobots sure maybe, but those were going to be rares anyway and Volcanicus is probably the worst among all the combiner teams.

I mean I guess they could've done that. It would've looked absolutely awful and been a lot more convoluted than it is now. I'll take having to get 4 other specific bots any day over the mess scramble city combiners would've made aesthetically and mechanically. Again, if you're missing some, it's not really going to be that expensive to finish them out, other than Dinobots.

Rare Battle cards are 30 to a box. They're really not that egregious. And the enigma's linear use is going to keep their prices down. Not much of a problem.

I don't understand how it being an upgrade solves any of those issues you listed.

I can't see the tribal specific mechanics to be a problem at all in this game. There's not really any other restrictions to playing cards beyond the basic rules. I don't see how things are gained by homogenizing decks by taking restrictions away.

Why would protected by metroplex have been better for the game if it worked for all titans? That's just something they have to balance with every other titan they make then, including ones they don't want to be able to use protected by metroplex's effect.

The set is packed with all kinds of star values and vehicle modes. You really do not at all have to go all in to make a "decent" team, not that going all in would really be that hard or expensive for the majority of the combiners anyway. If anything, your own insistence of a competitive standard is what's not making the casual aspect not work for you, not the set composition.

Breaking down diversity in the subtypes just creates less archetypes. Dinochomp is not something I really want to be used by just anybody. It's pretty strong and it should only really be used by a specifically guided group of characters.

Overkill would probably just get whatever subtype they put on cassete bots. You could probably see him as soon as wave 3 as they seem to be putting soundwave and deployers in there.

There's only 7 dinobots they can even use and they've made a very successful archetype with them. 12 seems good enough to print motorcycle.

 

I would have preferred a living card game (where you can just buy a playset of each wave as it comes out and rarity does not exist). But compared to other TCG's transformerS does not seem different from standard practice.

 

I see so many MORE possibilities with wave 2. I cannot wait to put a bunch of 5 star cards together that are not just the combiner. So many choices for Arcee...

Also, you are not at all limited. Getting my GF to play, I've been building decks of just common and uncommon cards. She played planes (Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker) and I played Jetfire, Mirage, Jazz. I have also built
- Dinobots with Snarl, Sludge, Slug
- Megatron, Ramjet, Flamewar
- Kup, Swoop, Hound
- Insecticons with Chop Shop, Kickback, Barrage, Rampage
- Cars with Prowl, Wheeljack, Bumblebee
- Prime and Inferno

 

The specificity can make you want to get the best cards for a faction - but I really wanted to get all the Dinobots and Insecticons anyway. I agree with That Guy in that I'd much rather have this been a deck-building game than a deck-buying game, but that ship has sailed. I think the two common combiners and two uncommon combiners will be fairly easy to get with a little trading. Devastator will be incredibly easy to get. Volcanicus will be difficult, but I already have a sweet set of Dinobots so my ass is less chapped at the prospect of never completing him.

4 SRT's does give me some chappage though.

 

I do wish they held off on these combiners. Makes the rules for novice needlessly complicated.

 

Combiner rules are complicated?  

 

As a former WOTC customer... TF TCG is all about keeping you buying ever more boosters, just like Pokemon, Magic and my once-beloved Axis & Allies Miniatures. Long as you got money, they want it, and they don't care what skeevy means it takes to separate you from it.

Wait a few years 'til they start 'Retiring' cards (banning from tournament play)... or when the exclusive Tournament Prize "I Win" cards start going out. Ranked Play, Leagues and Tournament Rewards will ruin all the fun for the casual player...

 

For the novice

 

Doesn't seem any harder than the rest of the rules.

 

I'm thinking of people with passing interest

 

Um, ok? I don't see how that changes anything. It's still not that complicated. It's one of the least complicated ways they could've done it. This is definitely one of the weirder, and more contradictory complaints I've seen about combiners.

 

@Regigangster Who is the 7th Dinobot? I only know of Grimlock, Slag/Slog, Sludge, Snarl, Swoop & Slash. Who am I missing?

 

Paddles (character) - Transformers Wiki

 

I just did a google image search for Paddles and found a ton of TF Universe profiles. Squall, Synchrd, Scoff, Scald, Scalp, Swipe, Sickle....

 

So let me get this straight, you're telling me that once people find an optimal deck strategy for a certain type of card, everyone only wants to make that one type with no variation? And you're also suggesting that TCGs try to entice people to "get them all!" by buying more to fit that ideal that people make of "the best decks ever"?

I don't believe it. That's unimaginable.