Welcome to Wednesday, and yet another card reveal! If you haven’t already done so, make sure you check out our posts from Monday and Tuesday, where we revealed three battle cards and a really bonkers new Secret Action coming up in the upcoming War for Cybertron: Siege II wave. As always we’re tremendously thankful to the TFTCG crew at Wizards of the Coast for allowing us to share these cards with you. Today, we’ll be showing off a new Battlemaster! Tomorrow, we’ll be taking a look at a new battle card that we’re sure will have people’s heads spinning!
For today, we are incredibly excited to show you Private Turbo Board!
It was really cool to see the TFTCG digging into the Action Master partners to use as Battlemasters in Siege II. In this case, Turbo Board was partnered with Action Master Jazz.
It should be noted that the artwork for Turbo Board’s upgrade side looks like it COULD POSSIBLY be Jazz’s feet. Possibly? Maybe? Please?!?!
Editor’s Note: We just saw Siege Mirage revealed about an hour before this went live. It looks like it might be his legs instead. Still, there’s hope…
Let’s begin by taking a look at Turbo Board’s bot (robo-snake?) mode.
12 health for seven stars is pretty beefy for a Battlemaster, even keeping his (her? its?) 0 DEF in mind. While Turbo Board is on the field as a character, your opponent has to play around his effect.
- Specialist is a coveted keyword!
- In general, they’re going to be locked into doing the standard “play 1 Upgrade card, play 1 Action card” flow of a normal turn.
- They have to be mindful of cards that allow you to “cheat” additional cards into play, like Brainstorm, Field Communicator, and Leap of Faith.
- Likewise, they have to be mindful of characters that allow you to play additional cards, like Blaster, Bumblebee (Trusted Lieutenant), and Optimus Prime (Battlefield Legend). If they chose to use any of their inherent abilities to play extra cards on a turn, they’re going to have to forfeit their standard Action or Upgrade card plays.
- We checked in with WotC, and it should be noted that cards that “put” upgrades into play (like how Hunker Down “puts” armor onto characters) can still get around this limitation.
If your opponent is not trying to “cheat” out additional cards, it’ll behoove you to KO Turbo Board ASAP to get him into his Utility mode and onto a character.
Again, some initial notes:
- Since Turbo Board becomes a Utility, you won’t have to knock off a weapon (or Armor now that we’ve seen Vanguard) when he’s KOed.
- The +1 to both ATK and DEF is *chef’s kiss.*
- His inherent ability in this mode is yet another push toward encouraging players to use a mixed pip color deck.
- Characters with native Focus or Bold (and Plan, to a lesser extent) will get the most use out of the Utility mode.
- Autobots in particular like him, as you’ll have access to both Roll Out and Matrix of Leadership to help make it easier to trigger his ability.
- The additional card being played is from your attack flip, which means that you’re not depleting your cards in hand.
- Since the attack resolves before you get to play a card off the ability, it’s important to note that action cards that boost ATK (like Reckless Charge) or Bold won’t be useful during this window. When deck-building, you’ll probably want to prioritize direct damage cards like Zap, and defensive cards like Armors and Secret Actions.
- RJ raised the possibility of playing cards like Multi-Mission Gear or Multi-Tool to be able to cheat out additional cards from your hand. For this to work, you need to fill out your team with Specialists!
Let’s also briefly consider the possibilities of using Peace Through Tyranny to KO Turbo Board to gain an additional turn. For the sake of this example, let’s assume your opponent is all tapped out.
- On your turn, you play Peace Through Tyranny. You KO Turbo Board and equip him to General Optimus. You then also play an additional upgrade.
- You attack with General Optimus, using his inherent Focus and Bold to make it likely that the Anti-Gravity Turbo Pack’s ability activates. After the attack, you play one of the orange or blue cards you flipped (gaining an additional action or upgrade).
- Everyone untaps.
- You get your additional turn, playing an action, playing an upgrade, getting to flip, then getting to attack again with General Optimus. After the attack resolves, you should then be able to play another orange or blue card.
We also had some questions for the WotC team when it came to timing. Again, we’ll let them issue an official clarification via FAQ or Rules Roundup at some point, but here’s the overview.
- Anything that happens “after the battle” occurs after damage is calculated and damage counters are placed (this include swapping cards for green pipped cards).
- At that point, the active player (the person whose turn it is) gets to choose to resolve their effects in the order of their choice, followed by the other player resolving their effects in the order of their choice. In short, you could decide to swap a card for a green pip, then resolve Turbo Board’s utility mode effect, or vice versa.
- It is important to note that if you do swap an orange or blue card in-hand for a green pip card that was flipped during the attack, you cannot then use the Anti-Gravity Turbo Pack effect to play the card you just put down, since it was not actually flipped during the attack.
Let’s take a look at some possible partners for Turbo Board.
General Optimus again? Shocker, right? With access to both Bold and Focus in bot mode, you’re extremely likely to trigger Turbo Board’s Utility-side ability.
Let’s also briefly consider a dream equipment line-up.
(Consider swapping in Reflex Circuits or Guarded Posture if you want to get cute.)
As of right now, I’m liking the idea of Smokescreen to round out the lineup, since Safeguard 3 makes him an effective blocker AND he has inherent Focus 1 in bot mode, so he’s another possible Anti-Gravity Turbo Pack wielder in case Prime is out of commission (or if you have Quartermaster in hand to get even more use out of him).
If you’re looking for a “budget” General Optimus, Private Arcee could also be a possible swap. Her abilities on both sides will help you fish for the correct color pips on your attack flip. On top of that, if you had her in bot mode with a weapon already equipped, you won’t have to ditch the weapon to equip Turbo Board’s Utility mode.
They’re a little more luck dependent, but Alpha Trion and OPBL could potentially get two cards played off their attack flip. It should be noted, however, that AT and OPBL’s native ability will trigger before the defender flips, while Turbo Board’s native Utility mode ability will trigger once the battle is over.
Equipping a Battlemaster once it’s KOed to Astrotrain will automatically boost him up to the next tier AND help buff his stats even more.
You’ll only have space for 3 star cards left over, but if you partner Turbo Board with Galaxy Optimus, you could get some insane extra plays after battling.
This last idea is a little sassy, but I’m intrigued by the idea of a mixed pip-color Dinobot deck that uses Grimlock, Turbo Board, and either Wave 1 Sludge or Swoop, who are both Specialists. Sludge gives you a way to keep Grimlock on the board longer, while Swoop would give you space to run two star cards (Heroic Resolve, anyone?). If you can get the right mix of pips in your battle deck, you could use Field Communicators and Turbo Board’s Utility side to play additional actions, possibly hoping for some defensive buffs like Bolster or Heroic Resolve in order to keep Grimlock on the table long enough to smash down his enemies.
Thank you for reading! Make sure to look out tomorrow when we drop another reveal!
As always, keep your eyes on the Wreck ‘n Rule YouTube channel for our usual shenanigans. Also consider supporting us on Patreon, since the proceeds go toward helping us upgrade our recording set-up AND toward throwing some sweet custom swag your way!
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