Bah-weep-Graaaaagnahwheepnini bong, gamers, and welcome back to another article about Transformers: TCG. This week we're going to be playing around with a little deck built to cause no end of annoyance to our opponents based on the 1986 Battlechargers Runamuck and Runabout. The pair of toys were released as 'autotransformers', meaning they were engineered with a gimmick whereby after a quick charge of their car modes by pulling them backwards, they would roll forwards for a short distance before transforming into their robot modes automatically. This gimmick made for some lightning fast changes between modes, until the springs wore out, at any rate.

Once again; as with the combiners, the titans, and battlemasters among others; the design team on the Transformers TCG have tried to recreate the gimmick of the toys in the mechanics of the card game. Enter the cards for Runamuck and Runabout. Much like their toy counterparts, this duo relies on each other for a fast, auto-transforming gimmick. Unlike the toys, the cards use this cooperation to keep their destructive momentum rolling with healing and card advantage.

So, with that in mind, let's pull back our Battlechargers and let 'em loose on our opponents with a deck playing to their key strengths for maximum carnage!

Characters

Of course, our two main characters in this deck are going to be Raider Runamuck and Raider Runabout. Individually they may not seem like much, with each having a mode with no text or effects, but their power lies in the utility of what happens when they get flipped to their opposite modes. Flipping Runamuck to bot mode also forces you to flip Runabout to his bot mode and flipping Runabout back to alt-mode similarly forces Runamuck to do the same. Due to this synchronicity, you're assured of getting either a card draw or healing out of each of your flips every turn.

Since our battlecharger duo only adds up to 20 stars, we've got 5 stars to play around with. There's a lot of great options for pairing with these two, but since my strategy is going to lean heavily into keeping the pair alive for as long as possible, I decided to team them up with Flamewar from wave 1. Her ability granting all other characters Tough 1 will help us immensely when taking big hits from more powerful bots. Another viable strategy would be to run this as a cars deck, with Raider Road Hugger or Raider Detour, since we'll be running a high number of blue pipped cards in our deck to pitch to their tap abilities. However, losing out on a possible attack activation in a narrower deck such as this will put us at more of a disadvantage than we will be gaining benefit from their abilities, I feel.

Battle Deck

This battle deck is built on three basic strategies. First is flipping Runamuck and Runabout as many times as we can, to maximize their abilities and maintain the pressure on our opponents. Second, using a healthy amount of Pierce to get through our enemy's defenses and make sure that we're doing some amount of damage every turn. Finally, we want to keep our characters alive through playing defensively while also boosting their attack power slightly using blue-pipped upgrades and actions that either add to our attack or give us some other tactical benefit.

Since our first strategy is to get as much use out of that battlecharger co-flip ability, we're going to be running 9 different cards that allow us to flip our characters. Rapid Conversion and Escape Route both allow us to flip a single character, while Start Your Engines allows us to flip both Runamuck and Runabout to car mode at once, and then untap one of them. I'll likely keep Roll Out in my side board as a replacement for Start Your Engines if I end up facing a deck that's narrower, but for most matchups you'll want the untap ability more than you'll want to flip Flamewar, since her Bold 1 granting ability isn't going to help us very much.

To get a good amount of pierce for our characters, we've got a mixture of black-pipped cards, upgrades, and actions. Energon Axe and Scoundrel's Blaster both give us Pierce 2 while equipped, while Steady Shot, Smoke Cloak, and HV Electron Breacher all provide those needed black pips while flipping during combat. Since this is a mostly defensive deck, we want to run as few black-only piped cards as possible, opting for a combination of blue and black where we can. The Electron Breacher gets a pass due to just being a solid upgrade option with a flat +2 to attack power.

We're also going to be running Vaporize instead of Dismantle in the main deck, though we will keep the latter in our side board if we find ourselves facing another heavily defensive build. The extra black pip will help us more on attack than the blue will help on defense, while the card's abilities are nearly identical. I find that Vaporize has a wider range of uses, but Dismantle's black pip should not be discounted.

To keep our characters kicking even when the going gets rough, we're keeping our deck focused squarely on blue battle icons that also provide other bonuses. Since we have 2 Specialists on our team, running Multi-Tool is a good idea, since that will let us get our upgrades onto our characters much more quickly. Armed Hovercraft comes in handy to deal some amount of direct damage when placed on Runabout. As stated before, we're also running Smoke Cloak for some more Tough on top of what Flamewar will be providing, as well as Reinforced Plating as a second option to add Tough to our characters.

One utility card that we need to consider is Turbo Boosters. Since our battlechargers are both cars, the ability to add an extra point of attack and untap them could give us the attack activation advantage we need. Stats-wise, neither Runamuck or Runabout are massive powerhouses, so Turbo Boosters and Start Your Engines are going to enable us to swing more often without repercussions than our opponents. It is somewhat of a risky strategy, but one that I feel we can reliably depend on here, given the volume of untap cards we'll be running.

We're also running a few other cards to help boost our attack power while also being blue-pips for defensive combat flips, such as Dismantling Claw and Leap Into Battle. Security Checkpoint is included simply for the double blue pips on defensive flips, but if we find that we're not drawing the other cards we need as often, it is a good candidate for being cut or side-boarded out in favor of other cards that are more useful in hand.

Like my Metroplex build, this deck also clocks in at 45 cards, 5 over the legal minimum, but I feel that each card in this deck has a specific place and role to fill. There are some potential cuts that could be made to trim it back down to that lean 40, but after some playing and experimenting, I feel that 45 is not that much different, and allows us to include a bit more utility.

So, that's Runamuck and Runabout! Thanks for reading and join me again next week when I'll discuss the Autobot answer to the battlechargers: the Convention Exclusive Omni-Bots!

Battle Icons:

6 White

2 Orange

9 Black

37 Blue

Runabout and Runamuch | Royce Thigpen

• Characters (3)
• 1 Raider Runabout, Infantry - Soldier
• 1 Raider Runamuck, Infantry - Soldier
• 1 Flamewar, Veteran Decepticon

• Upgrades (24)
• 3 Armed Hovercraft
• 2 Dismantling Claw
• 3 Energon Axe
• 3 HV Electron Breacher
• 3 Multi-Tool
• 2 Reinforced Plating
• 3 Scoundrel's Blaster
• 3 Smoke Cloak
• 2 Turbo Boosters

• Actions (21)
• 3 Escape Route
• 3 Leap Into Battle
• 3 Rapid Conversion
• 3 Security Checkpoint
• 3 Start Your Engines
• 3 Steady Shot
• 3 Vaporize