Bah-weep-Graaaaagnahwheepnini bong, gamers, and welcome back to another article about Transformers: TCG. Last week we had a look at the upcoming Wave 4 card that allows for an Autobot alternative win condition, Daring Escape. This week, we're going to take some time to examine the Decepticon rebuttal to that, Overwhelming Advantage. Both cards have the potential to swing a game massively when played, so today we're going to think about ways to pull off Overwhelming Advantage as often as we possibly can.

Of course, we first need to talk about the card itself, so without further ado, here is Overwhelming Advantage.

At first glance, pulling off this may seem like a pipe-dream, as it requires what seems like a large amount of setup to pull off. However, if you play the right team and the right combinations of cards, slapping your opponent's characters in the face with a hefty 15 damage on top of your attack damage isn't as daunting as it may seem.

Characters

In order to play this out, we'll first have to assemble a crack team of Decepticons. My personal pick for leading the team is Megatron, Arrogant Ruler from Wave 2. He's not the beefiest or hardest hitting of the Megatron variants, but he does come with an ability that we're definitely going to want to rely on. When you flip him from Bot Mode to Alt Mode, he allows us to play an upgrade in addition to the normal upgrade play we would get for turn, thus speeding up our set-up time significantly.

However, while we can pull off our trick with Megatron, he's not going to be the focus to start with. That honor is going to another tank, this time all the way from Wave 1. Demolisher, Devoted Decepticon actually has two very good abilities we're going utilize here. When flipping to alt-mode, he is a decent card draw engine, especially since we're going to be running 3 tanks on our team. What really excites us, however, is his bot-mode ability. Since the wording on his card simply states to flip extra battle cards equal to his defense value but does not specifically say that this is the same as Tough, it lets us get around pesky things like Stunticon Swagger and Acid Storm's abilities to shut down Tough. It also means that we're going to be able to flip a large number of cards when he attacks, almost single-handedly assuring us of the 5 distinct pips we need in order to activate Overwhelming Advantage.

Now, Demolisher is pretty great on his own, but we want to fully ensure that we get there on our attacks with him. To that end, we're going to be utilizing an old favorite, Flamewar, Veteran Decepticon. I've talked about her in the past, and for good reason. Her versatility combined with a low star cost and decent stats makes her a go-to character for just about any team. Most times that I've used her in the past have been for her bot-mode ability granting Tough 1 to all of our other characters, and while this is certainly coming into play here, we also want her alt-mode flip ability to grant Bold 1 to our characters to help ensure that we secure that advantage.

Rounding out the team at only 4 stars is our little friend Brunt, Artillery Drone from Wave 4's Trypticon buy-a-box promos. He's tiny but he's a tank and he fits on our team, which is good for Demolisher's draw engine, as well as one of our battle cards.

Battle Cards

Speaking of our battle cards, let's look at some of the tech we're going to put into our deck to help us achieve this Overwhelming Advantage.

Because of the pre-requisites for the effect to go off, we're of course going to be running a fairly large number of upgrades, some of which are fairly common or standard upgrades, but there are a couple that we need to call out because of how they fit into our overall strategy. The first of these is Multi-Tool, which I've talked about in the past, but is just an all-around spectacular upgrade. We'll want to get this out and use it early, since we only get the ability to play a second upgrade if we play this onto Flamewar, the only specialist on our team. In the early game. Also very helpful in the early game, while Flamewar is still alive, is Field Communicator, which lets us play the top card of our deck when placed on her.

The other important upgrade, though admittedly less so, is Decepticon Crown, which allows us to Plan 1 every time our upgraded character attacks. This ability to stack our deck, alongside the extra Plan benefit we get from Overwhelming Advantage, will let us set up exactly what flips we need in order to execute our plan, as well as those cowardly Autobots.

Actions are a big part of our strategy as well, and a very important oneis going to be Hunker Down, a card that lets us flip all our bots to their tank modes, and then plays an armor from our scrap pile onto any of our tanks that currently do not have armor already equipped. Combined with Megatron's ability to play an upgrade when flipped to his bot-mode, this becomes a very powerful tool indeed, getting us 2 upgrade plays where and when we need them. If one of the upgrade plays is a Multi-Tool on to Flamewar, so much the better!

The new Wave 4 card Wedge Formation is also vital to our plans, not so much for its actual ability; impressive though it is; but more for the fact that this is a triple-icon card without a star cost. This card is vastly more important in our hand than being played for its effect, since with all the planning we're going to be picking up from both Overwhelming Advantage and Decepticon Crown, we'll be sure to be able to stack the top of our deck with the cards we need for the upcoming attack. Similarly, after the battle, the green pip on Wedge Formation makes it easy to pull back into our hand, letting us set up the next use of Overwhelming Advantage as well.

Wave 1's card Treasure Hunt also fishes upgrades out of her deck, letting us pull any of them that we find from the top 4 cards to our hand. Another new Wave 4 card that we're going to be using is Point Position, which is an upgrade that fits nicely into our Utility slot and lets us force our opponents to attack whom we wish to help keep our essential team members alive long enough to deliver these 15-damage knockout blows.

The rest of our deck is focused more on being balanced across all our battle-icons while also delivering a good level of value than any particular strategy. Indeed, being balanced across all our battle icons is our strategy, so I've put together a list of cards that fit nicely together to give us a very well-rounded deck that isn't particularly leaning toward heavy offense of defense. Again, our point is to KO our opponents' heavy hitters with Overwhelming Advantage, not beat them on the Bold or Tough game.

So here we have it, a deck designed around pulling off what seems like a fairly difficult to set-up combo. Keep in mind, this is just a starting point to work off of, so play around with the idea and let me know what you come up with to make Overwhelming Advantage work! Join me here next week when we discuss the recently revealed new faction, Mercenaries!

The Deck

Battle Icons:

• 13 Black
• 14 Blue
• 18 Green
• 17 Orange
• 9 White

Overwhelming Force | Transformers TCG | Royce Thigpen

• Characters (4)
• 1 Megatron, Arrogant Ruler
• 1 Demolisher, Devoted Decepticon
• 1 Brunt, Artillery Drone
• 1 Flamewar, Veteran Decepticon

• Upgrades (25)
• 3 Backup Bag
• 3 Bashing Shield
• 2 Combat Dagger
• 3 Decepticon Crown
• 3 Enforcement Batons
• 3 Field Communicator
• 3 Multi-Tool
• 2 Point Position
• 3 Smoke Cloak

• Actions (15)
• 3 Hunker Down
• 3 Overwhelming Advantage
• 3 Steady Shot
• 3 Treasure Hunt
• 3 Wedge Formation