Transformers: the Gathering a card game based on the Magic: the Gathering Rules by Wizards of the Coast M:tG is TM and probably a few other things, WotC. Transformers are TM ETC by Hasbro and Takara Anything left is Copyright 1994 by Dave Van Domelen I. Introduction This game is based on the rules for the popular Deckmaster card game series put out by Wizards of the Coast. At least in this version of the rules, it will be assumed that players have access to the rules for Magic: the Gathering, so they will not be explained here. Several rules in this supplement can be applied to regular Magic games, such as the simplified method of using normal playing cards for a deck. The setup is based as closely as Magic rules allow on the Transformers series, and as a result has no Enchantments, since those really aren't a part of the series. The deck is creature-heavy, with some lands and several artifacts, mostly Energon Caches. To play, you will need the following: Magic rules (Third Edition) Two decks of playing cards Several six-sided dice (to be used as counters) Pencil and paper (to keep track of Life Points) II. Creatures (Transformers) For those wanting to use this deck against a normal Magic deck, all creatures are treated as Artifact creatures and all mana costs are colorless. Transformers can draw Energon from all land types save Forests (hydroelectric from Islands, geothermal or exotic crystals from Mountains, Wind Power from Plains and Petrochemicals from Swamps) and their lands can be Landwalked. Suit equivalencies will be explained later. This set of rules will provide a way to generate generic Transformers from normal playing cards. However, if you wish more detail, you can draw up an equivalency list (e.g. Thrust is the Jack of Clubs, etc.) and assign more detailed powers and abilities. Ace = Gestalt team. The Ace of spades is a six-team, while the other aces are five-teams. An Ace has a summoning cost equal to the number of team members in energon (colorless mana). When summoned, it will be in the form of individual units, each 1/1. Place a d6 on the card with the current number of components alive showing face up. These must all be stationed at the same Front (see New Rules) but not all need attack at the same time. If all members are still alive, as a Fast Effect the controller may spend 2 energon to merge them. This merger costs 2 energon every upkeep or it breaks apart. A merged Gestalt acts as one Transformer with power equal to one more than its number of components, and toughness equal to that number. So a 5-team would combine to a 6/5 creature. Also, merged Gestalts are Flying, regardless of whether the components are. Components fly if the Ace is a black suit. The controller may spend 3 energon to recreate a destroyed component, or let them all be destroyed and resummon (see New Rules). 2-4 = Lands. Each land has a toughness equal to its number, representing how hard it is to destroy the energon-tapping apparatus there. The land itself is not destroyed, merely the method of getting energy from it. More on this in the New Rules section. Spades are Swamps, Diamonds are Mountains, Clubs are Islands and Hearts are Plains. Lands can be played at the rate of one per turn, like in Magic. 5-6 = Energon Caches. The number of the card is the number of Energon Cubes the cache can hold at maximum. Energon Caches are Artifacts with a summoning cost of zero. Use a d6 to represent the current amount of energon in a cache. See New Rules for more on the use of Energon Caches. 7-King = Transformers of total 'points' equal to their number minus four, treating Jacks as 11, Queens as 12 and Kings as 13. So a Jack has 7 points to use, for example. Summoning Cost is one third of the points, rounding. So 7 and 8 cost 1, 9 through Jack cost 2, Queen and King cost 3 to summon. This may seem a bit cheap, but inherent limitations of all Transformer creatures make up for it (see New Rules). The points are split up between Power, Toughness and Flight. Having Flight costs one point, not having it costs zero. If you're doing lists of characters, each special ability should have a point cost as well, usually 1 (example: Megatron is a King, with 9 points. 1 for Flying, 1 to become a gun and substitute his Power for another's (letting them take any return fire), leaving 7. Decide he's 4/3, so anyone using him gets a Power of 4 in place of their own, but keeps their own Toughness). If you are making a list, this is as far as you need go. However, if you want to just pick up and play, here's how to find the stats of any given card. 1: Black suits are Flying, Red suits aren't. 2: No other special abilities exist besides Flying. 3: Power minus Toughness (P-T) must follow these guidelines: Spades (7-J) : 1 or 0 Clubs (7-J) : 0 or -1 Spades (Q-K) : 2 or 1 Clubs (Q-K) : -1 or -2 Hearts (7-K) : 0 or -1 Diamonds (7-K) : 1 or 0 So, for example, a King of Spades has 9 points, 1 of which goes to Flying, leaving 8. P-T must be 2 or 1, so he has to be 5/3. Another example: 8 of Hearts has 4 points, and doesn't fly. So he must be 2/2. The reason for the choices of suit limitations are based on the old Tarot basis of the suits: Spades are Swords, very offense-oriented, while Clubs are Staves, very defensive. If you don't like the idea of the Flight power being used on the defender types, instead let the Queen and King of Hearts have the (-1,-2) bracket and have all Clubs be (0,-1). Fancy Joker = Cassette Player (Soundwave or Blaster). 4 to summon, is a 3/3 Flying creature. Tap to summon a 1/1 Flying creature (as usual, may not attack that round), using a d6 to represent the number of tapes ejected. No more than 4 may be out at any one time, and all must operate at the same Front, but not all need attack. Keep track of the number destroyed in action, since no more than 6 total cassettes may be ejected by the Cassette Player. If destroyed and resummoned, all tapes are also recreated (see New Rules). Plain Joker = Superweapon (artifact). 3 to summon, Tap and spend 1 to give any one creature +4/+0 for a round. If creature using this benefit is destroyed, Superweapon is discarded. III. New Rules This section includes a number of new rules, some of which represent general powers of all Transformers and some of which are included to better simulate Energon. The new rules include: Destruction Differences Energon Caches (Hidden Caches - Optional) Attacking Land and Energon Caches Blocking Flyers Fronts Winning Destruction Differences: When a card is destroyed, it is not discarded. Rather, it returns to the player's hand. On his discard phase, he still must reduce his number of cards to 7 by discarding. Anything discarded is lost forever (unless you decide one of the cards is a Vector Sigma type and and fish cards out of the graveyard). Destroyed Lands can be played again, as can destroyed Energon Caches, but not until after Discard (unlike normal procedure for playing Lands). This makes sure a bad round stays fairly bad...a massive attack will still result in permanent losses. But it also reflects how easily and frequently Transformers come back from the dead. Note that a player need not re-play a destroyed Transformer immediately, but can hold it in reserve or try to trick his opponent into thinking he discarded it. Because of this tactical point, the graveyard is *face down* in this game. This is to counter the fact that your opponent knows exactly what is in your starting library (if using lists, you must keep that face-up and visible, so your opponent can be sure you didn't just decide on the spur that the particular King is a 0/8 Flying Wall). A Gestalt isn't destroyed until all its components are gone. If your Cassette Player is destroyed, the cassettes are removed from play until the Player is resummoned (they go and sulk somewhere, or work on fixing the boss). Any destroyed cassettes are replaced when the Player is resummoned. Energon Caches: Any mana tapped can be used directly, or sent into an Energon Cache if you have one out. Energon left in a cache does not cause mana burn, but has its own nasty side-effects, more on them in a minute. Mana goes into a cache at the speed of an interrupt, and comes out of it at the same speed. The nasty side effect is that if destroyed, the energon explodes, causing its controller damage equal to the stored energon in it. Delayed Mana Burn, basically. You can try to dump your energon into your Mana Pool (as an interrupt) to stop this, but unless you have somewhere to spend it, you'll still take normal Mana Burn damage at the end of the turn. If you want to make this tactic less viable, rule that only half the energon can be dumped out before it blows, so even if you *do* have a place to spend 6 mana, you'll still take some damage from the explosion. Panic-merging of Gestalts is a good sink for energon. Energon caches have a toughness of 1, so any attack that reaches them will destroy them. Hidden Caches (Optional Rule): If you and your opponent agree, the caches can be concealed so that the exact amount in any cache is unknown, only the total energon being stored. When a cache is destroyed, roll a die to determine how much energon was in it: subtract one if the cache could only hold 5 (minimum 1). The minimum energon in any cache is 1, so if the result rolled is greater than total energon minus number of other caches, it's reduced to that number. Example: Player A has only 6 Energon left after a busy turn, but three caches. No more than 4 energon can be in any one of them. If the player actually has less energon left than he has caches, a destroyed cache will have 1 energon in it if the attacker roll an even number on a d6. Attacking Land and Energon Caches: Because the Transformers are not planewalkers and lack direct links to the lands, they must use technological means to siphon power from them. This leaves lands vulnerable to assault. When attacking, you can declare your target to be a Land, an Energon Cache or the opposing player. You must declare specific Land and Cache targets before the victim assigns blockers. If not blocked, your attack goes to this target. Energon Caches are automatically destroyed, since they have Toughness of 1. Lands have toughness of 2 to 4, and heal damage back at the end of the turn like creatures do, so an assault of many smaller creatures (gestalt components or cassettes, for example) can suffice to toast a land. Blocking Flyers: All Transformers have ranged attacks, so it's reasonable that they can still damage flying attackers. If you declare a block against a flyer using a non-flyer, the attacker has two choices. One, the attacker can engage, in which case he lets himself be fully blocked and combat is resolved normally. If he engages, he is treated as Trampling, so any damage over the toughness of the defenders is applied against the target (making it a good idea to heavily defend Energon Caches). Defenders in this case automatically Band with the Land or Cache (if any), with any excess damage trampling through (example: a 5/3 flyer attacks a Land defended by two 1/2's. The Land is a 4. They decide to let each take 1 and the Land take 3, all live. Had it been an energon cache, they could not have stopped it from being destroyed, so they'd have let it take all the damage. Had they been on the Home Front, the player would decide to let one take all the damage and take 3 himself, or let both die and only take one. He could not decide to take 3 and let each take 1, since he does not band with them). Two, the attacker can ignore the blockers and go straight for the target. In this case, the blockers get a First Strike at full power against the attacker before he can attack the target. Hence, the attacker will usually Engage unless he's confident that he can survive that First Strike. Superweapons and special abilities can generate nasty surprises in this case. (example: that 5/3 is attacking again, and decides to ignore the 1/2's, since they can't kill him. The opposing player is really low on Life Points, and the 5 damage would be sweet. So he declares ignore. Then the defender spends and energon and taps the Superweapon (left in reserve), adding +4/+0 to one of the defenders. The attacker dies without getting his own attack off.) Note, of course, that a flying attacker cannot ignore a flying blocker, and must engage. Fronts: These rules are modified from the multiplayer rules used by a group of Milwaukee players (hi, Dan!). When a Transformer is summoned, it must be assigned to a Front. There are three Fronts: Home Front - Defending the player, Transformers on this Front can block any attack made directly on the player or attack as normal. They cannot stop attacks on Lands or Energon Caches. This is the default Magic rules. Supply Front - Defending the Lands and Energon Caches. Transformers on this Front can block any attack made on those, but not attacks directly on the player. If there's more attackers than defenders, the player will be forced to choose which Lands he leaves undefended. Leaving caches undefended is really stupid. Note that if you have more caches than defenders, you can shuffle energon before the attack in order to leave as little as possible out in the open. Note that this is not possible in the Hidden Caches option. Battle Front - These Transformers are out in the field, patrolling and looking for trouble. They may block any incoming attack (or try to, see Blocking Flyers above), and anyone who gets past them can still be blocked by those on the front being attacked. Thus, flying over the front lines can damage you to the point of not being able to survive flying over the supply lines. However, it costs 1 energon to keep a normal Transformer on the Battle Front each turn on upkeep, 2 to keep a Gestalt team or Cassette Player & Minions there. Being away from instant resupply is costly. Spending this upkeep cost again on your opponent's upkeep phase will untap attackers on the Battle Front and let them block. Having forces on the Battle Front is damn useful, but expensive. If the upkeep cost cannot be spent to keep a Transformer on the Battle Front, it is returned to the Home Front but spends the turn tapped to represent the severe energy depletion suffered. On the player's attack phase, he can move a Transformer to a different front. This Transformer may not attack that turn, but can still use any special abilities it may have (merging, tapped abilities of list-based cards, etc). If the upkeep cost is spent, a Transformer sent to the Battle Front may attack on the turn he arrives there, whether summoned to that Front or transferred there. Winning: In addition to normal winning conditions (loss of Life Points, running out of cards), you also win if 8 of the opponent's 12 Land cards get sent to the Graveyard. IV. Tactical Notes Due to the energy-low nature of the deck, strategies will tend toward long quiet stretches while energon is cached, followed by bursts of activity on the Battle Front. Keeping everything at full combat readiness is generally not possible. V: Some list possibilites Kings (9 points) Megatron: 4/3, flying, tap to give another Decepticon on his Front 4 power. Scorponok: 3/4, flying, 1 energon to change to battle fortress mode, giving all blocking Decepticons on his Front +0/+1, cannot attack while using this special ability, may only block. Trypticon: 5/5, must spend 1 energon each turn or he goes back in your hand (disadvantage gets back 1 point) Shockwave: 4/4, flying Optimus Prime: 4/4, tap to give all attacking Autobots +1/0 by inspiration Omega Supreme: 5/4, no specials Fortress Maximus: Same as Scorponok Grimlock: 4/4, flying Queens (8 points) Starscream: 3/3, flying, tap to Paralyze any one opposing creature with his Null Rays (creature is tapped, and stays tapped until next upkeep, useful for taking down a defender long enough for a teammate to move in on the target) Galvatron: 4/3, flying (consider him the City Commander version) Cyclonus: 3/3, flying, bands Astrotrain: 4/3, flying Ultra Magnus: 4/4, no specials Jetfire/Skyfire: 4/3, flying Springer: 4/3, flying Sky Lynx: 3/3, flying, 1 to split into two 2/2 creatures, one of which flies, 1 to reform. And so forth. Dave Van Domelen, yes, this kept me awake with ideas last night....