Deckbuilder Challenge
The great folks over at Blues on Attack have been hosting deck building challenges on the Transformers TCG Facebook group. It’s a great way during this pandemic to have the community contributing content and voting on the winner. This particular challenge is the 3rd contest. While I admit, I don’t always feel like I’m the best deck builder, my lists are usually pretty reliable, and after a few plays, I can decide on what cards to change out. Much the same way, I iterated on the Slippery When Jet List. The All-Seeing Architect was my submission for this challenge.
Grapple?
This deck-building challenged is centered around Grapple – Autobot Architect. Grapple has always been an interesting character in so much that his base stats and health pool are dangerously low for his incredibly high 12-star price. His bot mode ability is not irrelevant and pushes the deckbuild over other bot synergies. He is the literal best definition of a build around me card. I know many other players will consider other bots that have flip synergy with Grapple. Recent Wave 5 testing has me thinking card effects over flip value start to take priority. There were some restrictions to this build as players cannot use the Air Strike Patrols or Off-Road Patrols. They also could not pair him with Optimus Prime Battlefield Legend.
 |  |
Teammates?
When I was diving into The All-Seeing Architect, the first thought was to look at Sideswipe and a third bot to have flip synergy. Certainly, Sideswipe would be an excellent choice in the lineup, but I decided that I wanted to buy all in on Grapple’s flips and defense. I needed to put a bot in the list that could assist him. With Powertrain off the table, the next best choice was the seven-star Captain Impactor. With Seven stars assigned to his first teammate, we have six stars left, which gives us a six-star or five-star bot and a star battle card.
I feel confident with my choice in impactor as his stats are decent, and he provides team synergy. The third bot seemed like an obvious choice in a mixed pip list. The focus was mechanic introduced in Wave 3 is a powerful ability that can help smooth out battle flips. The Shuffle Bus has had extensive experience with Focus played within a mixed pip General Optimus Prime list. Raider Sights makes a fantastic addition to the deck, although I will admit that getting him killed first could be quite the challenge.
 |  |  |
Weapons
The All-Seeing Architect team is in place, its time to break down the weapons. I had a tough time not running Energon Axe or Grenade Launcher in the list. These are some of the best weapons at our disposal.
This deck runs 3x Backup Beam, not because the combat flips will matter but because it helps us get to the precisely four condition of the Grapple ability. 37 Cards in this list have precisely 2 different colored pips. The double colored pips give us a very high probability of hitting exactly four colored pips we need. The challenge is that if we hit on orange-green or blue-green, then we need blue-black on the second card or orange-black on the second card, respectively.
I’m not a math whiz. Maybe Computron’s Lab can give us a bit of insight into this probability. While Computron’s modeling doesn’t account for Black Pips, I wanted to create redundancy not in card count but instead in pip redundancy and pip diversity. In other words, if I have Orange-Green and Blue-Green, I create redundancy in the green pips, which allows me to reduce the pure card count of the green pips in the deck while maintaining pip density. I can then diversify the black pips with additional blue-black and orange-black pips. Redundancy and diversity allow me to take the black pip count up as well to match the level of the other pips in the deck. I carried this philosophy through this build to keep pip counts as near even as possible while still using dual-colored redundant pips.
The remain weapons 1 x Noble’s Blaster, 2 x Enforcement Batons, 2 x Unflinching Courage, and 1 x Combat Dagger all assist giving Grapple consistency. The only static buff weapon is Noble’s Blaster, and it is probably best on Grapple in the late game, but serves a great purpose of making Impactor punch hard in the early game.
Grapple’s Power problem is no secret; he has a base four power and “if” you trigger his ability, he hits for 8. The problem with him has always been that we could make similar star investments for 7+ damage with no card play or deck investment at all. If Grapple was two fewer stars, I think we’d all be considering him a bit more, although he’s still potentially inconsistent as the upper bounds pushes him to 98% chance to hit when we have the right pip density in our deck and Bold 2. So as you can see, I’ve enabled Bold 2 in as many ways as possible in this deck. The downside is that our expected value of a base seven attacker with bold 2, in an aggressive shell, would be 11 While Grapple probably lands at 9 or 10.
So with big defense decks existing, we needed to try and push up the damage through black pips, which is why I chose them over the traditional white pip builds that have been explored in the past.
Armor
As we move into Wave 5, the static armor buffs become more valuable over Tough. Cards like Belligerence punish Tough decks. But we can’t ignore Tough value as Grapple on his bot side has zero defense, ouch.
With zero defense, it means we needed to rely on Tough to enable the +4 buff to defense, giving him a potential base defense of 5 or 6 depending on flips. This list contains 2 x Bashing Shield, 2 x Sparring Gear, 2 x Covert Armor, and 1 x Reflex Circuits.
Like Enforcement Batons, Bashing Shield is here as a removal tool more than an actual static buff, although the static buff is good enough not to overlook. An early game, Sparring Gear, is valuable on Grapple and will help him defend as best as possible. The late-game Grapple can take the Covert Armor for the static +1 defense, and assuming he has Sights on him in the Utility slot, he can leverage the Focus 2 to create consistency on the defense trigger.
Utilities
The utility slot contains a singleton copy of 1 x Pocket Processor, and 2 x copies of Matrix of Leadership. The Matrix is an early game bonus that helps Raider Sights punch through some damage and put a target on the impactor, whom we want to die second. The Matrix is less useful on Grapple and can be used to swap green pip cards in the late game. The Orange Blue offers a valuable pip selection that helps us get green-black. Matrix is a card that is on my shortlist to see how it impacts actual in-game flips. It is potentially possible that Matrix would not help the list.
Actions
The Actions for The All-Seeing Architect continue the thread of double-colored pips. 3 x Fight For Position, helps us turn on the Bold 2 for Grapple’s ability, and I want to test the effectiveness of Bold with the black pips for both Sights and Impactor. The 3 x Focus Fire and 3 x War of Attrition are collectors that are match dependant. If you are facing off against another Aggro list, I will collect Focus Fire’s to increase my damage output as much as possible. It is potentially possible against some defensive decks, especially running End Hostilities, that the Focus Fire is still the best collector. The War of Attrition is used in Control matchups because your opponent most likely won’t be doing much damage to your Grapple and the repair three and deal three can be very valuable overall.
We are still running 2 x Hidden Fortification to protect Grapple as much as possible and try to enable the Tough to hit his ability just in case we don’t have the Sparring Gear on him. Hidden Fortification is an excellent action to play on Grapple’s turn when you need to still get a Bold weapon down on him. Just in case we can’t make the Bold and Tough strategy work, we’ve included a singleton Master Plan. Master Plan effectively allows us to plan 3 Battles with Grapple, one attack, one defense, and either one more attack or defense, depending on the wheel turn. Player Master Plan, in this way, assumes that we have six cards to plan, which seems unlikely with this team.
Rock Toss gives the deck the much needed black pip and a bit of direct damage to assist in getting rid of a pesky lingering bot. Steady Shot provides the deck with an additional source of black pips that also has a subtle pump effect for either Grapple or Impactor. Finally, Wedge Formation allows us to draw and card and heal Grapple. But more importantly, it gives us a three for one pip card that helps us need only a blue pip to trigger his ability.
Pros
- Versatile pip colors in the deck that makes an opponent’s plan for expected value challenging to gauge.
- Black Pips help ensure damage against control matchups.
- Focus from the Battle Master Raider Sights
Cons
- Mixed Pip’s create inconsistency. Forces you as a player to play on static values alone.
- Susceptible to many of the games standard meta cards such as Sabotaged Armaments, Bashing Shield, and Reprocess.
Cards to Consider
Immersed in Shadow
Grenade Launcher
Energon Axe
Reprocess
Wave 5 Update
As I started toying around with this list, I found myself wanting to explore it more in Wave 5. Here is the list link for Grappling at the Outback.
