How to Play (Advanced Rules)

These are the rules for normal, two person play of the Transformers Trading Card Game. These rules offer a much more varied and enhanced version of game play than the Basic Rules included with the Autobot Starter Set. That being said, the game is still designed to be very easy to understand and pick up, with the true depth and complexity of the game being found more underneath the surface.

(For the Basic Rules, click here)

## BUILDING A TEAM AND DECK

You can have as many TRANSFORMERS character cards on your team as you want, up to but not more than a team of 25 stars. Look at the bottom of each character card on its alt-mode side to see how many stars it’s worth. You can’t have more than 1 of each unique character on your team. (this is based on the character’s full card name, meaning for example you can build a team that has both Starscream//Air Commander and Starscream//Scheming Second-in-Command)

Most characters have 2 modes: alt mode and bot mode. The mode that’s face up tells you a character’s current stats and abilities.

You’ll also need a deck of at least 40 battle cards. Types of battle cards include Action cards and Upgrade cards. You can’t have more than 3 of the same battle card in your deck.

## WINNING THE GAME

When your opponent’s characters are all KO’d (knocked out), you win!

## GETTING STARTED

* Put your character cards on your side of the battlefield in alt mode.
* Shuffle your deck of battle cards. Put it face down off to the side.
* Randomly decide who goes first. Switch who goes first for each new game.
* Each player draws 3 battle cards. To draw a card, put the top card of your deck into your hand.

## TAPPING AND UNTAPPING CHARACTERS

If you’re told to tap one of your characters, turn it sideways. To untap it, turn it back so it’s upright and facing you. Attacking will cause your characters to become tapped. Some cards can also tap or untap characters.

## TAKING A TURN

At the start of your turn, draw a battle card. Then you can do the following in any order:

* Flip 1 of your characters to its other mode.
* Play 1 Action card from your hand.
* Play 1 Upgrade card from your hand onto one of your characters. Certain Upgrades will spell out limitations for what they can and cannot be used on (“Put on Melee characters only”) This limitation is only in affect when first upgrading the character. So for example if you have an Upgrade that can only be used on Planes but then on your next turn you transform your plane into its robot mode, the Upgrade will remain on the character.

Exception: On the very first turn of the game, the player who goes first can’t play Actions or Upgrades. On the second turn, the other player can play only one card, either an Action or an Upgrade.

When you play an Action, do what the card says and then set it off to the side. You’ll put it into your scrap pile at the end of the turn. Your scrap pile sits next to your deck of battle cards and is where your used battle cards go during the game. If you’re told to scrap a card, put it there. An Upgrade stays on the battlefield attached to a character. There are 3 kinds of Upgrades: Weapons, Armor, and Utilities. Each character can have up to 1 of each kind. If you want to play an Upgrade on a character that already has one of that kind, scrap the old one.

## ATTACK

Next, it’s time to attack!

1. Choose one of your untapped characters as the attacker.
2. Choose one of your opponent’s tapped characters as the defender. If none of your opponent’s characters are tapped, your character can attack any of them.
3. Tap your attacker.
4. Each player flips over the top 2 battle cards of their deck and sets them aside. If a player flips any white battle icons, that player flips 2 more cards. This bonus flip happens only once per player on each attack.
5. For the attacker, count the number of orange attack battle icons flipped and add that to its Attack.
6. For the defender, count the number of blue defense battle icons flipped and add that to its Defense.
7. If the attacker’s number is higher, it does damage to the defender equal to the difference. If they have the same number or the defender’s number is higher, no damage is done.

**After the attack, if your opponent has any untapped characters, your turn is over.**

If your opponent’s characters are all tapped, you attack with a character again—but only if at least one of your characters is untapped. Keep attacking with your characters until all of them are tapped. Once all characters on both sides are tapped, untap them all and your turn is over.

When your turn ends, put all battle cards you flipped for attacks during that turn into your scrap pile. Also put any Actions you played that turn into your scrap pile.

## BOLD, TOUGH, AND PIERCE

Certain character cards will possibly have one of these three special abilities. Bold and Tough are both rather simple to understand; simply flip over one more battle card for each instance of the ability the character has during battle depending on if they are attacking or defending. Pierce, however, can be a bit more confusing in practice:

Pierce tells you the minimum amount of damage a character can do in an attack, although a character can never do more damage than its attack total. For example, say a character with Pierce 2 attacks. After flipping battle cards, the attack total is 5 and the defense total is 4. Normally, the character with Pierce would do only 1 damage, but because of Pierce, it does 2 damage instead.

This also works if the attack total is equal to or less than the defense total. Say the attacker has an attack total of 5, but this time it runs into a massive defense total of 9. If that character had Pierce 2, it would still do 2 damage.

If the character with Pierce 2 had an attack total of only 1, it would do 1 damage against any defense total.

## DAMAGE AND KNOCKOUT

When something does damage to a character, put that many damage counters on it. If the number of damage counters it has equals or is more than its Health, the character is KO’d. It’s out of the game, so set it off to the side in a KO area.

## RESHUFFLING YOUR DECK

If your deck ever runs out of battle cards, shuffle the cards in your scrap pile face down. Those shuffled cards become your deck. This can happen at any time, even in the middle of an attack!

©2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC