Hello friends of Cybertron!

The stakes continue to rise with previews from War for Cybertron: Siege II, and I have some particularly significant one’s for you today.

We introduced the black battle icon in War for Cybertron: Siege I. We believe the black battle icon to be powerful and fundamental for Transformers TCG, but with Siege I the goal was to show it off and get you used to it in a procedural way.

Harnessing the Black Battle Icons

Orange and Blue battle icons, while useful most of the time, have their own affinities for certain characters and strategies. Black works the same way; it is more useful for some and less for others. Pierce as a keyword is undoubtedly useful even in small amounts, ensuring damage is dealt to the enemy. In order to maximize Pierce’s effectiveness, you need to stack an amount equivalent to your character’s attack, otherwise some level of the enemy’s defense will remain useful for them. The easiest way to do this is to utilize other Piercing abilities, Bold to flip more battle icons, and characters with naturally low attack.

At a very basic level, a character with 2 attack can flip 2 black icons when attacking, making sure their full attack gets through. A character with 3 attack and Bold 1 can flip 3 black icons and deal 3 damage.

As you only flip 2 battle cards on attack, it can be very difficult to hit higher Pierce numbers without Bold. Right now, the best outcome is 1 black icon and a white icon, which then flips 2 more black icons for a total Pierce 3. That all changes with the release of Siege 2.

With the introduction of double black Icon cards an individual attack, without Bold, has the possibility of reaching upwards of 6 Pierce!

If Pierce is your plan, Designated Target will prove a strong tool to reach those ends. You can pair it with characters with medium attack values like 5 to pick up the slack on flips, ensuring you Pierce your full damage. Sometimes relying on Actions to bolster your attack can be a liability in a wider deck that can attack with multiple characters in a turn. Designated Target takes that into account, granting Pierce 2 to your full force for the turn.

Minor Medic Kit doesn’t have the biggest effect, but a couple extra health can always come in handy. Increasing your health is also the most effective defense against opposing Pierce that would otherwise ignore your defense stats.



But wait, there’s more:

It doesn’t even require a star! A Crowbar might not pack the kind of punch a Grenade Launcher does, but for a Pierce focused deck +2 is still effective. Just consider the scrap ability to be a benefit ensuring you can easily get your double black icons back into your deck.

Let me get ahead of any speculation right now though, there are NO double blue or double orange cards without stars in Siege 2.

You’ll also find at least one more black-blue card in Siege 2:

Point Position sports a weaker effect than Bravery, but gains a black icon in exchange, granting us the possibility of 9 black-blue cards in a deck.

How can we put these new black cards into effect you ask? Well I can think of one team that might be able to mesh well with the black Icon:

Scrapper, Constructicon Foreman Bonecrusher, Demolitions Hook, Surgical Engineer Longhault, Transport Mixmaster, Materials Fabrication Scavenger, Mining and Salvage Constructicon Enigma 1 Reclaim 3 The Bigger they are… 3 Steady Shot 3 Calculated Strike 3 Designated Target 3 Rapid Conversion 3 Work Overtime 3 Crowbar 3 RR Disruptor Blade 3 Force Field 3 Smoke Cloak 3 Minor Medic Kit 3 Erratic Energy Grenade 3

With 6 characters in a deck as heavy black as this you can expect to deal 15 damage before untapping, and that’s without even playing any cards!

Or you can try something using some new Siege 2 characters:

Raider Nova Storm Private Powertrain Private Highjump Private Mudslinger Private Tote Rock Toss 3 Steady Shot 3 Calculated Strike 3 Designated Target 3 The Bigger they are… 3 Work Overtime 3 Backup Plan 3 Combat Dagger 3 Crowbar 3 RR Disruptor Blade 2 Force Field 2 Smoke Cloak 3 Minor Medic Kit 3 Erratic Energy Grenade 3

Everything fits nicely together in a list like this. The Off-Road Patrol can generally attack for 3, which Powertrain’s Bold ability will help to ensure is piercing. You’ll reliably utilize Nova Storm’s Pierce ability to attack for 5+ guaranteed damage. You can focus most of your character flips each turn on Nova Storm to try spreading damage with her ability. You can even coordinate Mudslinger and Nova Storm’s damage move abilities on the same turn to take something out that was left with 2 health.

Look forward to even more black icons and Pierce based strategies with the release of War for Cybertron Siege: 2 on November 8th!

We are really excited to see how the meta continues to evolve!