Hello all!
I’m thrilled to be back from GenCon where I was able to get to meet so many of you and enjoy a front row view to both the Energon Open. Congratulations to the winner Kevin Allen and all of the top 32 qualifiers for the Energon Invitational.
And thank you to all of you—the players, content creators, and fans—who have made this such a welcoming and thriving community. We here at Transformers TCG Headquarters are thrilled with the deck diversity we saw throughout the top 32 and are going to spotlight some of the most interesting decks, starting with semifinalist Scott Landis’ hard punching Prime deck.
Scott Landis
General Optimus Prime - Infantry Leader
Barrage - Merciless Insecticon
Private Firedrive - Ground Commander - Artillery
3 Reckless Charge
3 Peace Through Tyranny
3 One Shall Stand One Shall Fall
3 Marksmanship
2 Treasure Hunt
2 Press the Advantage
1 Plasma Burst
1 Smelt
2 Matrix of Leadership
3 Ion Blaster of Optimus Prime
3 Improvised Shield
3 Grenade Launcher
1 Erratic Lightning
2 Energy Pack
1 Energon Axe
3 Armed Hovercraft
2 Bashing Shield
1 Reflex Circuits
1 Enforcement Baton
Sideboard
Optimus Prime - Battlefield Legend
2 Infiltrate
1 Enforcement Baton
2 Photon Bomb
1 Recon System
1 Plasma Burst
1 Reflex Circuit
1 Press the Advantage
1 Energon Axe
The first thing to note about this deck is that it’s running 22 orange cards, 14 blue cards, and 4 cards with no battle icon. This perfectly highlights the flexibility that Focus (and to a lesser extent, the matched Bold and Tough that General Optimus Prime has) gives you in deck building, allowing you to prioritize battle cards more for their abilities than their battle icons, knowing that you can Focus towards the ones you need.
Secondly, there is a clear focus on precision damage here, between One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall, Plasma Burst, Barrage’s pierce granting, and especially Duo-Charge Electrostatic Photon Cannon, this deck is looking to guarantee exactly enough damage to Knock Out your opponent’s characters without wasting damage.
Third, the sideboard plan to jump into the new Twin Primes (Optimus Battlefield Legend and General Optimus Prime) is a new development that we saw in multiple decks over the tournament. It’s a powerful pair and maximizes the punch of your Ion Blasters of Optimus Prime, while giving you a bit more resilience built into your team and shifting into two-tall when three-wide has a bad matchup.
Finally, it is interesting to note that there are no white icons in this build. I suspect that this comes down to optimizing for battle card damage efficiency, but the first place I would look to tweak the deck would be to add some Work Overtimes, System Reboots, or Data Banks to get more card flow and allow the potential of a second explosive attack with Duo-Charge Electrostatic Photon Cannon.
Congratulations to Scott on his fantastic performance (and overall stellar name).
Where would you take his deck to reach the next level?