User blog:DutchRits/Character Card Comparison, Part 3

The Rare (R) cards introduce an interesting paradigm to TF:Legends. On the one hand, they are our first brush with some of the truly iconic characters of the Transformers franchise. We are asked to choose one as our leader upon first starting to play (I chose Wheeljack) and they become the transitional members of our teams as we struggle to accumulate SRs.

The SR Cards continue the tier pattern I discussed before ( & ), but here is where things start getting interesting.

First off, you have access to the first eight characters through the campaign missions via "Combat Cache" zones, making them the most "common" of the R cards. Of the eight, Laserbeak is easily the best character, from an MTM stat total standpoint, and he actually falls into the second tier in my proposal. (Note to new players: select Laserbeak as your leader.)  The rest of the R cards are available SOLELY through the Space Bridge. As exciting as it was to draw them early on, they now make up the bulk of the paid draws via the event Tiered Space Bridge (much to the frustration of hardcore players) and have become anything BUT rare.

Secondly, the R's are where we first start to see a deviation from the "relative capability" I discussed previously. Megatron is the 4th best R card, from an MTM total standpoint, and statistically is less powerful than Starscream! Grimlock and Optimus Prime are the two best (non-event) R's, with stats a full 500 points ahead of Megatron and Starscream. Additionally, Bumblebee's inclusion in this group is solely a nod to his "popularity" (I never liked him, except in the first Michael Bay TF movie...maybe because he was FINALLY a bad-a$$ the same size as Jazz). I also personally find it odd that Ramjet is in this list while Dirge and Thrust are UCs. But whatever.

Finally, the Rs are where we see our first event cards. While the R's have so far followed the tiered approach found in the Cs & UCs rather faithfully, we see with these first event R's that everything is about to be thrown out of whack. Instead of working these event cards into the existing tier system, every card is made to be more powerful than ANY of the other Rs. As a result, you end up with Event Kickback being more powerful than Optimus Prime (by 900 points!), and Episode Cliffjumper being more powerful than any other R card. A more pragmatic approach...one that would have preserved game balance and prevented the start of the "deck creep"...would have been to work the event Rs into the established Rare Tiers, as I propose above. Kickback & Sludge could easily have been worked into Tier 2/3, while Hound, Acid Storm, and Dirge are worked into Tier 3. Finally, Sunstorm and Cliffjumper would fit into Tier 4. It does nothing for the "relative capability" issue, but at least you don't make the other Rs obsolete.

Bottom Line: the Rs follow the same tier pattern...up until the event Rs are introduced. Then it all goes haywire. Dogs are dating cats, people are running with scissors...it's not pretty.

Next: The Non-Event SRs