Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-11179649-20130707191526/@comment-10068656-20130707205122

I can't speak for others, but the only time I've ever been able to get higher DP than the recommend button offers is during an event, when special faction bonuses are in play. A lot of times the recommend button won't assemble an all-autobot or all-decepticon deck, but in some cases if you assemble one manually, you'll get a higher DP. If you land one or more raid cards, this seems to be even more relevant due to the bonuses attached to those. Sometimes moving a raid card (especially an MTM'd one) into one of the top three big positions at the top won't be recommended by the game, but will in fact boost power.

With regards to aligning cards, it seems like factoring in health and defense goes a long way here. Distributing defensive cards equally in front of your three big guys will help the three heavy hitters last longer. Hope that helps a little!