User blog:DutchRits/Character Card Comparison, Part 7

Ultra-Rares by Alpha & MTM; Prowl included for context

File:DotDP2 HMWP1 AHG TBT.jpg

The first four UR Events

Okay, I promised in my last post that I'd be discussing Day of the Dinobots (Part 2) through The Bee Team in this installment, and I really will.  Honest.  But before I get to that, I need to discuss the Ultra Rare (UR) cards, especially since they make their debut with these events and they have a dramatically unbalancing effect upon the game.

If you'll glance at the attached chart, you'll see that I've sorted the current URs alphabetically and by MTM total.  I also included the color gauge for ATK/DEF/Health to better help you pick out the high/low/average cards.  I also included Episode Prowl, the SR Tier 1 reward for Covert Operations, for context to highlight how close the Episode SR cards are getting to the URs, thanks to deck creep.  I'm just sayin'. 

Finally, you'll note that I don't have complete data for all the URs, particularly for Episode Long Haul.  That's 'cause I don't own any, and all of y'all who DO have them aren't contributing stats to the wiki.  For shame!  Edit a few pages, willya?

Now for the obvious statement of the day: The URs are way over powered.  Even the "weakest" UR (Episode Shockwave) has more points in one stat (MTM Health) than the top-tier non-event SR (Elite Megatron) has total MTM points! 

"But DutchRits," you say, "that's okay!  You're comparing two different card types!  The same thing happens between the C & UC cards and between the UC & R cards!"

Well, yes, you're right.  However, the jump between R & SR is about half of what it is for SR & UR.  Also, these are the "end game/top-tier" cards we're talking about.  Having a UR card in your deck (or an entire team of them, like some of the heavy-hitters in the game) has created a rather exclusive "elite player fraternity" in the game in which overall deck power is astronomical.  Consider that my deck during War Dawn, consisting solely of tier-2 reward cards plus Episode Vortex and Episode Swindle (MTM'd and with maxed weapons) and a deck power of approx 16k allowed for me to "one-cube" everything up to approximately 34million hit points, or up to Blurr Lvl3.  "Three-cube" would get me ~120mil.  However, there are posters in the forums who estimated a "three cube" capability of 250mil.  Now, all of this is conjecture, but when Mobage is designing bosses to account for this kind of heavy hitter, it spells frustration for the rest of us mere mortals.

Now let's take a look at the "logic" of the URs, from a relative capability standpoint.  The C, UC, R, and even the non-event SR cards all had at least a modicum of logic/sanity in their relative capability...at least enough to say to yourself, "yeah, I can see why that card is that powerful."  The Dinobots are the strongest Autobot UCs behind Blaster, Optimus Prime and Megatron are the strongest cards for their faction, etc.

Not so much with the UR cards.

My biggest beef is the inclusion of Episode Bumblebee as a UR.  I mean, seriously?  Even IF you were to include him, (which IMHO he should not be) he should be the weakest of URs.  This would at least match the trend used in his R & SR cards.  But the fact that he is more powerful than Jetfire, Galvatron, Rodimus, Grimlock, Shockwave, and Ironhide (fellow UR versions, that is) is a complete travesty.  Like, to the point that it makes the UR cards a mockery.  No offense though, Bee.  You were great in the movies...when you couldn't talk...and you could actually fight. 

My second biggest problem with the URs is Episode Bombshock.  Admit it...after Full Assault started, how many of you thought, "who the hell is this guy?"  Okay, and now how many of you Googled him, or looked him up on the TF Wiki?  THEN you found out that he's a freaking Micromaster!  Yet his stats make him, by far, the most powerful UR card (as of this writing), even surpassing Episode Nemesis Prime!  How is THAT logical?

In short, you can't classify the URs into tiers.  Well, maybe you could from a pure numbers standpoint, but the results don't make ANY sense in relation to each other, much like the episode SRs.  As much as I'd love to have one, these cards are actually the primary evidence that TF:L is broken.

Okay, so now for the events that began this mess.

Day of the Dinobots (Part2)

Introducing (another) Shockwave into the game, DotD(P2) finished up the story begun with DotD(P1)...hence the name.  For whatever reason, Episode Shockwave decides to get Episode Ratbat and Episode Ramjet to help him corral the Dinobots.  Sounds like a great plan, eh?  On the plus side, this event expanded the reward tiers to five (yay!) and made it easier for more casual players to actually score a character they could trans-scan.

Interestingly, Ratbat is a decent Tier 3 Raid card, improving over the previous event by 2.4k, while Ramjet likewise improves his total by 2.5k over his predecessor.  Obvious deck creep aside, the card that sets this event apart is Shockwave as a new Tier of Raid card.  He's near impossible to get from the Space Bridge without paying exorbitant amounts of money, but he's also all but required if you want to place in Tier 1 rewards.

Episode Sludge 2 is a marked improvement over his UC and Event R incarnations, with a stat total that makes him the equal of Elite Grimlock...as the Tier 4 Reward card.  That's right folks, from here on out, all of the Raid & Reward cards are going to start off as being either equal to or better than any of the non-event SRs you can get in the Space Bridge.  Episode Snarl 2 is a definite upgrade over Episode Decepticon Rumble by 2.5k.  However, Episode Slug 2 and Episode Swoop are actually worse than their predecessors; Slug is 4.8k worse than Episode Starscream while Episode Swoop is nearly 8k worse than Episode Megatron.  Now, I have to agree with that result, from a relative capability standpoint, and it indicates at least a small nod by Mobage to the actual character capabilities.  And it was nice to see that the event tiers don't always HAVE to improve by leaps and bounds with each event.  But I think it has more to do with having five reward tiers and needing to "fill a gap" between Tier 3 and Tier 1 with two characters.

Finally, Episode Grimlock is just sick in his UR ueber goodness.  That is all.

Heavy Metal War (Part 1)

A.k.a., "Advent of the Constructicons"...well, except for Scrapper (you know, the Constructicon leader), Mixmaster, and Scavenger.  Or...well...half the team.  How cool would it have been to make the Autobots the Raid Cards for this event, and have to repel the Constructicons?  It could have been a 6-7 Tier Reward tree, with all 6 Constructicons and a UR Devastator?  {sigh}  Missed opportunity there, Mobage.

(EDIT: As pointed out in commentsbelow, this is only part one of this event.  The rest of the Constructicons will most likely make their debut in the sequel.)

Episode Bonecrusher is actually worse than Ratbat in everything but Defense from the previous episode.  Nothing like being deemed inferior to a cassette tape that transforms into flying vermin.  On the other hand, Episode Hook is an almost 2k improvement over Ramjet.  For whatever reason, Episode Long Haul (a.k.a., "Devastator's Crotch" [1]) is the UR Raid card, despite him being one of the lesser known Constructicons.  He also uses a knife .  But at least it's a Heavy Assault knife.

Episode Brawn is cool, in that he gets a shotgun as his weapon.  Other than that, he's a rather average Tier 4 Reward card.  He does, however, increase his MTM total by 1.8k over Sludge in the previous episode, which means that a "minibot" like Brawn is actually more powerful than a Dinobot.  I know, I'm confused too.

Episode Autobot Ratchet is way worse than Snarl by almost 2.5k, which I was actually happy to see. 

You can look at Episode Wheeljack in one of two ways: 1) he took a giant step as a Tier two, increasing over 10.6k over Slug, or 2) he actually has more in common with Swoop as a Tier 2 Reward, stat-wise, which means he decreased in MTM stat total by a mere 181 points.  Either way, he's a pretty good card once you get past the deck creep.

For whatever reason, Episode Ironhide is a 7.4k MTM stat total improvement over Grimlock.  Chew on that for a bit.

All Hail Galvatron

Okay, here's the nod to the 80's animated movie.  I thought it would have been cool to have Hot Rod, Kup & Blurr as the Raid cards instead of Ultra Magnus, but it was a nice homage anyway.  Seeing Scourge and Cyclonus in an event again was odd, to say the least, and I know it started up some grumbling amongst players.  I can't think of anyone that was actually excited to see Gnaw (who's almost as good as Metroplex, btw), but it was nice to see Galvatron finally get his due.

Episode Sergeant Kup took a huge jump in point total over Bonecrusher to the tune of 4.2k points.  It also marked the first time a Tier 3 Raid card topped 50k in total points...and our decks have yet to recover from his precedent.  Episode Ultra Magnus was a nice addition, since his R incarnation (Ultra Magnus) was a notable letdown in relative capability.  However, he was still suffered a 1.8k letdown in points compared to Hook.  Yeah, I'm still confused about that, too. 

Episode Rodimus is more powerful than Episode Grimlock, but not Episode Ironhide.  Go figure.

The Bee Team

Okay, allow me to go on a soapbox (again).  This was, perhaps, THE stupidest premise for an event, yet.  Mini-bots that are somehow "improved and upgraded" to make them more powerful?  Only the Insecticons can stop them?  Huh?  I appreciate the nod to Barrage, Chopshop and Venom, but this was more than a bit of a stretch.

Speaking of the insecticons, I never got the relationship between these three and Bombshell/Hardshell, Kickback, and Shrapnel/Sharpshot.  I mean, Venom is supposed to be their leader, right?  And together with Barrage and Chopshop they are supposed to be the "delux" Insecticons, right?  So why do you never hear about them in other media?  (at least that I'm aware of)

Episode Barrage is the only Raid card that improves over the previous event, and by only 730 points.  Episode Chopshop actually decreases by 205 points, while Episode Venom dropped back to a SR rather than UR, but still compares favorably against a  Tier 2 Reward card.

Episode Autobot Gears and Episode Huffer...ah, where to start?  Autobot Gears is clearly the better C card than Huffer (see Part 1 [2]), but that relationship was flip-flopped with this event.  Huffer is the better card in this event, even though he is a weaker boss than Gears.  I was really surprised when this event ended and I noticed this disparity when I leveled up their respective cards.  Both cards are dramatically weaker (by about ~2k) than Gnaw and Scourge from All Hail Galvatron, however, just as Episode Beachcomber is weaker than Cyclonus.  I guess that "improved" and "upgraded" thing only applied to Bumblebee, eh?

Episode Bumblebee is, shockingly, more powerful than any of the URs before him, with an MTM stat total over 108k.  He's 3.6k stronger than Episode Galvatron.  My brain hurts just conceptualizing how Mobage justifies making this pipsqueak stronger than Grimlock, Shockwave, Ironhide, Rodimus, and Galvatron.  Does...not...compute.  Should have left him as a SR card, IMHO.

Summary

The bottom line is that it is now the norm to have SR cards in an event that begin the reward tiers with cards that are at least equal to the most powerful non-event SR cards.  Why even try to get them in the Space Bridge, then, if they won't benefit your deck?  Sure, they'll help a noob, but there are players who have been here since launch that don't have more than one non-event SR MTM'd...I've been playing since Fatal Furies and while I have nine of them (Optimus, Megatron, Prowl, Jazz, Jetfire, Shockwave, Flamewar, Skywarp, and Soundwave with weapons for only three) I'm more the exception to the rule.  I've routinely placed in Tier 2/3 for each event since Unleash the Beasts, which means I've most likely gotten more medal draws.  How is a new player going to do that without paying gobs of money?

The Event SRs are incredibly unbalanced, creating relationships between the cards that are incredibly odd unless you ONLY compare cards between their respective Raid/Reward tier.  UR cards are wildly powerful and woefully unbalancing to the game as a whole.  While I have a plan for rebalancing the SR cards with minimal impact to relative capability (detailed in a future post), IMO the URs are beyond repair unless drastic changes are implemented.

Next

Event URs, continued (Nemesis Rising, Road to Ruin, Full Assault, and War Dawn...I'm skipping Covert Operations and To the Rescue for a reason)