It’s been a minute since we last talked about the Transformers: TCG, but that doesn’t mean things have been stagnating. In fact, Wave 5, Transformers TCG: Titan Masters Attack looks to bring even more variety to the table (as well as one giant addition).

The Original Headmaster

Much like Wave 4 before it, which had a full set of Trypticon cards in every box, Wave 5 will have another massive city bot: Fortress Maximus. Since Titan Masters are the main gimmick of Wave 5, it’s a fitting choice. In the comics, Max was the commander of the first wave of Headmasters (and the first bot to rip off his own head so the Nucleons could create the Headmaster binary bonding process – talk about a trust fall). Not much has been revealed about the big bot (yet) other than his companion characters.

Mirroring the Titans Return release of the figure, Cerebros and his Titan Master Emissary will both join the oversized city bot. What will be interesting to see is if they both follow the new Titan Master rules.

I do wonder if Cog (who was part of Wave 3) could be utilized as part of Max’s load out. This weaponizer from the War for Cybertron: Siege line was Max’s drone back in G1.

And I am the head! Titan Masters are smaller companion cards for the full-sized body cards. (Image: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro)

Titan Masters look like they will really shake up strategies. These “Headmasters by another name” pair with the body-only cards of the large characters and provide a boost to the main character’s stats. Once that character is KO’ed, they flip to become their own independent character. (They don’t have an alt mode other than the head.)

Hope you like static closeup shots. (Image: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro)

Aesthetically, I’m not thrilled with the idea of bot modes being static, body-only images. The dynamic artwork is part of what makes Transformers: TCG so much fun to collect, but it will be an interesting game mechanic.

New Card Types, New Sub Groups

A not-so-subtle way to drive the meta away from “only this deck works” (Image: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro)

You’ll even be able to do things like swap heads with other characters. This, courtesy one of the other new types of cards, a Stratagem. These cards start the game in play and offer powerful abilities and rules that fundamentally alter the field of play. While some Stratagems will apply to a character class (like Titan Masters), others will be character specific (like Volcanicus or Cosmos).

You’ll notice from Kup’s card above that we’re also getting the Wreckers! All of you Wave 1 completionists will groan to hear that Kup will be leading the team. That’s right, folks, the baby blue pickup that was so common, people made entire Christmas trees out of the extra cards, is coming back. But if we have to endure Kup to get the rest of the Wreckers, so be it. Hopefully, this means my perennial favorite, Roadbuster, will be in Wave 5. I can’t wait to see more of this new sub group.

Tanks, Cars, you can bet that most subgroups will be accounted for. (Image: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro)

Another new wrinkle is the addition of hybrid icons to Wave 5 battle cards. These will still provide the “face-value” icon for purposes of battling, but they also have extra abilities when played by characters that match the extra icon. Planes and Titan Masters were revealed in a recent developer diary, and they’re a little hard to grasp at first. First, there are two types of hybrid icon cards: soft and hard. “Lock On Target” is an example of a soft trait card in that it still provides a benefit to other characters, but it provides planes an extra defense in battle. “Headbutt” is a hard trait card since it is only useful to Titan Masters (no other type of character has a “body mode”).

The developer diary hints that we’ll be seeing a lot more of these types of cards in the future, deepening strategies even more!

Release Date and Retailer Promos

Arcana left, Tidal Wave right. (Image: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro)

As if all the new card types and characters weren’t enough, there are new retailer promo cards that will be available at your local friendly game store. Fans of Transformers: Armada will want to track down the massive combiner Tidal Wave, one of the new promo characters that will be available at local store events. The other promo will be Titan Master Arcana (can’t have a promo event without the main gimmick, after all).

If you can, you’re going to want to get at least one whole box. (Image: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro)

All this has me itching to dust off my Transformers: TCG binder and put together some decks. Wave 5 will be released on April 17, so be on the lookout for lots more news as Wizards of the Coast starts revealing everything we’ll have to look forward to. Hopefully we get a peek at Fort Max soon!