meet the top 8 players from the Alpha Trion Titans of siege

Name - Neil Mohlman

Your Starting Character lineup – Sergeant Springer, Nightflight, Fangry w/ Doomshot

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Daring Escape won me a lot of games, but I think my favorite is Showing Off.

Favorite Play of the event – Punting game 3 against Palmer in round 1 of the top 8. After a card advantage slugfest against Shockwave/Caliburst I combo’d off with just a Springer left in play with 12 health and forgot to put on the Conversion Engine to lose myself the game. I swear I know what I’m doing most of the time.

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards? - I think it was really great. Still need to ban Daring Escape, but wave 3 and 4 were my favorite sets and the whole experience was an exploration of those cards.

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? - Absolutely, I really enjoy playing Transformers in any format and Dan can probably convince me to play in any tournament.

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? – 1. Play titans. Guys with heads are better than guys without heads. 2. If Daring Escape is legal, make sure you have a plan for it, main deck or sideboard.

Who was your favorite Opp and why? - To preface this, I enjoyed meeting and playing everyone in this event. I met a new person every round before top 8 and everyone was great. That being said, my favorite opponent was Azyrine. He played me at 1am his local time and we had a great match and a great discussion about the format afterwards in spite of it being the middle of the night on his end.

Name - King Me (Andrew Nixt)

Your Starting Character lineup – Fangry with Clobber, Horri-Bull with Grax, Steeljaw, Swap Heads Stratagem

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Toss-up between Holomatter Projector and Nitro Booster but will go with Holomatter Projector as it helped me win against all the Quake decks I had to face.  

Favorite Play of the event – Putting a Nitro Booster on Horri-Bull with Clobber on him and Steeljaw giving him an extra bold 1 and going in on last attack of turn for some heavy damage/pierce...twice.   

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards?  It was challenging because I decided to use the same characters as the previous tournament but had to find 21 new battle cards in my deck.  Made my deck a little more defensive than its previous iteration.  

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? As long as there are new battle cards, characters or stratagems created for the format, so we potentially see some new decks from this tournament, I am all for it.  It motivates us to change up our decks.  

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? –  This tournament was the largest Alpha Trion event of the year, so it must be working.  I think the next tournament, Junkion (all commons), is going to be even more fun and creative. 

Who was your favorite Opp and why? Nick Cork and his Quake deck.  We were 1-1 going into the last game, which came down to total health remaining. The heads were popping off which kept the turns going. 

Name - Sovietbear (Joey Tarleton)

Your Starting Character lineup – Chromedome+grax, Fangry+Brisko, Nightracer+Nightracer Strat

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Hold the Line

Favorite Play of the event – Playing an increased durability on my Grax on watching him live with 1 hp (sorry chuck)

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards? As someone who has never built a competitive aggro deck until wave 5 dropped building the deck didn't feel too weird. Outside of missing PTT and grenade launcher the deck I made felt like something I could have easily ended up with even with all the cards available. Most of the aggro decks I played felt like your usual meta aggro deck minus the Peace Through Tyranny threat and even the blue decks I went against felt a lot like the usual meta blue decks.

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? I'm 50-50 on the format and it mostly comes down to how strong the HP heads are. If you don't play the hp heads it feels like such a disadvantage and it sucks seeing the same heads everywhere. 

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? –  You need to absolutely join the next event. These tournaments are a great place to play high quality games as well as interact with some really awesome people.

Who was your favorite Opp and why? Has to be incrediblechuck. He is a great guy and one of the easiest people to get along with and we always have crazy stuff happen during our matches.

Name - Schenwu (Seth Poliak)

Your Starting Character lineup – Quake + Grax, Fangry + Kreb, Horri-bull + Brisko.

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Erratic Energy Grenade. 

Favorite Play of the event – Some quake v quake action against Ventrick, fun games. It was game 3 I believe, and my final turn I managed to top deck an enhanced power cell adding the health to Grax to help grab the win. 

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards? Loved the rotation and building a deck without so many standard staples like Grenade launcher, PTT, the bigger they are, etc.

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? Definitely, changing up formats is always nice. I personally am looking forward to the limit of one Titan Master per lineup.

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? – Do it. Aside from still being able to play tournaments, meeting and playing different people from all around the world has been great.

Who was your favorite Opp and why? I truly enjoy every opponent I get the opportunity to play against. But this tournament I’d say probably round 1, against Steffon. I always learn of ways I can try to improve my game when I play games against him. 

Name - Flared Ghost (Nicholas Steer)

Your Starting Character lineup – Perceptor + Grax, Nightracer, Private Firedrive

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Tripwire, it has been amazing for me to force the bigger character to attack a turn earlier, meaning they were likely to not have a weapon to boost attack, which allowed for Perceptor to swing in a big attack into the character that was most threatening. Speaking of Perceptor, Showing Off would be a very close second, with good Perceptor flips and some draws, Showing Off(s) can make Perceptor hit stupid amounts of attack numbers before the wheel turn.

Favorite Play of the event – I threw a game when I played Counterespionage naming Counterespionage when my opponent had 1 card in hand after seeing that he picked up Hold the Line, on defense he then flipped Counterespionage and swapped the Hold the Line in hand for the Counterespionage, allowing him to name Heroic Resolve for the effective win. This was a massive brain fart moment however it was a teachable moment to pay closer attention to what players pick up and how many cards they have in hand.

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards? Great! Not having to worry about Peace Through Tyranny alleviated many headaches of if my opponent has PTT, they win the game here. The lack of PTT allowed for more back and forth during the games which is great for both players. 

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? Yes, I quite enjoyed the format, the Heath heads seem a bit too strong, as it seemed everybody mode character was sporting a health head aside from the one Vorath I saw.

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? – These tournaments are very well run; I would suggest anyone to play in these events if they have been itching for games. Junkion (commons only) format is a great entry point as well as commons are easy to come by and everyone probably has a box full of extra commons to play. 

Who was your favorite Opp and why? I thoroughly enjoyed playing each of my opponents during these tournaments however Jihen stands out mostly because he is a rules expert and a wholesome bloke. I love talking about rulings and having those conversations regarding the state of the game and how certain rulings could impact that state of the game.

Name - Azyrine (Timothy Teo)

Your Starting Character lineup – Fangry, Kreb, Horri-Bull, Brisko, Nightracer, Ravage

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Pocket Processor

Favorite Play of the event – This play has happened in multiple games but it’s still one of my favorite plays just because of how disgusting it can get. Playing Heat of Battle and a Nitro Booster on Ravage is just sick.

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards? It felt different for aggro decks not to have their usual push of large amounts of damage. It’s much harder for aggro to be able to hit 10 and above without Power Punch and Grenade Launcher available. Pierce is still very much prevalent but without the base attack stats, it’s also struggling for high numbers.

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? I’m on the fence for this. On one hand I really enjoy having a different format to explore, but at the same time Titan Masters are just so powerful now that your deck would very likely be running at least one of them to stay competitive. Health heads are insanely overpowered for their stats and it’s so hard to pass on them to build something else. Galaxy Prime and Shockwave have to fight an uphill battle to stay alive in the meta of small star count bots that have huge stats and coming in with consistent pierce damage. We end up having a similar meta to having all cards allowed just because wave 5 is involved with huge power creep.

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? – If you have the time and enjoy playing Transformers TCG, then do it! Joining an event doesn’t have to be as stressful as some people make it out to be. It provides an outlet for games to be played with people all over the world, and not just in your play group where you probably already know the style of play your friends would be going for. You don’t have to play a serious competitive deck if you don’t want to. Any deck is a jank deck until it wins a tournament. Who knows, your janky new idea could be the new meta! 

P.S. I’m running a tournament called Eye of the Matrix. Feel free to join that for more interesting formats. I make sure to check in with Dan every now and then so that our formats don’t clash, but we have something in the works that would hopefully kick things up a notch.

Who was your favorite Opp and why? Not taking away anything from any of my other opponents, but I’m going to go with Neil just because he came up with such an ingenious way of pulling off the Daring Escape combo in this format to catch people like myself off our guards. We had a good chat about alternatives and counters to the deck in the format as well as Daring Escape and Springer on the whole. 

Name – Jon Palmer 

Your Starting Character lineup – Major Shockwave, Nightracer, Raider Caliburst

Favorite Battle card in the Format - W-5 Gyro Blaster

Favorite Play of the event – Top decking a third War of Attrition to stay alive against SovietBear, then losing to his flipping 4 black pips.

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards? Definitely a different environment, losing some of the basic weapons hurt but also kept games from being “he drew all 3 Grenade Launcher, so I lost”. Really liked not dealing with PTT. It might have been nice to have wave 2 access for things like the faction green weapons

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not? You’d probably have to remove the combo deck, and also hopefully Quake (my deck beats Quake, he still sucks for the game), but yes, absolutely

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? – You’re not going to find better games of Transformers anywhere!

Who was your favorite Opp and why? All of my opponents this tournament was excellent, I will give favorite to Jihen for his villainous accent

Name - Ventrick (Kyle Peterson)

Your Starting Character lineup – Quake (Grax), Horri-Bull (Brisko), Fangry (Kreb)

Favorite Battle card in the Format - Camien Crash

Favorite Play of the event – 

Round 6 against Siliag with spots in the Top-8 on the line in a Quake Mirror.  I was up 1-0 in the match and Game 2 was down to Brisko and Kreb vs Brisko and Kreb. It is my turn and Siliag has a Secret Action in play, I know it’s Hold the Line and is going to blank my attack into Brisko, I play my own Hold the Line and attack into his Brisko with my own for the maximum 2. At this point I state that if he has any direct damage the game is over. He doesn’t and plays a Secret Action…. not another Hold the Line…...he swings at my Brisko with his Kreb, I flip the Hold the Line and take 1. At this point I’m hoping to Top deck any burn to win the game, instead I Top deck another Hold the Line and play it and go on to win on its back. Crazy end to a crazy Quake mirror, 4 back to back Hold the Lines and with that I was on to my 3rd top 8 in the 3 Qualifiers to date. 

What was it like playing without the Wave 1 Battlecards?

Games went a little longer, not having to worry about getting blown out by a PTT or Sec Check was a strong positive.

Do you think you would prefer the Titans of Siege format again? Why or why not?

I would play the format again. It’s good to play multiple formats so you don’t get stuck in a rut of just going through the motions with the same deck. Allows the opportunity to evaluate new cards and strategies and grow as a player.

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the next event? – 

If you’re looking to test your skills against the best players in the game this is the place to be.

Who was your favorite Opp and why? 

VS Palmer, he is a great player and a man of his word. Would play with him any day…. maybe a rematch in the Finals…...one can only dream.