Secret Actions are a new kind of Action card, keeping your opponent in the dark until it’s too
late for them to stop you. To play a Secret Action, put it into the played area (where actions and
flipped battle cards normally go) face down. Secret Actions don’t have an immediate effect, but
wait until later in the game to do their thing, often on your opponent’s turn!
Each Secret Action has two parts. First, a Reveal condition. This tells you when to reveal the
Secret Action by turning it face up. Most Reveal conditions are things your opponent does, like
attack one of your characters or play certain kinds of cards.
Second, a When Revealed effect. This tells you what the Secret Action does when it’s finally
revealed. After a Secret Action is revealed this way, it stays in the played area and will be
scrapped at the end of the turn.
One warning though: Secret Actions won’t wait around forever. If a Secret Action is played
during your turn, it will wait until the end of your opponent’s next turn. If its Reveal condition
isn’t met by then, it will be scrapped along with all the other played or flipped cards from that
turn. It’s scrapped face up, and scrapping it this way won’t cause its When Revealed effect to
happen.
Yes. For example, if a card says you can play an Action, it can be a Secret Action.
Yes. Your opponent can’t look at your Secret Actions until you reveal them.
It will trigger when you first play the Secret Action. The ability won’t trigger again when the
Secret Action is revealed.
Focus is a new keyword. Focus N (where N is a number) means “Before flipping battle cards for
this character’s battle, look at the top N cards of your deck. You may scrap any of those cards
and put the rest back in any order.”
Most often, you’ll see focus 1, which means you’ll look at the top card of your deck and you
may scrap it.
No. It has to be the character with focus that is battling.
You’ll set aside at that one card, reshuffle your scrap pile, then set aside the new top card.
Look at those two cards and decide whether to scrap them or put them back on top of your
deck.
There’s a new battle icon on some battle cards in War for Cybertron: Siege I. It’s black! What
does it mean? If you’re on the attack, hopefully good things for you.
For each black battle icon you flip while attacking, your character gets pierce 1 until end of turn.
Remember that pierce numbers add up, so flipping two black icons in an attack will give your
attacker pierce 2, and so on.
No. Black battle icons flipped on defense won’t give your character pierce. (And pierce
doesn’t work on defense anyway.)
Yes. For example, if it has orange battle icons, those will add to the character’s attack total. If it has a green battle icon, it can be swapped with a card in your hand after the battle.
Yes. For example, if Captain Elita-1 (with 17 health) already has 9 damage counters on her, you cant move more than 7 more damage counters onto her using her ability.
No. Any abilities that care about damage being done or repaired wont affect the move.
The card will stay in the scrap pile.
No. Youll lose the game just after she is KOd, before you can use her ability.
Yes. For example, if you play Photon Bomb, your Captain Ironhide will be damaged.
Any of your opponents characters or battle cards (actions and upgrades) count. Basically, anything that you didnt bring to the game.
Yes. Moving damage counters isnt the same as doing damage.
No, because Captain Ironhide isnt a Melee character. Any Put on only restrictions will apply. However, because youre not playing the Weapon from your hand, any restrictions that apply to playing that card wont matter.
You use it before the game begins. After you put the Brainstorm into your hand, youll shuffle the rest of your deck. Then youll draw the normal 3 cards at the start of the game. This means youll start the game with 4 cards in hand (Brainstorm plus the 3 you draw). Youll still draw a card at the start of your first turn.
No. You play your third action in a turn only once.
Nope. You can just a glimpse at whats coming up. You cant move the card anywhere unless something else tells you to.
Yes. Major Shockwaves ability doesnt give you an extra action or upgrade for the turn. It just lets you pretend the top card of your deck is in your hand when playing it.
No. Major Shockwaves ability applies only when youre playing the card.
Yes. You can keep playing the top card of your deck as long as it meets Major Shockwaves conditions and youre allowed to play the card (keeping in mind the normal one action/upgrade per turn rule).
You use it before the game begins. Youll put Ultra Magnus Armor onto Major Ultra Magnus, then shuffle the rest of your deck and draw 3 cards for your opening hand.
In that case, the upgrade will move to the other character. It doesnt have to be an even swap.
In that case, that upgrade stays where it is. If the other character has a upgrade of the same type, it also stays where it is. Other types of upgrades may still be swapped.
Battle Masters in your KO area will be in their upgrade mode, either because they were played and subsequently left the battlefield or because you didnt play the upgrade after the character was KOd. This means they wont be characters in the KO area and wont add to Private Sideswipes bonus.
You use it before the game begins. Youll put Force Field onto Private Trailbreaker, then shuffle the rest of your deck and draw 3 cards for your opening hand.
Yes. Notably, if the upgrade gave your opponents character tough, the character wont have tough when its time to flip battle cards.
You can, but remember that using a tap ability causes the character to become tapped. But well assume you have a plan.
Yes. The effects work separately.
You can, but remember that using a tap ability causes the character to become tapped. Hopefully its a good plan.
All the rules that apply to Battle Masters also apply to Weaponizers. Sergeant Cog represents more advanced weaponry. Sergeant Cogs card is the same size as most characters.
Yes. Heavy Force Defensebreaker Cannon is large. It can be played onto any character, large or small.
Yes. When you upgrade this means when any new upgrade is put onto Sergeant Hound.
Yes. Those upgrades were on a character and were then scrapped, so the ability will trigger.
No. Sergeant Skrapnel is KOd at the same time his upgrades are scrapped. His ability wont trigger in time to save him.
You use it before the game begins. After you put the Medic! into your hand, youll shuffle the rest of your deck. Then youll draw the normal 3 cards at the start of the game. This means youll start the game with 4 cards in hand (Medic! plus the 3 you draw). Youll still draw a card at the start of your first turn.
No. Moving damage counters is different than repairing.
Basically, just ignore that the character has that ability when determining which character you’re attacking.
The extra cards are simply not flipped. It doesn’t matter whether those extra flips were because of abilities like bold, a white battle icon, or any other ability.
Yes. Replacing an upgrade this way causes the old upgrade to be scrapped.
Yes. If the upgraded character defends and would take an even amount of attack damage, instead it takes no attack damage. That causes the second ability to trigger. You usually get only one use out of the Emergency Defense Field.
No. A character always has the number of stars printed on it, no matter which mode it’s in.
Yes. The cards will all be put into your hand if their combined battle icons include at least one white, one blue, and one orange.
You’ll reveal the remaining cards of your deck, then reshuffle your scrap pile. Then reveal cards from the top of your deck until you’ve revealed 3 total cards. Then put them into your hand or scrap pile, depending on their battle icons.
Yes. A character’s attack total equals its printed attack value plus any bonuses it’s getting from any other card.
No. Hiding Spot isn’t revealed until after your opponent locks in their choice for attacker.
Infiltrate won’t be revealed because of a Secret Action, even if that Secret Action has orange battle icons. This is also true when the Secret Action is later revealed. It was already played face down, so Infiltrate won’t notice it. Sneaky!
No. A character always has the number of stars printed on it, no matter which mode it’s in.
If a character’s pierce total is 0 or lower, treat that character as if it didn’t have pierce when determining how much damage is done. Pierce -1 doesn’t do anything weird.
Well, you can’t scrap a card from your hand if you don’t have any, so you skip that part and just draw 2 cards.
You would flip it to alt mode, even though it’s not flipping “back.”
The extra cards are simply not flipped. It doesn’t matter whether those extra flips were because of abilities like bold, a white battle icon, or any other ability.
It would be hard to have a set called Rise of the Combiners without… the Combiners!
Combiners are teams of characters that join in a third mode called Combiner mode. Most teams have a corresponding battle card called an Enigma that combines the team under the right circumstances. One Combiner in this set (Dreadwing - Sky Destroyer) has a different way of combining.
When a character is combined, it starts untapped and it gets all the damage counters from the characters that formed it. It can keep upgrades from those characters based on its upgrade slots. Unless the Combiner says differently, it will have 1 Weapon slot, 1 Utility slot, and 1 Armor slot like most characters. If there are too many Upgrades to fit into a slot, you can keep as many as you can fit, and the rest are scrapped.
A character in Combiner mode is a single character, even though it’s made up of multiple cards. When it attacks, the whole thing becomes tapped. If it’s KO’d (and somehow you haven’t lost the game), it stays in Combiner mode in the KO area.
A character in Combiner mode can’t flip. Ignore any instruction to flip it. Also, a character in Combiner mode can’t “break apart” into its individual cards.
No. You always follow the instructions on the card in order. If you don’t already have the specified Combiner on the battlefield, the first ability won’t do anything.
Triple Changers are characters with three modes: bot mode and two alt modes (labeled 1 and
2). They start in alt mode 1. When a Triple Changer flips, it can flip to either of the two other
modes.
If it’s in bot mode, you can flip it to alt mode 1 or alt mode 2. If it’s in one of its alt modes,
you can either not flip it or flip it to the other alt mode.
This set introduces a new battle icon: green! Here’s how it works. After a battle in which you
flipped at least one card with a green battle icon, you may swap a card in your hand with one of
the cards you flipped with a green battle icon. The card you swap from your hand will be
scrapped at the end of the turn, along with all the other cards you played or flipped during the
turn.
No. Only one card with a green battle icon per battle.
The player whose turn it is goes first, then the other player.
Brave is a new keyword ability that helps some characters protect the rest of their team. When
choosing which enemy to attack, you must choose one with brave if possible.
You choose one of them to attack.
No, and in fact you can’t even if you want to. Brave doesn’t override the rules for attacking
tapped/untapped characters. If your opponent has any tapped characters you must attack one
of them. If a tapped character had brave, you would have to attack that one if you could.
Stealth is a new keyword ability that lets some characters strike from the shadows without fear
of reprisal. When choosing which enemy to attack, you must attack a character without stealth
if able.
Stealth doesn’t override the rules for attacking tapped/untapped characters. Since the
tapped character is the only one that can be attacked, that’s where your attack is headed.
Brave and stealth essentially cancel each other out. You must attack that character if able,
and you must attack other characters if able. This basically means you must attack a character
you can attack, the same as if those abilities weren’t there.
Plan is a new keyword that helps set up devastating battles. When instructed to plan, you may
put up to the specified number of cards from your hand back on top of your deck. If you put
more than one card on top of your deck this way, you can put them there in any order.
No, unless the Upgrade specifically says that the upgraded character does the damage. Air Raid must do the damage for the ability to trigger.
Well, it doesn’t sound like it was a great attack for your opponent. No battle cards will be flipped, and the attack will end.
No. Even though each one has an ability that will find the other in the KO area, the abilities work only from the battlefield.
You choose, just as you would for any battle.
No. The second attack starts right after the first one finishes.
You do. Note that if there isn’t an untapped enemy, the ability doesn’t trigger and Blurr won’t untap.
If they have 1 card in hand, that card is scrapped. If they have an empty hand, nothing happens.
In that case, Venin’s ability will trigger twice. Your opponent will scrap 4 cards from their hand.
Yes. The first white battle icon you flip for each battle will result in 3 extra cards rather than 2.
Yes. You don’t use Swoop’s ability until after the battle is finished.
Yes. You’ll need to swap a card from your hand for the other card, as normal.
No. you count the number of characters in your opponent’s KO area when the ability resolves. After that, even if you KO another character, the attack bonus won’t change.
If you attack with Dirge and it does more than enough attack damage to KO the defender, Steamroll’s ability will work, but Dirge’s ability won’t trigger. If Dirge does exactly enough damage to KO the defender, Steamroll won’t do anything.
No, although you are allowed to look at it and read it. Once you’ve done so, the card goes back to your opponent’s hand hidden.
No. There just needs to be exactly four different colors among the battle icons on those cards.
Yes, you get a character that’s not in the current game and add it to your KO area.
Yes. As written, Grimlock – Powerful Commander can find Wave 1 Dinobots.
No. If another card lets you play an Action, that won’t count for Menasor. You can play that Action and then another one for Menasor.
Motormaster’s ability won’t affect any card that tries to move damage counters from one character to another. That doesn’t count as dealing damage. (The damage was already dealt. It’s just moving.)
No. Your cards can still do damage to your other characters. (Although they hope you have a good reason for doing that.)
Yes. You can choose any Stunticon to defend, ignoring abilities like brave and stealth, and ignoring which characters are tapped and untapped.
Motormaster takes damage that would normally be dealt to him, but does not take damage meant for other characters.
Well, it doesn’t sound like it was a great attack for your opponent. No battle cards will be flipped, and the attack will end.
Yes. You’ll get to plan and set up your flip. The ability happens just after Optimus Maximus is chosen as the attacker or as the defender.
Yes, you get up to 3 Sentinels that aren’t in the current game and add them to your KO area.
The 3 Sentinels you bring into the game must all be different, but they can be the same as characters that were on your starting team.
In that case, Rampage’s ability will trigger and 1 damage will be repaired from each of your Predacons. Note that Rampage will be in the KO area at this time and won’t have any damage repaired.
Yes. Abilities like stealth and brave still function. You just treat untapped characters as though they were tapped when determining what Razorclaw can attack.
Silverbolt’s ability will trigger after you’ve flipped battle cards (assuming you flip the required battle icons). He’ll be in bot mode when it’s time to calculate attack damage, so you’ll use his base 3 attack. Note that if he flips to bot mode, and his bot mode ability KO’s the defender, Silverbolt won’t do attack damage.
No. The “once per turn” applies to playing and flipping, not each individually.
Yes. This could matter if Skywarp gets to attack later in the turn.
Starscream—sorry—King Starscream—’s ability will trigger once for each Decepticon Crown you flip. Hit 2 of them and get +6 to your attack and defense for the turn.
No. You can’t tap Thrust if he’s already tapped.
Yes. If an effect moves a damage counter without saying the damage is repaired, that effect will still work.
In that case, the attack ends, although any other abilities that trigger when Volcanicus attacks will happen. Volcanicus won’t do attack damage and won’t untap.
They can choose individually for each card.
No. The upgraded character doesn’t count, only your other tapped Aerialbots.
In that case, you can return one card to your hand. The other card remains scrapped.
Whenever a card tells you to scrap (or reveal) cards from the top of your deck and then do something else with those cards, those cards aren’t included in the reshuffle. So you’ll scrap the top two cards, shuffle all other cards in your scrap pile into your deck, then return one or both scrapped cards to your hand, depending on what they are.
In that case, you’ll scrap the one card and shuffle all other cards in your scrap pile into your deck. Then scrap the new top card of your deck, meaning you’ve scrapped a total of two cards. Then return one or both scrapped cards to your hand, depending on what they are.
It stays in the scrap pile.
Yes. You follow the instructions of Ancient Wisdom in the order written.
All the Attack Drones in the character’s weapon slot are scrapped.
That effect is ignored. The damage counters stay where they are. They aren’t repaired. If the card trying to move the damage counters has other instructions, those are still followed if possible.
No. Combat Commands works only on Sentinels in your KO area in alt mode.
No. You can play any Action in your hand after you scrap 2 cards from it.
You’ll draw 2 cards and them immediately scrap them. You won’t be able to play an Action because your hand will be empty.
Yes. You’ll ignore the repair ability though.
Yes. If you play Cornered! on an opponent’s character, they get to use a flip ability on that turn.
In cases like that, the player whose character it is can choose which effect to apply. Then see if the other effect(s) still apply. Keep applying these effects until none apply. Each effect can apply to the same damage only once.
No. The ability does a maximum of 1 damage, no matter how many orange battle icons you flip.
In that case, no damage is done to the defender.
No. A character has the same number of stars no matter what mode it’s in.
No. The ability does a maximum of 1 damage, no matter how many orange battle icons you flip.
No. You can put Upgrades on your characters only.
0. Erratic Lightning won’t drop your character’s defense below 0, but the -1 applies again once your character’s defense is raised.
In that case, you’ll scrap that card. Then you’ll shuffle all the other cards in your scrap pile into your deck. Then you may play the card you scrapped. If you don’t, it will stay in your scrap pile.
Yes. The first one gives one of your characters bold 1.
Yes. You can give one character bold 1 twice (which is just like giving it bold 2), or you can give two separate characters bold 1.
Actually, you each scrap cards at the same time. Each player should choose the cards they’re going to scrap and set them aside without revealing them. Once both players are ready, they turn them face up and put them in their scrap pile.
No. If you can’t follow the instructions on the left side of the arrow on an Action, you can’t play the Action.
No. If you can’t follow the instructions on the left side of the arrow on an Action, you can’t play the Action.
First, you’ll scrap that card. Then you’ll shuffle all the other cards in your scrap pile into your deck. Then you may play the card you scrapped. If you don’t, it will stay in your scrap pile. Then scrap the new top card of your deck and you may play it.
Yes. It can go into an Armor or Utility slot, but it doesn’t have to.
Yes. If you want it in the Armor slot, put it to the right of the character, where an Armor would normally go. If you want it in the Utility slot, put it below the character, where a Utility would normally go. Once Mounted Missiles is in a slot, it can’t move to another slot. This means that if you put it into a character’s Armor slot, you’d have to scrap Mounted Missiles if later you wanted to play an Armor on it.
1. Press the Advantage won’t drop the Decepticon’s defense below 0, but the -2 applies again once the Decepticon’s defense is raised.
Flip the extra cards first, then choose one of the cards you flipped and scrap it.Note that this was overruled inRoundup 2019-03-08 below.
No. By the time you use Prime’s ability to play one of the Action cards, it will be in the scrap pile and not among the cards you flipped.
Yes. You’ll shuffle all the other cards in your scrap pile and then you may play the Upgrade.
No, Spare Parts can save only one other Upgrade. You choose whether it saves the Weapon or the Armor. Spare Parts and the other Upgrade will be scrapped.
Sure. Let’s say your opponent has a character with 12 health and 9 damage counters on it. You attack with the chosen character and would do 6 damage to it. That’s 3 more than you need to KO the defender, so your opponent chooses one of their other characters and puts 3 damage counters on it.
No. The “Steamroll damage” only carries over to one other character. That 10-health character would end up in the KO area with 10 damage counters on it. The extra 2 damage counters are lost.
Yes. The damage counters represent attack damage done by the chosen character.
No. You can play any Upgrade in your hand after you scrap 2 cards from it.
You’ll draw 2 cards and them immediately scrap them. You won’t be able to play an Upgrade because your hand will be empty.
No. If you can’t follow the instructions on the left side of the arrow on an Action, you can’t play the Action.
Not by itself, but you’ll need to play it to play some Upgrades in the set.
Yes. If you want the Weapon in its Armor slot, put it to the right of Megatron, where an Armor would normally go. Once the Weapon is in a slot, it cant move to another slot. This means that if you put a Weapon into its Armor slot, youd have to scrap that Weapon if later you wanted to play an Armor on it.
It stays where it is. Once an Upgrade is legally put into a slot, removing what made it legal to put it there doesn’t matter.
Yes, you get a card that’s not in the current game and add it to your hand. For the rest of the game, you’ll have one more battle card.
Yes. The 3-card and 25-star limits apply only to your starting deck and team. You can bring in a fourth card, even if it would put you over the 25-star limit.Allowing you to go over the 3-card limit was overruled for competitive play. See Tournament rules on sideboarding.
Yes. It only matters what kind of Upgrade it is, not what slot it’s in.
Battle Masters are characters that start in bot mode and can be played in their upgrade mode
after they are KO’d. Battle Masters don’t have an alt mode and can’t flip while they are on the
battlefield. There are both Autobot and Decepticon Battle Masters.
The size of the card doesn’t change how they play. While in bot mode, Battle Masters are
just like other characters. They can attack and be attacked, they can be damaged, they can be
upgraded, and so on.
They start on the battlefield in bot mode.
It doesn’t flip. It just stays in bot mode. If the card has additional instructions, those are still
followed if possible.
If a Battle Master in bot mode is KO’d, you can immediately flip the card and play its other
mode.
Yes. This may cause some abilities to trigger that normally don’t during your opponent’s turn.
No. If you played an upgrade earlier in the turn, you can still play the Battle Master in its
upgrade mode after it’s KO’d in bot mode.
In some unusual situations, your Battle Master in bot mode is KO’d during your turn before you
attack. Playing the upgrade mode in those situations doesn’t stop you from then playing an
upgrade from your hand before you attack.
If that happens, the card is put into your KO area with its upgrade mode face up. This can
happen if the upgrade would be returned to your hand, returned to your deck, directly
scrapped, or if the character that had it is KO’d.
Micro Masters tend to be small, and they’ll often be outmatched on the battlefield. But that
doesn’t mean they can’t help your cause. They have tap abilities that give you an option other
than attacking with them.
Tap abilities all have the tap symbol (marked as [t] in text documents like this one) to the left
of the arrow.
You can use one tap ability during your turn, before you attack. It’s one of your turn actions,
just like playing an Action card, playing an Upgrade card, or flipping one of your characters to its
other mode. To use the tap ability, the character that has the ability must be untapped. Using
the ability causes the character to become tapped.
No. Using a tap ability isn’t the same as attacking.
No. It’s your choice. You don’t have to use a tap ability, even if you could.
No. You can use only one tap ability per turn.
Nope. One tap ability per turn.
No. For example, if a tap ability says you have to scrap a card from your hand with an orange
battle icon, and you don’t have one, you can’t use that tap ability.
