In a first article for the site we’ll start talking about exploring unique design spaces, starting with tools we already have!

The above image was released last night as an announcement regarding the completion of the “Titan” card frame for the Magic Set Editor (MSE) template. In the game, Titans are reserved for the likes of Metroplex, Trypticon, and Fortress Maximus, though you can bet lots of folks are chomping at the bit to make even more. Even Omega Supreme got his first release on a super-sized Titan frame card.

For grins and giggles, I threw a Superion image into the frame…and it looked good. But more than that, the idea of making Superion not just a combiner but a stand-alone bot has some fun and interesting design possibilities.

Combiners are typically eschewed for their difficulty to assemble. They’re potentially a lot of fun, but it becomes a time-consuming affair and by the time the titanic monstrosity is assembled one or more of its components have been KO’d at least once and it becomes a slog as the combiner attacks, and then the opposing team gets 2-3 attacks in, and it keeps on going.

Conceptually, using the “Titan” frame and idea first floated by Omega Supreme we could remedy some of this by making a dedicated combiner-form card, with sane stats, that allows it to be a part of a team with a couple of smaller bots as backup/support. Doing it this way, we don’t have to worry terribly about super-weak support pieces or incorrectly costed parts being able to slot in elsewhere, and we can make some interesting adjustments with the combiners themselves.

Mind, this is a half-formed idea; there’s still a lot of ground to cover in terms of making this work. But, the basic idea isn’t too far fetched and could open a lot of possibilities!

Till all are one ~ Nate