Howdy! Kaleb here again. Today, I’m announcing a project I’ve been working on that will help you all to cope until the release of our Shattered Glass sets: The Galactic Odyssey! This unique format was made with the intention to spice up your Transformers games and make multiplayer formats like Primus even more of a blast! Let’s look into it.

What you see above is what I’m calling a Zone. Similar to how Stadium cards in Pokemon work and Field Spells in Yu-Gi-Oh, these Zones affect all players in the game. This format of play was inspired by the Planechase format of Magic: The Gathering and has many similar attributes to it.

This card is a Circumstance and is not unlike that of a Phenomenon from Planechase. It can be many things, such as an Upgrade to another Zone or a one time effect, such as the one above. These can absolutely change the tide of the game for better or for worse.

Here are the rules:

• As the first player starts their second turn, that player opens the Space Bridge before they draw their card for the turn.
• When a player opens the Space Bridge, that player uses the Space Bridge ability of the current Zone or Zones, if any, then puts them into the Zone Scrap Pile. Reveal the top card of the Zone Deck and put it onto the battlefield.
• When a Circumstance is put onto the battlefield, resolve it’s ability, then if there is no Zone on the battlefield, the active player opens the Space Bridge. If the Circumstance does not specifically remain on the battlefield, put it into the Zone Scrap Pile.
• During the main phase of each player’s turn, that player may roll the Zone Die. If a player could play an Action, that player may roll the Zone Die instead. This does not count as playing an action, but does “consume” that action play. For example, if a player uses the Action Brainstorm to play two more Actions, they can replace one or both of those Action plays with rolling the Zone Die instead. If the Zone Die roll results in a 1 or a 6, that player opens the Space Bridge.
• When the Zone Deck is empty, shuffle the Zone Scrap Pile and it becomes the new Zone Deck.
• If a Zone or Circumstance does damage to a character, treat that damage as though it did not come from an opponent’s card.
• Unaligned characters may be attacked like any other player’s characters. They do not flip battle cards when defending.
• We recommend no more than 1 Circumstance for every 5 cards in the Zone Deck, or 20% of the total Zone Deck.

So obviously these don’t mean too much to you, as the set isn’t even out yet. However, I’d like to go ahead and explain a few things to clear it up a little bit. Opening the Space Bridge simply means moving to the next Zone and is most commonly done by rolling a six-sided die and getting either a 1 or 6. Each player can roll for free once per turn before they attack but each time they roll after that, they must exchange an Action play for it. This means that flipping your Bumblebee, Trusted Lieutenant to alt mode will allow you to roll again should you choose to forgo playing an Action. Another small thing is the Zone Deck, which simply refers to the deck in which all of the Zones and Circumstances are in. The reason the Zones begin on the first player’s second turn is because of the playing restriction for the first few turns. Not being able to play anything on your first turn could be hugely detrimental should a Zone massively benefit your opponent. So, once all players are on the same playing field, the Zones begin.

One thing I want to make sure is absolutely clear is that this is not meant to replace location cards within the main portion of the game. If someone ends up making Stadium cards or Battlefield cards then that’s perfectly fine. This is meant to be a format of it’s own and have no impact on the competitive scene as a whole. Another thing I want to make sure people know is that this is not meant to be played strictly in Primus-like formats. I have designed it in a way that you can play the Galactic Odyssey in a normal 25 star game against 1 opponent and still have a good time.

So a few notes about the Galactic Odyssey:
•The first of the Zone Decks will contain 16 Zones and 4 Circumstances
•There will also be 9 character cards made specifically for the Zone Deck and cannot be used outside of this format. Some of them are from the War Drone deck as specified in the Great War Cybertron card revealed above.
•The Zone Deck and all cards in it are meant to be standard character sized.
•There are some character specific and faction specific Zones in the Zone Deck and, should all parties playing the game agree, you may take them out if they do not apply to anyone and would just stop up the game.

I’ve been playtesting this format with a few of my friends over on the Bayformers Discord and it has been an absolute blast! I plan on releasing this in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned. I hope you’re excited! Peace out y’all.