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Transformers TCG Formats

transformerstcg.org supports multiple ways to play, each with its own deck-building rules and card pool. This page explains what those formats are and helps you figure out which one to play.

Quick Answers

  • New to the game? Play Full Constructed, using the current supported card pool. Start with How to Play for the basics.
  • Coming back after time away? Full Constructed is the format to play. Check the Ban List before bringing an older deck to the table, and see Returning Players for what’s changed.
  • What’s the “main” transformerstcg.org format? Full Constructed, using the full Allowed/Banned/Replaced (ABR) card pool.
  • New to the game and want real cards? Store Constructed limits the pool to releases you can order as printed cards from both Donation Storefront catalogs. It runs at beginner and new-player events now, and becomes a competitive format once its pool matures. See Store Constructed below.
  • Are beta cards like War|Void legal? In casual play, yes. In organized play, Public Beta releases are legal only at events that declare the Harmony modifier, and beta cards aren’t final and shouldn’t be professionally printed yet.
  • Want to play an imminent release before it’s finished? Look for a Harmony event. Its listing names any Public Beta releases being added to the card pool. See Harmony below.
  • Want to play with cards outside the supported pool? That’s casual play, and it just takes agreement from everyone at the table. See Casual Play below.
  • Tired of the same top decks? Two Lwosers is a casual format built around the game’s most neglected stratagems, played with two decks instead of one.

Full Constructed

Full Constructed is transformerstcg.org’s primary format and the one most of our events and online play use by default. Players build a team and deck from any card in the current supported pool, following the deck-building rules in How to Play and Rules: a 25-star team limit and a battle-card deck of at least 40 cards, with no more than 3 copies of any one battle card.

The exact card pool for Full Constructed is defined by the Ban List, using an Allowed / Banned / Replaced (ABR) system: most cards are legal as printed, some are banned outright, and others are only legal in an updated, replaced form. The Ban List is organized by Wave, from the original 2018 Wave 1 through the current Public Beta release, and is the authoritative source for what you can actually play.

One exception applies to organized play. Releases still in Public Beta appear in the Ban List’s Allowed section, but they are not part of the default Full Constructed pool at organized events. An event includes one by declaring the Harmony modifier described below.

Store Constructed

Store Constructed runs today at beginner and new-player events. It will become a competitive format once its Allowed list is deep enough to support a real field, expected in the late half of War|Void Tournament Season Three.

Store Constructed is a Constructed format built around cards a player can obtain as physical product today. Official Transformers TCG cards have been out of print since 2020, and while every transformerstcg.org release is a free print-and-play download, printed cards remain the most compelling way to bring people to the table, at a kitchen table, a convention, or over webcam. Store Constructed keeps a competitive pool inside that reach.

Its card pool is defined by the Ban List like Full Constructed’s, and the two share the same Banned and Replaced entries. Only the Allowed list differs. If you already own cards and want to know which of them qualify, the Store Constructed card list breaks the pool down card by card.

How a Release Joins Store Constructed

A release joins the pool when it becomes available through both the US and non-US catalogs of the Donation Storefront. transformerstcg.org announces the addition, and the release is added to the Store Constructed Allowed list on the Ban List.

Only evergreen releases qualify: community Waves, Goodies Starter Decks, and Jumpstarter Update Boosters. Limited exclusives such as TFcon Packs and Blind Draw Foil Electrums can appear in the Donation Storefront, but they never join the format. Their limited nature is the point of the exclusion: the pool is built from what a player can reliably obtain, not from what happened to be available once.

Individual cards inside a limited exclusive can still be legal, because legality follows the card rather than the printing. Where a limited release carries another printing of a card already in the pool through an evergreen release, that card is legal, and the printing a player owns makes no difference.

Admission is permanent. If a product later sells out, it stays legal, and restocking it is transformerstcg.org’s responsibility rather than a problem players have to route around. Legality never moves with inventory.

Nothing joins Store Constructed that isn’t already legal in Full Constructed. That makes the relationship exact: every Store Constructed deck is legal in Full Constructed, while a Full Constructed deck may use releases the Storefront doesn’t carry.

Every card in the Store Constructed pool is also a free print-and-play download, and printing is always legal. The format is built so that purchasing or printing cards is a choice, rather than any option being the only way in.

Harmony

Harmony is an event modifier rather than a separate format. A Harmony event uses its normal card pool plus one or more designated Public Beta releases, named by the organizer in advance, and it applies to either Constructed format.

The modifier is advertised alongside the base format, so a Full Constructed event that includes the current beta Wave is a Harmony Full Constructed event, and its listing should identify the release being added:

Harmony Full Constructed

Harmony releases: Org Wave 9: War|Void, Org Wave 9V: Marvelous Heroes VS Rising Villains

A Harmony Store Constructed event works the same way, using the Store Constructed pool plus the designated release. Because beta cards aren’t final and shouldn’t be professionally printed, the Harmony portion of such an event is print-and-play by nature, shuffled in among the printed cards the rest of that pool is built from.

Harmony adds only the release it names. It does not open an event to every beta product at once, and it never includes Pre-Alpha content, which isn’t part of the supported card pool in any format.

The modifier exists because beta cards are still being tuned. Wording and balance can change between events, which is useful when a room has agreed to test a release together and disruptive when it decides a season. Keeping beta content behind an explicit flag lets organizers pick which of those two events they’re running, and lets players know before they build a deck.

Harmony is not new. transformerstcg.org ran a series of Harmony events during Waste|Lands’ Public Beta in 2022, pairing the in-development Wave with the established card pool so it could be tested against real competition. Those events already looked like a Harmony Store Constructed event does now: mostly professionally printed community cards, with the beta Wave printed at home.

Casual play needs no modifier. Beta content is open to any table that agrees to use it. See Casual Play below.

Limited Formats

Alongside Full Constructed, transformerstcg.org preserves the Limited format structures established during the official era. Since booster packs for community cards do not exist, these events simulate opening packs.

  • Sealed Deck — players build a team and deck entirely from a provided pool of cards that simulates opening packs of cards, individually given to the players before the event itself.
  • Booster Draft — players pick cards one at a time from shared virtual packs, building a team and deck from what they draft.
  • Turbo — a faster-paced Limited variant with reduced deck-size and construction requirements.

Limited play is casual at transformerstcg.org. Competitive play is Constructed only. Sealed Deck did appear in competitive play during the official era, including the Sealed portion of the Energon Invitational, and player feedback on that was heavily negative. As such, transformerstcg.org doesn’t intend to make any non-Constructed format competitive in the future.

See Tournament Rules for the complete tournament-operations detail on each.

Two Lwosers logo

Two Lwosers

Main article: Two Lwosers

Two Lwosers (pronounced “losers”) is the most widely played post-cancellation format outside Constructed. It exists to give the game’s overlooked stratagems a stage: players bring two decks rather than one, each built around a different stratagem from a curated legal list, and start with an empty sideboard instead of the usual ten cards.

Sideboard slots are earned back according to how neglected the chosen stratagems are, so the less loved your picks, the more room you get to adapt. Between games a player can swap to their other deck entirely rather than sideboard, which makes deck selection the format’s central decision.

Two Lwosers is a casual format that plays the same in person, over webcam, or on supported digital platforms, with its own legal stratagem list and a short list of banned “Wwinner” characters that are too strong in any shell. See the full Two Lwosers rules for construction, event flow, and both current lists.

Raid Formats

Historical Raid play in the Transformers TCG has centered on the Unicron Raid, a fan release first developed by Powered by Primus. An Aequitas ruling from September 2022 settled a Unicron Raid interaction from that period.

transformerstcg.org has a long-term interest in Raid formats. A community update edition of the Unicron Raid is in early development, along with other Raid content.

Raid formats are casual. Until that work is finished, Raid isn’t part of the supported card pool, and groups with the existing Unicron Raid materials are free to play them by agreement, as with any other unsupported format.

Primus

Main article: Primus

Primus is a multiplayer Transformers TCG format for three or more players, designed by Richard Wyatt and the crew at TransformYourGame.net. It borrows much of its structure from the Commander format in Magic: The Gathering, and players who know Commander will recognize most of it. Teams are built to a 35-star budget with a singleton deck and a pair of Signature cards, and combat rotates around the table through player tiles so that no player can be singled out before everyone has taken a turn as a target. The full rules, restricted list, and banned list are on the Primus page, and a How to Play video walks through a game.

Primus is a casual format. Groups are free to play it by agreement, as with any other casual format.

Casual Play

Outside of organized and competitive play, transformerstcg.org places no restrictions on what you play with. One rule governs all of it: everyone at the table agrees beforehand.

Two situations account for most of that agreement:

House rules and independently modified versions of any release work the same way.

No player is required to play against cards outside the supported pool, and nobody should be pressured into it.

Beta, Pre-Alpha, and Alpha Content

New transformerstcg.org releases move through development stages before becoming a finished, professionally printable product. Their tournament legality depends on where they are in that process:

  • Public Beta releases are part of the supported card pool and appear in the Ban List’s Allowed section. Currently that includes Org Wave 9: War|Void. They’re open to casual play, and enter organized play only at events declaring the Harmony modifier. Beta cards aren’t final and shouldn’t be professionally printed, since their wording or balance may still change.
  • Pre-Alpha, Alpha, and other pre-release development, such as the recently announced Org Wave 10: Wild|Fury, isn’t part of the supported card pool and isn’t legal in organized play under any modifier, Harmony included.

Learn More

transformerstcg.org’s support for multiple formats, from competitive Constructed to casual kitchen-table games, is one of the All Are One Ideals that guide how the game is built and organized today.