Primus

Part of: Transformers TCG Formats

Primus is a multiplayer Transformers TCG format for three or more players. It was designed by Richard Wyatt and the crew at TransformYourGame.net, and its rules circulated as a slide deck.

Primus is a casual format. Casual play has one rule that governs everything on this page: everyone at the table agrees beforehand, including on which card pool is in use.

Primus borrows much of its structure from the Commander format in Magic: The Gathering, and Commander players will find it familiar: a singleton deck built to a budget, a multiplayer table where you choose whom to attack, and Signature cards standing in for the commander as the deck’s repeatable identity. Two ideas carry the format. Teams are built to a 35-star budget with a singleton deck, so every game is different, and combat rotates around the table through player tiles, so no one player can be ganged up on before the others have taken their turn as a target. A How to Play video walks through a game.

Quick Rules

• Teams: any number of characters, stratagems, and star cards totaling no more than 35 stars.
• Decks: at least 50 cards, no more than one copy of any battle card, except up to three copies each of one Signature Action and one Signature Upgrade.
• Everything not in your team or deck is your sideboard, one copy of each.
• Start with 4 cards in hand and draw at the start of each of your turns.
• When you attack, you tap a player tile as well as your character; you cannot attack the same player again until every player’s tile has been tapped.
• Card text that says “your opponent” means an opponent of your choice; “each enemy” or “each character” means all of them.
• Certain cards are restricted (never a Signature card) and a short list is banned; both are below.

Deck Construction

Starting the Game

• Players announce their Signature cards at the start of the game.
• Each player draws 4 cards, and each player draws at the start of each of their turns.
• The first player is chosen at random; turn order then proceeds clockwise.
• All characters begin the game untapped.

The opening turns are staggered so that going first is not an advantage:

Combat and Player Tiles

In addition to your characters, you have a player tile for each other player in the game. Tiles track who you have attacked this rotation.

• When you enter combat, tap your attacking character and the tile of the player whose characters can defend. Choosing the defending character then works normally.
• On each later combat, both the attacker and the player tile you choose must be untapped. You cannot attack a player whose tile is already tapped.
• When only one tile and one character remain untapped, those are your only choices.
• The wheel: on whichever player’s turn all of their characters become tapped at the end of combat, every player untaps all of their tapped characters and all of their tapped player tiles.
• If you have at least one untapped character and no untapped player tiles at the start of combat, you may attack any player with each of your attackers that turn.

Additional Rules

• As soon as your deck is empty, shuffle your scrap pile into it.
• Battle card and stratagem text that refers to cards or characters “outside of the game” refers to your sideboard. Character text that refers to characters “outside of the game” that start in your KO area or under characters does not.
• Face-down Secret Actions do not scrap at the end of the turn after they are played. They scrap at the beginning of the next turn of the player who played them, if still unrevealed. Card effects that refer to that timing should be read accordingly.
• Card effects that say “your opponent,” or that require a single choice, let you choose which opponent is affected by or affects the outcome.
• Card effects that say “each enemy” or “each character” without naming a player affect every character the term covers.

Restricted List

The following battle cards may not be chosen as a Signature Action or Upgrade:

Banned List

The following characters and stratagems may not be selected as part of your team:

Primus bans no battle cards of its own beyond the site’s Banned list.

Optional Add-On: The Galactic Odyssey

The Galactic Odyssey is an optional add-on for multiplayer games, created by Legendary Void and released on March 25, 2021. It adds a separate Zone Deck of 16 Zones and 4 Circumstances, plus 9 character cards exclusive to the add-on. A Zone is in play for everyone at once, much like a Stadium in the Pokémon TCG; a Circumstance is a one-off event in the spirit of Planechase’s Phenomena. Players advance to the next Zone by “opening the Space Bridge,” most often by rolling a 1 or a 6 on a six-sided die, and some card effects open it too. Its creator notes that it suits any multiplayer table, not only Primus.

The Galactic Odyssey is unsupported fan content: it is valid in casual play with mutual consent at the table. Tabletop Simulator Table players will find it in the Black Hole, and the print-and-play files are available from the creator’s Dropbox. The original announcement is on Edge of Iacon.

Playing Primus Today

The transformerstcg.org Tabletop Simulator table is built for Primus: it seats four players, so a full multiplayer game with player tiles fits without any setup beyond loading the table. Primus games are easy to arrange on the transformerstcg.org Discord.

The supported Primus card pool is the casual pool as detailed in the Allowed list. The Alpha Trion Protocols (ATP) releases that the original Primus rules referred to are historical fan content. If you’re playing on the table and wish to use ATP cards (with mutual consent across all players), these are available through the Black Hole.