The Roscoe - Fine Tuning Transumte.dec

[MuzzonoAmi]

Ever since the summer, The Fringe has been working on breaking Transumte Artifact, and since the team seems to have dried up completely, and Bryce (the original mastermind behind the deck) is on hiatus from Magic, I've decided to unveil what I've been tweaking for the last several months:

Mana(28)
3 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
3 City of Traitors
2 Mishra's Workshop
8 SoLoMoxCrypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
4 Gilded Lotus

Creatures(10)
4 Goblin Welder
2 Su-Chi
1 Pentavus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus

Draw/Tutor(15)
4 Transmute Artifact
2 Thirst For Knowledge
2 Impulse
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Mystical Tutor

Artifacts to Tinker For(4)
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Eye

Protection(4)
4 Force of Will

Sideboard
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Artifact Mutation
2 Leonin Abundas
2 Razormane Masticore
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 SmmenMarch

61 Cards    and I can't find anything to cut.

The deck's strongest point is against decks like Stax and 5/3, where the biggest obstacle it faces is a Trinisphere, which becomes largely irrelevant when casting spells like Transmute (it simply becomes Tinker for 1UU) with Su-Chi on the table. Contrary to it's rather unstable appearance, the deck is capable of very quick kills because of the extremely varied kill mechanisms it possesses (betdown, Mindslaver, Memory Jar) and their abilities to work together very well. The only card that wrecks the deck is Energy Flux, and its numbers have been steadily falling since summer. Is it time for the deck to assume it's place in the metagame, and if so, what kinds of tweaks need to be applied to make it better?

One thing I've been wanting to try is adding 2 Duress to complement the Forces as disruption and an anti-combo measure, which would avoid the addition of Trinisphere to the Sideboard.

[rvs]

This decklist looks pretty damn bad to be honest. If you can wait like 1 or 2 days, I'll post my list and some explenations (I'm pretty busy, so it might not be very lenghty) about a tinker-deck that I created (and finetuned together with Marco Kiewit (aka: BigMac) and that is totally awesome. In 3 weeks, it has won a mox jet (1st), E20 store credit (2nd) and a Library and Chaos Orb (1st and 2nd). All 3 in seriously high-powered (non-proxy) metagames.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I agree, it LOOKS terrible. But it's really quite powerful, and has very good 5/3, Stax, and 4cC matchups, and can easily accomodate Sideboard tweaks to allow for better combo matchups.

[Matt]

I don't know how well this is known, but since you didn't make it clear: the idea isn't simply to Transmute a Su-Chi into something nice - T.A. can also be used as a pseudo-Entomb by simply refusing to pay the cost difference, whereupon you would Welder the target into play.

[Hi-Val]

I played against Benajmin Kowala with this at SCG1 and it looks like a deck that's on the verge. It has a lot of bust-out potential to it but it seems like Trinisphere would be better than FOW. Gilded Lotus is what makes this deck slam though.

I had a Transmute deck a while back that used Krack Rock Ironworks to help pay for costs. Transmute wants mana like nothing else.

Also, why the crap rotation?

[MuzzonoAmi]

Crop Rotation fetches the one-of lands when needed, since Academy wins games by itself, and I didn't want to clutter the deck up with too many Strip effects when I could get away with 2 one-ofs for spot LD and to get Crucible locks when needed. I had toyed with Bazaar for while too, but eventually decided against it because it made the deck too fragmented.

And yes, Matt has a very good point. The fact that Transmute can either be a Tinker or Entomb is a nice bonus, especially when you just want to get rid of a Mana Crypt or Vault or simply get a Welder active.

[Dante]

It has a lot of bust-out potential to it but it seems like Trinisphere would be better than FOW.

Yah, with only 4 FoW maindeck and 4 Chalice side, you don't seem like you have enough disruption to beat combo.  Do you not see combo a lot?  It seems like your weakest matchup.

[MuzzonoAmi]

After reading Bram's report, I think I will test Trinisphere. As for combo, I don't see much, but it has been the weakest matchup by far in testing. I had thought about using 3sphere before, but Ben hated the idea, so I never tested it. And Jester's Cap also looks like a good option.

[kl0wn]

ACH!

I guess the cat's out of the bag now so I'm going to have to trump you all with a mini-primer within the near future.

Unfortunately, I lost all of my notes and info on account of a computer virus that forced me into nuking the site from orbit. It was the only way to be sure...

But I'll still try to reconstruct what I had from memory.

Or I could just leave you all in the dark...