Master Transmuter

[Hrishi]

So today I would like to discuss the advantages of running a deck with Master Transmuter --

Just kidding. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Hrishi. I started playing Magic two weeks before Vintage Champs last year. After watching the broadcast of Vintage worlds, I decided that every other format was inferior and this was the format I wanted to play in. My friends always joke that there is something wrong with me because my favorite cards are Tinker and Yawgmoth's Will.

Anyway, the East Coast is a fantastic area to play. I started off by playing TPS. One of the things I have always wanted to do was to build a deck that I could call my own. When I say that, I don't mean a deck that is casual playable, but an actual semi-competitive deck. While this might still elude me, I would like to think that I am getting there.

I started the process by simply pouring through tons of old cards. Old cards seemed to have a certain mystique about them, especially because I never played with them before! One of the cards from Antiquities caught my eye.



Unless my eyes deceived me, this seemed to be Tinker number 2, 3, 4 and 5 when it came to finding and putting Time Vault into play! While this does seem to have a little bit of hyperbole, this card does have certain advantages over even Tinker. I felt that when a card could be compared favorably to Tinker, it was worth building around.

So the crucial part of Transmute Artifact is that it does everything Tinker does, except you have to pay the difference in cost. Now, this might seem like a huge deal, making it a lot worse. However, there is a hidden advantage to using this card over Tinker. If Transmute Artifact gets countered, you do not need to sacrifice your artifact. Furthermore, you can tap your Moxen and float the mana you require before casting Transmute.

All this is well and good, but where do I go for a complete deck? Transmute Artifact costs UU, which pretty much relegates us to a very blue heavy shell. I envisioned a big blue control shell that's primary win condition was assembling Time Vault and Voltaic Key. So what else did the deck need?

Tinker seemed like an automatic inclusion, for both the Blightsteel plan as well as an extra Transmute to find Vault or Key. The problem was most of these cards are very hard to exclude in a blue deck anyway, what else was I going to put into a deck like this?

My first thought was to use Trinket Mages to find Key and other artifacts, but this ended up not working so well. While Trinket Mages worked decently, they were cumbersome and did not do much to advance my plan. I had to look elsewhere. At this juncture, a few friends of mine (sylverfyre and Samoht) suggested this little card from Planechase.



Do you see the amazing synergy this card has with the shell I came up with so far? Let me list out the reasons why this card works so well.

1. It is card neutral, since you get to cantrip once you get it to enter the field. If your opponent ends up needing to waste removal on it, that's great, you just 2-for-1'd your opponent.
2. Flying + Deathtouch makes it a fantastic blocker against anything. This also feeds into making your opponent waste removal on it.
3. It dodges non-artifact hate and can block anything shops throws at me.
4. It deals with Jace so well. They pretty much cannot bounce it because you are drawing a card EACH TIME you replay it.
5. Most importantly, it is an artifact. That means it is a free Transmute into Time Vault. It means that when you sacrifice this to Transmute Artifact, you only need to pay UU to deploy Time Vault onto the field right from your library.

I was very satisfied with this card. Obviously it costing UB is a little restrictive, but I am looking to play these colors anyway. Throw in a few more auto-includes from both Blue and Black, and I had a solid shell to play with. This is what I ended up with.

Oh, and if it was not obvious, the name is just a dumb joke I had with a friend of mine and it just sort of stuck because I am new and bad at Magic and did not know Master Transmuter was a real card.

Decklist

// Land
2 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine

// Artifact Acceleration
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

// Creatures
3 Baleful Strix
1 Blightsteel Colossus

// Other Artifacts
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sensei's Divining Top

// Broken
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

// Win cards
1 Tinker
3 Transmute Artifact

// Counter Suite
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Drain
2 Mental Misstep
2 Spell Snare
1 Flusterstorm
1 Misdirection

// Others
4 Gush
1 Lightning Bolt


SB: 4 Ingot Chewer
SB: 2 Viashino Heretic
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Inkwell Leviathan

Card Choices

The Manabase
While it looks pretty standard, I think a few comments are in order. I opted to go for a 3-color deck over 2 colors for better sideboard options, especially against shops. The singleton Strip Mine is debatable, but there have been plenty of games where it has just been a blow out. At worst, it provides 1 colorless mana, and this deck can certainly make use of it, especially during Transmuting. It runs a fair number of basics for consistency too.

Counter Suite
I won't go too in depth here, but it's just worth noting that I have been very pleased with Spell Snare. It hits many relevant spells (like Oath and Dark Confidant to name a few) and is usually not a dead card. Misdirection serves as an out to Abrupt Decay which is very strong against my deck, but I do believe it could go into the SB.

Others
Here is where I would like to explain my card choices which fall under "Others". Thirst for Knowledge just seemed like a nice card to run in a deck like this, even though it is restricted to a single copy. I would not be against taking it out, but it has been both powerful and dead in the past.

Upon further testing, I have concluded that running Gush is far superior to using Night's Whisper. I cut the singleton Thirst for Knowledge and the 3 Night's Whisper to put in 4 Gush and I am a lot happier with the result.

The singleton Lightning Bolt seems innocuous, but it has been a wonderful inclusion ever since I decided to add red. Lightning Bolt answers so many things these days that it is a very hard card to exclude from a list that has red. Some relevant things that it answers are Jace, Bob, Lodestone Golem...

Sideboard
7 sideboard slots are dedicated to shops, Ingot Chewer and Viashino Heretic really help me in this matchup. I was running Hurkyl's Recall in the place of Heretic, but found Recall inferior. Are there any other cards you can think of in it's place?

Grafdigger's Cage serves to stop both Oath and Dredge. There is further synergy in running artifacts because of the interaction with Transmute Artifact.

The Inkwell Leviathan is questionable, but I can't think of anything better in it's place. It has had it's moments, that's for sure.

Other Card Considerations

The first question is, where is Tezzeret? I admit, Tezzeret was in my initial list, but often I felt that whenever I had Tezzeret in my hand and rode him to victory, I was in a superior board state anyway. This made me feel like Tezzeret was a bit of a "win more" card in this deck, since Transmute did a lot that Tezzeret could, but a lot cheaper. I am not against using him again, I just didn't happen to use him last weekend. More testing is certainly necessary.

The counter suite could be expanded to include more counters at the cost of a draw engine. Is this necessary?

Merchant Scroll? Gifts Ungiven? Any other utility artifacts (Memory Jar?) or other transmute targets?

Neat Tricks with Transmute Artifact

I have noticed that there are many minor tricks that you can do with Transmute that aren't very apparent unless you play with the card a lot.

For example, you need to tap your Moxen and float mana before sacrificing it to Transmute. A really strong play is sacrificing a Mox to Transmute, finding a Lotus, using it to cast Yawgmoth's Will, and replaying all the artifacts once again to re-Transmute.

You can Transmute for "value" when you are not close to assembling Vault+Key by Transmuting into Sensei's Divining Top. This can be a very powerful play in control mirrors as well as let's you dig deep.

Transmute can also be used for it's shuffle effect along with Jace and Top to dig into your library.

Thanks

I'd like to thank people from the Vintage East coast community, you guys are the best.

Special thanks to Greg, Samoht and Syl for helping me with coming up with a lot of my ideas while brewing.

And now I open the floor to you fine gentlemen. I'd appreciate any feedback, ideas, comments.. anything! I have tried to write out this post as clearly as I can so you can understand my thought process behind a lot of this. I realize this deck is probably not tier 1 yet, and possibly cannot be. However, plenty of people have loved the premise and core behind the deck, so I am trying my best to strengthen the rest of it as best I can. As far as I have looked, there has never been a deck that ran this combination before, but I could be wrong. There is also a very serious lack of information related to building around Transmute Artifact in Vintage, sadly.

I do humbly appreciate you reading through this and look forward to any replies.

[Eastman]

I absolutely love transmute artifact, such a flavorful card.  I've played it a few times in somewhat similar lists--I think I played it in a turbo-tezz type list with grim monoliths to transmute away.  Anyway, I'll share a few thoughts although hard to say what the optimal route is without testing.

First, I'm glad you point out some of the transmute artifact "tricks" like being able to grab lotus.  That is useful not just for yawg will, but in other instances--just like demonic tutor you once in awhile find yourself needing the extra 1 mana to pull off a play, and the tutor for lotus gets you there.  Its also useful that you don't pay the mana until resolution, which can be relevant if a counter war forces you to change your target.  Finally, don't forget you can use it as a psuedo-entomb even if you can't pay the mana...so this can be used to dump fat artifacts in the yard for welder to return.

That last trick brings me to one suggestion--I'd consider running one or two goblin welder.  These can be useful to get your combo back together following a counterspell or an abrupt decay, but it can also have other uses such as graveyard tricks.  Welder also interacts nicely with both sensei's top and strix...either of those cards turn welder into a quasi-draw engine.

 A related suggestion would be to try Myr Battlesphere as your robot, since you will be able to transmute for him from time to time, whereas you will almost never be able to transmute for blightsteel.  If you have welder out you can transmute to put battlesphere in the yard, then weld him in which is pretty nice.  

The strip mine should probably be a Mana Vault--gives you another artifact to transmute away and adds some useful expansion.  

Finally I have serious doubts about night's whisper over Dark Confidant.  Whisper isn't bad, but confidant does much more for you in a lot of matchups.  Alternatively, you could add mystical tutor and gifts ungiven in these slots.  Both are effectively card advantage and both would work well in this list.  With Transmute Artifact, Gifts can get transmute/tinker/demonic//other and thereby guarantee you the second combo piece (if you have the first) without requiring another draw.  

Good luck with the deck!

[A.-1.]

I can't really comment on individual card choices since I don't believe I have ever played Transmute Artifact in tournament play.

I'd recommend testing as much as possible between tournaments while making mental or actual notes on what cards work and which do not. For example, every time you draw Night's Whisper, decide whether it is better or worse than the alternatives you've considered.

Keep at it, man. I hope to see you at the next tournament.

[Smmenen]

The value of Tinker derives not just from the fact that Tinker is a tutor, but from the mana advantage it creates, turning just 3 mana into any mana cost artifact.  That said, The tutoring ability by itself is quite useful, and Transmute Artifact is a good card, especially with Time Vault combo.  I like the synergy between Strix, Transmute, and Time Vault...  Danny Friedman has played with Transmute in Top 4s and Top 8s in our area, if you search Morphling.de I'm sure you'll find them. 

[aahz]

Transmute Artifact is tons of fun. This sort of deck is just screaming for Goblin Welder. Look into the old Steel City Vault decks.

[vaughnbros]

I'm kind of disappointed this wasn't about master transmuter, but I like the concept here a lot.  Transmute artifact has always seemed like an underplayed card.  I agree with the comments that welder and myr ball should be played along with it because they have greater synergy.  

In an artifact heavy shell Tezz 1 or 2 both also seem like good options at least as singletons to fetch out in situations that they are good.  I think you underate Tezz 1.  He is not exactly a win more, he only requires you gain a single advantage and that is creatures for him to automatically win the game.  As for Tezz 2 he can serve as a powerful alternate win to vault when you are locked out by Stoney silence, null rod, or it is destroyed.  Making a 5/5 with haste every turn or draining your opponent for twice your number of artifacts can provide a very fast clock.

[fsecco]

I think your red sideboard plan is weakened by the lack of a full Scalding Tarn set maindeck. I know you divided Tarns/Deltas to fetch your basic Swamp. But I ask, is that basic Swamp really necessary? And is it more important than the basic Mountain SB?

I feel that:

0 Swamp
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn

is much stronger than what you currently use (1 Swamp, 3 Polluted Delta, 2 Scalding Tarn).

[Onslaught]

If your entire plan revolves around Transmute Artifact to assemble Vault/Key, wouldn't you want more copies of Key to increase the likelihood of combing out as soon as the opportunity arises? I guess it's awkward to run extra copies of Key without stuff like Grim Monolith, which isn't needed since you don't run Tezz. Key does turn SDT into a pseudo draw engine, so more copies of Top and changing NW to Bob may be something to look into. Echoing the suggestions of 2 Welders as well, it makes you a bit more solid vs. Shops and lets you be more grindy against other Blue.

Cool deck!

[Zeksagmak]

Going off what Onslaught said, if the main game plan is to assemble vault/key quickly, wouldn't it make sense to include at least 1 main deck solution to null rod?  Say a steel sabotage in place of a counter, a hurkly's, or an e.truth?

[Hrishi]

Thank you everybody for some fantastic replies! I have been making changes as they came in, just wanted to hold off replying till I had a little more testing done.

@ Eastman : Thank you for your comments! I had found after playing the deck for a while that there were so many tricks involving Transmute that it absolutely deserved a section of it's own. I certainly did not cover everything, especially the important one of making it a pseudo-entomb. Both your suggestions are fantastic. I have been very tempted to play Welders in place of Whispers as Welder is almost an engine by himself. I will most certainly be testing a build with Welders. I was thinking 2 might be a good number to start with. Most comments have persuaded me to turn away from Night's Whisper. Currently I have been fooling around with using Gush. Good catch on the Strip Mine -> Mana Vault. I made that change. Interesting suggestion on Gifts, and it's a card I honestly didn't even think about, but it does seem very powerful in this deck (even more so if I had Welders in there!).

@ Rob : You know I will be there! the more old cards I can find to build around........

@ Stephen : I looked into some of the lists that Friedman played. He has some very interesting card choices (Skeletal Scrying?! I so want to give that a try) and while he doesn't place as much emphasis on Transmute itself, I do feel like our game plans end up being quite similar. Thank you for pointing me in that direction. I especially want to try out using 2 Keys over one, as somebody else in this thread also pointed out. In one list (http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1737&highlight=3#place3) he only uses 2 copies of Gush. Do you feel like this was a good inclusion? I have always felt like including 3-4 copies of Gush whenever I could and strayed away from fewer copies. I specifically ask this question because currently I have been testing my list with 4 Gushes!

@ vaughnbros : Sorry to disappoint you! I do like Master Transmuter as a card as well. I do agree that I might be undervaluing Tezz a lot. I actually did play with a single copy of Tezz a few weeks ago, so I most certainly not against using him again. I guess in that particular instance he felt unnecessary, but I agree, that's hardly enough information to go by. I had actually dropped Tezz in favor of the 3rd Transmute last weekend, so it's something I will be going back and forth a lot on I imagine. Honestly a lot of my arguments against Tezz was playing Devil's advocate, as I do like the card but there are situations where I preferred having a Transmute in my hand over Tezz.

@ fsecco : Thank you for that suggestion, my mana base is a lot stronger with that. I felt the swamp was needed for ensuring B to cast Strix/Whisper, but honestly after trying out without the basic swamp, it feels very unnecessary. Going up to 4 Tarns gets access to that Mountain much easier. It's even less important now that I am not going to use Whisper most likely.

@ Onslaught :  You are very correct in this. One of my original lists when I came up with this had 2 Keys for that very reason. I was unsure how much value the second key had, especially if I ended up drawing both at some point. However, it feels like some redundancy isn't the worst thing, especially with all the Abrupt Decays running around. Top+Key is also very sick, and a very potent draw engine.

@ Zeksagmak : Very interesting that you pointed it out here, and that very day I lost a game because I had no answer to Null Rod  . Going to maindeck a Steel Sabotage, since it also has value to answer an opposing Blightsteel and is a fairly decent counter at worst!

Once again, thank you very much for the suggestions. I'm glad that at the very least, the concept of the deck at it's core seems to be liked. As long as I have the supporting cast around it as perfect as it can be, I'll be extremely pleased. You guys are awesome!

[fsecco]

If you're going the Welder/Gifts route, I'd suggest trying out Dack Fayden instead of Steel Sabotage. : D

[Blue Lotus]

Ichor Wellspring seems pretty sweet with transmute artifact. Also disruptive artifacts, such as Grafdigger's cage (would want one in the main), Trinisphere, Crucible for the strip lock, Pithing Needle all seem like a great fit. And I think you definitely want to make room for memory jar.

I would also consider Snapcaster to double up on transmutes.

[vaughnbros]

Ichor Wellspring seems pretty sweet with transmute artifact. Also disruptive artifacts, such as Grafdigger's cage (would want one in the main), Trinisphere, Crucible for the strip lock, Pithing Needle all seem like a great fit. And I think you definitely want to make room for memory jar.

I would also consider Snapcaster to double up on transmutes.

I think the issue is what is he cutting for these utility artifacts?  Counter magic?  His draw engine gush? I'm not sure this would be worth as I'm sure he will still be finding vault/key well over 50% of the time even if he had the option of transmuting into any artifact in the game.

[Blue Lotus]

I think the issue is what is he cutting for these utility artifacts?  Counter magic?  His draw engine gush? I'm not sure this would be worth as I'm sure he will still be finding vault/key well over 50% of the time even if he had the option of transmuting into any artifact in the game.

Well you can transmute from them, not just into them. I think a lone maindeck cage would be more useful in more situations than a misdirection, for example.

[Hrishi]

Point taken on the maindeck Cage. Misdirection was included in the maindeck because I had encountered a lot of Abrupt Decay. A single copy is often not good enough though, I've found. I would like to test with a maindeck cage.

As said above, there are a lot of really cool artifacts I'd like to have as a toolbox to transmute into or from, but space is at such a premium already. Memory Jar is a very interesting suggestion, I have never considered that card, but it does seem like it might end up being good. I will test that and report as well!

[ApolloGod]

I've been play-testing with a similar build, and I always enjoy using Gifts Ungiven. It's quite versatile and you can adapt the pile based on the board state and what is in your hand. Sometimes I'll include Reconstruction in the pile. It's a niche card that interacts quite nicely with the deck.

Another card I enjoy is a singleton Chromatic Sphere. It's mana + draw when needed, or it's a transmute sacrifice + draw when needed.

EDIT: I've recently tried the deck with some modifications that people suggested above. I'm using 2x Goblin Welder, and I switched Gifts to Fact or Fiction. The deck operates as a mix between your deck and Steel City Vault. I highly recommend you add the Welders. They offer phenomenal synergy with most of the deck.