And saying things die to removal is an invalid argument. By that same logic: DRS and Bob would be bad cause you can bolt em before they gain you value.
The point on CMC is a valid one and I will concede that to you.
Yet expensive albeit powerful cards have been brewed around before.
Getting to untap with this card (provided its not JUST this card) will pretty much win you the game. It as all the effects I have listed above; saving things from targeted removal, recycling ETB triggers, cheating larger more powerful artifacts into play at instant speed.
So I reiterate the question. Why is no one brewing with this?
And saying things die to removal is an invalid argument. By that same logic: DRS and Bob would be bad cause you can bolt em before they gain you value.
DRS is 1cmc, Bob is 2cmc. For 4cmc you should expect card to have impact on the game state (Wrath of good, Elspeth Knight Errant, Splinter Twin)
4cmc do nothing until next turn is "Meh". I mean, the fastest way to play it is T3 with manadork T1 so you can put fatty T4.
Tron can T3 Karn/Wurmcoil and T4 hardcast Kozilek and there are less land hate in Modern than creature hate.
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This is not how bans/unbans work. Its always the enabler that gets the ban, not the card that is being abused. If you would have Yawgmoths will + whatever cards - it would be Yawgs that would be banned. If you would have Stoneforge and batterskull - it would be stone who would be banned and that is exactly how it works. Furthermore, banning a card in order to unban a different card is a thought process that was and wont be never applied in practical means.
DRS is 1cmc, Bob is 2cmc. For 4cmc you should expect card to have impact on the game state
Hence my concession on the CMC issue.
I think the reason most people underestimate her is that they think she's just there to cheat big fat fatties into play. A lot of her value actually comes from abusing ETB triggers. Recycling the likes of Sharuum the Hegemon or Sphinx Summoner from your hand or when in play. So much more powerful than DRS or Bob IMO. Which leads me to wonder why no one is trying to make it work.
edit: For the uninitiated, when I say recycle ETB triggers, I mean return artifact X into hand as part of the cost, and then putting it into play as part of the ability.
I think the reason most people underestimate her is that they think shes just there to cheat big fat fatties into play. A lot of her value actually comes from abusing ETB triggers. Recycling the likes of Sharuum the Hegemon or Sphinx Summoner from your hand or when in play. So much more powerful than DRS or Bob IMO.
edit: For the uninitiated, when I say recycle ETB triggers, I mean return artifact X into hand as part of the cost, and then putting it into play as part of the ability.
But you dont get to abuse these until T5. Bob and DRS impact the game earlier. By T5 you could be facing down the following: 999,999,999 Pestermites, 2x Wurmcoil Engine and 1 Karn Liberated, 2x Blinkmoth Nexus with a Cranial plating waiting for your blockers, or someone with 999,999,999 life using Kitchen Finks. No one is arguing that the interaction is powerful, it just comes too late to deal with a lot of what you will see in modern. UWR Control works slow enough for this to work out, but the removal it packs will easily deal with it.
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And saying things die to removal is an invalid argument. By that same logic: DRS and Bob would be bad cause you can bolt em before they gain you value.
The point on CMC is a valid one and I will concede that to you.
Yet expensive albeit powerful cards have been brewed around before.
Getting to untap with this card (provided its not JUST this card) will pretty much win you the game. It as all the effects I have listed above; saving things from targeted removal, recycling ETB triggers, cheating larger more powerful artifacts into play at instant speed.
So I reiterate the question. Why is no one brewing with this?
Saying things die to removal isn't an invalid argument. When people say that they mean "don't say X card isn't broken just because it dies to wrath" and "don't say Y card sucks because it dies to bolt". Emrakul dies to wrath but he is an absurdly powerful card. Bob dies to bolt but he also is absurdly powerful.
This card in particular dies to every main board removal in modern aside from decay. And after they see your deck it will die to all the artifact hate they board in as well.
In order to get value from this 4 cmc creature you have to A) have her and another artifact in play, B) have something else you want to play in hand, C) survive long enough to play the card and keep her alive long enough to untap. Shaman gives value via a very common resource (both yards). Bob gives value by just sticking around. Both of these, if left alone, can start providing value very early on in the game.
The effect is powerful its true but its mana cost and the conditional requirements of getting value out of it limit its competitiveness. That's not so say one can't build a deck that does powerful things using this card. It's just that you will have to have a plan to deal with the removal headed its way and a plan to survive long enough to get value out I it. People have found ways to do the same types of powerful things easier (see tron lands).
On topic, to sum up what other users have said, you're spending 4 mana for a card that dies for 1 mana, and is the most played nonland card in the format. It is a massive tempo loss, because your opponent gets to advance their board, make a 3 mana play, and leave a fetchland, then you go , take your turn and get your whole turn negated by that 1 mana left up, while your opponent gets to untap and further advance his or her board. You've essentially been Time Walked.
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Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
My thing is that everytime a thread comes up like this, people assume that this guy is looking to use this card in a competitive modern environment. I play modern in a competitive sense at my LGS versus typical metagame choices (Affinity, WUR, Pod, etc.) but I also play for fun with my buddies 4 player free-for-all with modern legal cards. In the former, yes this card is too slow and I typically play UG Infect there, but in the latter I a play a slow WG deck that play powerful creatures and fun commander-like spells. In that kind of game shock lands and fetches plus cards like Bob often cause too much damage too early on and slower strategies are more viable as well as spells that affect "all opponents" or "all creatures" being much more powerful than targeted removal like Path.
No need to crap all over his love of this card, maybe he plays casually with friends and it will be a viable choice. The point has been made that the card may not be effective or fast enough for the competitive modern metagame, how about discussing situations in which it may be worthwhile?
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I play on Cockatrice, message me to play modern format.
My thing is that everytime a thread comes up like this, people assume that this guy is looking to use this card in a competitive modern environment. I play modern in a competitive sense at my LGS versus typical metagame choices (Affinity, WUR, Pod, etc.) but I also play for fun with my buddies 4 player free-for-all with modern legal cards. In the former, yes this card is too slow and I typically play UG Infect there, but in the latter I a play a slow WG deck that play powerful creatures and fun commander-like spells. In that kind of game shock lands and fetches plus cards like Bob often cause too much damage too early on and slower strategies are more viable as well as spells that affect "all opponents" or "all creatures" being much more powerful than targeted removal like Path.
No need to crap all over his love of this card, maybe he plays casually with friends and it will be a viable choice. The point has been made that the card may not be effective or fast enough for the competitive modern metagame, how about discussing situations in which it may be worthwhile?
This is a dangerous slippery slope. If we have to take that attitude towards any card, then everything is a good card and there will be no room for discussion.
People should be entitled, nay, encouraged to diss a card that has little competitive value.
With that being said, I think master transmuter is ok, but only against the right matchup and in the right shell. Affinity definitely doesn't want it. And you're not going to have it stick around against Jund/UWR. However, cards that do broken things will always have potential. Just look at fist of the suns.
There are a couple of thread for a deck using this card in Deck Creation. I have one called Trash Transmuter that is UR and also uses Trash for Treasure. It is what I would call "casually competitive" in that it could be a fun deck for a FNM level Modern tournament, but it is never going to take the format by storm
My thing is that everytime a thread comes up like this, people assume that this guy is looking to use this card in a competitive modern environment. I play modern in a competitive sense at my LGS versus typical metagame choices (Affinity, WUR, Pod, etc.) but I also play for fun with my buddies 4 player free-for-all with modern legal cards. In the former, yes this card is too slow and I typically play UG Infect there, but in the latter I a play a slow WG deck that play powerful creatures and fun commander-like spells. In that kind of game shock lands and fetches plus cards like Bob often cause too much damage too early on and slower strategies are more viable as well as spells that affect "all opponents" or "all creatures" being much more powerful than targeted removal like Path.
No need to crap all over his love of this card, maybe he plays casually with friends and it will be a viable choice. The point has been made that the card may not be effective or fast enough for the competitive modern metagame, how about discussing situations in which it may be worthwhile?
Nobody is crapping all over his love of the card. As I (and others) specifically stated: this card has a powerful effect and nothing stops a person from making a modern deck that utilizes this card to do powerful things. Thay deck could be a great 2HG or multiplayer deck. But OP specifically asked "why does noone brew with this powerful card". Every post has been answering that question.
The answer is yes it's powerful but its also slow and people have found faster and more consistent ways to do those same kinds of powerful things.
No haste. That is the #1 cause of combo enablers being terrible (provided they're being played for their tap abilities).
Your options are:
1) Wing it. Play the enabler naked and hope it survives.
2) Give it haste (e.g. Lightning Greaves). This adds another card to your combo, reducing its consistency. Oh, and don't forget, even if you do manage to give it haste, it costs 5 mana in a single turn to cast it & use its ability. You're going to need some acceleration or control if you intend on getting to that state alive.
3) Protect it. This is easier said than done, because you will have to account for both permanent-based (Lavamancer, Liliana) and spell-based (Bolt, Path, Dismember) sources of removal.
I didn't mean to crap on it. Again, if you aren;t going to see Pod, Pod, Jund, Twin at you LGS every week, by all means, give this guy a shot. I played a list online last week that used it and Sharuum and it worked well. However, as I said before, it is just too slow to be competitive. If your meta is made up of brews, then throw this guy in and see what you can do. It isnt a bad card. It just isnt a modern stud.
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One of the essential things about the dies to removal argument is that it becomes more valid if the card dies to a wide variety of removal. It becomes more valid still if it costs significantly more to play than it does to remove.
This is a dangerous slippery slope. If we have to take that attitude towards any card, then everything is a good card and there will be no room for discussion.
People should be entitled, nay, encouraged to diss a card that has little competitive value.
With that being said, I think master transmuter is ok, but only against the right matchup and in the right shell. Affinity definitely doesn't want it. And you're not going to have it stick around against Jund/UWR. However, cards that do broken things will always have potential. Just look at fist of the suns.
I know what you are saying, I agree that cards should be criticized in order to determine whether they are competitive or not. More than one person made the point that it was not competitively viable in this thread, and I agreed with them in my last sentence. My last sentence also suggests that instead of everyone coming in and saying "not competitive, card is garbage, path/bolt exist, etc." after we already agreed it won't get you in the top 8 of a GP, lets discuss ways in which it can be powerful. There is room for both.
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I play on Cockatrice, message me to play modern format.
She is what people call "cute". It have many interactions that seems profitable... but are so easy to disrupt that the costs aren't worth the risks.
A 1/2 for 4 that do nothing unless you have other cards/wait a whole turn will not see serious play.
I've tried a deck like this before. It's really hard to actually get value out of master transmuter. It's just that she's usually the only thing on you board that's a threat, and unless you have counterspells for their removal, there's very little chance you'll get the opportunity to put a blightsteel colossus into play.
I agree that she will never be tier 1. I think Cab0747's response explains this most succinctly. But the question isn't if she's gonna take down a GP, it's why a card as (arguably*) value packed and flavorful as her isn't high on many deck builders' list of cards to "break". Or even just play around with.
*The main issue being CMC. Although I'm running a build that's moderately successful at the FNM level with cards like Grand Architect and Heartless Summoning to get around that with Sphinx Summoner for even more value, and Spellskite for protection/randomly screwing with Bogles & Twin
there's certainly plenty of sweet artifacts to use with this (darksteel forge, blightsteel\darksteel colossus, mycosynth golem\lattice and etc.) whether this can be competitive I think it can but I also think currently the meta is very very heavy removal filled so that's why its not conducive to competitive play as well as when you get this into play you would want to use it immediately not have to wait a turn. but stranger things have happened and while there are LOT of jank rares out there you never know which one of them is the next Natural Order, which if I recall was just a $1 rare until the printing of Progenitus.
Master Transmuter is a fragile permanent that cannot be used the turn it comes into play. There isn't something else in the format that does what it does to provide some redundancy as extra copies of the card. So if you don't draw one, your deck doesn't work. If it doesn't survive removal, your deck doesn't work. And even if you draw one and it survives removal, you're talking about a 4-drop that you have to wait a turn to use, which means even with one turn being acceled by artifact ramp, you're really slow on the draw.
Honestly, nobody is playing with this card because its power level is too low. Hell, it didn't even have a high enough power level to see play in Standard, and it didn't really do anything in Block, either.
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So the question is; why no love? Why is no one else brewing with this little beaut?
And saying things die to removal is an invalid argument. By that same logic: DRS and Bob would be bad cause you can bolt em before they gain you value.
The point on CMC is a valid one and I will concede that to you.
Yet expensive albeit powerful cards have been brewed around before.
Getting to untap with this card (provided its not JUST this card) will pretty much win you the game. It as all the effects I have listed above; saving things from targeted removal, recycling ETB triggers, cheating larger more powerful artifacts into play at instant speed.
So I reiterate the question. Why is no one brewing with this?
DRS is 1cmc, Bob is 2cmc. For 4cmc you should expect card to have impact on the game state (Wrath of good, Elspeth Knight Errant, Splinter Twin)
4cmc do nothing until next turn is "Meh". I mean, the fastest way to play it is T3 with manadork T1 so you can put fatty T4.
Tron can T3 Karn/Wurmcoil and T4 hardcast Kozilek and there are less land hate in Modern than creature hate.
If you are playing with a lot of artifacts, you can even go turn 2 Lightning Greaves, turn 3 Transmuter if you use Mox Opal.
The problem is you end up stone dead against stony silence.
Ux Whirza
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Hence my concession on the CMC issue.
I think the reason most people underestimate her is that they think she's just there to cheat big fat fatties into play. A lot of her value actually comes from abusing ETB triggers. Recycling the likes of Sharuum the Hegemon or Sphinx Summoner from your hand or when in play. So much more powerful than DRS or Bob IMO. Which leads me to wonder why no one is trying to make it work.
edit: For the uninitiated, when I say recycle ETB triggers, I mean return artifact X into hand as part of the cost, and then putting it into play as part of the ability.
But you dont get to abuse these until T5. Bob and DRS impact the game earlier. By T5 you could be facing down the following: 999,999,999 Pestermites, 2x Wurmcoil Engine and 1 Karn Liberated, 2x Blinkmoth Nexus with a Cranial plating waiting for your blockers, or someone with 999,999,999 life using Kitchen Finks. No one is arguing that the interaction is powerful, it just comes too late to deal with a lot of what you will see in modern. UWR Control works slow enough for this to work out, but the removal it packs will easily deal with it.
RGOmnath, Locus of ManaRG
URThe Locust godUR
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Legacy
BGIce Station Zebra (Living Fins)BG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
RGLandsRG
Saying things die to removal isn't an invalid argument. When people say that they mean "don't say X card isn't broken just because it dies to wrath" and "don't say Y card sucks because it dies to bolt". Emrakul dies to wrath but he is an absurdly powerful card. Bob dies to bolt but he also is absurdly powerful.
This card in particular dies to every main board removal in modern aside from decay. And after they see your deck it will die to all the artifact hate they board in as well.
In order to get value from this 4 cmc creature you have to A) have her and another artifact in play, B) have something else you want to play in hand, C) survive long enough to play the card and keep her alive long enough to untap. Shaman gives value via a very common resource (both yards). Bob gives value by just sticking around. Both of these, if left alone, can start providing value very early on in the game.
The effect is powerful its true but its mana cost and the conditional requirements of getting value out of it limit its competitiveness. That's not so say one can't build a deck that does powerful things using this card. It's just that you will have to have a plan to deal with the removal headed its way and a plan to survive long enough to get value out I it. People have found ways to do the same types of powerful things easier (see tron lands).
Not to be confused with Wrath of Bad.
On topic, to sum up what other users have said, you're spending 4 mana for a card that dies for 1 mana, and is the most played nonland card in the format. It is a massive tempo loss, because your opponent gets to advance their board, make a 3 mana play, and leave a fetchland, then you go , take your turn and get your whole turn negated by that 1 mana left up, while your opponent gets to untap and further advance his or her board. You've essentially been Time Walked.
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
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No need to crap all over his love of this card, maybe he plays casually with friends and it will be a viable choice. The point has been made that the card may not be effective or fast enough for the competitive modern metagame, how about discussing situations in which it may be worthwhile?
I play on Cockatrice, message me to play modern format.
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MTGA
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This is a dangerous slippery slope. If we have to take that attitude towards any card, then everything is a good card and there will be no room for discussion.
People should be entitled, nay, encouraged to diss a card that has little competitive value.
With that being said, I think master transmuter is ok, but only against the right matchup and in the right shell. Affinity definitely doesn't want it. And you're not going to have it stick around against Jund/UWR. However, cards that do broken things will always have potential. Just look at fist of the suns.
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay
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Nobody is crapping all over his love of the card. As I (and others) specifically stated: this card has a powerful effect and nothing stops a person from making a modern deck that utilizes this card to do powerful things. Thay deck could be a great 2HG or multiplayer deck. But OP specifically asked "why does noone brew with this powerful card". Every post has been answering that question.
The answer is yes it's powerful but its also slow and people have found faster and more consistent ways to do those same kinds of powerful things.
Your options are:
1) Wing it. Play the enabler naked and hope it survives.
2) Give it haste (e.g. Lightning Greaves). This adds another card to your combo, reducing its consistency. Oh, and don't forget, even if you do manage to give it haste, it costs 5 mana in a single turn to cast it & use its ability. You're going to need some acceleration or control if you intend on getting to that state alive.
3) Protect it. This is easier said than done, because you will have to account for both permanent-based (Lavamancer, Liliana) and spell-based (Bolt, Path, Dismember) sources of removal.
| Ad Nauseam
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Big Johnny.
RGOmnath, Locus of ManaRG
URThe Locust godUR
Modern
UWMiraclesUW
Legacy
BGIce Station Zebra (Living Fins)BG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
RGLandsRG
I know what you are saying, I agree that cards should be criticized in order to determine whether they are competitive or not. More than one person made the point that it was not competitively viable in this thread, and I agreed with them in my last sentence. My last sentence also suggests that instead of everyone coming in and saying "not competitive, card is garbage, path/bolt exist, etc." after we already agreed it won't get you in the top 8 of a GP, lets discuss ways in which it can be powerful. There is room for both.
I play on Cockatrice, message me to play modern format.
URWBG
A 1/2 for 4 that do nothing unless you have other cards/wait a whole turn will not see serious play.
Being "cute" is not enough in modern
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*The main issue being CMC. Although I'm running a build that's moderately successful at the FNM level with cards like Grand Architect and Heartless Summoning to get around that with Sphinx Summoner for even more value, and Spellskite for protection/randomly screwing with Bogles & Twin
As it stands it wont survive the turn it enters play, let alone your opponent's main phase.
Though I must say, I too am a fan of the gal
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Honestly, nobody is playing with this card because its power level is too low. Hell, it didn't even have a high enough power level to see play in Standard, and it didn't really do anything in Block, either.