"Dimir EDH: Transmuting to Victory"

"Dimir EDH: Transmuting to Victory"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

     When Magic:The Gathering first visited the Cityscape of Ravnica they showcased the secretive Blue/Black Mana Aligned Dimir Guild. The mechanic that was introduced for them was Transmute. For a set amount of 3 Mana usually in combination 1 Colorless Mana and 2 Black Mana or 1 Colorless Mana and 2 Blue Mana , you could pay this cost and discard the card that has transmute in it (only any time you could play a sorcery) and look for a card in your library that has the same converted mana cost as the card you have discarded. It is important to remember that it is the discarded cards converted mana cost that would be searched and not the transmute cost of the card which is consistent in all the cards that has transmute.

     Admittedly during the time of Ravnica I was on my Magic Hiatus so I was not able to fully appreciate the full awesomeness of this mechanic. It was now in my EDH mode that in my attempt to improve my Dimir Deck that I have found this mechanic and found it to be one of the best mechanics to use in a 100 card deck.  Consider for a moment that any thing from Zero cost to 9 mana cost spells can be found and put in your hand from your library.

     The repercussions are staggering. In Standard during Ravnica the Dimir could pull off a lot of combinations because they could literally find the pieces they were looking for at a measly cost of 3 mana.  One combo was that of Infinite Mana Involving Dimir Aqueduct , Freed from the Reel and Tidewater Minion which finished off opponents with a Massive Consuming Spirit or Mill them out with Lethal Pyschic drain.  All the parts can be found and once connected is always 100% Lethal.

     In a 60 Card deck this seems very efficient because you are assured to have multiple copies of that one spell that you need. It gets a bit complicated when you apply it to EDH standards of 100 card decks. In a deck that has at least 64 individual cards and 36 lands the ratio of getting your combo piece is 1/100. Transmute increases those odds to 2/100 because you can now have 2 copies of that spell that you need. It seems like an insignificant thing but the ability to fetch the card that you need at the time that you need it is actually a game breaker.

     Consider that you are in an EDH game and you are in a bind. Your opponents now have considerable board position and is threatening to overwhelm you in the next turn with a massive attack. You have 7 open mana and Clutch of the Undercity in your hands. So what do you do? You transmute and find a 4 Converted mana cost Board Sweeper and as you look at your library you find just the one you need. A Damnation.

     In the same context if you already have great board position and you believe that it will be your opponents doing the board sweeping  , you could transmute using a Muddle the Mixture or Dimir Infiltrator to look for a Counter spell to show your opponent that you are not taking that Board Sweep lying down and that you have an answer for it should they try.

     Sometimes in a game you just need that extra card so that victory would be within your grasp. Let us say you already have your creatures ready to attack but in EDH 40 life seems like an eternity away even with creatures at 6/6 or 7/7. Well with an ethereal usher you could transmute to a Good solid Sorin Markov , have him reduce one of your opponents to 10 life and attack for the finish. The trick in this build is to know what you need to finish with and its correct converted mana cost.

     The great thing about Transmute just like Cycling it is not considered as a spell and as such it cannot be countered. It can also bypass annoying Control Enchantments like Rule of Law or Curse of Exhaustion that limits a player to one spell per turn. With Transmute you could find solutions that would have escaped your grasp and to have a solution is to have one at each Converted Mana Cost. A Counter spell at 1 , 2 , 3 and 4 Mana assures that you could fetch at least one per Transmute card that you have in your EDH deck. The same goes for Removal or Creatures or Planeswalkers. The card Extract could be fetched and you could take away your opponents winning combo right off the bat. Evil right? So Dimir.

     Transmute offers a world of possibilities to Blue/Black decks and a lot of those possibilities include winning at every turn should the transmuting be right.