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Author Topic: Is Transmute ever useful?  (Read 2432 times)

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carlosthedwarf

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Is Transmute ever useful?
« on: February 16, 2012, 07:55:28 pm »
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Does anyone have a game log in which Transmute was an important part of their strategy? I'd imagine it involves Vineyard and possibly Scrying Pool and a +action card.
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AJD

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Re: Is Transmute ever useful?
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2012, 08:11:29 pm »
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<a href=http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-200736-4777d357.html">Here's</a> a relatively recent Scrying Pool game where Transmute was a significant part of my gameplay, if not of my strategy, anyway. Haggler/Scrying Pool makes gaining Transmutes much more likely.
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rod-

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Re: Is Transmute ever useful?
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2012, 09:03:57 pm »
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And here's a game where transmute (again with scrying pool) managed to go pretty ridiculously crazy for Stef:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120204-082332-830ab209.html

Although in this case it was really just acting as a pseudo-buy.  I realized after he bought the 2nd transmute that my strategy of "just ignore all that combo crap, even with scrying pool out" was bound to lose..but played it out as a punishment.  Now i'm sharing the lesson :)
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DG

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Re: Is Transmute ever useful?
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2012, 09:56:41 pm »
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Looking back through my game logs I found quite a few games so I suspect I've forgotten how to use them :) . They were mostly from the time when isotropic put more alchemy cards into a kingdom. There were some common themes though -

- curse removal, conversion of estates to gold in treasure starved curse games
- use with other alchemy cards: scrying pool, alchemist, apothecary, familiar
- transmutes creating more transmutes to either run out three supply piles or create duchies (or both)

Here's an old game where the transmutes give me a very unlikely win http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110321-120348-13f46431.html. It could probably have been played quite differently.
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jotheonah

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Re: Is Transmute ever useful?
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2012, 09:57:10 pm »
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Here's one game where looking back I don't know what I was doing, but the Transmute did come in handy - at first for early Golds and slightly camouflaging my Vineyards game, and then for turning money into more Transmutes to pump up Vineyards. Including turning a Gold into a Transmute on what turns out to be my last turn (and getting 7 VP for the trouble, since it pushed my Vineyards up). But kind of a dumb game.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111115-205030-470e401d.html

This is literally the only game I've ever played on isotropic where I both bought Transmute and won, according to the Game search. Granted there are only like 4 where I bought it and lost.
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chwhite

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Re: Is Transmute ever useful?
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2012, 01:06:45 am »
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I collected some games where I used Transmute to good effect here, and another one here as well.

I buy it a full 22 percent of the time, and win just as often as I lose with it.  The best, and easiest to figure, situation for Transmute is games which have A) Curse-givers, B) other Potion cards, and C) no other trashing.  It is sometimes worth it if only two of those three conditions are met, but that's much less of a sure thing.  No other trashing is the real key, here, since Transmute does have such a high opportunity cost compared to any other trasher.  Curse games are also key, because they drag things out long enough that Transmute's extreme slowness is mitigated; ideally the Mute will clear a bunch of Curses and turn at least two of your Estates to Gold.

Once in a rare while it might be possible to use Transmute's other options to power Vineyards, Scrying Pools, or Dukes, but these situations are really rare.  Late game Action->Duchy moves for tiebreaker points are more common, but still not something you can really rely on.

Basically, Transmute is something you want in Familiar games, and not much more often than that- but probably more often than you think.


...

In addition to the several games I collected in the links above, here's a few more cases where the 'Mute was useful:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120110-101623-aa27df75.html  Ambassador here functions as a stand-in for game-slowing Curse cards.  Obviously Transmute was a very small part of the game plan here: but it gets me all my Gold, a Duchy on the last turn, and ups the chance of Menagerie hitting.  Probably wasn't actually necessary, but I found it useful.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110927-163154-b9357611.html  Picked it up as a consolation prize instead of Scrying Pool on an unlucky $1P hand early, and it just did the Estate-to-Gold thing three times.  Had there been +Buy here, mass Transmute contagion into Vineyards would have been strong.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120213-111046-b75f547c.html  When there's a potential Goons engine to be built, yes it can be worth buying that Potion to buy that Transmute just to clear Curses.  Yes really.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2012, 01:32:11 am by chwhite »
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