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Author Topic: Request: Transmute  (Read 10409 times)

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Silverback

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Request: Transmute
« on: August 20, 2011, 10:17:16 am »
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Is there a Transmute Strategy, that tries to three-pile Transmute, Duchies and, say, Estate or Great Hall?
Is there another Transmute Strategy?
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WanderingWinder

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drg

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2011, 12:18:33 pm »
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Transmuting great halls and islands in province games is win.  You can also grab one when there are other potion cards around and there's no trashing, and they work great when duke is on board.
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ehunt

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2011, 02:01:19 pm »
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You know, every time I've tried to pull off transmute/duke, I've lost. I keep thinking it's a great combo, but it just doesn't work. Here are the problems:

1. What do you buy with 5? In an ordinary duke game, I think the answer is unambiguously that you should buy duchy until the duchy pile is empty, then duke (unless the game is about to end and you have at least 5 more duchies than you have dukes).

However, in a transmute game, once the duchy pile is empty, your transmutes are worthless and it's quite hard to buy a duke. So maybe you should buy them earlier? But then you've got all these dukes clogging up your deck, which brings us to problem number 2:

2. It's not like your opponent can't get duchies the old-fashioned way, i.e., by buying them. And even an exceptionally dim-witted opponent will notice very early that you are going for the dukes.



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WanderingWinder

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2011, 02:55:57 pm »
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It's also painfully slooooooooooooow, probably much slower than just buying the duchies and with less staying power, unless you are invested sorta heavily into potions anyway.

DG

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2011, 04:27:25 pm »
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One alternative strategy is transmute/vineyards and another might be transmute/familiars/duchies (emptying curses) or transmute/alchemist. We probably see less use for the transmute in sets without any other alchemy cards, especially now more expansions are available. Transmutes have problems with golems and possession so they're not even guaranteed to be good in sets with other alchemy cards.

I think it's fair to say that misplayed transmutes can really disrupt a deck so I'm not surprised that most players stay clear of them. It unfortunately means that most people don't know how to use them when the right time comes. I'd even guess that a lot of players ranked 35+ are very uncertain about transmutes unless there's a certain transmute/vineyard deck.
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rinkworks

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2011, 05:09:28 pm »
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Here's one question I have about Transmute.  I get the idea of turning the initial Estates into Golds.  I get the idea of turning unneeded actions into Duchies.  But when, oh when, is it ever a good play -- in practice OR just in theory -- to turn a treasure card into another Transmute?  Seems like one is enough, and even a Copper is better than a terminal collision.  So I'm confused about that.
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chesskidnate

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2011, 06:42:03 pm »
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Turning copper into transmute could be helpful for duke/duchy hoping to just trash the transmute into another duchy
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DG

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2011, 07:01:58 pm »
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Quote
But when, oh when, is it ever a good play -- in practice OR just in theory -- to turn a treasure card into another Transmute?

Yes, well this is where the peculiar nature of the transmute comes in. There are occasions when the conversion from one type or card to another is very useful. Adventurers, ventures, scrying pools, and vineyards come to mind. You can also sometimes exhaust the transmute pile quickly if you want to empty 3 piles. If you can regularly draw your deck you can transmute a copper to a transmute just so you can transmute it to a duchy the following turn. Maybe you can defend against pirates by turning all your copper into transmutes, who knows?
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chwhite

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2011, 07:25:29 pm »
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According to Councilroom, I actually do surprisingly well with Transmute, winning more often when I buy it than when I don't (effect with 1.65), and buying it 35 percent of the time.  I've usually thought of Transmute as a bad card which is best avoided, so that number is surprisingly high.

Looking through the games I've played with it, there really isn't any coherent Transmute strategy that jumps out as a component of my success, though.  Most of the time, the games where I buy Transmute and win are attack-heavy slogfests with no other trashing where they're often used to clear out Curses!

This game, though, points to a possible "Transmute strategy" where I used it with Alchemists and Pawn to support Vineyard scoring while also grabbing Provinces: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110301-165927-dd97e9d8.html 
ED: this was from long, long ago; which probably explains why I inexplicably ignored Scrying Pool.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2011, 11:23:27 pm by chwhite »
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Kuildeous

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Re: Request: Transmute
« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2011, 10:04:44 am »
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Quote
But when, oh when, is it ever a good play -- in practice OR just in theory -- to turn a treasure card into another Transmute?

Yes, well this is where the peculiar nature of the transmute comes in. There are occasions when the conversion from one type or card to another is very useful. Adventurers, ventures, scrying pools, and vineyards come to mind. You can also sometimes exhaust the transmute pile quickly if you want to empty 3 piles. If you can regularly draw your deck you can transmute a copper to a transmute just so you can transmute it to a duchy the following turn. Maybe you can defend against pirates by turning all your copper into transmutes, who knows?

This is why I wish Big Money was a slower strategy. There are so many cards out there that provide such unique and interesting interactions, but some of these strategies get stomped by Big Money (or more efficient engines) before they even come to light.

That doesn't stop me from buying Transmute for the fun of it, though. 
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