The little cousin of the more established artifact-based combo deck Metalworker, Transmuter Combo works to cheat large artifact creatures into play as early as possible and use them to beat down your opponent. This is done mainly by casting Master Transmuter and then using her ability to bounce herself or another artifact back to your hand, replacing it with a much more frightening machine. The interactions don't stop there, as the bouncing cost of Transmuter makes for some pretty cool plays. For instance, Seat of the Synod acts as a free artifact to bounce, which effectively means you can turn your lands into giant artifact monsters for little effort. Also, Transmuter does not specify that the artifact you bounce must be something other than herself. While this is nice in and of itself as far as cheating guys into play, another cool interaction comes from this. As long as Transmuter has no summoning sickness, she is immune to removal. If your opponent tries to target her with anything, you simply bounce her in response and play her again with her own ability. This works due to the wording of the ability, which states that you return her first, then choose something in your hand to put into play. Because you bounce her as a cost of her own ability, she exists in your hand as a choice. Pretty neat, huh? Also, I hear that being able to replay Myr Battlesphere over and over again to produce tokens can get pretty annoying for whomever is sitting across from you.

This interaction of being able to play and replay the same Transmuter, as well as the ability to generate large amounts of mana, makes Riddlesmith an interesting option. If you find yourself needing a fatty, or just a few extra cards on the board, being able to cast and recast your Transmuter to trigger the Riddlesmith draw is an interesting play. While I am not sure just how strong it is, it warrants its fair share of testing.

Speaking of needing to have the fatty in your hand, such a worry simply does not exist with this deck. The deck runs nine colossal killers as well as three Fabricate and eight cantrips--e.g. Ponder and Preordain--to find you exactly what you need. The targets of the searching don't even need to be fatties, as Grand Architect, Copper Gnomes, and Transmuter herself can all be found with Fabricate. If things really look bad for you and you find yourself really itching for that fourth land, use Fabricate to search up a Seat of the Synod.

Your two Copper Gnomes serve as Transmuters numbers Five and Six; they also don't need to survive through summoning sickness to cheat something into play. When combined with Etherium Sculptor, Vedalken Engineer, and Grand Architect, getting Copper Gnomes into play and activating his ability both become a walk in the park. He is actually the only spell in the deck that can be cast for free if you find yourself with two Etherium Sculptors in play. In addition, Vedalken Engineerand Grand Architect both work wonders in combination with Steel Hellkite. Being able to pump six or more mana into this steel dragon's abilities makes for some very powerful swings, and even a couple of board wipes.

One beautiful thing about this deck is the fact that it really doesn't need the Gnomes or Transmuter in order to get its fatties into play. The cost-reduction of Etherium Sculptor in combination with the mana acceleration of Vedalken Engineer, Grand Architect, and Crystal Vein allows you to reach enough mana to hard-cast any of the deck's big beaters--easily. Finally, if worse comes to worse, Grand Architect pumps up all of your creatures. This makes for some great elf-deck impressions that would make Elvish Archdruid proud. Accelerate your mana production, kick a bunch of small guys onto the battlefield, beef them with lords, and swarm your opponent--all in a day's work. Sometimes you kill someone with a giant robot, and sometimes you kill them with the engineer that made it. Either way, he's just as dead, and Transmuter Combo made it possible.