Keep in mind you can suspend Lotus Bloom for those three mana.

Transmute is too slow for Modern IMO. The whole point of AF is that we don’t have to take a turn off to set up our mana-cheat solution.

most ad nauseam lists play 1 lab maniac and lightning storm main.

I forgot > Just change some defenders for the planeswalker of your choice.

I forgot> the idea is using some transmute defenders to get easily to AsF. Meanwhile you can use this defenders to search for your combination, survive, and setup your big turn> Draw three cards, reset the board, and win from here.

Nvm I misread

The more time you spend reading the design columns Maro and other Wotc employees put out, the more you realize how many of their decisions are geared towards the casual playerbase. They’ve done a lot of work trying to make the game more intuitive for newcomers and kitchen table players, and have been explicit in stating complexity creep is the biggest threat to the game. As such it seems much more likely these changes were related to the counterintuitive nature of the rules, and had little to do with its competitive implications.

Rare for them to have both win conditions in the main deck, and Gideon + Sanctity forces a concession from them either way.

Nothing in Wizards’ announcement indicates that the change was made with Modern’s health in mind. The announcement clearly states the change was made to make the game more intuitive to newer players, and to prevent interactions like those with the fuse cards and expertise from crossing over into Standard.

I do find it humorous that a “replacement” mana-cheat effect very mechanically similar to fuse/expertise popped up in Modern so shortly after fuse/expertise was nuked, but I think it’s important to take Wizards’ words at face value in cases like these, and not to assume they have multiple hidden agendas that are at odds with each other. Especially if we want to remain sane as the company strives to make the game more accessible for everyone.

Matt Tabak clarified on Twitter. It does, in fact, work with spells that have no mana cost.

https://twitter.com/TabakRules/status/849759413581750272

I mean, maybe you’re right, but it makes me raise one eyebrow to notice that a new card with such bizarrely unconventional wording for a free-cast mechanic is coming out at about the same time that WotC demonstrated an awareness of the free-cast shenanigans currently happening in Modern.