Transmogrify

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Transmogrify
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Reserve
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Card text
+1 Action Put this on your Tavern mat. At the start of your turn, you may call this, to trash a card from your hand, and gain a card to your hand costing up to more than it.

Transmogrify is an Action-Reserve from Adventures. It is a remodeler that allows you to turn any card in your hand into another card, putting the new one into your hand.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play this, you get +1 Action and put it on your Tavern mat. It stays on your mat until you call it, at the start of one of your turns.
• If multiple things can happen at the start of your turn, you can do them in any order.
• When you call Transmogrify, it moves from the mat into play, and you trash a card from your hand, then gain a card costing up to more than the trashed card.
• The gained card comes from the Supply and is put into your hand; if you had no cards to trash, you do not gain one.
• Transmogrify is discarded that turn with your other cards in play.
• You may trash a card to gain a card costing more, or the same amount, or less; you may trash a card to gain a copy of the same card.

Strategy

There is no strategy article for Transmogrify, but the card has been discussed on the forum.

Transmogrify is a Remodel variant, that, like most Reserve cards, trades a decrease in power and speed for an increase in flexibility. Transmogrify is a lot slower than Remake and cannot gain cards by trashing Estates, like Remodel. In most cases, you can't trash Copper with it at all: gaining a card costing up to more is mandatory, and Copper can't turn into anything useful, unless you want a ton of Poor Houses for some reason. Because of this, it's not especially exciting early-game, although you might still want to open with one for your engine if it's the only trasher on the board.

Although Transmogrify is never a power card, its power does increase in the middle game. Notably, the presence of a Transmogrify or two on your Tavern mat makes it possible for you to over-invest in terminal draw cards or other terminals: if they ever happen to collide, just turn one of them into a nice Village. This works better if there are good expensive villages to gain, such as Bazaar or Bandit Camp. The opposite thing could also happen: perhaps you get a bad draw that would give you a highly annoying village idiot turn, but you can just turn one of those villages into a good terminal. Transmogrify shines if you can play it often, and there is a nice chain of cards available, with each card more expensive than the previous card: Smithy -> Bazaar -> Grand Market -> King's Court, for example. In this sense, it's distantly comparable to Procession.

You can also turn Curses or Ruins into Coppers with Transmogrify. This is not the most exciting use of the card, but there are certainly cases where it's the correct move, like with Butcher.

Unfortunately, Transmogrify is once again not so great once you enter the late game. Although you could cannibalize engine parts into Duchies with it, doing so is often risky, since you can only Transmogrify something from your starting hand, and you might still need the engine piece for some other reason this turn. Another late game strategy is to have several transmogrifies ready to reduce the supply of the remaining provinces while you are ahead. Call a transmogrify to trash a province and turn it into another one.

Synergies

• Cards with on-trash effects: Cultist, Rats, Catacombs, Fortress, Squire, Hunting Grounds, Rocks, Sir Vander
• Market Square for its when-trash
• Trader allows you to transmogrify curses or copper into copper and replace the gained copper with silver
• Expensive Villages or other good engine components: Bazaar, Grand Market, King's Court
• Good Copper trashing: Moneylender, Spice Merchant
• Having one or (preferably) more Bridge Trolls in play makes it possible to ditch Coppers after all
• Can be used to turn Ill-Gotten Gains into Gold and spend it in the same turn.
• Summon allows you to play transmogrify very quickly and have an extra action your next turn

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action Put this on your Tavern mat. At the start of your turn, you may call this, to trash a card from your hand, gain a card costing up to more than it, and put that card into your hand.	Adventures 1st Edition	April 2015
		+1 Action Put this on your Tavern mat. At the start of your turn, you may call this, to trash a card from your hand, and gain a card to your hand costing up to more than it.	Adventures 2nd Edition	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Metamorfose (lit. metamorphosis)
Finnish	Muodonmuutos (lit. transformation)
French	Transfiguration (lit. transfiguration)
German	Transformation (lit. transformation)			+1 Aktion Lege diese Karte auf dein Wirtshaustableau. Zu Beginn deines Zuges darfst du diese Karte von deinem Tableau aufrufen. Wenn du das tust: Entsorge eine Handkarte und nimm dir eine Karte, die bis zu mehr kostet als die entsorgte Karte. Nimm diese Karte auf die Hand.	(2015)
German	Transformation (lit. transformation)			+1 Aktion Lege diese Karte auf dein Wirtshaustableau. Zu Beginn deines Zuges darfst du diese Karte aufrufen, um eine deiner Handkarten zu entsorgen und eine Karte auf deine Hand zu nehmen, die bis zu mehr als jene kostet.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	変容 (pron. hen'yō, lit. changed appearance)			+1 アクション これをあなたの酒場マットの上に置く。 あなたのターンの開始時に、手札1枚を廃棄しそれよりコストが最大多いカード1枚を手札に獲得するために、これを呼び出してもよい。 `
Polish	Przemiana				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Метаморфоза (pron. myetamorfoza, lit. metamorphosis)

Trivia

Official card art.

Transmogrify is the only remodeler that stipulates a cost for the gained card of "up to more" than the trashed card.

Preview

trans•mog•ri•fy: verb

– transform, especially in a surprising or magical manner.

Today I’m here to tell you about my favorite Dominion card: Transmogrify. It has a strange name, but packs a lot of versatility. Transmogrify is all about giving you what you need right now. Does your starting hand have three terminal Actions? Poof! Now one of them is a Village. Have your Magpies been multiplying out of control? Abracadabra! One of them just became a Lost City. Have all the Curses run out? Shazam! That Witch in your hand just turned to Gold. The possibilities are endless!

It’s a terrific card for combos. Instead of buying Tournaments, you can simply keep your Transmogrify on your Tavern mat until your Province shows up and then gain that Tournament right into your hand. It’s especially powerful with cards that have on-trash abilities. You can transmogrify a Cultist into another Cultist just to draw 3 cards. And when you Transmogrify a Fortress, you keep the Fortress in your hand and gain a Wharf into your hand on top of that. Instant engine!

—LastFootnote, Adventures Preview: Transmogrify

Secret History

I tried a Reserve Remodel, that Remodel'd a card just as you were gaining it. It had a certain something but didn't seem like the ideal approach. I changed it into a start-of-turn Remodel to hand for , then dropped it to a smaller + Remodel, but gave it +1 Action and made it cheaper.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Adventures