If or When: green cards with Transmute in a future set.

If. We don’t like the repetition of tutoring mechanisms.

As an FYI for your readers concerned about a creature not having a type, the rules don't even require a permanent to have ANY types. They should check out the rulings on Neurok Transmuter to see how you can have a permanent on the battlefield with no types.

FYI

Hello Mark, when or if is more likely to return to a set; Transmute or Splice onto Instant or Sorcery?

Splice. We’ve really stopped doing tutoring mechanics. It just rested too much repetition of play.

Mark, can I ask for a legendary creature with support to transfigure and transmute?

I’m not sure we’re doing a lot more with those mechanics.

What are your thoughts on transmute, was it ahead of its time or just too powerful mechanic? Go Dimir! ;)

It led to repetitive gameplay.

We've now seen all 5 mechanics and none of them are entirely new. A Bloodthirst, Monstrous, and Unleash variant. Keywording the text on cards like doomed traveller and careful consideration (and many other cards for each of them). Ravnica had always been the plane where crazy mechanics were tried out: Cipher, Extort, Detain, Haunt, and Transmute just to name a few. What caused such a safe and familiar approach this time? It makes the set feel more like a core set than a new and exciting one.

Ravnica is more about the innovations of the guilds than of the guild mechanics. A set with five mechanics forces us to keep the mechanics simple.

"The rules have to know how a card works and a card without a card type would have unknowns." FYI, if you have March of Machines and Neurok Transmuter into play, and activate NT's second ability on a third card that is "normally" a non-creature artifact, layers will make you end up with a blue card with no card type :)

FYI

Q #37 explicitly asks what would help you Draw specific cards. Of all the options included, Transmute is the only one that does not and more importantly, cannot, ever execute the action of Drawing. Cycling and Investigate both Draw, and Scry helps you Draw. Out of the remaining two, only Kicker technically has the ability to Draw cards (as we've seen on many cards before) whereas Transmute never can. Why was it worded "Draw specific cards" when apparently you meant "have specific cards"?

The question was saying if you’re hoping to draw a specific card, which mechanics help you have a better chance to draw it. Transmute is a Tutoring mechanic. It is very good at drawing you the specific card you need.

the gods not being creatures isn't as big a problem as you might think, the rules have had to support permanents with no types since March of the Machines + Neurok Transmuter interactions.

The rules handling it and the players handling it are not the same thing. We don’t want permanents in play without a card type.

"Blue doesn’t destroy permanents in the sense that it makes them permanently go away. It can used the word 'destroy' as a mechanical means to aid in transformation." So Blue could Ghost Quarter lands? It could get Gild, but for artifacts? A Blue Chaos Warp would be a bend, not a break? Blue's mechanical weakness is that it's supposed to be reactive--that it has trouble permanently dealing with things in play. How far are you going to stretch the "transmute" excuse to let it do whatever it wants?

Blue can steal permanents.Blue can tap and lock down permanents.Blue can bounce permanents.Blue can and has since the beginning of the game been able to interact with permanents. What it can’t do is destroy them (once again making them permanently go away).I’m not changing anything. I’m explaining how we’ve done Blue for the last 23 years.