What would you do with Tinker in Legacy?

[thefringthing]

My friend, teammate, and fellow expert Legacy theorist Capt4in (@cattribal on Twitter) asked me today why Tinker isn't legal if Show and Tell isn't bannably overpowered. So what would you do in Legacy with Tinker? Our thesis is that the usual Vintage target, Blighsteel Colossus, wouldn't be as good in Legacy due to the preponderance of relevant removal and that moreover making a Griselbrand for the same amount of mana is a substantially higher-power play anyway. Memory Jar is another favourite target in Vintage but that card is banned in Legacy. The best we could come up with is setting up a Mindslaver lock or getting Sundering Titan. What would you do with Tinker in Legacy?

[sdematt]

I'd Sundering Titan the living shit out of you, even if I didn't win the game, I got to throw away 75% of the fun, and claim the last 25% as my own.

-Matt

[Koby]

I would find a way to make Cerebral Assassin a think again. Goblin Welder + Possessed Portal. Nice Brainstorm, format.

For reference:

[spirit of the wretch]

Hmmm, for starters Tinker is a 1 cards combo. With S&T you at least need two cards in hand.

You are most certainly right, that the collossus wouldn't be as good as in Vintage, but "have the swords or die" still seems pretty good to me. Griselbrand might be the stronger creature, but the fact that you only need tinker in hand pushes that combo over the top in my opinion.

Other than that, Tinker has great utility as a tutor effect: Platinum Emperion, Trinisphere, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Duplicant are all pretty gamebreaking in the right matchup.

I think the
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Diamond
4 Seat of the Synod
base makes a turn 2 Tinker reasonably likely and with say 5 silver bullets in the deck, that is a rather scary thought.

[thefringthing]

It's definitely more versatile and clogs one's decklist up less than is necessary with Show and Tell strategies. The point about it being in effect a one-card combo rather than two is well-taken. I'm not really convinced that the plays you actually make with it are as good as those you make with Show and Tell, though. I'm willing to believe that the two strategies are on opposite sides of the bannably overpowered line, but I'm not sure how far apart they really are.

[feline]

Turn 1 Ancient Tomb, Mox Diamond, Tinker > Smokestack, GO!

Turn 1 City of Traitors, Chrome Mox, Tinker > Blightsteel Colossus, GO!

[Lt. Quattro]

How can you be a legacy expert and say you want to unban tinker?

[rufus]

Turn 1 Ancient Tomb, Mox Diamond, Tinker > Smokestack, GO!

Turn 1 City of Traitors, Chrome Mox, Tinker > Blightsteel Colossus, GO!

No love for Inkwell Leviathan or Nullstone Gargoyle or Lodestone Golem?

[bruizar]

I'd play both tinker and show and tell with a mix of

Sundering Titan
Blightsteel Colossus
Inkwell Leviathan/Sphinx of the Steel Wind depending on the amount of white decks /StPs/blockers

Sideboard a Spine of Ish-Sah

[thefringthing]

How can you be a legacy expert and say you want to unban tinker?

That's not the conclusion to draw from my inquiry about the relative power levels of Tinker and Show and Tell.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Nothing that's more powerful than Griselbrand.

It helps that Tinker is a mana cheat and a tutor though.

Although the comparison is illuminating.

[Julian23]

Cast Inkweel Leviathan at basically any point in the game. You could make a Tinker combo deck of course. What I would love to do is to have four copies of a 3-mana 7/11 Shroud,Trample and Islandwalking monster in my midrange/control deck. The same way NO RUG would win >50% of its games without Natural Order but always had the option...

[Final Fortune]

Nothing that's more powerful than Griselbrand.

It helps that Tinker is a mana cheat and a tutor though.

Although the comparison is illuminating.

I think Show&Tell Griselbrand is closer to Flash Hulk in terms of deck building and execution, the problem with Tinker is that a deck with 4 Tinker can still do other non Tinker stuff like play Tarmogoyfs or whatever and get to Tinker Colossus on top of it, it's kind of like a cheaper, blue Natural Order. That U/B Planeswalker deck would scare the shit out of me if it could just Tinker Colossus off a sol land and a mana rock out of no where.

[TraxDaMax]

In MUD.

Turn 1 Lightning Greaves
Turn 2 Tinker Blightsteel equip GG

[undone]

I'd play lands/aggro loam. -6 spells +4 tinker +1 Blightsteel +1 Platinum emperion. Play 8-10 artifact lands.

Alternatively Stoneblade -3 lingering souls -3 other cards -6 lands +6 artifact lands +4 tinker +1 blightsteel +1 emperion.

Tinker is simply a free win in decks that already exists.

[TsumiBand]

What would you do with Tinker in Legacy?

Ragequit, probably. Tinker vs S&T sounds like the worst thing ever. I thought people were already sick and sad about derping Standard fatties into play?

This would be every tourney report ever if people could play 4 Tinkers.

while tournament do
    Game 1: I won turn 2 because I had more free counterspells.

    Game 2: They won on turn 1 because they had more free counterspells.

    Game 3: We have the same amount of counterspells in our opening hand, but they had more card drawing. They won.
end

I'm probably exaggerating, but I don't think I'm totally wrong either.

In case the standard disclaimer needs to be made; I'm not a Blue hater, my Force of Wills are on standby, just waiting for the FoWn Signal to light up the dark and tumultuous clouds above Gotham City. I just don't see why there needs to be another Blue deck that can derp a huge threat into play that can potentially race both combo and aggro, and have free countermagic backup while doing it. I don't think it adds anything to the format, and I don't think it necessarily obviates any of the existing strategies that aim to do the same thing; there would just be more of them.

[nedleeds]

Play Vintage and Modern.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'd play lands/aggro loam. -6 spells +4 tinker +1 Blightsteel +1 Platinum emperion. Play 8-10 artifact lands.

Alternatively Stoneblade -3 lingering souls -3 other cards -6 lands +6 artifact lands +4 tinker +1 blightsteel +1 emperion.

Tinker is simply a free win in decks that already exists.

Tinker in Aggro Loam seems like a pretty terrible use of Tinker.

Tinker is best as either a combo win in artifact-based control decks or something akin to SnT. I mean, sure, you can Tinker for BSC and win the game...or you can Tinker for BSZ and gain eleven life because of StP. Sometimes you want to Tinker for something else to lock the opponent down.

That said, Tinker is never a good card to have running around your format. Removing Vintage's Moxen from the equation doesn't make the card any less onerous.

[Amon Amarth]

I'd play some sorta U/x combo/control monstrosity. The kind of deck that hasn't been seen since Flash. Except fewer dead/bad cards.

[Tammit67]

I'd play some sorta U/x combo/control monstrosity. The kind of deck that hasn't been seen since Flash. Except fewer dead/bad cards.

Yep, I'd run it as the finisher in a control shell. 5 slots, 1 dead draw, maybe run it along with other silver bullets like ensnaring bridge. Not broken in the sense game ending at turn 2 always, but certainly a possibility