The Tinker Deck

[rvs]

Ever since I played against Bryce (kl0wn) at Gencon on friday, where he played some random pile featuring Transmute artifact, I began thinking about a list that I would play that would use Transmute. On the plane to home, I wrote down a random list. However, I didn't get to around actually testing it until like a month ago, I made the following post on my team's forum:

I saw Kl0wn playing something similar at GenCon, but I hadn't got around to trying out my own list.

Unfortunately, testing is very, very limited, and it's mostly just theory and goldfishing that came to this list. That's also why there is no real sideboard yet.

Anyway, the list:

Manabase:
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Volcanic Island
3 Gilded Lotus

Its seems like a light manabase, and I suppose it is, since Gilded Lotus is in it, and it sucks. However, I tried without the Gildeds (replace them with regular lands) and it just didn't work out. Also, Gildeds are pretty good at being Transmuted away, since it's the same net result as Su-Chi basicly.

Tinkers:
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker

Tinker-targets:
1 Memory Jar
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pentavus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Lightning Greaves

The greaves might seem a bit odd, but they help in protecting your welder, and in general, make you win a turn faster though animating the 7/10 guy. Memory jar seems to be the most important card to have, since you can really explode if you get it recursively going (especially with greaves hasting your freshly cast welders). The weakest target seems to be Pentavus, since I'm not sure you really need it to Slave-lock your opponent.

The creatures:
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi

Obvisouly, Su-Chi + Transmute is a combo. It's the whole basis of this deck.

Protection:
4 Force of Will

Draw:
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune

Other stuff:
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Time Walk

All in all, the deck seems to be working okay. However, as a lot of workshop aggro decks do, they really need a workshop to start things off, and in this case, a Gilded Lotus really improves the castability of a lot of the non-artifact spells. Maybe Ancient Tomb is the way to go, but Gilded Lotus is also great to Transmute away.

Any thoughts on this?

Marco Kiewit (bigmac on TMD) picked up the idea so he could play something else than TPS
We were both testing the list, and he then posted the following:

1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Manavault
2 Gilded Lotus
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
4 thirst for Knowledge
1 Memory jar
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pentavus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Memnarch
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
3 Fire/Ice
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds

So far my sideboard looks like this
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rushing River
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Annul
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Trinisphere

A decklist pretty similar to this won him a Mox Jet in Mol, so we were pretty sure the deck was kind of good - Anyway, it turned out REB and the bounce spells were extremely weak sideboard options.

All in all, after more testing (and in the process Marco finishing 2nd in Moers) I came to the following list, which I believe is extremely close to perfect:

1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Manavault
2 Gilded Lotus
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Flooded Strand
4 thirst for Knowledge
1 Memory jar
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
2 Fire/Ice
1 Mindslaver
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm

SB:
3 Eon Hub
4 Trinisphere
3 Old man of the Sea/Lava Dart
1 Duplicant
1 Memnarch
1 Triskelion
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Jester's Cap

Marco's perspective on this list is that apart from obvious sideboard disagreements (I'll post his list in the Eindhoven coverage) is that he wants to play mountains over the strip effects. Even though it's useful to draw the mountain sometimes, I think the strips are more important.

Marco won Eindhoven, Bram finished 2nd with this deck.

Since school is taking up way too much time for me right now, I don't have time to write a detailed matchup analysis, so I figured I'd just threw the history out there, and a (trust me) well tested list. If you have something specific to say / ask about the strategy or theory behind the deck or whatever, be sure to ask, and I'll try to explain.

Comments?

[Bram]

Very little is wrong with your build, Rudy. For those interested, I wrote a report on me reaching the finals  over here.

Marco has some, let's say, odd sideboard choices. I firmly believe your list to be the better one even though he beat me ;-) Frantic Search main should be nigh useless.

Regarding the board: I succesfully used every single card in it at some point, except for Memnarch and Twister. However, not boarding in Memnarch was a mistake in at least one matchup. Twister can be a solid choice, I guess, but this would be the first card I'd cut.

This deck is such incredible fun to play. I hardly playtested it the day before, played 9 rounds yesterday (23 games!) and I wasn't even tired. I now see it basically as an aggro build with some absolutely insane silver bullets / lock parts. Transmuting Su-Chi is virtually always good. If Transmute resolves, you should have more or less won the game (yoou can grab anything in your deck!) and even if gets coutered, you still have 4 mana to play some other assraping artifact. But the cool part is: often, you don't even HAVE to. A first turn Su-Chi can still kick some serious ass on its own a lot of the time.

Much more fun to play than Stax/Mud, and more versatile than standard Slaver builds. Control (beit mono-U or 4CC) is a good matchup, and you put up a real decent fight against Oath and Stax, owing largely to the Eon Hubs which I think fit in there really well (this might even be the only build that can actually support them because of the Transmutes).

[EDIT] I just noticed you had already removed the Twister from the board. For Cap, even. How cool. Did you not see how I harassed Marco with his own Cap yesterday? ;-) Transmute Su-Chi for Cap kind of assrapes Oath, though. Worth a shot.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I might actually want a 3rd Gilded Lotus in there. Gotta test that.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I've always liked 4 Gilded Lotuses, and I think that you'd greatly benefit by cutting down to 3 Workshops, adding either City of Traitors or Ancient Tomb, and going into more than 2 colors, since you get, at they very least, Demonic Tutor and Fastbond main and Abundas in the board (which are amazing against 4cC, opposing Welders, and Hulk) and the 5c lands let you Titan-proof your manabase.

[Zherbus]

I love the deck guys. Good work! I'm curious to see what Kl0wn's thoughts are.

[rvs]

I've always liked 4 Gilded Lotuses, and I think that you'd greatly benefit by cutting down to 3 Workshops, adding either City of Traitors or Ancient Tomb, and going into more than 2 colors, since you get, at they very least, Demonic Tutor and Fastbond main and Abundas in the board (which are amazing against 4cC, opposing Welders, and Hulk) and the 5c lands let you Titan-proof your manabase.

I disagree with every point you made.

4 Gilded Lotus is truly horrible. You need a shop to cast them, so it's not like they are that easy to get out. If I could cut gilded Lotus, I would cut them completely, but they are just so good
You never, ever want to draw more than 1, so 4 would be extremely bad. I tested a while with 3, but I kept getting them too soon. If you really need it, you can always Tinker for it, and with all the brainstorming and TFK-ing going on, it's not really hard to get to the 2 copies you do have when you need them.
Did I also mention that making your manabase dependant on Gilded Lotus is a HUGE liability against control decks?

Cutting down to 3 workshops would not be too smart. You want to be able to come out as fast as you can, and that's where workshop helps you. If I could find the room I might consider the other lands, but as it stands now, the manabase is pretty stable.

Titan-proofing your own manabase is kind of a bad argument for a 5c-build, since you never actually blow up more than 1 land on your own side (the occasional mountain seems to happen)? And having a 7/10 guy destroy 2 or 3 of your opponents lands is pretty much worth saccing one of your mountains to.
The only advantage I see to having a 5c manabase is Demonic Tutor and Yawg's Will, which would indeed be very nice to have, but not at the expense of a manabase that actually doesn't scoop it up to Crucible+Wasteland.

Fastbond would be ok, but green really has nothing else to add that you need. Abunas is kind of weak, since it does nothing by itself, and you cannot cast it off a workshop, which is pretty bad for a 4cc card in this deck.

I'll explain one more time why this deck is insane: It has great tutoring power, a huge threath density, and a similarly huge threath diversity. And it actually has the stable manabase to get it out on the table.

[Smmenen]

I just don't get it.  What's the point?  YOu have absolutely nothing against speed combo game one and it seems rather slow to beat something like Psychatog.

[jpmeyer]

Why no maindeck Trinispheres?  I mean, any deck that's running 4 Mishra's Workshop seems like a natural place for them.

[MuzzonoAmi]

Trinisphere is amazing negergy with Transmute, so it's relegated to the Sideboard. As for Tog, Sundering Titan is an absolute bomb, as is Mindslaver. Also, anything that's just really big (like Darksteel Colossus - see the Roscoe) can chump the Tog for a turn and then swing for lethal or near-lethal damage. Granted, this is experience is with the Roscoe, but I would assume that there are enough parallels bewteen the two decks to make these statements.

[rvs]

I just don't get it.  What's the point?  YOu have absolutely nothing against speed combo game one and it seems rather slow to beat something like Psychatog.

Combo is extremely hard game 1. The best you can hope for is either a Platinum Angel + enough pressure to see it through, or Mindslaver. Do note though, that if you go Turn 1 Su-Chi, T2 Transmute it's still all pretty good. But I agree that for Combo you need the sideboard options.

Too slow to beat Tog? Just how fast do you expect Tog to be, and how slow do you think this is? In any case, at first we played Duplicant in the maindeck to deal with Tog, so if you see it a lot, play it. I haven't extensively tested the matchup since Tog is non-existant here.

Why no maindeck Trinispheres? I mean, any deck that's running 4 Mishra's Workshop seems like a natural place for them.

It turned out to be not needed. It's only good against Combo, and to be honest, I'd be unsure of what to cut. Also, as MuzzonAmi mentioned, it hurts your own deck as well (although not as much as it would hurt an opposing combo deck, but in the startup turns, probably as much as the opposing control deck).

[Bram]

In response to a PM I recieved about my mulls and high game 1 loss percentage:

I mulliganed once to 5 in the Keeper matchup and once to 4 in the quarter finals against Oath, like I mentioned. That was about it (I probably mulled to 6 like 2 times, which I failed to mention since I don't think a mull to 6 is that relevant). That's out of 23 games in total, which means I kept some 70% of my hands. It's no better or worse than any other deck I played (OK, so maybe it's worse than Long.dec, but that's about it  

Most of the mulligans (except the mull to 4 against Oath) were strategic, where I opted to mull a playable-but-not-good hand based on what I knew about the opposing deck. The mulligans to 6 were always in game 2 or 3 to find hate, or Transmutes to tinker into hate. The deck is far from inconsistent.

You're right about me losing game 1 a lot, though. It was, like 6 times in 9 rounds total. I have thought about that a lot, too. I might attribute that to not having playtested the deck at all save for 5 games the previous day against mono-U (won everything) and 3 against TurboLich (um, yeah. won everything), so I really had no idea how to play it against established archetypes. Since the deck can assume a beatdown role as well as sort of 'combo' into a Prison lock, I might have made the wrong choices. But then again, it COULD be a fundamental thing. Again, due to my lack of experience with this, it's hard to tell. Further playtesting will likely answer this. I'll check with Rudy and Marco if they have experienced the same.

And alltough this is a bit of a cop-out: it's not bad to lose the first game if you win the consecutive two. Note that I faced Oath twice, as well as Stax twice and TPS twice as well, none of which are particularily good matchups for what is at heart an aggro build (for Stax, you have to get lucky and be able to race them or out-welder them, for Oath, you basically just roll over and die, and for TPS you just kind of hope they fizzle). The fact that I was able to win game 2 consistently, proves to me that I have a very effective sideboarding strategy (and more to the point: probably one that only this deck could run in Eon Hub....)

It seems to me that if a deck does well against aggro and control (and let's face it...this deck does REALLY well against control) whilst being able to bounce back and win from its worst matchups post-boarding, you're onto something.

I'm not stating that it's better than 7/10 or 5/3 or Slavery or Stax or whatever. I'm just stating that:
1. it's a heck of a lot more fun to play than Stax.
2. it's more versatile than any of the decks I mentioned in that it has a huge amount of silver bulltes that you can find REAL easy with Transmute.
3. it's just plain good. I know the following is an argument you all love to hate, but it is the nearest thing to a scientific approach I can offer: look at the results we achieved in a fully powered metagame filled with the deck's theoretically worst matchups...Marco made 1st in Mol, 2nd in Moers, 1st again in Eindhoven and I myself (not ever having played it before and let's keep it at 'not being the best player in the world') made 2nd at Eindhoven.

We're not trying to convince any of you that this is the Next Big Thing (if we were, this would have been a much more Smmenen-esque thread, for lack of a better word). We're just posting the deck and narrating our experiences with it. Lookt at the results and do with it as you please

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I thought about breaking Transmute some time ago, I still couldn't find a mana base I liked, though, so I abandoned the project (workshop plus consistent UU is pretty hard). I still got myself a playset of Transmutes, just in case someone else didn't *G*.

I'm gonna share a few thoughts from back than, now, they might be of some help.
The first thing that bothered me is the lack of Tranmute-targets besides Su-Chi. So I searched for something that would Transmute for 6+ (aming for Mindslaver/Memory Jar) and still could be cast easily (for three at best). In the end I remembered Basalth Monolith and I think it should find a place in the Transmute-Deck. It accelerates you anyway (7 mana turn 2 of Workshop, land, Monolith in opening hand), which makes it acceptable even without Transmute, and it's perfect to be transmuted away. Did you test these, and, if so, why didn't they make the cut?

To reliably get double blue, I thought about including a few Talismans or Darksteel Ingot, they were so-so in the little goldfishing I did with the deck. Same goes for a few artifact lands. With 12 U-sources, not counting only Lotus, how often do you have problems to cast Transmute as soon as you have a sacrificable artifact?

Oh, and I realized I wanted to go for Gilded Lotus with the first Transmute quite regularly, like the extended Tinker-Decks. Is that true for your version, too?

[Bram]

Did you test these, and, if so, why didn't they make the cut?

I didn't personally test them, but I refuse to believe Marco hasn't at some point. I mean, this guy has 'using Basalth Monolith' high up in his life's priority list ;-) He's been trying stuff with it for years now, so I can't believe it didn't occur to him to test it.

Didn't occur to me, though. My first thought is: interesting, but why? The deck might not look it, but it's pretty tight and mana problems is one thing I don't have with this. OK, so it's a fair Transmute target, but remember that Transmuting isn't your prime objective. It's not a combo deck. You can Transmute for game-breaking stuff often enough off a Su-Chi or Gilded Lotus, and you can easily Transmute in smaller hate like 3sphere or your extra crucible post-boarding by transmuting away mana crypt or sol ring and just paying for the difference. So far, it hasn't happened that I was unable to do so. And also: don't discount the possibility of Transmuting stuff in, simply not paying for it, and Weldering it in play.

With 12 U-sources, not counting only Lotus, how often do you have problems to cast Transmute as soon as you have a sacrificable artifact?

Once, in 23 games. Honestly. Actually, couting the Gilded's (and you should, because you can easily play it off a Shop or Weld it in), the Sapphire and the 'regular' Lotus you have 15 sources of U. I have had no color issues to speak of as of yet.

Oh, and I realized I wanted to go for Gilded Lotus with the first Transmute quite regularly, like the extended Tinker-Decks. Is that true for your version, too?

No really, no. The most common occurance was playing Su-Chi and just beating face with it 'till my opponent was either dead, or 'till I was forced to Transmute into an answer (like Duplicant) or saw an opening for a game ender (like Titan). Even Welder was kind of a Plan B in anything but the Stax and mirror matches. Gilded Loti I merely cast off my Shops. Didn't transmute a single time for it, I think.

[Matt]

If you need somethign else to transmute away, you could try Myr Enforcer or Frogmite.

[jpmeyer]

If you need somethign else to transmute away, you could try Myr Enforcer or Frogmite.

That sounds like a really cool idea, because you can Transmute for practically anything if you sacrifice Enforcer even if Trinisphere is in play.

[Bram]

It's a nice idea, but I don't think it's needed (or that there's room for it). I'll definitely give it a shot, but fact is you need 4 artifacts in play to make it on par with Su-Chi (granted, it only costs 3 that way, which is obv. 1 cheaper than Su-Chi, but you need that extra mana to fetch, say, Titan). It's still decent at 3 artifacts but it becomes plain bad at 2 or 1. And I just don't have 3 artifacts on the table often by the time I want to play a 4/4 body (which basically is on turn 1 or 2).

[rvs]

Oh, and I realized I wanted to go for Gilded Lotus with the first Transmute quite regularly, like the extended Tinker-Decks. Is that true for your version, too?

Nope, I almost never do it unless I have recurring Jar going and need some colored mana for some reason. When in doubt, fetch Jar. In all other situations, you can just fetch whatever will wreck your opponent the most at that point in the game

[Wollblad]

I tested a deck like this half a year ago, but before sideboard, the deck had autoloss against both combo (already noticed here) and it was almost equally hard against control-slaver. An early Welder could keep early Su-Chi at bay until they could resolve a Mindslaver. I had some protection from FoW, but it was not sufficient. With a meta game consisting of 2/3 combo and control-slaver I discarded the deck. What is your experience against control-slaver before and after sideboard?

[kl0wn]

I'm curious to see what Kl0wn's thoughts are.

kl0wn's thoughts are exactly this: "I wish I hadn't had to shotgun my computer to death, that way I'd still have all my lists and notes on the deck".

Fortunately, I haven't actually played Magic since last Waterbury, so I think I still have the deck put together which should be enough to jog my memory so I can comment after I find the damn thing. The deck that is, not my memory.

[Machinus]

In the end I remembered Basalth Monolith and I think it should find a place in the Transmute-Deck. It accelerates you anyway (7 mana turn 2 of Workshop, land, Monolith in opening hand), which makes it acceptable even without Transmute, and it's perfect to be transmuted away. Did you test these, and, if so, why didn't they make the cut?

I didn't see Grim in the last list, and Sol wasn't in the first one in that post. While both of these seem to be auto-includes in this kind of deck, the fact that they weren't immediately put down means there probably isn't room for Basalt.

If you need somethign else to transmute away, you could try Myr Enforcer or Frogmite.

Shop + Mox -> Mite is really bad compared to Su-Chi because of the mana. Enforcer is a lot better, but is still too slow, and Gilded Lotus seems like it is better anyway. Cathodion?

[MuzzonoAmi]

I had tested Cathodian, and it's great in budget versions of the deck. But in powered versions, there usually isn't a problem that Cathodian solves that additional Su-Chis don't.

[Purple Hat]

But in powered versions, there usually isn't a problem that Cathodian solves that additional Su-Chis don't.

well...except for only being able to run 4 su-chi's.   :lol:

stupid finals not letting me play with my magical cards.  This looks like a cool Idea.  I'll definately try it out when I finally get a chance to play again.

hale

[MuzzonoAmi]

I've only been playing 2 Su-Chis.

[rvs]

I've only been playing 2 Su-Chis.

on purpose?  

[MuzzonoAmi]

Quite. Bombs > Su-Chi.

[Jacob Orlove]

I don't want to single anyone out, but this is seriously at risk of getting moved to open vintage if the post quality doesn't pick up again.