Combining Transmute Artifact (5tinker) and Aggro Workshop

[Zeke]

This weekend I played 5 tinker in a tournament with pretty good success, but I knew the deck had a lot of work in store for it.  It always felt like it was missing something, because at times I would sit and want to just turn things sideways, but I really had no chance to.  To that measure I decided I wanted to at Juggs to the deck, making it a psuedo 5/3 - 5tinks combination.

Let's take a look at the two decks, to see the differences.

5/3 - Gencon Indy - 8-20-2004 - 1st place - David Allen aka Thorme

4 Juggernaut
2 Su-Chi
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan
4 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman

3 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds

4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Fire / Ice
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt

4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Volcanic Island
3 Shivan Reef
2 Polluted Delta

5tinks - Rick Dupont (modified for proxy reasons

1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi

1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mindslaver
1 Memory jar

4 thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire/Ice

1 Grim Monolith
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
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

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


The initial differences were obviously the lack of Joblin Welder in 5/3, and the lack of Brainstorms.  In it's place were 2 more maindeck Cruicible, maindeck 3sphere, and more beats in the form of Juggarnaut over Su-Chi.  

In crafting the deck, I started with the creature base.  I knew I wanted the Juggernauts maindeck, but I didn't want to cut down on the Su-Chis because of their wonderful interaction with Transmute Artifact.

4 Su-Chi
4 Juggernaut
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel

For card draw and tutoring, I wanted to power of 5tinker.

4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor (or Time walk for you non-budget people)
4 Brainstorm

Of course I wanted welder still in the deck, purely for personal preference and because of the interaction with so many different cards.

4 Goblin Welder

For utility purposes, a singleton Mindslaver and Memory Jar seemed sufficient.

1 Mindslaver
1 Memory Jar

For artifact mana, I wanted my full assortment.

2 Gilded Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 BLack Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault (or Mox Pearl for you nonbudget people)
1 Sol Ring

And to round it out, the mana.

4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
4 Island
3 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

I wanted more basics because I didn't run crucible maindeck, though that may change after testing.

So in total, here is the complete decklist, -1 Juggernaut because I didn't want a 61 card deck.

Beats: 10
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
4 Su-Chi
3 Juggarnaught

Utility: 6
4 Goblin Welder
1 Mindslaver
1 Memory Jar

Draw/Tutor: 15
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm

Artifact Mana: 11
2 Gilded Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 BLack Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring

Land: 18
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
4 Island
3 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

Questions?  Comments?  STFU n00b?  BLAST AWAY.

[Negator13]

Why run Juggernaut over FoW? You have 15 blue cards already, and you dont have 3sphere and Strips for disruption like 5/3 has. YOu can't go straight aggro and expect to win, you need something for protection/"oh-shit!". I see no reason to run Juggs as an extra threat in an already threat heavy deck, over protection like FoW.

[Marton]

you do not really have any considerable disruption, and that is why I don't believe this deck will be viable. Sure it can win some random games, but the lack of disruption should make it too vulnerable to oath and control slaver. Your only disruptions are strips, mindslaver, sundering titan, triskelion, the 4 tinkers, and potentially welder (to swap their stuff). That isn't a whole lot. If you want to play it purely aggro, I would probably cut the platinum angel for something else. I know platinum is the catch-all card to save your butt, but this deck seems to be kinda like suicidal in nature. Perhaps something as strangely misplaced as cranial plating could make the deck better (over the platinum spot that is). I won't hide you that there are TONS of stuff to put before cranial plating, but since you want to play it aggro, why not go all the way.

[BigMac]

As i seem to see in the 2 original decks there are no FoW present, why start running them in the deck you create?

I know why i cut FoW from The Tinker deck (as one of the creators). It is a trade 2 for 1. As in type 1 cardadvantage can mean win or lose you have to ask yourself the question if you want to lose a card to FoW when you are playing an aggro deck (as both original decks are aggro decks). Next question is what do you want to counter.

Only things i can think of are early ancestral, early ritual in TPS or early Oath (but getting out Plat angel turn 1 will pretty much kill Oath most of the time). If you start you are the one playing aggro so you are the one wanting to get a fast critter or threat on the table, not wanting control or play FoW.

Now about the deck. I think it may be good but it lacks removal in my oppinion. This is what makes it to singleminded i think. As you play aggro you dont want to TA your critters, and if you want to TA you need to prepare for some controlling turns. Without removal it will get hard when you play 1 of the 2 decks you make this deck from. Less speed, and less control making that matchup unfavourable at best.

[thorme]

Interesting concept.

The plus is that you're redundant with a lot of threats, so your opponent should have a tough time stopping all your threats.

The minus though (as others have mentioned) is that you really don't have a way to disrupt your opponent outside a single mindslaver.  Notice both your source decks ran land-disruption with Strip and Wastes - you don't even have those.  Seems like combo will have an easy time of beating you in the first couple turns, when your only real hope is to get out big Plats and hope they don't have an answer.

The trick with these decks seems to be balancing your threat-base and your disruption of the opponent's threats.  I'd say your first attempt here will look great in goldfishing, but seem much weaker when it comes to actual playtesting.

[Zeke]

Yes, I do agree that the lack of disruption is a key compenent missing in the deck design.  I was fiddling with the list some and I do want to reinclude the strip effects.

My initial removal of the affects is that during the tournament, I rarely wanted to bring in my Lava Darts as I had no lands I wanted to really sacrafice for the flashback cost.  I wanted to include some Mountains in the deck, but I didn't think the mana base could support removing any islands, so the strip effects where the first thing to go.

Then I realized that Lava Dart was really just a replacement for Old Man of the Sea, if you didn't have them, so when I included it in the sideboard I didn't even consider returning the wastes and strip back into the deck.

When I showed my friend the list he disagreed with the lack of Crucible, so that needs to be fit into the deck.

EDIT:  While waiting for my girlfriend to get out of class I wrote this down on a piece of notebook paper.  Now that I'm back in class I can transfer it to computer.

Beats: 10
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
4 Su-Chi
3 Juggarnaught

Utility: 8
4 Goblin Welder
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mindslaver
1 Memory Jar

Draw/Tutor: 13
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
3 Brainstorm

Artifact Mana: 11
2 Gilded Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 BLack Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring

Land: 18
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland
3 Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Strip Mine

Here is a rough sideboard:

4 Trinisphere
3 Eon Hub
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus
1 Jester's Cap
3 Old Man of the Sea
1 Duplicant
1 Crucible (maybe)

I would like to fit fire/ice into the deck, if not the main deck then perhaps in the sideboard.  If the Citadel/Crucible interaction works well we can go

-1 Pentavus
-1 Duplicant
-1 X
+3 Fire/Ice

[BigMac]

In the threat about the tinker deck i have explained why i think i dont need the strip CoW combo. It just takes youof the track of aggro to much so you lose games because of this lack of speed. Yes its a random wincondition sometimes, but it can also be a random losecondition as combo will not be needing more than 1 land sometimes to get you killed. (charbelcher for instance)

Next to that it will seldom be a target for TA or tinker. While the basis for this deck is to have good targets in your deck, and not cards you rather not get with those lookers.

So in my oppinion, lose the CoW and build in some removal. Lavadarts are great but fir/ice has more options. (the tapping of a trini comes to mind)

[Zeke]

I could remove the wastes/strips and the crucible, but I would love to add in pentavus then.  It's sooooooooooooooo useful, the main reason i wanted crucible was for the trick with darksteel citadel.  

so the maindeck would be -2 crucible +2 fire/ice

The board, not allowing to have 5 fire/ice which would be excccelent....would be -1 fire/ice +1 pentavus.

[Zeke]

Another version of the deck i've crafted.  I took the multicolored version of 5/3, removed some cards and changed it around a bit to fit in the 5tinks engine.

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
4 Transmute Artifact
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Memory Jar

3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Swords to Plowshares

4 Goblin Welder
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion
4 Su-Chi
3 Juggernaut

3 Crucible of Worlds

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
2 Gilded Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
2 Glimmervoid
3 Gemstone Mine
3 City of Brass
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Workshop

Sideboard
1 Jester's Cap
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Triskelion
4 Trinisphere
3 Eon Hub
3 Fire/Ice

[Moxlotus]

So are you just settling for losing game 1 to every combo deck?  The maindeck has nothing against it except a lone Platinum Angel that is too slow to be put out before you're dead.

[Zeke]

5tinker itself doesn't have the greatest game against combo, because it really doesn't have the room to run 3sphere maindeck. Suggestions for fitting it back in, however, would be appreciated.

[combo_dude]

What about 1 Trinisphere, if you can't fit it in? At least that way you might be able to Transmute for it, as it still slows them down a bit if you can play it early. At the very least it means that if they have to waste a Chain of Vapour on it then they might not have an answer to Platinum Angel. Obviously 3 or 4 would be good, but I can't really say what to cut without testing it - it's more of a brainstorming thing than anything else.