Why Tinker is more broken than Yawg's Will

[NULLROD]

1) Yawg's will is too slow. You cannot play it at any time, especially not usually within the first 1-3 turns.
2) Yawg's will is too dependent on other cards to be good. It's dependent on what you have in your yard at any given point in time, and gets better as the game progresses. Tinker can be played very early in the game, and brings the clock of the game much closer to completion in your favor.
3) Yawg's will is black. As such, you need a sea, lotus, or jet to play it. Although this may be a minor point, this is not to be overlooked. The inclusion of seas will weaken the mana base for a possible waste, and makes the deck more dependent on fetches and the successful resolution of the popping of fetchlands.
4) Tinker is blue. It can be pitched to fow.
5) There are a vast array of useful tinker targets, making it as much of a utility card as it is a solution. Memory jar, DSC, sundering, trike, lotus, trinisphere, smokestack, are just a few to name.
6) Yawg's will is better because of tinker, not the other way around.

Tinker is fundamentally better than Yawg's will for the simple reasoning why lotus is better than ancestral. An enormous tempo boost is superior to card advantage. These differences are key, and people need to know the reasoning behind why certain broken cards are better than others in order to better understand the fundamentals of the game. Post your opinions!

[Disburden]

I really can't agree on this. Yawgmoth's will is the most broken card in our format and to such a powerful degree that it has had decks built around it for years.

*Long-Built around Yawgmoth's Will
*TPS- Built around yawgmoth's Will
*This goes for any other Ritual based deck as well-Built around Will.

*Pretty much all current Mana Drain control decks are built around abusing Yawgmoth's Will. This is from Tog, to Slaver, to Gifts. A lot of these decks run Burning Wish which means you can even use Will in a light graveyard, reusing stuff like Ancestral Recall and Black lotus early. Then later in the game you can Will AGAIN. That's just nuts.

The card defines the format on the level that Black Lotus does. I would much rather my opponent resolve tinker for something (lotus, Jar, DSC) than resolve a will with something like 10 spells in the graveyard. It does things for this format that it wasn't ever meant to do. You can resuse black lotus off the thing for hecks sake.

A Resolved Will is a win condition. Period. Tinker is not.

[Polynomial P]

1) Tell that to Grimlong/Pitchlong/IT
2) Tinker was much less broken before DSC. Tinker for Memory jar is scary, yes, but now that there are cards like Mindslaver, DSC, Dups, titan, etc, tinker is a toolbox for relevant and difficult to handle threats. Therefore, the strength of tinker is dependent on other cards.
3) In a deck like gifts, you get your black mana, cast will and win. "Weakening" a mana base to allow you to play the most broken card ever is hardly a problem. Decks splash black simply for will and DT cause they are that broken. The fundamental goal of numerous vintage decks is to harness the power of will.
4) So is Hamarid, doesnt make it better than will. I think your logic is flawed here.
5) Agreed, and there are great things to do off will: Recall, Walk, DT, Brainstorm, play a land, moxen, Lotus. Yeah, they have to be in your grave, but that isnt a problem for most vintage decks.
6) How is will better because of tinker? Gifts would not exist without will and arguably Gifts is a tinker deck. Slaver is a Will Deck. IT is a will deck. It doesnt even run tinker. Grimlong/Pitchlong are infinitely better because of will (although they can win without it) but Tinker is just another draw seven for them.

I think you are missing what Will does. A resolved Yawg win, with any sort of gas in the yard, is game over. Even if you replay a land, mox and a brainstorm and tutor, you just 4-for-1ed your opponent. I mean the card is called Yawg win.

Tinker is worse for you if it gets countered since your initial investment is 2 cards, not one. No matter what critter you get with tinker, you have to protect it for at least 2 turns. If your opponent gets welder, echoing truth, swords, etc, you have sacrificed cards and board position.  Resolving tinker after will is amazing though. The advantage from Yawg Win will allow you to protect your tinker. Thats what Gifts does: Will, Walk, Tinker, win.

[zeus-online]

I've done a will for just merchant scroll and ancestral recall, and stomped my opponent before he untapped. Will is just broken beyond words.

Tinker hasnt aged well at all, new tinker targets have come, and its definetly one of the most powerful cards in the format, yet i still dont think its even remotely as broken as will.

The most broken decks in the format generally dosnt run Tinker, they do run Will though. (Most broken, not necessarily "Best")

/Zeus

[parallax]

Tinker is a great card and win condition when you're ahead. But Yawgmoth's Will can take you from an even position or even from behind to a dominant position. Will does require you to have good cards in the graveyard, but every deck naturally puts cards in the graveyard as part of its normal gameplan. Tinker often requires you to put practically uncastable cards in your deck (DSC, anyone? Yes, I know it's been done.) which are often a pain in the ass when you draw them.

[Hi-Val]

Napster would often just Will early to put a Wasteland back into play and use a Vamp out of the yard. It would often win because of this. Having two playable cards in your graveyard makes Will economical. It's as dependent on other cards as Tinker is dependent on artifacts.

And I LOL when I see people use "pitches to FOW" as an example. There's a reason why we don't run Merchant of Secrets in Vintage even though it's blue...

[Harlequin]

In addition to what has already been said, I would like to disagree with this point:

6) Yawg's will is better because of tinker, not the other way around

Have you ever had to tinker while stareing down an opponent's active welder?  There are essentailly 2 ways to do this, Tormod's crypt yourself, or cast tinker durring a Yawg turn.  So against CS or Stax, Tinker is better because of Yawg.

[cssamerican]

6) Yawg's will is better because of tinker, not the other way around

Have you ever had to tinker while stareing down an opponent's active welder?  There are essentailly 2 ways to do this, Tormod's crypt yourself, or cast tinker durring a Yawg turn.  So against CS or Stax, Tinker is better because of Yawg.

Hmm...When did all these Tinker targets quit working?
Mindslaver and activate it.
Memory Jar and activate it.
Black Lous and activate it.
Damping Matrix
Pithing Needle
Of couse you could always bounce or kill the Welder.

All that said, Will is a much stonger card than Tinker. Tinker can pull out a lucky win here or there, but I have lost a lot of games after resolving a Tinker. I can't think of many games I have lost after resolving Yawgmoth's Will.

[Harlequin]

6) Yawg's will is better because of tinker, not the other way around

Have you ever had to tinker while stareing down an opponent's active welder?  There are essentailly 2 ways to do this, Tormod's crypt yourself, or cast tinker durring a Yawg turn.  So against CS or Stax, Tinker is better because of Yawg.

Hmm...When did all these Tinker targets quit working?
Mindslaver and activate it.
Memory Jar and activate it.
Black Lous and activate it.
Damping Matrix
Pithing Needle
Of couse you could always bounce or kill the Welder.

I'm not quite sure what your point is..... but it definately has nothing to do with disproving the orginial statement. 

the original statement was essentaily "there is no possibly way that Yawgmoth's will can improve tinker"  My counter-point was "Here is a common situation where your Yawg will improve your ability to tinker."   I will admit that I left some detail out of my argument and should have stated that tinkering for DSC will win you the game, but I figgured that was rather obvious.   

[Mr. Type 4]

This is total blasphemy.  Tinker is the suck compared to Yagmoth's Will.  The most definitive proof is the shear amount of cards people run just to make my Yawgmoth's Will less effective.  The mana cost on Yawgmoth's Will is absurdly low.

Resolving Yawg Will makes what happened to you previously almost irrelevant.  "You countered all my spells, how sad.  Oh look, Yawgmoth's Will" 

I've lost plenty of games in which I resolved Tinker, but I've lost very very few where I've resolved Will. 

3) Yawg's will is black. As such, you need a sea, lotus, or jet to play it. Although this may be a minor point, this is not to be overlooked. The inclusion of seas will weaken the mana base for a possible waste, and makes the deck more dependent on fetches and the successful resolution of the popping of fetchlands.

lol.  Black is the best color behind blue.  "Weakening" the mana base is more than worth while when it means casting this monster.

[zeus-online]

Also "weakening the mana base" means nothing when your opponent is getting his face smashed in by will...how often do you fetch up a sea if you're not about to do something broken?

Without Will i wouldnt bother to play black in control decks.

/Zeus

[Disburden]

Also "weakening the mana base" means nothing when your opponent is getting his face smashed in by will...how often do you fetch up a sea if you're not about to do something broken?

Without Will i wouldnt bother to play black in control decks.

/Zeus

Ok, I play control decks more than any other decks in the format. Mostly I play Meandeck Gifts and Control Slaver. I will add to my first post (and the first response to this thread) that Will MAKES the new control decks better than any other control deck without Will. If I see a deck that doesn't run it and it is Control, I wouldn't even bother playing the deck myself. That's how good Will is.

I wouldn't play mono Blue because It isn't as good as Control Slaver and Gifts.
Those decks have Will.

[Pyromaniac]

Also "weakening the mana base" means nothing when your opponent is getting his face smashed in by will...how often do you fetch up a sea if you're not about to do something broken?

Without Will i wouldnt bother to play black in control decks.

/Zeus

Ok, I play control decks more than any other decks in the format. Mostly I play Meandeck Gifts and Control Slaver. I will add to my first post (and the first response to this thread) that Will MAKES the new control decks better than any other control deck without Will. If I see a deck that doesn't run it and it is Control, I wouldn't even bother playing the deck myself. That's how good Will is.

I wouldn't play mono Blue because It isn't as good as Control Slaver and Gifts.
Those decks have Will.

Agreed. I played U/r last weekend and have even more of a dislike for Type 1 now. I only lost due to either resolved Tinker or resolved Will, not a single other card. I really dislike the current state of the format now that I've spent some more time thinking about it and realizing just how 2-card centered it has become. After I voiced this on IRC, people started looking at me as if I was some sort of pariah and was totally out of touch with reality. I still like the format in general though, just not it's slowly becoming dominated by a few cards.

(This is, naturally, my own opinion and I don't doubt for 1 second that people will disagree with me and my dislike but go ahead anyways...I've seen it on IRC already.)

[orgcandman]

Did you ever think that the only reason people try for a fast tinker is to win before their opponent wills?

Think about that for a second.

Also, the format isn't 2-card centric. It's 1-card centric. Will.

I couldn't count the number of times my opponent established control, but made a small mistake using mana and I ended up resolving a will and comming from nowhere to win the game. Will is an extra drawphase for every card in your graveyard. THINK ABOUT THAT! If you have a graveyard with only one card in it, sure, you've basically just dropped a 3cc opt. But, if your graveyard has more than 3 cards in it, you've gotten better CA than thirst, ancetral, or almost any other card.

Being black isn't a drawback. I guarantee that if will were blue, it would be a much weaker card since it could easily be hit by reb, and get shut down when your opponent drops a choke. As it is, Will is black. This means the most efficient blue hate does NOT hit it. And lets be honest, in a blue dominated metagame, being a different color is being a winner.

Compare the resource investment between the two.

Tinker - > Requires you're running artifacts in your deck worthwhile to sacrifice and search out. 3 mana, and an aritfact in your mainphase. Probably, you'll run artifacts you couldn't otherwise cast.

Will - > Requires you run spells. Requires 3 mana in your mainphase. Requires that you play spells during the game.

Is tinker's investment steep? Yep.
Will's? Uhh...aren't you going to play spells anyway?

So, yeah, pretty sure that tinker < will.

[zeus-online]

Agreed. I played U/r last weekend and have even more of a dislike for Type 1 now. I only lost due to either resolved Tinker or resolved Will, not a single other card. I really dislike the current state of the format now that I've spent some more time thinking about it and realizing just how 2-card centered it has become. After I voiced this on IRC, people started looking at me as if I was some sort of pariah and was totally out of touch with reality. I still like the format in general though, just not it's slowly becoming dominated by a few cards.

Yeah its pretty annoying :/ I like broken, i like fast...but just racing to resolve either tinker or will gets boring.

/Zeus

[Disburden]

I do believe that if there was given a big enough reason to ban Yawgmoth's Will the format would morph dramatically, this might even be for the better in the long run. I love Yawgmoth's Will for how broken it is, but when you think about how it's pretty much the main goal of most people's games that becomes really lopsided. On the other hand I don't think Will does enough to the format right now to worth it's banning. The effect it has on us right now is so mellow and micro-evolving that it can't morph the format to extremely in a extreme period of time. The plus side of Will being banned would be that that would totally change the format and new decks would have to just be invented to support the format. There would be no more "Will deck Vs. Non-Will deck" Scenarios.

This is how the format is right now, imo:

Non Will:                                                      Vs                       Will deck:

Workshop decks (To the most part, currently)                             Ritual Based Combo
Aggro and Aggro Control                                                          Control decks

[Dxfiler]

Yawg's Will is infinitely more powerful than Tinker.  Period.

It's probably the single most powerful card in the format.  At the very least it's on the short list.

Even so, look at the top 4 of waterbury.  Only one deck had will in it (Kowal's slaver).  The other three decks were all very differently styled aggro decks.  Aggro in itself seems to be a fine way to combat decks centered on Yawg's Will.  This strategy will only get better when Jotun Grunt becomes legal.

So for those who hate t1 because you feel it's exclusively about yawg will and tinker, you should try decks that don't use either card.  Not only can it be refreshing, but you could possibly do better by stepping out of the two card box.

- Dave Feinstein

[Mind_under_Matter]

Lotus-Rit-Will.

Lotus-sac a mox-Tinker.

Now, you have a big threat, but the Will turn is just going to be huge, as you have an additional 7 mana to do as you will with. Tinker is restrictive in its targets, admittedly, those targets are very good, but the very nature of Will is that it allows you to not only play threats, answers, and broken mana acceleration, but to play those things in one turn. Tinker fails to do this.

[Cross]

seeing as the conclusion of most of this discussion is that black lotus is the most broken, does this question matter?

[Jacob Orlove]

seeing as the conclusion of most of this discussion is that black lotus is the most broken, does this question matter?

Of course it matters, because people have on occasion called for the banning of Will and Tinker.

[Samite Healer]

This is what I believe to be the definitive conclusion about the best cards in the game:

Yawgmoth's Will is the most POWERFUL card in the game, given the format and circumstances in which it is used.  You could, however, give me some lackluster argument about how Door to Nothingness has the most powerful effect, but I think most would agree that such a point, and other related contentions are not valid because of the context in which these cards are either played or not played.

Tinker is the BEST card in the game.  Period.

Traditionally, Ancestral Recall was the best card in the game because of the nature of its cost/bemefit ration, but as time progressed and more powerful artifacts were printed both Tinker, and Will became more powerful.  See the power boost for Will when LED and Lotus Petal were printed along with Cabal Ritual, and the boost Tinker got from Platinum Angel, Mindslaver, Sundering Titan, and Darksteel Colossus.

Everyone knows that Will is completely busted, but it still isn't the best card because it often requires several turns of preparation to make it useful (short of Lotus, Walk, Recall, rinse-repeat turn 1-3 hands, obviously).

Tinker is often useful RIGHT AWAY, fetching a threat that puts tremendous pressure on the game state.  For all those that keep repeating about how Will just wins the game (which is still true, not disputing that), I'd also like to mention how casting Gifts Ungiven in Meandeck Gifts and other varients just "ends the game" often because Tinker is involved somewhere in the two piles.

Both cards are busted.  Yawgmoth's Will is the most powerful, given our environment.  Tinker is the best card in the game.

Discuss if you wish.

-Jeff

[Mind_under_Matter]

I'm going to look at this solely from the "answers" standpoint.

Tinker can be answered by any counterspell, as can Will.

Tinker, in it's most common target, can also be answered with Welder, STP, Echoing Truth, etc.

Will, requires more than one answer card should it be resolved. Even small Wills are disgusting in the CA and tempo they generate, Tinker, loses CA, but arguably provides better tempo.

Just looking at what the best responses are to each of these cards, Will is more difficult to deal with, though easier to play around. I would argue, that this "bomb" factor pushes Will over Tinker in the broken category, as well as general power level.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Why was Burning Wish restricted?  It sure as hell wasn't because of Tinker.  4 LED 4 Burning Wish Long was one of the most broken decks in Vintage ever.  Why?  Because of Will.  4-Gush GAT, another banned deck, also insane because of Will.  What card gives power to nearly every single combo and control deck in Vintage since Urza's Saga?  Yawgmoth's Will.  It's no wonder that so many cards have been restricted just to keep Will in check.  Do you think Grim Tutor would even be good without it?

In my build of IT I don't even run Tinker.  Tinker is just another draw 7 in Grim Long.  In modern control decks Will is the defining card of the archetype.  So many deck stategies revolve around this single card, in a format where people play cards like Tormod's Crypt and Leyline of the Void.  Why?  Because it's the most powerful card in the game.  It simply does something that was never meant to be done.  I don't think Will should be banned, but one could make a hell of an argument to do so.  It's that powerful.  Tinker is just a cheap trick compared to Will.  I would run 1x Will over 4x Tinker.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Yawgmoth's Will is soo powerful that it has caused other cards to be restricted. Tinker has no way near that much splash damage. Tinker's powerful effect still only fetches a singular copy of an artifact. Will's powerful effect fetches all the other powerful cards in your deck in unison (including tinker!)

Oh and will is soo powerful that chuck norris once blah blah blah.

[Roxas]

Chuck Norris doesn't need cards in the graveyard to win with Yawgmoth's Will.  Of course, he probably doesn't need Yawgmoth's Will to win, either.

I would run 1x Will over 4x Tinker.

 

Whoa there.  Will is totally awesome and all, but let's not make bad exaggerations here.

[Vegeta2711]

I would run 1x Will over 4x Tinker.

 :lol:

4x Tinker is easily more powerful than a singleton Will. 4 means you have the Tinker deck, which has already proven itself to be dominant in just about every single format it was allowed it.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Chuck Norris doesn't need cards in the graveyard to win with Yawgmoth's Will.  Of course, he probably doesn't need Yawgmoth's Will to win, either.

I would run 1x Will over 4x Tinker.

 

Whoa there.  Will is totally awesome and all, but let's not make bad exaggerations here.

I'm actually serious.  In a format where one was allowed either 4x Tinker in a deck or 1x Will, I'd be playing a Will deck, either combo or control.  4x Tinker decks would be stax decks or decks like oath (where tinker replaces the oath or is added with oath and tinker+dsc).  The early Tinker route in control is certainly an option but Tinker is really jsut run because it's the best creature win condition and of the combo with time walk and recursion.  Will actually has way more synergy and impact in any control or combo deck.

Anyways, the question isn't is 4x Tinker is better than Will or not.  They are both restricted.  And Will is certainly better.

[diopter]

I'm actually serious. In a format where one was allowed either 4x Tinker in a deck or 1x Will, I'd be playing a Will deck, either combo or control. 4x Tinker decks would be stax decks or decks like oath (where tinker replaces the oath or is added with oath and tinker+dsc). The early Tinker route in control is certainly an option but Tinker is really jsut run because it's the best creature win condition and of the combo with time walk and recursion. Will actually has way more synergy and impact in any control or combo deck.

Anyways, the question isn't is 4x Tinker is better than Will or not. They are both restricted. And Will is certainly better.

To address what you claimed, 4x Tinker would dominate just because you would give a control deck like Slaver near-certain access to early Jar/Slaver Tinkers, or just turn Monoblue Control into the most unfun deck to play against. 4x Tinker > 1 Will, as Roxas and Kowal have said.

Back on topic, the reason 1x Will is better than 1x Tinker:

At 1x, both Wll and Tinker are bombs that do not appear very often in the opening hand. An early Tinker does have much more uitlity than early Will, but early Tinker is a risky play that forces you to have protection in hand or risk losing your bomb to countermagic or bounce. (Note that this is not a problem with 4x Tinker because you have 3 other Tinkers and many draw spells and tutors to find them)

In contrast, the midgame Will is better than mid-game Tinker. In the midgame, your graveyard will naturally contain mana (Lotus, pitched Moxen, fetchlands, Rituals, tutors to fetch Academy) all of which allow you to maximize your Will turn. Midgame Tinker for say, Slaver, requires that you have the necessary mana on the table to activate it, or wait a turn. Mid-game Tinker for a big man is dangerous because you need to have protection before AND after it resolves. The best Tinker may be for Jar since your Jar hand may contain accelerants and other broken cards, but it is more inconsistent due to its Draw7 nature.

In short, it's pointless to say that Will > Tinker without taking the format into account. If Mindslaver had been costed at 10 and its ability at 0, then Will < Tinker without a doubt. As it is, Will turns are easier to maximize than Tinker turns because of the cards available to us in the format.

[Dakkon]

It really doesnt matter. run what you think is better OR (shock) run both.

This argument happens alot and its futile since people wont change their mind unless they test to see their preference.

[Disburden]

I am pretty sure that Yawgmoth's Will being more broken than Tinker is fact and not a matter of opinion or preference in the current game state.