Goblin Mentor

[Blue Lotus]

  Goblin Mentor

Creature - Goblin

 , , Discard your Hand: Put a 1/1 Goblin creature toke into play with " : Choose target artifact a player controls and target artifact card in that player's graveyard. If both targets are still legal as this ability resolves, that player simultaneously sacrifices the artifact and returns the artifact card to the battlefield."

Because learning how to build an Ashtray is not a priori.

1/1

Every time I have a Goblin Welder out I think damn I wish I had like 90 of this guys right now.  The draw back is big, but also kind of beneficial.  This is also twice as slow as a welder so I don't think it is broken.  But I could be an r-tard.  Definitely too wordy to print, but I don't think there is another was to do this.  

[Anusien]

This is both a little too complicated and a lot too good.

[Delha]

Maybe this instead:

, , Discard three cards: Search your libary for a Goblin card with converted mana cost  or less and put it into play, then shuffle your library.

Simpler, and the drawback in your first version was largely irrelevant after the first use. Actuallly relevant in a non-Vintage format, and maybe toned down enough to be printable. Bonus: Also potentially brings back Squee shenanigans, which seem to be lacking in current Vintage.

That's just a first thought. Lots of places we can tweak this to balance it out: mana cost, discard cost, CMC limit, and tutor destination.

[Darkenslight]

What about this:

Goblin Mentor
Creature - Goblin Spellshaper

,  , discard a card at random from your hand: Put a red 1/1 creature token named Goblin Welder into play.  it has " : Exchange target artifact a player controls for target artifact card in that player's graveyard."

1/1

[Delha]

What about this:

Goblin Mentor
Creature - Goblin Spellshaper

,  , discard a card at random from your hand: Put a red 1/1 creature token named Goblin Welder into play.  it has " : Exchange target artifact a player controls for target artifact card in that player's graveyard."

1/1

That's even more broken than the first one, which was too good to begin with. Also, the only reason yours is simpler is because you used the old templating for Welder, which would need to be replaced with the complex version anyway.

[Cyberpunker]

Maybe this instead:

, , Discard three cards: Search your libary for a Goblin card with converted mana cost   or less and put it into play, then shuffle your library.

Get rid of the   activation cost plus make it Discard two cards and this card would be great for Goblns in Legacy and Vintage!

[TheShop]

He needs to let you grab at 4 or less (ringleader) and only discard 2 cards.  Would have been fun back in the day with bidding.  And I know the rule says don't make a card for a specific deck, but I don't see how you make a goblin without anticipating it being in goblins

[AmbivalentDuck]

Maybe this instead:

, , Discard three cards: Search your libary for a Goblin card with converted mana cost   or less and put it into play, then shuffle your library.

Get rid of the   activation cost plus make it Discard two cards and this card would be great for Goblns in Legacy and Vintage!

Stupid good.  Stupid stupid good.  Squee is a goblin...goblin matron finds squee.

[zeus-online]

discard 3 goblin cards?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Why not "discard 17 goblin cards: you win the game?"  Any drawback that balances a Tinker ability makes the card unplayable.

[Cyberpunker]

Maybe this instead:

, , Discard three cards: Search your libary for a Goblin card with converted mana cost   or less and put it into play, then shuffle your library.

Get rid of the   activation cost plus make it Discard two cards and this card would be great for Goblns in Legacy and Vintage!

Stupid good.  Stupid stupid good.  Squee is a goblin...goblin matron finds squee.

LoL me and my love for broken awesomeness.

[Delha]

Maybe this instead:
, , Discard three cards: Search your libary for a Goblin card with converted mana cost  or less and put it into play, then shuffle your library.

Get rid of the  activation cost plus make it Discard two cards and this card would be great for Goblns in Legacy and Vintage!

Probably broken for Standard though, and thereby unprintable.

Stupid good.  Stupid stupid good.  Squee is a goblin...goblin matron finds squee.

Matron is only available in Eternal. Is this really that broken compared to other engines here? For Extended, I see this being active with double Squee on turn 4, barring copies in your opener. Is it really that overpowered when you discard several cards over multiple turns to get a limited Moggcatcher?

Why not "discard 17 goblin cards: you win the game?"  Any drawback that balances a Tinker ability makes the card unplayable.

Transmute Artifact hasn't been running rampant, and this has far less potential. If Tinker was limited to cards CMC 3 or less, it probably wouldn't be restricted.

I'm still convinced that Standard is the only format where this would be overpowered.

[Shock Wave]

This card is very awkward, both in terms of flavour and functionality. What does being a mentor have to do with creating creatures, especially overpowered ones?

The Goblin Welder idea should just be laid to waste immediately. It is no secret that the card was a design flaw, so to make a creature that creates Goblin Welders is just repeating mistakes of the past.

I think that some ideas can be tuned to be viable, but others just face too many challenges and need to be abandoned. My opinion is that this falls in the latter category.

[Nazdakka]

Sorry, but you just can't make Welder tokens. That's just a non-starter for various reasons (complexity, power, etc.).

Maybe this instead:

, , Discard three cards: Search your libary for a Goblin card with converted mana cost  or less and put it into play, then shuffle your library.

Simpler, and the drawback in your first version was largely irrelevant after the first use. Actuallly relevant in a non-Vintage format, and maybe toned down enough to be printable. Bonus: Also potentially brings back Squee shenanigans, which seem to be lacking in current Vintage.

That's just a first thought. Lots of places we can tweak this to balance it out: mana cost, discard cost, CMC limit, and tutor destination.

I think this version is essentially OK. Is there anything genuinely gamebreaking in Standard or Extended that you can get? Onslaught has rotated out of Extended, taking most of the really scary Goblins with it, and even if you do have something spectacular to get, this is still a 1/1 that gets summoning sickness, plus three cards is a lot. We could bump up the card's mana cost to 2-3 though, if we want to be cautious.

[zeus-online]

I'm not sure, but honestly....Would goblin welder be playable in any other format then vintage? I haven't seen any legacy decks with welder in them...T2 and block has no use for it....Extended might have some kind of home based on artifact lands and chrome moxen...But still. I think the discard 3 cards version would not really be playable anywhere.

It's rather obvious why goblin welder is good in vintage since we have good cheap artifacts to weld out, workshops to actually hardcast them, bazaars to dump them etc. But most other formats cannot do this and welder starts to look like a bad elvish piper.

[TheShop]

Playing a version of old extended reanimator would be interesting with welder in extended right now, if you can dump the cards intothe yard you can weld out artifact lands, chalices, or small artifact beater creatures and turn them into sphinx of the steel wind, inkwell...

I don't think a straight up reprint of welder would break extended, but he would definitely still be very useful.  fuel and targets will exist until Mirrodin goes away.

Making welder tokens doesn't sit right with me either, but I don't have a real reason.  I would probably run this guy in stax just because he can make welders, but also fuel smokestacks. 

[Delha]

I'm not sure, but honestly....Would goblin welder be playable in any other format then vintage? I haven't seen any legacy decks with welder in them...T2 and block has no use for it....Extended might have some kind of home based on artifact lands and chrome moxen...But still. I think the discard 3 cards version would not really be playable anywhere.

It's rather obvious why goblin welder is good in vintage since we have good cheap artifacts to weld out, workshops to actually hardcast them, bazaars to dump them etc. But most other formats cannot do this and welder starts to look like a bad elvish piper.

4x LED is a pretty crazy enabler for fast, ugly Welding. 4x Petal & 4x Chrome Mox could serve as easy 0 drops. Being allowed to run Gifts in multiples must help a lot too.

At a guess, I'd think besides the fast mana being generally weaker (as you said), Welder isn't as strong in Legacy because creatures are a lot more prevalent. Any format where you build your with Zoo in mind is going to have answers for welder as collateral damage. I suspect it's the same problem that came up for Dragon combo: omnipresent grave hate that wasn't even intended for you in specific made things too much of an uphill fight.

I suspect that cycling artifact creatures in Standard might make a direct welder analogue ugly. That said, the same thing I said about Legacy could apply here. If practically everyone runs removal, that might serve to keep a 1/1 dude with a broken ability under control.