Tinker - One of Magic's most broken designs

So what is up with Tinker?

In Vintage, Tinker has a long history of fetching messed up artifacts that can end the game on their own. Cards like Blightsteel Colossus, Bolas's Citadel, Time Vault or Manifold Key (depending on which piece you're missing), or, in more recent years, Coveted Jewel as a way to keep your combo moving.

While we can definitely afford Coveted Jewel, the other options aren't as friendly to our budget format. So I decided to go through every Tinker target that, at the time of writing this article, is under 4 dollars and can lead to unfair gameplans.

The card that prompted me to write this article

Did you know this massively messed up card is legal in Value Vintage and relatively affordable? I haven't figured out a shell for this yet, but the combination of effects is so messed up I wanted to give it a shoutout.

Build-around payoffs

You know all these shitty artifacts you put into your deck so you can enable Kappa Cannoneer? Tinker turns them into instant death.

The opposite to Cyberdrive Awakener. You Tinker for this, then you play a bunch of shitty artifacts. Don't sleep on this card, the pressure it can generate is pretty wild.

If I had a nickel every time a card designed for Commander flops in Commander and then ends up in our format for us to figure out I would be playing actual Vintage rather than Value Vintage. To me, this feels like one of the most powerful inevitability engines you can Tinker for in a deck like Monoblue Cloudpost.

This is more of an utility card, but being able to tinker for a Vindicate AND a boardwipe seems above average, and at this price point, it feels a little silly to play Tinker and not consider the Spacecraft.

On a completely different axis, Sharuum allows us to either immediately get back the artifact we just sacrificed to Tinker, or it allows us to do some silly things with Sculpting Steel or Cursed Mirror. I don't think it's particularly viable right now, but something to keep in mind as new artifacts that can copy Sharuum could be printed at any point in time.

This is a certified classic. Probably more of a sideboard card in Tinker decks, it really shuts down spellslinger combo decks and anything reliant on Cascade triggers to go off.

Speaking of Nicol Bolas, GPG was such a fixture of Standard at its heydey. I feel like it's an unexplored card in VV, and it works as a sort of inevitability engine similar to Wondrous Crucible, and although it does require some extra steps to work and it doesn't grant your threats any protection, the outcome of each trigger is completely up to you.

Now this is a buildaround. If you have an engine that can generate cards in hand or permanents without having to spend resources (Something like Underworld Cookbook and Ovalchase Daredevil), this game just ends games by itself. Slowly but surely eating away at your opponent's resources until they're left with nothing and you get rid of the Portal with its own trigger. I'm not sure how good this is, but I think it's wild no one has tried this yet.

An absolute nightmare for many decks to get rid of. My main issue with it is the fact that a combo player can just throw something away and then combo off unimpeded. Could be really good in some metagames, but it kind of feels like a worse God-Pharaoh's Statue

Our best impression of Blightsteel Colossus

These just turn sideways and kill people. I don't think we need to talk a lot about them. Phyrexian Fleshgorger and Sphinx of the Steel Wind are particularly nasty into aggressive metagames. Sundering Titan depends a lot on the matchup and therefore I think it's better in the sideboard. Inkwell Leviathan is a nightmare for control decks to get rid of, especially when backed up with a counterspell or two. Myr Battlesphere and Ðarksteel Colossus are technically the fastest clocks.

Conclusion

Tinker is restricted for a reason. Even in our format, it often just ends the game when it resolves, but for some reason, all I see people do with it is turn a Coveted Jewel into another Coveted Jewel in Channel decks.

I would love to see more experimentation with one of Magic's most broken cards, and maybe I will have to start working on it myself!