Tinker Time - Precon Primer
April 20, 2023 by
Scrap Trawlers 
(Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy | Art by Fajareka Setiawan)
Hello all, I am Bert from the Scrap Trawlers, where we do EDH on a budget. Today we are going to be taking a look at the Tinker Time precon from March of the Machine. The star of the show this time around is Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy, putting us in the artifact wheel house. We'll go over how the deck plays, the strengths and weaknesses, and which new and reprinted cards are going to be worth looking at. Let’s get to it!
Workshop Captain
So taking a look at our face commander again, Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy is a five mana Temur commander that cares about artifacts, which is a first. He gives artifact creatures we control trample while also creating a Gremlin artifact creature token at our end step that cares about the number of differently named artifact tokens that we have! That second ability makes Gimbal really interesting as we'll get to run a bunch of different token creators; so be sure to have your game pieces ready! This deck also comes with some Planechase cards, but unless your playgroup wants to play, you may end up trading these away. Well with that in mind, let's take a look at the list.
Tinker Time Precon
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After taking a look at the deck, I believe we have a cohesive artifact deck that not only creates the tokens that Gimbal wants, but also has a bunch of different outlets to use them. This deck is definitely feeling more midrange where we can have a bit of control over the game so that we can get our more powerful creatures out. Let’s give a look to where our deck excels.
Workshop Dynamos and Workshop Woes
As a midrange deck we aim to control the board early so that we can get our value creatures on and continue to outpace our opponents. The problem is that the current iteration of the deck has a 3.84 average mana value, which makes it a bit hard to outpace anyoe. What this does is put a lot of our plays on the later part of the game, making it rough to keep up a healthy pace in the early game. However, to put this in a more positive light, the longer a game goes the more threats we will have. Setting up the board is very important and right now with such a high average mana value it makes it hard to do that.
Another issue with the deck is the lack of card draw sources to keep that hand full and able to continue dishing out threats. These are both things that we address in the precon upgrade guide, so be sure to check that out!
Enough about what's wrong with the deck! This deck's removal package is amazing. Not only does it have cards for creatures and artifacts and enchantments, but it also possesses spells that care about Gimbal’s second ability. Cards like Crack Open and Root Out both destroy and create a relevant token for Gimbal. I wasn’t that high on Vampires’ Vengeance, but it's almost somewhat of a board wipe and produces a Blood token for us.
The value cards are also present, with a reprint to another one of my favorite cards, Shimmer Dragon, which gives us something to do with excess artifact tokens. The rest of the reprints are lackluster but provide good synergies for the deck. Looking at Bloodforged Battle-axe, Combine Chrysalis, and Sharding Sphinx. They've all played a vital role in their respective strategies before now, and I think that they'll also provide some power to this deck as well.
The deck's main focus of creating copies of both token and nontoken permanants is something that it does well, using cards like the new Schema Thief, and a card that I have been pretty high on for a while, Saheeli's Artistry.
New Inventions
New cards that make an appearance in this deck are Sandsteppe War Riders, Dance with Calamity, Cutthroat Negotiator, Pain Distributor, Schema Thief, and our alternate commander Rashmi and Ragavan. I am expecting Schema Thief to be an absolute house, making copies of, at worst, mana rocks which the deck will love so that it can make stronger gremlins. Sandsteppe War riders will be interesting to see how much you can get it to Bolster for, but the other cards I am indifferent on in this deck . For example, Pain Distributor is going to do some work in playgroups that are worried about Treasures, but for us we'll just be pinging our opponent for one damage sometimes and I am not quite sure that it's worth it here. Dance with Calamity is a nine mana spell that truly does high-mana spell things, but I don't know if it's at its best here. I am excited to see if any of them make a true splash in the format.
Cutthroat Negotiator will probably have a better home in a dedicated Pirate deck but the additional Treasure it can provide gives us some good value. Last but not least, our alternate commander Rashmi and Ragavan is an interesting pair to say the least. They still care about artifacts just as Gimbal does, just in a different way. It has the thievery of Ragavan and the first spell clause of Rashmi! Those effects together make for an interesting and powerful combination.
Final thoughts
The Tinker Time precon is definitely one worth picking up. Temur artifacts is an interesting take on the color grouping, and this precon is very cohesive and synergistic. Sometimes precons are lacking in a bunch of different areas, but this one in particular doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses. It just needs some parts that can help it pop off a bit more. Come back next time so we can go over some upgrades for the deck!
Make sure to check back for more precon guides from us Scrap Trawlers. You can also check out our budget content over on Twitch and YouTube and follow us on Twitter. Don’t forget to upgrade your Precon on a budget!
Scrap Trawlers
Scrap Trawlers is a Magic: The Gathering budget EDH streaming and video group, with gameplay, deck techs, chats, and more. Catch our videos at youtube.com/scraptrawlers. Andy, Lenny, and Bert.
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