Tinker Time precon upgrade guide

Gimbal counts artifact tokens by name, and the stock Tinker Time can make ten different ones. Six of those ten come from a single card each.

At the beginning of your end step Gimbal makes a 0/0 Gremlin and puts one +1/+1 counter on it for every differently named artifact token you control. The Gremlin counts itself, so an empty board still gets a 1/1. Add a Treasure, a Clue, a Food and a Thopter and the same trigger makes a 5/5, with trample, because Gimbal hands trample to every artifact creature you control. Each extra name is one more counter on that turn's Gremlin.

The box makes four of its names cheaply and often: Treasure, Clue, Food and Thopter. The other six are Servo from Saheeli, Golem from Masterful Replication, Blood from Vampires' Vengeance, Gold from Curse of Opulence, Feather from Everquill Phoenix, which only makes one when it mutates, and Replicated Ring from Replicating Ring, which needs eight upkeeps to get there. Golem costs six mana and Gold needs somebody to be attacked, so the count the deck advertises is higher than the count it reaches on turn five.

The swaps go after that gap, and after the mana that has to cast the cards that close it. Thirteen cards out, thirteen in, $19.21 for all of it at the cheapest printing of each add. One land is $10.05 of that.

What to buy first, and what it costs

1. Worldwalker Helm, about $3.04. Whenever you would create artifact tokens it adds a Map. Gimbal's own Gremlin is an artifact token, so the Helm puts a second name on the board at every end step with nothing else needed.
2. Transmutation Font, about $2.08. It taps for a Blood, a Clue or a Food, so one artifact can supply any of three names every turn. The second ability is a tutor, and it gets its own answer in the FAQ.
3. Four untapped lands, about $11.01. Shivan Reef, Karplusan Forest and Yavimaya Coast cost under a dollar each. Steam Vents is the other $10.05. They take the place of four lands that always entered tapped.
4. Karn, Living Legacy, about $1.31. A tapped Powerstone every turn. Nothing else in the box makes a Powerstone token.
5. Hangarback Walker, about $0.31. A mana sink that is an artifact creature, so it gets trample, and it leaves Thopters behind when it dies.

The other five adds are Voldaren Epicure, Dauntless Scrapbot, Sai, Junk Jet and Abrade, and they come to $1.46 together. Every price on this page is the cheapest released paper printing of the card, which can be a promo. The Helm's $3.04 is one, and the ordinary printing runs about $4.75.

What the Gremlin is counting

Each name counts once. A token is named for its subtypes plus the word Token unless the effect that made it gave it a name, so the Thopters from Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Whirler Rogue and Thopter Spy Network are all one name, and the tenth Thopter adds nothing the first didn't. Copies take the name of what they copy, and a few effects name a token outright, like the Feather.

Anything you sacrifice on your own turn is gone by the end step. The habit worth building is keeping one Treasure, one Clue and one Food back and spending the surplus. Academy Manufactor makes that cheap, because a single Clue, Food or Treasure trigger gives all three. With the Helm in play as well, one landfall trigger from Tireless Provisioner leaves a Treasure, a Clue, a Food and a Map.

Sandsteppe War Riders reads the same number. At the beginning of combat it bolsters that many, so every name on the board by combat adds counters before that turn's Gremlin exists.

The nine spells that come in

New names from cheap cards. Voldaren Epicure is a Blood and one damage to each opponent for a single red mana. Junk Jet makes a Junk when it enters and costs two. Dauntless Scrapbot is a three mana artifact creature that exiles every opponent's graveyard and makes a Lander, and the Lander is the better half. Sacrificing it for two mana fetches a basic land tapped, which is a landfall trigger for Tireless Tracker and Tireless Provisioner, and the basic can be the Island or Mountain the colour check below is asking for.

Karn's Powerstone mana can't be spent on a nonartifact spell, so it won't cast Gimbal. It pays for abilities, and for artifact spells, of which the upgraded list has twenty. Karn's minus ability lets you pay any amount of mana to look at that many cards and keep one, which is a use for the leftover mana on a turn when the Powerstones have nothing else to do.

Bodies that make bodies. Sai makes a Thopter whenever you cast an artifact spell and can sacrifice two artifacts to draw, so a pair of spent Treasures becomes a card. Hangarback Walker grows with spare mana, and when it dies it turns every counter into a Thopter.

An answer. Abrade is two mana for three damage to a creature or a destroyed artifact, at instant speed. That keeps a cheap answer in the list now that Spine of Ish Sah is gone.

Two cards I left out are worth naming. Rose, Cutthroat Raider makes a Junk too, but it costs RR in a colour that already has six spells asking for a double pip by turn three, and Junk Jet gets the same name for one red. Urza's Saga makes a Construct token, which is another name, but it costs about $34.61 at its cheapest printing, more than all thirteen swaps put together, and it makes only colourless mana in a deck short of coloured sources.

Nine spells, and a reason for each

• Dance with Calamity costs eight and only gives you free spells if everything you exile adds up to thirteen mana value or less. Lands are 38 of the 100 cards, and an exiled land can't be cast.
• Brass's Bounty costs seven and makes Treasure, which is the name the deck has the most ways to make already.
• Spine of Ish Sah is seven mana for removal that returns to your hand. Abrade answers a creature or an artifact for two.
• Aid from the Cowl is the one GG card in the list, and its payoff turns on a permanent having left the battlefield that turn.
• Echo Storm is five mana to copy an artifact. The Helm copies an artifact token for {1}{U}.
• Bloodforged Battle-Axe hands you a copy of itself only when the equipped creature connects. The Font and Junk Jet add names without needing a creature to connect.
• Curse of Opulence pays you a Gold only when the cursed player is attacked, and every opponent who attacks that player gets one too.
• Pain Distributor gives a Treasure to every player who casts a first spell each turn. Each opponent ramps along with you. Cutthroat Negotiator also hands the table a card with its parley, but every Treasure it makes is yours, which is why it stays.
• Masterful Replication is six mana for two 3/3 Golems. That's one name and six power at the top of the curve.

Why the sevens and the sweepers stay

Junk Winder prints at seven, but it has affinity for tokens, so each token you control takes one off. The reason it earns the slot is the trigger. Whenever a token enters under your control, it taps down a nonland permanent an opponent controls, and that permanent skips its next untap step. Your own Gremlin does that every end step.

Perplexing Test returns all nontoken creatures to their owners' hands at instant speed for five. Your Gremlins and Thopters stay on the battlefield, and your nontoken creatures go home with everyone else's. Gimbal is one of them, so cast it when replaying him is cheaper than the problem. The other mode returns all creature tokens, which is the answer to somebody else's go-wide deck.

Vampires' Vengeance deals 2 damage to each non-Vampire creature for three mana, and with Fiery Confluence it is one of two damage sweepers in the list. The cost is real. It kills every 1/1 Thopter and Servo you control, which makes it a card for the turn you're already behind, and not an engine piece. It also leaves a Blood.

Saheeli's Artistry is the closest call at six mana. Choose both modes and the copies keep their original names, so you get one name for the artifact and another for the creature, and a copy of Whirler Rogue arrives with its two Thopters. Struggle // Survive reads as a five, but Struggle is the half you cast, at three mana, for damage equal to the lands you control. Crack Open, Root Out and Weirding Wood look narrow, and each leaves a Treasure or a Clue behind, which is a name.

Seven tapped lands become three, and the colour gap stays

Thirty-eight lands, twenty-three of them basic. The box has seven that always enter tapped and four conditional ones. Cinder Glade wants two basics and there are twenty-three. Frostboil Snarl, Game Trail and Vineglimmer Snarl each want a card revealed from hand.

I'm cutting four of the seven: Temple of Abandon, Temple of Epiphany, Temple of Mystery and Myriad Landscape. The three Temples become Karplusan Forest, Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast, which make the same colour pairs untapped for a point of damage each time you tap them for colour. Myriad Landscape enters tapped and taps only for colourless, so its colours arrive as two tapped basics a turn or more later, and Steam Vents takes its slot because it makes both blue and red, the two colours the deck is short of, the turn it lands.

Short is the honest word, and the swaps don't fix it. In the box, eleven blue spells want UU and six red spells want RR, and both colours sit at 27 sources, with Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Myriad Landscape counting for every colour they can fetch. A double pip by turn three lands 76.4 per cent of the time at 27 sources and the check asks for 36 to reach 90. After the swaps blue and red are still at 27 sources and the figure is the same, because Steam Vents takes the slot of a land that already counted for both. That is a worst case, because only Saheeli and Feldon of the Third Path ask for those pips at three mana, and the rest cost four or more. But it means I can't promise you a clean mana base, only a faster one: untapped lands go from 27 to 30.

Path of Ancestry, Simic Growth Chamber and Frontier Bivouac stay, since all three make more than one colour. Path of Ancestry also scries when you cast a creature that shares a type with Gimbal, and eight creatures in the upgraded list are Artificers. If you'd rather not pay for Steam Vents, Spirebluff Canal at about $4.50 enters untapped for your first three land drops, and that does most of the same work. Steam Vents is reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, and none of the other twelve adds is in an announced set.

Average mana value 3.82 down to 3.49

The top of the curve loses the eight drop, and sevens fall from five to three. Creatures go from 23 to 26, artifact cards from 17 to 20, and the average mana value from 3.82 to 3.49. Of the thirteen cards that come in, none is a Game Changer, and the bracket floor stays at Bracket 1 before and after. The floor only tells you what the list can't contain. I'd start it at a Bracket 2 table and let the Gremlins argue for the next step up.

The upgraded decklist

Hover any card name to see the card. The list below is the deck after all thirteen swaps, 100 cards.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

FAQ

Do Thopters from different cards count as different names for Gimbal?

No. A token is named for its subtypes plus the word Token unless the effect that made it gave it a name, so the Thopters from Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Whirler Rogue, Thopter Spy Network, Sai and Hangarback Walker are all the same name and count once. Tokens that copy something take the copied name, and a few effects name their token outright, like the Feather from Everquill Phoenix. Those are the cases where one card can add a name of its own.

Does Gimbal's own Gremlin count toward the number?

Yes. The Gremlin is created first and the counters are placed afterwards, so it counts itself and an otherwise empty board still makes a 1/1. Every Gremlin shares one name, so the Gremlins from earlier turns add nothing.

How much do the thirteen swaps cost?

About $19.21 at the cheapest released printing of each card, and $10.05 of that is Steam Vents. Skip the shockland and take Spirebluff Canal at about $4.50 instead and the total falls to roughly $13.66. Steam Vents is also reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so waiting a few weeks may make it cheaper.

Is Pain Distributor safe to leave in this deck?

It's playable but it feeds the table. The Treasure goes to every player who casts a first spell each turn, which means each opponent ramps alongside you, and the deck already has five other cards that make Treasure for you alone. I cut it for that reason.

Can the Powerstone tokens from Karn pay for Gimbal?

No. Powerstone mana can't be spent on a nonartifact spell, and Gimbal is a creature that isn't an artifact. It can pay for artifact spells and for abilities, which covers Transmutation Font, Worldwalker Helm, the Lander from Dauntless Scrapbot and the twenty artifact cards in the upgraded list.

What should Transmutation Font search for?

Thopter Assembly or Sharding Sphinx, which are the two six mana artifacts already in the deck and cost nothing when the Font puts them onto the battlefield. The ability sacrifices three tokens with different names and costs three mana, so do it on a turn when you don't need the full count at your end step.

Which colours is Tinker Time short of?

Blue and red, in that order of how many cards ask. Both sit at 27 sources in the box and a double pip by turn three lands about 76 per cent of the time. The swaps don't move either count, because lands can't close a gap that size. What they change is speed: lands that always enter tapped fall from seven to three.