"...over and over the Tinker strategy has proved its power with both mana acceleration and extremely expensive cards can devastate the opponent, not only in their sheer power, but with the speed at at which they resolve."
Mike Flores, "Finding the Tinker Deck."

As Mr. Flores indicates in his fine work, it probably started with Jamie Wakefield — the "King of the Fatties." Paying large amounts of mana for big, powerful spells should always be an optional thing. Finding a way to circumvent these immense costs is the inspiration that drives our cunning. We thrive on finding a way around the wall of high casting costs dividing us from our coveted uber-spells, rather than trying the much more difficult task of scaling said wall.

The Origins Of Electric Avenue; Electric Blue
Sometime between Pro Tour: New York 1999 and the 2000 World Championships, I had acquired a set of four Tinkers, breaking my long-standing refusal to use spells with color requirements. Even without the benefit of the vast resources of the Internet, I found ways to bring forth turn 2 Teeka's Dragons and Urza's Armors, utterly crushing the unprepared metagame of our local area. I would later discover the Magic: the Gathering internet community (and consequently Zvi Mowshowitz's Tinker articles), and the world would become a little broader.

Electric Blue, circa 1999-2000
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
8 Island
4 Svyelunite Temple
4 Tinker
4 Counterspell
2 Teeka's Dragon
4 Onulet
4 Mana Vault
4 Thran Turbine
4 Sky Diamond
4 Urza's Armor
1 Aladdin's Ring
2 Urza's Blueprints
7 ?

There's a portion of the deck that's lost to memory. And although I never attained any level of notoriety with the deck, it was the discovery of the concept of circumventing mana costs that was important. Certainly, in casting Tinker you would be losing two cards (the Tinker itself and the sacrificed card, usually a Mana Vault), but, you would then have a devastatingly powerful card in play. At the time, no one played any significant countermagic, so the threat of a Tinker being countered was low. Additionally, there really wasn't a quality response to a turn 2 Teeka's Dragon in our area, at the time.

Win Conditions:
The win conditions were almost always Teeka's Dragon beats, bolstered by the eventual Aladdin's Ring blasting. Hard-casting a Dragon or a Ring was rarely a problem once I had enough time to draw into the Urza's land (or “the Circuit,” as I called it back then). If an Onulet went the distance, it was a rare thing. They were originally included to be Tinker sacrifices, honestly, but I recall them ending up being chump-blockers more often than not.

Countermagic:
Unusual for our area were the four Counterspells. My reasoning then was that sometimes my wife's brother would play scant counter-magic of his own and stop a key spell, or that sometimes someone would cast a threat to which I had no answer and Counterspell was beginning to dawn on me, then, as the most versatile answer in the game.

Removal/Solutions:
Outside of Aladdin's Ring, there was no real removal in the deck and I depended upon Urza's Armor and Onulet to keep me alive against speed-based decks or burn decks.

Card Drawing/Library Manipulation:
Card drawing (or other library manipulation) was also pretty unheard of, and I included the Urza's Blueprints mainly to draw me into more threats in the late game, where I tended to stall out after having cast a Tinker for a Dragon.

Stagnation of Electric Blue, 2000-2003 / 2003-2006
Later in 2000, I would switch to Kai Budde's Championship "The German Dragon" Wildfire-based deck and I would retire Tinker, only to fiddle with the cards here and there as Blue-Red based Mishra's Workshop decks in the Vintage Community would inspire me. However, none of those endeavors led to any satisfaction or success, so I omit them for the sake of brevity.

The 2003 series of State Championships, however, would renew my interest in a Tinker-style deck with a decklist from innovative deck designer Joe Knizacky:

Urza's Artifact A Standard deck, by Joe Knizacky 8th place at a States/Champs tournament in Michigan, United States on 2003-10-26 Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Chromatic Sphere 1 Culling Scales 1 Loxodon Warhammer 1 Mind's Eye 1 Myr Incubator 3 Oblivion Stone 1 Skeleton Shard Artifact Creatures 3 Bottle Gnomes 4 Clockwork Dragon 4 Duplicant 3 Myr Retriever 4 Solemn Simulacrum 4 Triskelion Legendary Artifacts 1 Mindslaver	Sorceries 4 Fabricate 4 Sylvan Scrying Artifact Lands 2 Seat of the Synod 2 Tree of Tales Basic Lands 2 Forest 2 Island Lands 4 Cloudpost 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower	Sideboard: 1 Culling Scales 1 Damping Matrix 1 Ensnaring Bridge 1 Oblivion Stone 1 Riptide Replicator 1 Scrabbling Claws 1 Skeleton Shard 1 Stabilizer 1 Talisman of Dominance 1 Talisman of Impulse 1 Myr Retriever 1 Platinum Angel 2 March of the Machines 1 Mindslaver
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Win Conditions:
Every creature in this deck can serve, which is a plus. There are also a number of ways to generate threat in the form of Myr Incubator, but more so with the recursion of Skeleton Shard. This is a creature-based deck, powering out huge monsters with its ramping mana base and solid land tutors (Solemn Simulacrum, Sylvan Scrying).

Countermagic:

There is no countermagic to speak of, but there are powerful, long-term solutions in recurring Duplicant, Triskelion, Bottle Gnomes, and then recurring Myr Retriever to bring back everything else. Culling Scales can whittle away a small army while the rest of the deck stalls, and you can always blow everything up with Oblivion Stone (minus your own key permanents, of course). Loxodon Warhammer bolsters the Bottle Gnome-based life gain strategy, and Mindslaver absolutely abuses your opponent by taking away his inherent ability to interact and choose how the duel goes.

Removal/Solutions:
Joe's deck defends itself nicely against the Affinity-based designs with Duplicant, Triskelion, Culling Scales and Oblivion Stone.

I'm a big fan of the Stone, myself.... But I currently don't own any. Sigh.

Card Drawing/Library Manipulation:
Chromatic Spheres replace themselves nicely with a solid, useful effect and Mind's Eye rounds out the library manipulation with the raw power to keep up with an opponent's attempts at pulling ahead against cards like Fact or Fiction.

Although Joe didn't win any monetary reward at States, he won my attention with his fascinating decklist. Unfortunately, I never did more than set aside the components; it was just another intention that came to nothing. The desire was there, though.

Fast-forward to February 2006 and a budding multiplayer series of get-togethers at my house. Dave Almansor (who has written for this fine site in the past, just as I have) and I began to toss back and forth ideas of Stax and Control Slaver ideas while we introduced a new player, Tim Rapson, to the game. Dave began working on an aggressive Green/Red beatdown design while we discussed Blue/Red/Artifact-based theory and I mentioned Joe's deck, flippantly deciding to put it together while Dave goldfished his Red/Green design.

Dave noticed the Fabricates and asked the obvious question: "Why are you playing Fabricate? Tinker's so much better."

Out went Fabricate, in went Tinker. Since I was down about ten cards from the original build, I improvised by bolstering the lone Mindslaver and Skeleton Shard. I added Darksteel Colossus, Sundering Titan, and a set of Platinum Angel as win conditions over the Clockwork Dragon and such.

Having some experience with Vintage MUD Domination, I instinctively made room for Metalworker and Staff of Domination. Owning but one Solemn Simulacrum, I opted to cut the entire basic mana base from the deck, instead using Junk Diver to bolster the recursion theme.

And quite spontaneously was born:

Electric Avenue Featured by David Bruce on 2006-03-05 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11423.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Chromatic Sphere 3 Sculpting Steel 2 Skeleton Shard 3 Staff Of Domination Artifact Creatures 1 Darksteel Colossus 4 Junk Diver 4 Metalworker 1 Myr Retriever 3 Platinum Angel 1 Sundering Titan	Legendary Artifacts 2 Mindslaver Sorceries 4 Sylvan Scrying 4 Tinker Artifact Lands 4 Seat of the Synod 4 Tree of Tales Lands 4 Cloudpost 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower	Stats: Average mana: 2.10 Average creature mana cost: 4.71 Average creature power: 2.50 Average creature toughness: 3.00 Deck Composition: Lands: 26.67% Artifact Creatures: 23.33% Artifacts: 20.00% Sorceries: 13.33% Legendary Artifacts: 3.33% Artifact Lands: 13.33%
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Mana:
The Urza's lands and Cloudpost do, in the long term, what Mishra's Workshop does with artifact-based decks in Vintage; generate the ability to drop immensely powerful permanents far earlier than they would otherwise be available. It's kind of like cheating; you're generating an effect that would normally tap seven lands, but only tapping three. While you lack the explosive power of Mishra's Workshop, you are that much stronger in the mid-game, not to mention the late game. And in a casual multiplayer environment, you typically have those extra turns to set up your mana base and begin churning out your expensive permanents.

Bolstering this mana ramping are four Chromatic Spheres (to allow you to consistently cast Tinker and Sylvan Scrying when they eventually show), four Metalworkers, and four Sylvan Scryings. Chromatic Sphere would be strong simply as a mana fixer (we could have that in Mana Cylix), but in sacrificing itself for smoother mana, it replaces itself, often drawing into another threat or piece to power out a threat.

Sylvan Scrying deserves special note because this deck does not, in fact, have Mishra's Workshop. Your goal is not to overpower one opponent on turns 1, 2, or 3; your goal is stack your mana base to ramp itself up as the game progresses. Instead of dropping three permanents on turn 1, you're thinking about hard-casting one seven-mana permanent on turn 3. And after that turn, you'll be using those expensive artifacts to generate more and more options, whereas Mishra's Workshop is only useful in getting a permanent into play.

This is extremely important in a multiplayer environment; and overwhelming just one opponent is a good way to get the rest of the table to take you out early. What's good in Vintage one-on-one duels may not be so good in multiplayer free-for-alls.

Win Conditions:
As far as win conditions go, the deck has several; that's its primary strength. Metalworker can serve, in a pinch, but they're mainly there to generate massive amounts of mana and do something profound. Junk Diver and Myr Retriever are also primarily in the deck for functionality; when they die, you get back an artifact from the graveyard and you can then get back the Junk Diver/Myr Retriever with Skeleton Shard, or with another Junk Diver or Myr Retriever.

Platinum Angel, Darksteel Colossus, and Sundering Titan are the primary win conditions of the deck, but bear in mind that they serve other functions, too. Platinum Angel can flat-out ensure your continued survival if she's allowed to live. Don't depend on her too heavily, though; even in our casual multiplayer circle, there are tons of ways to off her. Darksteel Colossus certainly dishes the damage, but note his ability to be shuffled back into the library; this has saved me against library-depletion-based strategies and should not be overlooked. Sundering Titan, by the same token, is there not only to serve with a big 7/10 body, but also to cripple opponents' mana bases. His willingness to die for a Tinker is noble, especially when he takes a land or two with him and comes back via Skeleton Shard.

You might not think of it, but Sculpting Steel also pulls about fifty percent of the win wagon by copying my own Angels, Colossi and Titans.

Finally, there's Mindslaver; no other card in the deck is so powerful, despite their big numbers and versatile effects. This card is just absolutely wrong. After 'Slaving out an opponent six times, expect to get punched. Even with the two Mindslavers and difficult ways to reuse them (Junk Diver/Myr Retriever with Skeleton Shard and some way to kill the creatures), it happens more than opponents would like. Bear in mind, though, that my testing has revealed it's far more powerful as a way to prevent your opponent from doing anything useful for a turn while you set up your big swing with Angels, Colossi, and Titans.

Countermagic:
There is no existing countermagic in the deck — but certainly there could be in the form of Null Brooch, provided one could find room for the powerful artifact. I toss this out as an idea only, though; I've found no inherent need for countermagic in the deck as yet.

Removal/Solutions:
Platinum Angel provides the biggest blanket response to problems, if she can stay alive. As has been mentioned, Darksteel Colossus provides an option against library-depletion strategies — and if these are popular in your area, you can bolster his numbers possibly even with Legacy Weapon. Staff of Domination provides a solid Fog effect through the tapping of various creatures and gaining life, all limited only by your mana supply (which can be profound, if left unchecked).

The really surprising solution card has turned out to be Sculpting Steel. With the clever application of a single copy, one can completely disrupt a fine-tuned strategy. For example, one of the most popular responses to my artifact-based decks in the area is Nevinyrral's Disk. Now, imagine your opponent just dropped Nevinyrral's Disk, ready to blow your world up or keep you from playing further permanents for fear of the big bang. What if you were to copy their Nevinyrral's Disk and blow it on your own terms? And then follow it up with a horde of permanents?

Sculpting Steel really forces you to circumvent traditional artifact-based responses and applications. I couldn't begin to list all the possible tricks you can pull off with this gem, so I leave it to the community to discover.

Card Drawing/Library Manipulation:
On the surface, Chromatic Sphere and Staff of Domination appear to be your only library manipulation, but consider also that Tinker will thin your deck of one big casting cost threat (in most cases). Consider also that Sylvan Scrying will thin your deck of one mana source, as well.

UPDATE: In my current build, I have dropped two Platinum Angels in favor of one Mind's Eye and one Duplicant, both of which have their strengths. I am also actively looking at options for the inclusion of Goblin Welder, possibly bolstered by Lightning Greaves to ensure a prolonged life of abusing artifacts. What to cut, though? That's something for another article, perhaps.

The Budget Nature Of Electric Avenue
I want to make special note of the inherent budget nature of this deck. I must confess I tend to avoid cards pricing out over $10.00 in my decks, since I believe (as I'm certain others do), that the essence of casual is not paying huge amounts of cash to put together a deck of cards focused exclusively on winning. Unlike competitive Magic, where a return on your investment is your intent, I tend to think the casual player leans more towards minimizing the resources invested and maximizing the “fun” value.

All that being said, feel free to trick the thing out with Moxen and such, if you have the funds.

Weaknesses And Shortcomings Of Electric Avenue
There are a number of weaknesses to the deck — some obvious, some not so much so.

Firstly, bear in mind this is a creature-based deck and if you face a deck that shuts that strategy down (Isochron Scepter/Orim's Chant, Humility, Moat, and the like), you're going to have a ton of trouble. All is not lost in that you can produce some ridiculously powerful plays; third-turn Tinker is a reality that happens more often than it doesn't, and going for Sundering Titan can often lock an opponent out of their ability to play out that troublesome Moat or Humility.

Secondly, artifact destruction cards like Shattering Pulse, Rack and Ruin, and Ruination are going to utterly wreck you. If such cards are popular in your area, I recommend some innovation in the deck design (Goblin Welder, Null Brooch, and so on) to resist such strategies. Bear in mind, though, it's going to be an uphill battle.

Thirdly, and oddly enough, I find myself with two problems in regards to the recursion theme; there's either nothing to reuse, or there's no way to start the recur-engine. Nine times out of ten, I have found myself using Junk Diver and Myr Retriever to bring back the not-so-profound permanent of Chromatic Sphere, as it will be the only card in my graveyard at the time. Opponents will also play around killing the creatures if they know it will bring back something powerful.

And, sometimes, you just get stuck starring at a Junk Diver or Myr Retriever with no way to put it into the graveyard to get back your uber-permanent.

All of this has led me down a road that includes not only the possibility of Goblin Welder, but also of Transmute Artifact and other little-known or used sacrifice-type effects like Phyrexian Tower, High Market, and Claws of Gix. These all seem fairly narrow, though, with the exception of Goblin Welder... And the problem with Goblin Welder in our local area is that the decks I face off against have copious ways to deal with a lone Red 1/1. Let's just say the Welder's life expectancy could be measured in seconds. This rears the question of Trash for Treasure, but I have that slotted for another deck.

How To Play Electric Avenue
From both a one-on-one and multiplayer duel aspect, the deck is strong. You have numerous options open to you every step of the way, and bear in mind that you can literally draw into a winning situation in any moment.

Your first turn will always involve laying a land, followed by a 6% chance to drop a Chromatic Sphere. At turn two, your percentage to cast a spell ramps to 8.3% (Myr Retriever, Sylvan Scrying), with a 15% chance to cast something if we count in Chromatic Sphere.

All of this is basically saying that you're typically not going to do much until turn 3.

If you should happen to have a Sylvan Scrying you can cast, you must make a decision and stick to it. First, evaluate your hand. Let's take a look at what you might have there:

• Any Urza-type land - Consider going and getting a missing piece. Urza's Tower is typically my default if I have an Urza's Mine or Urza's Power Plant already in hand. With a dozen pieces in the deck, this is the default plan, as you have a much higher percentage chance to draw into a piece (if not the missing piece) of the ‘Circuit' as the game progresses.

• Cloudpost and no Urza-type land - Consider going for another Cloudpost. There aren't as many Cloudposts in the deck as Urza-lands, but they do ramp up in mana even more so than the Urzae.

An Aside: Cloudpost is more powerful than the Urza-type lands, in the short term. One Cloudpost equals one colorless mana, two equals four, three equals nine and four equals sixteen. On the flip side, one Urza-type land equals one colorless mana, two equals two, three equals anywhere from three (no “Circuit”) to seven, and four equals anywhere from four (no “Circuit”) to ten. However, there are more Urza-type lands than Cloudpost. You're going to run out of available Cloudposts in four turns, whereas you'll be playing Urza-type lands for twelve.

• Cloudpost and Urza-type land - If you're going for longevity, go for the Circuit, but remember that Cloudpost is far more explosive, if not long-term.

• Tinker - If you open a hand with a Tinker and you have no Chromatic Sphere to generate blue mana, fetch a Seat of the Synod to the exclusion of all other lands. A resolved Tinker fetches game-winners like Darksteel Colossus and Sundering Titan on turn 3.

• Sylvan Scrying and Chromatic Sphere - If you have no Tinker, feel free to blow Chromatic Sphere and go fetch a missing land piece. Ensuring that you can ramp up in mana to hard-cast your threats is more important than waiting for a Tinker to show. Don't underestimate the cycling nature of Chromatic Sphere.

Turn 3, things get interesting. There's just no other way to say it. This is your pivotal turn and a lot of important decisions are going to be made here.

Here are some notes, from the field:

Metalworker:
It's a sure bet that after people see the ridiculous power of this guy, he's not going to have long to live. Use that to your advantage. If you know your opponents can kill one artifact creature and that you can begin hard-casting your threats in a timely fashion, throw him out there to make them use those resources. It's far better for them to nuke a Metalworker than a Platinum Angel.

That said, pay attention to your hand before dropping this guy. You have around an 8.3% base chance of your hand containing your Big Threats - the three Platinum Angels, Darksteel Colossus, or Sundering Titan. With just two other artifacts in hand (or more) and mana in play, you should be able to hard-cast one of them. Which one is best depends on your situation in the game, but you likely will only have one in hand at any given time.

Bear in mind that Sundering Titan will make you extremely unpopular at the table, and will do so instantly. Make sure you can mitigate the hate coming in after dropping him. Darksteel Colossus will likely make you a target of choice, too. People get nervous when 11/11 tramplers hit the table, for some odd reason. Platinum Angel provokes a similar reaction; people don't like being told they can't win the game any more.

It's typically safer to drop bulk than a Big Threat before turn 4. Dropping Junk Diver, Myr Retriever, and Skeleton Shard shouldn't provoke any undue hate, whereas Mindslaver will. Sculpting Steel is trickier; it depends on what you copy. Playing a Sundering Titan, then copying it... That's going to win you some enmity real fast.

The sneakiest play by far involves having a Staff of Domination in hand with three other artifacts. If Metalworker lives to see his next upkeep and can tap for mana, you've probably won. The trick is to tap him for six or more colorless, from the other three or more other artifacts in your hand. Drop Staff of Domination. Untap Metalworker. Generate more mana. Untap Staff of Domination. Untap Metalworker. Generate more mana. Repeat ad nauseoum. My typical play is to generate ten trillion life, draw my library down to its last ten or fifteen cards (count one turn to kill each opponent, then add five cards, that's a good rule of thumb about how many to leave in your library), play out all of them you can, and wait for your next untap to kill everyone.

Beware Brain Freeze! Casting the majority of your library in one turn would lead to some wicked Brain Freeze action, so be cautious if you suspect someone's playing the card at the table.

Junk Diver:
“JD,” as we call him, is basically a chump blocker. He sacrifices himself so that more powerful artifacts can see play again. Although he can beat down, bear in mind if you drop him on turn 3, he's likely going to be playing defense. As has been mentioned above, I've lately been running into the problem of having nothing noteworthy in the grave to get back with him. If he dies and there's nothing to recur, don't sweat it. Also keep in mind that he and Myr Retriever can recur each other to serve as recurring blockers.

Sculpting Steel:
I rarely copy anything but a bomb (Platinum Angel, Darksteel Colossus, Sundering Titan) with him, so hold him until you can get a quality target. If someone's got a nice artifact on the table, remember that you can target it; it doesn't have to be your artifact that gets copied. Note the neat trick above, mentioning the blowing up a Nevinyrral's Disk. This card encourages improvisation.

Staff of Domination:
Casting a Staff of Domination without a Metalworker is a fine play. It's also a very safe one. For two colorless, you can gain a life. For four colorless, you can tap down an attacking creature. For five colorless, you can draw a card. For one colorless, you can untap the Staff and repeat as needed. It's a strong artifact on its own, and it just wins with the Metalworker-based combo.

Skeleton Shard:
Another safe call. If all you're doing is recurring Junk Diver and Myr Retriever for blocking, no one will take note (at least until they've seen this deck go off a couple of times). The first time you cast and recur a Sundering Titan in the same turn, at least one person will usually concede.

Tinker:
This spell is a bomb and should be used immediately. Fetching one of the bombs (Colossus, Angel, Titan) will usually be the way to go, but don't overlook using Tinker to get utility spells out. Additionally, make sure you can mitigate the hate of the entire table once Tinker resolves.

Past three mana — which usually means turn 3 and beyond — you've really reached the mid- to late-game, depending on whether or not a Tinker has resolved, or if a Metalworker/Staff of Domination combo has gone off. After this point, if the game isn't over, you're going to start hard-casting your threats and recurring them with Junk Diver, Myr Retriever, and/or Skeleton Shard. It will be up to you to make decisions from this point, as the games tend to get vastly more complex in both decision requirements and decision rewards.

Good luck to you!

David “The Earl Of” Bruce
theBruce58@hotmail.com or DaveBruce@charter.net
Founding member; The 888 Collective
Proud member of the Casual Player's Alliance; theBruce58