Time-Tinker Tips and Tricks Guide – Best Cards, Treasures, Equipment!

Time-Tinker is one of the monster hunters you will get to choose from in the new Monster Hunt mode. We’ll be listing all of the tips and tricks, best treasures and equipment, for you to make your way through some fierce beasts on your way to the final nemesis and then to Hagatha!

Monster Hunt is very similar to the Dungeon Run from Kobolds and Catacombs. So if you enjoyed that, then you will very likely have a good time with this single-player roguelike mode.

Time-Tinker (Toki) Info: Hero Power, Starting Deck

You might recognize Toki, Time-Tinker as one of the Mage legendaries from The Witchwood expansion. Toki’s starting deck combines some classic Mage cards with a bit of randomness. You start with a single copy of the following cards:

  • Arcane Missiles
  • Mana Wyrm
  • Mad Bomber
  • Primordial Glyph
  • Shimmering Tempest
  • Unstable Portal
  • Spellslinger
  • Tinkmaster Overspark
  • Water Elemental
  • Blingtron 3000

The Time-Tinker’s Hero Power is Temporal Loop (0 Mana): Start your turn over. It’s basically a large Control-Z you can use to undo any misplays. More importantly, however, is that it lets you re-roll any of the random-effect cards you’ve played in a turn. Did you cast Arcane Missiles, but the targets you wanted to hit are still alive and well? Don’t worry, Toki’s got your back. Just hop back in time and try again! Except for which cards you draw – those are in a specific order and will not change – you can try to up your luck with anything, from Discover to randomly summoned minions.

Below you can see what the Hero Power looks like when you use it.

 

Time-Tinker (Toki) Card Choices

Toki’s card buckets consist of similar tools as Mage’s buckets in the Kobolds and Catacombs Dungeon Run, although there are a few new ones too:

  • Magical Friends: All that synergizes well with spells. Think good-old Mana Wyrm, but also Arcane Giants and Spiteful Summoner can be found in this bucket.
  • Elementalist: The Elementals are calling from the bottom of this bucket. The mighty Pyros, Tar Creeper and Blazecaller are eager to show their power!
  • Mechanical: Mech Mage might be well past its glory days on Ladder, in the Monster Hunt Toki calls upon her rusty friends to fight for the board. From Goblin Blast Mage to Sneed’s Old Shredder, all can’t wait to get those gears running.
  • Knowledge: You don’t become a Time-Tinker without studying thoroughly. And what do you learn? Well, according to this bucket, drawing cards. Loot Hoarder, Novice Engineer and even a Gadgetzan Auctioneer are some of the cards found here.
  • BOOM!: Big explosions everywhere! If you’re aiming for a slower deck, consider this bucket. With Flamestrike, Blizzard and Dragoncaller Alana there’s no board intimidating enough.
  • Wild Magic: With a Hero Power designed to give you a second chance, a bit of randomness can’t hurt. Deck of Wonders, Cabalist’s Tome and Unstable Portal are just a few of the cards you can try your luck with.
  • Frosty: It’s probably not a huge shock, but if you’re looking for Freeze-effects this bucket of ice challenges you to take it. Breath of Syndragosa, Frost Nova and Blizzard, all is ready for the next cool game.

Monster Hunter Guides

Learn more about the Monster Hunt and the rest of the Monster Hunters with our in-depth guides!

Time-Tinker (Toki) Best Treasures, Equipment

Aside from the ‘neutral’ Passives and Treasures Toki can choose from, she has a couple that are unique to her character.

  • Stroke of Midnight – 2 Mana Spell: Echo. Destroy a random enemy minion.
    An incredibly powerful removal tool. If your opponent all of a sudden generated a menacing board (we’re looking at you, Face Collector), Stroke of Midnight is a fantastic tool to clean it up. Don’t get too greedy with the card though; using it to extend your board lead might be an even stronger play, depending on the boss you’re facing.
  • Gattling Gunner – 4 Mana 5/3 minion: Whenever you play a card, deal damage equal to its Cost to a random enemy minion.
    A less reliable removal tool than Stroke of Midnight, but comes with the upside that this card can push damage himself once his effect has removed the most menacing minions of the opposing boss.
  • Clockwork Assistant – 1 Mana 1/1 minion: Has +1/+1 for each spell you’ve cast this game.
    Somewhat reminiscent of the Dungeon Run’s Loyal Sidekick, this helpful bot has the potential to be a large minion for a very low price. An upside to the Clockwork Assistant is that it continues to grow while it’s on board, posing a big thread.
  • Rewind – Passive: When your hero dies, restart the game and remove this from your Dungeon Deck.
    If you thought Toki’s Hero Power was the only big ‘undo’ button in her Monster Hunt, you made a grievous error. Rewind gives you a second chance at an opponent. Did you not account for a specific card, or were your draws just that unlucky? Don’t worry, try it one more time. Just once, though.

Time-Tinker (Toki) Tips and Tricks

Hero Power – Temporal Loop

It takes a while before you get accustomed to Toki’s play style. While many turns will go like any game you’d play as Mage,  it gets tricky when there’s randomness involved. Although you’re not likely to calculate the exact odds of all the RNG cards you’ve played, it is crucial to think hard on the turn that has just passed. How good was it, and what could’ve gone better? More importantly: If you reset the turn and let the dice roll again, what can go worse? Using Toki’s Hero Power is fun and games for a while, but replaying entire turns that have little impact quickly becomes.. eh.. repetitive. Be mindful of that if you want to progress with decent speed through the Monster Hunt.

Building a deck

Much like with most Dungeon Run and Monster Hunt decks, opting for a Midrange strategy is the way to go. Trying to take control over the board from turn 1 might be difficult against some opponents, but it’s rarely impossible when the right choices have been made prior to the encounter. It might be counter-intuitive for a class so rich in spells, but the fight for board control with most opponents happens through sheer minion pressure. Pick up a Blizzard, Volcanic Potion and maybe a Flamestrike along the way, but don’t go overboard and create a Big Spell Mage deck. Similarly, targeted removal like Polymorph is good as a one-of, but it’s an expensive tool.

The same balance between cost and pay-off should be kept in mind when picking random effects. Yes, a Yogg-Saron can be hilarious (especially when you can play him twice), but it’s rarely going to do much of significance. Cards like Deck of Wonders and Cabalist’s Tome have the same footnote, though the latter one of those two can be justified if all the other options are downright horrible. On the contrary, Discover cards like Primordial Glyph and Ethereal Conjurer can be of great value. Their ‘controlled’ randomness scales massively with Toki’s Hero Power.

Leave a Reply

22 Comments

  1. Obekadobe
    October 9, 2018 at 11:05 am

    I was just able to finish her off for my first monster hunt run through. I had double time x2, assistant, and enhance-a-matic. I took wild magic whenever I could and then made sure I grabbed a chaos that had quest once.

    Def RNG involved.

    I focused on keeping the board clear 1st round until she reset the game on me. I was able to start with assistant and pulled enhance on like turn 4. enhance gave me the hunter hat buff and mage minion copy. I cleared board and threw 3 hat buffs on a mob, got a 9/9 assitant down as I completed quest. With 2x double time you get 3-4 extra turns. had a 17/17 and 2x 9/9 and just smorcd down at that point.

    Hope this can help others trying to knock this out.

  2. Kimano
    September 7, 2018 at 8:21 pm

    Actually, Toki was the easiest one for me, did it on 2nd try, with 9 hunter kills (ye I fucked up the first run). :p
    I got extremly lucky, alot of great synergies with flamewaker, sorceres and random spells and minion that could give even more random spells.
    What really did it for me though were the passive combo of double casting the first spell I’d cast each round, together with the +3 spell dmg cloak, worked amazing, and my board control were flawless, even against that AI playing alooot of big minions. When fishing for good spells with minions and other spells, focus on board clearing spells, and use hero power to maximize the RNG luck of getting just the spells needed!

    Best Regards Kim

  3. J
    May 23, 2018 at 12:52 am

    yo that final boss is infuriating… and toki is garbage compared to the others!!!

    • HolyCrusader
      September 3, 2018 at 8:42 pm

      I couldn’t agree more. Actually, after failed for over 50 rounds (mostly I got stuck in 5th -7th boss fight ,and only one time I passed the 8th boss through lucky treasure, but immediately defeated by Infinite Toki), I decide to let such boring adventure missions alone and refresh any quest that involves boss hunting.
      This adventure reflects Blizzard’s typical lazy & stupid work of design team, by simply overpowering the Bosses’ ability, deck, and copy the rest of game elements from previous adventure missions.

  4. ilikepie
    May 7, 2018 at 11:52 am

    Passives: Double Time and Double Time (yes they stack)
    Treasures:
    Hat (+2/2 deathrattle) -> x3 with passive
    Evolve by x2 = x6
    Wild magic cards (arcane missles and portal op when x3)
    infinite toki I went through 4 ice blocks and a game restart and killed everything.

  5. Samuel Stock
    May 1, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    I won with The time Tinkerer after multiple tries.
    Passives: double time, extra mama crystal
    Treasure: horn that gives your minions +1/+1 and taunt then upgrades and shuffles into your deck, minion that gets +1/+1 for each spell you play
    Deck synergies: picked any bucket with Deck of Wonders (huge synergy with Double Time)
    Final boss: infinite toki
    Won on second game (infinite toki casts a spell when she reaches 10 mana that restarts the game but your health stays the same. She only casts it once since I didn’t see it in the second game)

    • Samuel Stock
      May 1, 2018 at 10:18 pm

      *mana crystal

    • Samuel Stock
      May 1, 2018 at 10:19 pm

      Still beat Infinite Toki despite her restarting the game and popping the mage quest to take an extra turn. I had 39 health and 28 armor by the time I won.

      • Samuel Stock
        May 1, 2018 at 10:22 pm

        And she used 3 ice blocks and had 1 card left in her deck when I won

  6. jo
    May 1, 2018 at 6:16 am

    Quest mage works with double time, you can get 3 turns in a row if you complete it.

    • thesos
      May 4, 2018 at 12:45 am

      4 turns in a row if you have double double time.

  7. AMEIZING
    April 28, 2018 at 10:48 am

    One trick is to try to use a RNG option, then if you don’t like it, temporal loop and use a card that’s not RNG. That way you don’t get stuck with a worse option!

    I won with Double Time and careful use of spells. Pay careful attention to what the possible targets are of your spells; while Arcane Missiles can only hit enemies, Fireball can hit anyone, including you! I ended up winning with the clear MVP being a Lich King. A Double Timed antimagic shell will make your whole team insane, and Death Coil will heal if it hits your side. Stroke of Midnight and Unruly Mob are glorious with Double Time as well.

  8. Helioshadow
    April 28, 2018 at 5:27 am

    Was the most difficult for me (even Hagatha only took me 2 tries lol). Took me 38 Dungeon wins before I actually beat the run (with Infinite Toki at the end). Used Mechs if you were curious; just zerg the board, stay ahead, and keep popping her in the face, hopefully winning before turn 10. Rinse and repeat if you don’t get her before 10. Had to endure the reset once, but ‘twas smooth sailing from there.

  9. Alglyphic
    April 27, 2018 at 8:24 pm

    Cleared the first Hunt using her, which is both easy and difficult at the same time – no thanks to how they basically made RNG the main focus of a hero.

    The final build I ended up with included Double Time, Hood of the Spell Damage +3 and Cube of Getting 1 Spell from Every Class, since the early buckets included Open the Waygate. Later picks included Secret synergies (2 Arcane Keysmiths and 1 Kabal Crystal Runner), various removals that synergized with the Hood (Flamestrike, Volcanic Potion) and more random synergy (Cabalist’s Tome, Leyline Manipulator). Double Time with Cabalist’s Tome and Arcane Missiles is ridiculously good for board clear and fulfilling Quest requirements.

    For those wondering, Infinite Toki effectively plays like you with her own “optimized” version of Quest Mage – I say optimized because she also runs her own Cube of Every Spell, Mana Bind and so on, so she’ll pretty much always have options. The good thing is the AI can be pretty silly when it comes to using her Time Warp; she’ll use it even without any field presence. Making sure she has no board is important, while Arcane Keysmithed Ice Block (and another copy I picked up) saved my hide in the late game. She also runs a 10 mana spell of restart the entire game which is as annoying as it sounds.

  10. Monkey King
    April 27, 2018 at 7:39 pm

    How can I beat the other Toki she is cheating?

  11. Jay
    April 27, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    Should also mention you can’t use your hero power if you die because of randomness.

  12. Jay
    April 27, 2018 at 12:04 pm

    This doesn’t really help much at all. Doesn’t discuss Khadgar’s Scrying Orb, Double Time, or the value compared to known quantities like vitality.

  13. juanpcc
    April 26, 2018 at 11:07 am

    The firts hero chosse when the adventure was aviable, pretty fun to play.
    Because is kind of RNG mage, the hero problem let you try again everything.

    • HolyCrusader
      September 3, 2018 at 9:02 pm

      For me this is the worst hero and her ability often bring further drawback than your expectation. No need to mention that there are too many RNG cards in her initial deck, they are also included in reward card pool. I try to get avoid those RNG cards as far as possible; however, many times u realy don’t have obvious choices over other options.

      I am pretty sure I completed the adventure with HoundMaster firstly at 3rd try, and within both the Tracker and Cannoneer less than 40 games. The toki however, after repeat over 60 games, I decide to leave her alone even up to now. (I completed the puzzle lab in first week and I really enjoy the design. It is indeed a big improvement compare to their lazy work of Hunterwood adventure.)

      • Marcus
        October 1, 2018 at 8:48 pm

        I don’t understand how anyone can win with her after 129 bosses beaten I haven’t even gotten to Infinite Toki once… complete garbage.

        • Eruzin
          November 28, 2019 at 10:50 am

          245 monsters beat with her for me and I still haven’t figured out how to beat her. It doesn’t seem to matter what kind of deck I build, I can’t get past her.