Well @#$%, That Didn't Work...

[Boros_Blendo]

Admit it, we've all done it. We've all built Rube Goldberg decks that are so convoluted, they can't possibly work as well as we envisioned. The fun part is, sometimes they do still work in modified form, even if they aren't one of the ones we break out that often but are fun enough to keep. The deck below highlights this.

The idea was to have this grand loop of putting smalls out and bouncing them with the Nulltread Gargantuan, recycling the Ambuscade, drawing massive numbers of cards with Prime Speaker Zegana, recycling everything with Primal Command, distributing +1/+1 counters with the gearhulk and Zegana, Utopian Speaker then giving everything trample, and otherwise running riot with the two Amonkhet gods in the deck. Yeah, that went about as well as I should have expected. Notice some of the cards I mentioned that are not in here? The deck failed, miserably. It's not that individual parts are bad, it just doesn't work like it worked gold-fishing because the games are far too fast, or there are too many go-wides in my group, or...(pick your reason). In the end, the Amonkhet gods are still beasts, and the gargantuan is still ridiculously under-costed if you can handle the bounce-to-top-of-deck part. I still like the deck, and added stuff that makes it a little less Rube Goldberg, but it's still a critter deck that isn't intended for serious blow-the-doors-out games.

What are the hilariously failing Rube Goldberg decks you've attempted, and how bad did it get? Do you still have a modified version that you keep? Post it here!

MORTAL KOMBAAAAAT!!!

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Creatures

4 Spectral Sailor

4 River Hoopoe

4 Coiling Oracle

4 Eternal Witness

4 Nulltread Gargantuan

3 Rhonas the Indomitable

3 Kefnet the Mindful

2 Verdurous Gearhulk

Enchantments

3 Rancor

Instants

4 Ambuscade

Sorceries

4 Kefnet's Last Word

2 Primal Command

Lands

4 Botanical Sanctum

7 Forest

7 Island

4 Simic Growth Chamber

2 Reliquary Tower

Approximate Total Cost:

[Dunadain]

I noticed at one point that Pyromancer's Swath and Avaricious Dragon had the same downside, so I figured if I put 4 of each in a deck, then after the first one, it's like the cards come with no downside at all.

Turns out, the first one's downside is still pretty huge.

[Boros_Blendo]

Sorry about not responding immediately, I have as well tried to double up a similar negative effect, and it didn't work either. I can't honestly remember what that was, and there are many to choose from. In any case, I just played the deck above last Friday with friends in a five-person game where winning means you kill the person to your left and your right. 3rd and 4th critters were Kefnet and Rhonas, respectively. A couple gearhulk power-ups on smaller critters like River Hoopoe with Rancor on Rhonas ended up a hard-to-stop win for me. Kefnet couldn't even attack all game, but anchored Rhonas to keep blitzing, and trample/deathtouch/indestructible is just tough to handle without the right answers. I'm glad I kept the bad experiment, this one was fun.

River Hoopoe beatdown with four +1/+1 counters is just hilarious, but the extra 2 defense is no laughing matter.

[Henlock]

Well, during Ixalan standard I had a rogue deck that worked wonderfully (it was a Simic Fliers) and.I.wanted to do something else. I realized that I could make infinite creature storm by combining a pretty big bunch of cards.

Greenbelt Rampager entering the battlefield with Spontaneous Artist, Path of Discovery and Rishkar, Peema Renegade in play.

Rampager enters the battlefield and explores. Top card should give a counter. Use an energy to give it haste and tap for g, return to hand and repeat.
I needed to win, so the plan was either Bontu's Monument or a hopeful to connect Rhonas's Monument.

I knew it made no sense and looked.impossible, but I built the deck and set myself to play it until I got that win. I saw it as a challenge.

I got it in the second game of my first match XD

[Boros_Blendo]

Did you keep the deck? That is….complicated.

[RabidVacin]

I've had limited success with mine. It revolves around Warrior en-Kor + Daru Spiritualist + Twisted Reflection + Rite of Consumption. Since all of the cards in the combo have a mana value of 2, I can use cards like Muddle the Mixture to tutor them.

[RabidVacin]

I noticed at one point that Pyromancer's Swath and Avaricious Dragon had the same downside, so I figured if I put 4 of each in a deck, then after the first one, it's like the cards come with no downside at all.

Turns out, the first one's downside is still pretty huge.

I've had some success with a deck that uses 4 Avaricious Dragon and 4 Jace's Archivist.

[Henlock]

Did you keep the deck? That is….complicated.

Not really, didn't play it ever again. Pulling off the win that soon was pretty anticlimactic.

[Boros_Blendo]

I've had limited success with mine. It revolves around Warrior en-Kor + Daru Spiritualist + Twisted Reflection + Rite of Consumption. Since all of the cards in the combo have a mana value of 2, I can use cards like Muddle the Mixture to tutor them.

Anything that ends in En-Kor makes me slightly naseous, stemming back to when people played En-Kor as a creature base but had absolutely little way to kill you other than annoy you into quitting. That said, I would be incredibly annoyed losing to this a second time. The novelty of once is appreciable, but twice...I'd be like How often is "limited success" for you? Kudos on the Rube Goldberg part, but curious how often it fairs well.

[RabidVacin]

Another one of my decks is actually Modern legal. It involves using 3 mv transmute cards to get Thraben Doomsayer and Intruder Alarm. That one probably sounds unfun too.

Another of my decks might look a little more fun. It's the one where the goal is to enchant Serra Avatar with Armadillo Cloak. I've also been known to enchant Crypt Rats with Armadillo Cloak.

[Boros_Blendo]

I have seen all of those in action. If you were to add red to the Thraben shenanigan, you'd have all-American then, you could add Goblin Bombardment to kill everyone the same turn it "goes off".

[Diz]

I noticed at one point that Pyromancer's Swath and Avaricious Dragon had the same downside, so I figured if I put 4 of each in a deck, then after the first one, it's like the cards come with no downside at all.

Turns out, the first one's downside is still pretty huge.

My first iteration of a BR Reanimator deck involved Avaricious Dragon and similar cards. It was cute, but it was too fast for the payoff. I ended up building Reanimator proper.

[Boros_Blendo]

Another one of my decks is actually Modern legal. It involves using 3 mv transmute cards to get Thraben Doomsayer and Intruder Alarm. That one probably sounds unfun too.

Another of my decks might look a little more fun. It's the one where the goal is to enchant Serra Avatar with Armadillo Cloak. I've also been known to enchant Crypt Rats with Armadillo Cloak.

I've been thinking about en-Kor creatures, and when they came out, the only really strong tactical thing you could do is maintain a solid defense if you didn't have a Mogg Maniac, which was annoying as anything. Add to that the nerfing done to trample at the time, where you actually had to kill the creature before the rest of the trample went through, and it made for one annoying game. Trample being strengthened back up by allowing only the toughness of the creature being able to siphon off with the rest going through makes for a good way to get through the en-Kor defense. Massacre Wurm and Languish effects, or Black Sun's Zenith gives opposing players other options to remove the en-Kor.

And on the other end, en-Kor has significantly more options now than it used to. For a Boros build, you got mass-damage dealers like Blasphemous Act and Star of Extinction to pair with damage reflectors like Stuffy Doll and Mogg Maniac, plus all the others, and you can turn that one blast into a lethality fest that may well kill the entire table with but a single spell. Add in tactical shenanigans like Deflecting Palm and Boros Charm, and you can then pin the ears back after the damage and swing with en-Kor forces, something that they didn't use to do most of the time. It can also be a good mass-rush defense against non-trampling creatures to reflect all that back at the enemy, making it good all-round defense and offense at the same time. So, en-Kor is still a solid base creature, but with significantly more options. So, as long as the en-Kor player uses those options, much less annoying than it used to be, especially since there are more ways to deal with them on the other side. Their way-out-of-whack tilt has been largely corrected to fair.

[RabidVacin]

If I try to think of a deck where it has a combo that uses a card that I've never seen someone else use, it would have to be the one where I do the following:

1. I get Blanket of Night in play (yes I'm aware of Urborg).
2. I get 6 mana in my mana pool.
3. I cast Infernal Harvest, returning all of my lands to my hand.
4. I cast Armageddon.

[RabidVacin]

Another one of my decks is actually Modern legal. It involves using 3 mv transmute cards to get Thraben Doomsayer and Intruder Alarm. That one probably sounds unfun too.

Another of my decks might look a little more fun. It's the one where the goal is to enchant Serra Avatar with Armadillo Cloak. I've also been known to enchant Crypt Rats with Armadillo Cloak.

I've been thinking about en-Kor creatures, and when they came out, the only really strong tactical thing you could do is maintain a solid defense if you didn't have a Mogg Maniac, which was annoying as anything. Add to that the nerfing done to trample at the time, where you actually had to kill the creature before the rest of the trample went through, and it made for one annoying game. Trample being strengthened back up by allowing only the toughness of the creature being able to siphon off with the rest going through makes for a good way to get through the en-Kor defense. Massacre Wurm and Languish effects, or Black Sun's Zenith gives opposing players other options to remove the en-Kor.

And on the other end, en-Kor has significantly more options now than it used to. For a Boros build, you got mass-damage dealers like Blasphemous Act and Star of Extinction to pair with damage reflectors like Stuffy Doll and Mogg Maniac, plus all the others, and you can turn that one blast into a lethality fest that may well kill the entire table with but a single spell. Add in tactical shenanigans like Deflecting Palm and Boros Charm, and you can then pin the ears back after the damage and swing with en-Kor forces, something that they didn't use to do most of the time. It can also be a good mass-rush defense against non-trampling creatures to reflect all that back at the enemy, making it good all-round defense and offense at the same time. So, en-Kor is still a solid base creature, but with significantly more options. So, as long as the en-Kor player uses those options, much less annoying than it used to be, especially since there are more ways to deal with them on the other side. Their way-out-of-whack tilt has been largely corrected to fair.

If I don't get my Rite of Consumption combo, my backup plan is to use Avenger en-Dal to get infinite life.