Every day, things happen. We read the news, see events on TV, scour the Internet, and get various stories and memes shared on social media. Daily, there are literally hundreds of fiascoes, complete train wrecks (some of which may involve actual trains), and dumpster fires.

Some of the greatest mistakes I have either been a part of, witnessed, or heard stories about started with the lines, "Here...hold my beer. You gotta see this..." While I am in no way encouraging people to do stupid stuff, it seems that foolish ideas and the consumption of intoxicants go hand-in-hand. Back when I was twenty, and about six months before I was due to leave for the Air Force, I was helping a friend cut some wood out on his parents' farm. It was the first time I has ever been to the farm. My buddy and I spent the day drinking homemade wine and cutting wood. By late afternoon, an idea struck. My friend suggested we take a spin on his ATV. It was a souped-up racing machine. To that point in my life, I had never ridden an ATV, so I was obviously game to partake and race around in an unfamiliar location. He gave me a few pointers, and showed me how the throttle and brakes and all worked, and explained some of the tips for steering. Helmetless, because why not, I took off on my first ride. It lasted less than a minute. Taking off, I looked up and saw a tree quickly approaching me (or perhaps I was approaching it...who knows). I leaned to the right and steered away and was pretty proud of myself....until I saw the barbwire fence that sprang up out of nowhere. I was, fortunately, quick enough to duck my head, and emerged with rips in my arms and a rather large flap of skin no longer on the back of my skull where it was expected to be. The horseshoe shaped scar is something I still get asked about. While I kinda chuckle about it now, it doesn't change the fact that, honestly, I was inches from not being here.

Even more of a bad thing than a fiasco is the unavoidable train wreck. Very few of us haven't had that one friend or associate who lives the train wreck. Perhaps hopping from one poor relationship, bad job, or inane financial scheme to another. Unfortunately, there is little you personally can do to help or to fix anything, as your advice is ignored, or you know your input will not be welcome. Or maybe, it's not someone you are close to, but they somehow ended up as a Facebook friend or casual Magic acquaintance, and you see the disaster coming, but are completely unable to avert your eyes. With luck, we ourselves can avoid being someone else's "Train Wreck friend" but even that is not a given. I'm pretty sure I have had times where I was that guy for many of my friends. I know there were people close to me when I married one (or more) of my exes that just shook their heads, popped a little popcorn, and sat back to watch the show that they knew was coming. I seemed to have moved on and recovered nicely since those days 20+ years ago, but that didn't make those years any less of the crash and burn that they were.

And of course, my list of disasters would not be complete without including the well-recognized Dumpster Fire. But, we're here to talk about Magic, right?

Mistakes? Snafus? Gaffes? Bloopers? I have done it all in pursuit of Magic decks. So many ideas, and so many bad cards had passed through my fingers, either in paper or via bits and bytes...ones and zeros...electronically. Perhaps one of the most difficult things to get used to and understand as we make our path down the Magical trail is that there will be failure. Lots and lots of failure. When you take the overall group of people drawn to the game, a significant number of them are very intelligent, and are used to getting the answer, being right, and finding success. It can be quite a shock to realize that you will be successful with your brews less than ten percent of the time. Here are some of my more recent failures:

This was a list I came up with after seeing something similar do well in a Daily event about a year or so ago. Of course, far be it from me to actually consider just playing the 75 that did well. Nope, I had to add my own little twist to it. And how could I not include Ruric Thar, the Unbowed in a list full of huge fatties coupled with Summoning Trap and Through the Breach? And could I really play a R/G deck in Modern that didn't include Burning-Tree Shaman? What a fiasco!

But, wait. It gets better. See, after this didn't work out, and cost me a bunch of tickets in Dailies and 8-mans, I figured the problem had nothing to do with poor choices or a curve that rivals Mt Kilimanjaro. The problem was that I didn't have anywhere near enough ways to cheat stuff into play. Enter Dramatic Entrance. Because the full "dirty dozen" of cheat spells was going to fix this. To make room for the additional 5-drops, I cut Search for Tomorrow, because it wasn't like I needed anything to do on turn one anyway, and accelerating into five drops seemed unexciting compared to having, you know, a five drop that lets me drop Primeval Titan or Ruric Thar right onto the board. My "improved" version was far from it. It was bad enough that I was bleeding tickets with it. I chose to double down, and build it in paper for FNM. Well, that was a 0-4 just begging to happen.

Here's a hint: Never do anything to show your folly in public when you can just as easily do that same thing via the anonymity of the internet and MTGO. This would not be my last unadvised endeavor, though.

This train wreck of a deck was a result of my own hubris. See, I didn't want to just play the tried and true Combo Elves deck, or the Company Elves decks. Nope. I was gonna make a Green-Merfolk deck. One huge miss was not even considering Cavern of Souls, because I had severe tunnel vision and was locked in on AEther Vial being my un-counterable ability of choice. I'm fairly certain that this deck gets better without the Vials, and with Abrupt Decay being main. I also am not sold on the sword plan in the deck, either.

Later versions did try to add the Spreading Seas element, by running Nylea's Presence, allowing forestwalking elves to get there, and upped the Elvish Champion count. With those changes, take a guess how many times I either fixed my opponents mana, or gave them a bigger creature that I was unable to block? It was not an insignificant number of times. Does everyone realize that both Gladecover Scout and Glistener Elf get pretty much infinitely better with Elvish Champion around? I mean, it's not like Bogles and Infect really needed the help, but my opponents were sure to thank me for my hospitality. The more I tinkered with this deck, the worse it got.

While I had several friends who tried to tell me it was not worth it, and that if I insisted on playing a Green creature deck, just play Merfolk (because it is the best Green creature deck ever, regardless of the pips on the cards), I couldn't listen. And my friends were unable to avert their eyes from watching the disaster unfold....or maybe they just needed a good laugh.

And the time has arrived that we have finally come to the dumpster fire. Last Fall, I pieced this deck together, thinking I could make it something good in Modern. Maybe even have something that was FNM playable...or a GPT worthy. I was proud of where I started with the first version of the 75, what with not falling for the Ball Lightning and Groundbreaker trap, and including Lords, and mana accelerators, and ways to cheat the under-appreciated Elemental tribe into play, as well as a tutor effect to get the creature I wanted, when I wanted. [Full Disclosure...in 60-card versions, I may or may not have started with 6/1 Trample Elementals, but, like Kermit the Frog, I don't know nothin' 'bout that.] I liked the deck, even though it didn't include my personal stand-bys, Blood Moon and Bonfire of the Damned. I just could not beat the good decks with it, though.

I tried to mix and match creatures that were outside of the core 12 of Smokebraider, Incandescent Soulstoke, and Flamekin Harbinger. It's not like there aren't plenty of options available to try. I would notice I was getting flooded, and I cut lands for more creatures. I moved cards around that shouldn't have been in the main to begin with, like Crumble to Dust, for more worthwhile and useful cards. Nothing I did seemed to work. The deck was an abject failure. Every change...every modification...every tweak was like pouring gasoline to the already out of control flames.

In the end, I abandoned the idea. I had real events to prepare for, and testing for GP's to be done. There wasn't time to test and continue a fruitless endeavor. Sometimes, you just have to admit that, well, the idea just isn't very good, and it's time to call in the fire department to douse the flames.

We all build bad decks. We all make mistakes in either the metagame, the matchups, the math, and even the makeup of our decks in general. Learn to laugh at yourself and even poke fun at some of your bad ideas. In the end, this is still just a game. And we should all find some kind of fun in it.

Peace,

Carl E Wilt

**Note...for the love of all that is holy, do NOT try to play any of the decks in this article. Seriously. Trust me. Bad things, man...bad things....