I always liked Fight Rigging in theory, but never really saw a decklist I liked that built around it. I guess I should try something.
I'm going to try to bring back the older Invasion of Alara
Bramble Familiar combo as well. Even though that combo wants a Cemetery Desecrator to flip the Alara, I'm going to rely more on just big attackers since the deck already has to pack things like Shakedown Heavy to pay off the Rigging.
To get the Rigging to pay out, usually people use Pugnacious Hammerskull but that seems too easy for the opponent to stall out from combat so I don't like it. The Heavy is better since I can get some extra draws from it and he can't be stalled out of blocking when needed like the Hammerskull. But this will mean I'll have to rely more on 5-mana creatures like Defiler of Vigor or Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth
to trigger the Rigging.
This means this deck is starving for ramp. With the Alara package going in that brings Bramble Familiar in which is a bit of synergy. I'm going to lean on Old Rutstein to pitch in some as well. If Rutty can give some treasures that helps with Alara hardcasting when needed.
With Familiar and Rutty we can lean into some reanimation with things like Virtue of Persistence and Portal to Phyrexia and Olivia, Crimson Bride.
The rest just has to be good payoff cards. Classics like Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Etali, Primal Conqueror
, Phyrexian Fleshgorger. New hotness Vein Ripper or trendy Nissa, Ascended Animist. Or niche fun-ofs Toxrill, the Corrosive or Ziatora, the Incinerator.
There's a lot of different mana symbols in the casting costs. Instead of trying to mess around with a mess of expensive multi lands, I'm just sticking to black/green for the most part. Adding Ziatora's Proving Ground for red. And then a package of cheap Caves with Forgotten Monument Captivating Cave and Promising Vein to makeshift filter or pain for the other colors when needed but mostly can at least tap for colorless right away.
The deck is lacking removal and that hurts a lot, but maybe the Virtues and Gix's Command and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse can pick off enough to let the big boys control the combats the rest of the way.
But let's be real. This deck can get blown out by some simple control cards. And it can be a bit too slow to fend off aggro decks. But if it gets a chance to play, it is explosive with the stompy. Heavy into Rigging into Alara into Familiar into Olivia with an Etali in the graveyard into Atraxa will sometimes just happen on turn 4. That's pretty fun.
