Introduction

So, you’ve opened your first Doom Pile Structure Deck and discovered the Master Plan Detonate the Reality Bomb! Now what? If you’re looking for guidance on how the deck works out of the box, and what you can do to improve it, then you’ve come to the right place!

Detonate the Reality Bomb! is a Master Plan which reads “During your Maintenance Step, if you resolved the On Field effects of 7+ Experiment or Apparatus cards this turn, you win.” It is most closely associated with Experiment and Apparatus cards, and focuses building an engine of conditional effects all working in tandem to perform an arbitrary but game-winning combo.

Opening Strategy

Your opening hand out of the box consists of Greedy Page-Turning, Excellent Research, Recollection Vial, Displacement Homunculus, and Eager Darkmage. Play all of these cards, and pass the turn.

On your next turn, you’ll simply draw a Doomspell Procedure, which you should play, and then pass.

On your third turn, some cards finally begin to resolve. Recollection Vial moves to the Field Zone along with Eager Darkmage, which lets you draw one card. Greedy Page-Turning also resolves, drawing you two more cards. After you Draw Phase, your hand should consist of Obstinate Mutant, Faustus, the Bargainer, Employ Contingencies, and Study the Timelines.

Play the first three, but note that Study the Timelines requires you to tick up one of your other cards in countdown by 2 in order to play. If it doesn’t seem like your Employ Contingencies is going to have a good card to thwart next turn, then that’s a solid choice to uptick here, but otherwise, there’s no harm in making Displacement Homunculus wait a while longer.

At this time, go ahead and use Recollection Vial to stack Greedy Page-Turning back on top of your deck. You’ll draw it next turn, but you’ll have some useful cards resolving then, too. Note also, that Recollection Vial does not have an On Field effect—it does not count towards your Master Plan, but it’s still useful to have around.

On your next turn, Excellent Research, Doomspell Procedure, Faustus, the Bargainer, and possibly Employ Contingencies all resolve. Put the Minion and Artifices in the Field Zone, then draw that Greedy Page-Turning you Stacked for turn.

At this point, you have a lot of the makings of your engine, and it’s just a matter of collecting enough cogs for the machine. Use Faustus, the Bargainer’s effect to sacrifice Eager Darkmage and draw Nefarious Generator and another Eager Darkmage. These two cards play very well together in combination with Faustus, so play them right away. When you play your Greedy Page-Turning, don’t forget to use the effect of Doomspell Procedure to tick it down by one!

If Employ Contingencies is in the Discard Pile, there’s no reason not to use Recollection Vial to Stack it back on top. This will trigger Excellent Research, letting you draw it right away! You can also then go ahead and play it as you are still in your Plot Phase. Depending on what your opponent is playing, you may have chosen not to use Doomspell Procedure on Greedy Page-Turning, and instead use it on Employ Contingencies, letting it resolve right away and Thwarting a total of two cards this turn!

As cards like Nefarious Generator and Obstinate Mutant resolve, the rest of the game will focus on you taking advantage of all of these interlocking pieces—sacrificing Minions with Faustus to trigger Nefarious Engine, which Stacks those Minions to trigger Excellent Research; drawing with the effect of Eager Darkmage to trigger the effect of Doctor Stein, Dark Architect to reduce your cards in countdown—as you pursue enough pieces to unfold your final turn.

As you follow through with this strategy, it’s important to keep your resources under control. Displacement Homunculus needs to attack an Artifice to trigger, so you may need to let your opponent keep something beneficial for them so that you can meet your Master Plan’s quota.

Additionally, you have a lot of methods to recover and otherwise protect your combo pieces, but you are also susceptible to running yourself out of gas. If this happens, remember that there is an alternate win condition in Doom Pile, in the event you become unable to achieve your Master Plan: If you end your turn with no cards in your deck and no cards in Countdown, you win. This deck more than any other is capable of achieving this in a pinch, so don’t fret if you find the machinations of the Reality Bomb difficult.

Matchup Considerations

Your deck has a very strong matchup against other combo and midrange decks like Cast the Doomspell! and Empty the Graveyards! While these decks are theoretically faster than your own, they do not have the same repeatability—particularly of cards like Employ Contingencies—as you do, allowing you to limit their own efficiency.

Control decks like Ignite the Guidestones! Are your dominant threat. They often play a similar Artifice-centric strategy and may even employ similar engines as you, though at a smaller scale. This offers them similar repeatability, and may necessitate using cards like Glass Hammer or Resist Advances to keep them in check.

The main improvements you can make to your deck come from additional copies of cards like Nefarious Generator, Excellent Research, and Doctor Stein, Dark Architect. Additionally, you may find cards like Consider the Following from other Structure Decks, which combo well with Excellent Research and allow you to trigger Doctor Stein more often.

Conclusion

What do you think of Detonate the Reality Bomb!? There are plenty more ins and outs to learn about the structure deck and the cards within as you work to improve it, develop your own strategy, and aim to take over the world by raising your army of the undead.

Good luck in your pursuit of world domination!