The first option! "Reveal that something is broken".

Definitely, "stuck in a simulation" stories like The Truman Show, Wandavision, or Don't Worry Darling all fit within or at least intersect with this category I'm wanting a name for!

Oh, a different Brick! No, I haven't seen that.

Years ago!

Absolutely!

To date, I've just been calling them "puzzlebox" stories, but I would love to know if there's an existing term I can grab onto!

Beyond the sort of puzzlebox chamber horror and time loop stories, there are a few romantic comedies with fabulist elements that enter into this territory: Stranger Than Fiction, Ruby Sparks, and Isn't It Romantic all do a similar thing I think!

The protagonists gaining meta-awareness of the genre conventions of the story they're trapped in—because those genre conventions are mirrored diegetically in The Rules—is part of the novelty of the story.

These stories are often low budget, very clever (in both the complimentary and derisive sense), and anchored around a novel prop or locale (the source of The Rules). The protagonists often willingly enter into The Rules, but then struggle to escape from their ratcheting tension.

me, halfway through reading this article: 😮☺️😎

That feeling when you run back-to-back trophies. (Lurrus in the companion zone made this a silly deck.) 😎

But even when I wasn't playing, it was a design fascination and I learned a lot from studying it's templating and presentation.

I got into the game when my local store had 5th, Fallen Empires, and Ice Age on its shelves. I had very little comprehension of things like release cycles or metagame, I just thought all the goblins and zombies and wizards were cool. I dropped out after Ravnica (2005) and came back at Kaldheim.

It turned out to be a very sweaty, nail-biting trophy run against Izzet tempo, Doomsday running double moxen and Jace Wielder, and fast discard combo-aggro.

So I'm talking about drafting* a deck that is simultaneously more efficient and less powerful than mill combo decks like "slurpy"** that popped up in competitive play in the 2003 world championships.

*a way of playing that definitely existed in the mid nineties.
**a Brain Freeze combo deck.

It depends. Lion's Eye Diamond is from Mirage (1996). Brain Freeze is from Scourge (2003). Underworld Breach is a newer card, but is basically an upgrade from Yawgmoth's Will from Urza's Saga (1998). This is Vintage Cube, which showcases powerful "vintage" cards from the early days of the game.

The sisters of perpetual indulgence are doing a Monsterhearts event? I can die happy. This is delightful.