Game Theory - What if THIS Minecraft Mob Existed?

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

If just ONE of these votes turned out differently, it wouldn't have just affected that yearly update. It would’ve changed EVERYTHING…

What if the Minecraft mob vote were different? Year after year, Mojang had us vote on the game's next mob. This shaped the game and the law as we know it. But if one of these votes turned out differently, it wouldn't have just affected the yearly updates. It would have changed everything. Hello, internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that answers questions like,

What if things were different? Last year, we did a video theorising about the Copper Gollum, a mob that lost pretty dramatically to the delay during the mob vote of 20. But then we got the Copper Age update which resurrected the Copper Gollum officially putting it in the game. And it's great. People have been super creative with them from using them to run their entire base to pranking their friends. But all of this got me thinking. Before this, we thought every losing mob was gone forever. Because, well, Mojang said that's how it worked. I remember to vote because the three ones that you don't vote for, they will be gone forever.

But clearly, we are able to bring back these mobs. So what if the other losing mobs were added back to the game. And more importantly, what would their law be? You see, mobs are more than just silly little guys who populate Minecraft's blocky world. They're also valuable clues that help us unlock the game's secrets. In the past, they've played key parts in helping us track down the mysteries of the ancient builders and the overworld they left behind. If a different mob was chosen, it could set off a butterfly effect, changing the way we see the world of Minecraft forever. So we are going to do something a little different today, loyal theorists. We are going to jump in our theory time machine

and revive three rejected mobs, exploring all the blocky implications that come with it. It's time for us to go into the minor verse. No, no, not that. Uh, the craftaverse? For now, let's just go with the Mojangverse. All right. The first stop on our journey through time is to 2022. The Sniffer won that particular mob vote. Totally legitimately, I might add. So we did a whole episode on this big boy. But while I too was drawn in by the sniffers' promises of ancient secrets, I was also intrigued by one of the underdogs in this race, the rascal. This mischievous little guy captured my heart with his gifts and never-ending games of hide-and-seek. But I quickly bad to say goodbye to him because 55% of people voted for the sniffing dinosaur. So today, I'm bringing it back. Based on

the teaser Mojang shared, rascals are small creatures that would have been found deep underground, specifically in mine shafts. Once you see him, you'll embark on a high-stakes game of hide and seek. Find them three times and they'll give you a prize, like an enchanted pickaxe, for example. And that is pretty much all we know about the rascals. So how enough can we figure out how the law would have changed with them included? Well, first, let's look a little closer of what we do know. The rascals call the mine shafts home,

and we've believed for a long time that these mine shafts were built by the ancient builders as they mined for materials. So it would only make sense that a mob who specifically spawns in those mines and carries tools must share a connection with those ancient builders. But contextually, it also makes sense. The Rascal would have been added to the Trails and Tales update. The update, that's all about excavating and finding a lost civilization buried underground. In that update, we saw all of the pottery shirts,

which led us to realize that the ancient builders were not just one monolithic culture, but consisted of multiple different tribes. The sniffer, the true winner of the mob vote, actually appeared on one of these shirts. Look how cute he is. But in the timeline where the Rascal wins, this cute shirt, would likely have been replaced with an arguably cuter shirt, the rascal shirt, or something similar, implying that they too would have had a relationship with the ancient builders, much like we theorized about the sniffer.

Although unlike the sniffer, which is more of a pet, I actually think the rascals would have been more than friends. They'd have been more like equals, more than any mob we've seen in the past, and it all comes down to mythology. Listen, I come from Europe, and there is no shortage of strange little mining creatures in our folklore. And this one hit even closer to home because I began looking looking at it. into something I've always loved. Knockers. No, not like that. Knockers, these dwarf-looking guys, get your head out of the gutter. Anyway, knockers are supernatural creatures native to Cornwall, England, and it's many ancient tunnels. They're ambivalent little fellows. Sometimes they're super

helpful, and other times, not so much. When they're having a bad day, they hide miners' tools or lead them through confusing tunnels to nowhere. But on a good day, they would lead you to valuable oars. Sounds familiar, right? We only know of one prize that they would give you, the pickaxe. But who's to say they wouldn't give you other valuable oars as a reward? And maybe the ancient builders failed that little hide-and-seek game, so they stole the tools from them, which they would now give to us. Or maybe, it's actually something much worse.

If you go back and look at the knockers, they too were often depicted with pickaxes. And it wasn't just because they enjoyed hanging out in the mines. The real reason is actually much darker. According to legend, knockers were actually the spirits of fallen, miners. After dying, their spirits would remain in the mines, haunting or helping future miners for the rest of eternity. This means the rascals definitely weren't just friends with the ancient builders. They were the ancient builders. They are all the poor souls who died in the mines either to the many dangerous mobs that were down there, or maybe. They were some of the many who lost their

lives to either the wither or the warden when those mobs came and invaded the ancient cities all those years ago. Now they live on as supernatural mobs, helping Steve to find the treasures that lie below the surface. In 2021, the mob vote was between the Alley, the Copper Gollum and the Glare. The Allay won that vote, and as we spoke about earlier, the Copper Gollum was recently added to the game, leaving the glare all alone out here in the Minecraftless void. So I figured we'd give him his moment in the spotlight, which, based on his mechanics, he probably quite in joy.

The glare was supposed to be another helpful mob on Steve's journey. It would fly around caves letting you know when it's dark enough to spawn mobs. mainly by looking a little bit grumpy. And now I know, even at the time, we joked about how this felt a little pointless. But regardless of its mechanical usefulness, law-wise, it definitely would have been an interesting addition. You see, the winner of the 2021 mob vote was going to be implemented during the Wild update. This update was huge, especially for law reasons. We saw the addition of the ancient cities, giant underground structure seemingly built by the ancient builders,

and we have talked about those things a pun in previous theories. But this update also included a new biome that we haven't really talked about. The mangrove swamps. A new area that was waterlogged and covered in overgrown leaves, roots and most importantly, moss. Now take a look at the glare and tell me that this little guy wouldn't fit right in. Just imagine sitting there in the middle of this biome and suddenly out from behind a mossy tree, this thing pops up. And the more I thought about a little mossy creature, it also reminded me of another creature from European folklore, the moss folk. These guys come from Germany and are similarly covered in moss and foliage.

Their main role is to serve as guides for travelers found in the forest, warning people of danger, just like the glare, warning players of dangers that await them in dark areas. But this is where I think things could have gotten really interesting. In folklore, if you were approached by one of these moss people, in order to receive their guidance, they would ask for something in return. Whatever the human gave them would determine their demeanor towards them. If the Mossfolk received a good offering such as bread or porridge, they'd aid the humans with gifts and guidance.

But if someone gave them a bad offering like caraway bread, a type of rye bread with caraway seeds in it, they would become angry. To be fair, if I asked for bread and someone gave me rye, I'd be mad too. Yeah, I said what I said. You don't need to compliment him. He's barely a person. He's an intern. Oh, that's right. That's right.

Anyway, it would have been interesting to see this kind of mechanic working in game. Just like you give an item to the allay for it to hold, you could. give the glare bread to hold. Instead of porridge, maybe they'd accept offerings of mushroom stew. Once you befriend them, they tag along through the caves, keeping you away from danger, offering healing or maybe even positive status effects when fed more. But if you give them one of their dislike items, they become hostile, running away or maybe even attacking you. This would have been extremely helpful for the ancient builders and their ancient cities that we were introduced to in that same update. After the ancient builders created the wither and began destroying everything,

they fled underground, gathering what resources they could in the deep dark caves, trying everything they could to hide from the wither. So, a companion like the glare, who could warn them of dangers lying in the darkness, would have been a huge help for these guys. Maybe instead of regular carpets on the floor that they used to quiet their footsteps against the warden, we would have found moss carpets, with moss and foliage being stored in the loot chests of the ancient cities. The glare would have been their guidance and their supply for materials that they could

access underground like leaves and moss. To us, the glare seemed kind of pointless. But for the ancient builders, they would have been vital for survival, at least during this stage of their journey, a mythical forest creature who guided them through the dangers of the deep dark. Now, we're going way back, all the way back to the very first mob vote in 2017. Back then, Mojang wasn't interested in helping us. They wanted to destroy us. Unlike the last two years we talked about, this vote actually had four creatures instead of of three and all of them were dangerous. Unfortunately for literally everyone, the Phantom won. And now we have this annoying airborne Manta ray judging us for having a bad sleep schedule. In my

humble opinion, any of the other mobs would have made much cooler and much less irritating additions to the game. But my favourite of the three forgotten mobs has to be the Barnacle. The Barnacle was going to be a large sea creature, which would have been a welcome addition to the game considering Minecraft is kind of lacking in water enemies. All we really have right now are the drowned and both types of guardians. They're all pretty cool, but it's always nice to have some variety, you know? Anyway, the barnacle would have used its tentacle-like tongue to pull players and their boats down to the bottom of the sea. This would have added a bit of a challenge to traversing the ocean. Suddenly being pulled down and coming face to

face with a huge monster definitely would have been terrifying. Just imagine trying to fight it or attempt to escape its tentacles before you run out of air. Plus, it would add some difficulty and intrigue while you're endlessly crossing the massive ocean biomes that Minecraft loves to generate. But we aren't here to talk about the mechanics of the barnacle. We are here to talk about the law. If we had won, it would have conveniently been a part of the aquatic update. This update actually made the oceans a little bit more interesting than they were before. We got a ton of new stuff like the ocean ruins, underwater chasms, shipwrecks and treasure maps, which led you to a chest containing the heart of the sea. Which is completely unrelated to the heart of the ocean from the

1997 classic movie Titanic. No, this heart of the sea is a strange blue, Orb that is essential for making a conduit, a device that gives the player the ability to breathe underwater when close by. This device is super useful for both Steve and the ancient builders alike. While Steve might be using it to build a cool underwater base, the ancient builders needed it to literally preserve their way of life. You see, there was once a time when the ocean ruins were actually above ground. They were places of worship where the ancient builders gathered to pay respects to the hosts, the gods of this world. But unfortunately, due to all the smelting the ancient builders were doing, the ocean. levels started to rise and fast. They needed a way to protect their temples so they set out on

their boats to find the heart of the sea. Unfortunately, they weren't successful. Their ships got wrecked and those who stayed behind turned into the drowned. The thing is, with the evidence that currently exists in the game, we don't exactly know why these boats crashed. They were tribes of fishermen and pirates. It would feel odd if in reality they were just incompetent sailors, especially given the amount of shipwrecks. The barnacle would have solved this mystery. When I first saw the barnacle, the thing that came to mind, of course, was the Cracken, a sea monster from Nordic folklore that's described as a giant tentacle-wielding monster that loves to tear ships apart or drag them down into the depths of the ocean. This was the Vikings' explanation for the

harsh waves or massive whirlpools that destroyed their ships on voyages. They believed the Cracken would create these huge whirlpools by swimming in circles. The Barnacle is clearly supposed to be this ship-wrecking Cracken. Another cool thing is that since these myths were made, Scientists have researched the real-world explanations for the huge waves and whirlpools that were terrorizing the sailors. Scientists believe these were the results of tectonic plate movements. Earthquakes and underwater volcanic eruptions created whirlpools that sucked down ships, which is exactly what we see in the aquatic update when they added underwater chasms with magma blocks at the bottom that would cause the player to be sucked down. So even though we didn't vote the Barnacle into our Minecraft timeline, some of the science for the Barnacle still made its way into the

the game. So I count that as a win. That being said, a lot of the shipwrecks don't even generate near the magma blocks or underwater chasm, so we still don't truly know how these ships got wrecked. Unless the barnacle was added, then the wreckage would all finally make sense. These boats were desperately searching for the one thing that could save their families, only for them to get lost at sea with their ship's hull serving as their watery grave. Now, to me, all of this sounds pretty cool, and it's always fun to jump into the theorist time machine to go back and see what could have been. But as with any time travel, there's a catch. Adding these mobs at least back then wouldn't have just added to this world's cool law.

The butterfly effect, these little changes could have affected so much more. If the rascal had won, the sniffer would have been banished to the shadow realm instead. From a game perspective, let's be honest, these guys don't do much other than look cute. We would have lost some decorative plants, although I don't think people would be that upset about it. But from a law perspective, the sniffer was the answer to a bunch of our questions. It appeared on one of the ancient shards showing that it was alive at the same time as the ancient builders and showing us that the timeline was over thousands, if not millions of years instead of just, say, hundreds. We then learnt that the ancient builders themselves actually brought these guys into the overworld from the nether,

explaining the crazy skeleton structures that we find in the nether and the overworld. And then there's the plants that the sniffers were trying to dig up. We learned from history that those were used for medicinal purposes. So if it weren't for the sniffer, we wouldn't have known about the entire Savannah tribe of builders and how they were actually healers. Then if we got the glare instead of the Allay, we wouldn't have discovered the origin of the Vex, how Illagers were combining the Allay to create a new mob. We may have even lost our little helpers in Minecraft Legends, and I'm not sure the glare would have been as fitting a counterpart. Then if the Barnacle had won, we'd have lost the Phantom, which means, no, actually everyone hates the Phantom.

We definitely should have got the Barnacle instead. But now, thanks to the Copper Gollum, it is clear that we can have our cake. and eat it too. Have the best of both worlds and add these guys in, giving us even deeper lore to this already very deep game. And if you do decide to do that, Mojang, hit me up. Trust me, I've got plenty of ideas. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.