Memes / Magic: The Gathering

"Ach! Hans, run! It's the Lhurgoyf!"

"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."

—Jaya Ballard, Task Mage

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Please add entries in the following format:

• The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ^ExplanationLike this.
  • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.

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• Needs more Goyf. ^ExplanationA response to proposed decks; Tarmogoyf is a cheap creature that can quickly become very large and is profitably playable in a huge variety of decks. Variations include -4 jank, + 4 Goyf.
  • Really, almost every Standard environment has a card like this. When Tarmogoyf rotated out, it became Needs more Blossom. ^ExplanationBitterblossom, heavily played when Morningtide was in Standard. In the past, it's been Clamp, Jitte, Manticore...
  • On a similar topic, "Tarmogoyf is the best Blue creature in the history of Magic." ^ExplanationWhile Tarmogoyf is a Green card, some of its most prominent early tournament usage was in primarily Blue decks that just splashed Green for Tarmogoyf. Because Green had a history of being terrible, while Blue was the most powerful color, the joke was that Tarmogoyf was a Blue card in disguise. Hilarious in Hindsight now that Green is considered to be the most powerful color 13 or so years later.
• "Ach! Hans, run!" ^ExplanationLhurgoyf's flavor text, one of the most famous in the game.
• "Protection from [X]" and/or "Circle of Protection: [X]" (as in, "Protection from Editors" or "Circle of Protection: Tropers"). ^Explanation"Protection from X" is an ability that makes it very difficult to affect the object in question with anything that has quality X, while the Circles of Protection were enchantments that could prevent damage from cards with the relevant quality.
• "Pithy fire related quotation!" — Jaya Ballard, Task Mage ^ExplanationThe flavor text on a number of cards is Jaya Ballard quipping memorably.
• Uncle Istvan. ^ExplanationUncle Istvan is an early card that has some amusing Early-Installment Weirdness to him, including not being a unique Legend despite being named after a person, having a bizarre damage-immunity ability despite being a generic old man with an axe, and, most importantly, having the creature type of "Summon Uncle Istvan", which implies that 'Uncle Istvan' is a type of being akin to being an elf, goblin, warrior or human. The Grand Creature Type Update eventually fixed the last part, but people still occasionally reference it.
  • Brushwagg has achieved similar popularity, with the extra benefit of actually retaining its ridiculous creature type.
• ... But how's it play against faeries? ^ExplanationFaeries was a dominant deck during the Standard Metagames which included the Lorwyn block - note that the above-mentioned Bitterblossom (Blossom) was a Faerie-related card. Often expanded to replace 'Faeries" with whatever the dominant deck of the time is.
• Symmetrical effects are fair and balanced ^ExplanationSarcastically implying they're not, as the Game-Breaker status of Balance can testify. This is largely due to how one can construct their deck to minimize the impact they feel from said symmetrical effect.
• It dies to removal! ^ExplanationUsed sarcastically to downplay powerful creatures by pointing out that they die to creature-killing spells, even though a jank common creature would be killed just as dead as an expensive bomb and would have much less utility in the meantime. Originally applied to Baneslayer Angel which spent some time costing upwards of fifty dollars and died to a ten-cent Doom Blade, but has since branched out to other expensive, game-winning creatures.
  • "Dies to Doom Blade" / "Dies to Murder" are more specific variants popular in the comments on Gatherer, the official WotC card listing site.
• Magical Christmas Land ^ExplanationA theoretical place where your draws are perfect and your plays are not interrupted. When used in deck building discussions, it describes the best case scenario for a deck to play out, and if a combo is entirely reliant on said scenario, it's almost certainly Awesome, but Impractical. In the middle of a game, the term is used to express bewilderment at a deck having its perfect on-curve plays.
• "Harrow." "Harrow to you too." ^ExplanationHarrow meets Engrish.
• "Why are you mana weaving?"
  • "No, no, I'm randomizing my deck now, so it's perfectly legal..."
    • "SO WHY DID YOU MANA WEAVE?" ^Explanation"Mana weaving" is distributing your lands evenly throughout your deck before playing, which negates the possibility of mana screw. Doing it is either a useless waste of time or outright cheating depending on the thoroughness of the ensuing shuffling (the "trick" being managing to ostensibly introduce just enough randomness to get the judges off your back, but not enough to completely negate the mana weaving). A comic was made to this effect.
• Storm Crow, a rather average card, and Chimney Imp, a ridiculously underpowered one for its cost, are memetically popular on Gatherer as two of the best cards ever.
  • Storm Crow's status has become an Ascended Meme, with joke set Unstable printing Crow Storm, a card with the really powerful Storm mechanic that generates Storm Crow tokens.
  • Chimney Imp's status became an Ascended Meme as well with the publication of the test-card Chimney Goyf, which combined the infamously underpowered Chimney Imp with the similarly memetic overpowered card Tarmogoyf, mentioned above.
  • Relatedly: BAN HOVERMYR!
  • Similarly, Scornful Egotist, a card whose entire thing is being underpowered and useless but with a ridiculous cost, has spawned an Interrupting Meme wher- ALL HAIL THE GREAT LORD EGOTIST.
• Emrakul vs. fifteen squirrels^ExplanationEmrakul, the Aeons Torn is a 15/15 creature, which means it would be a match against fifteen 1/1 Squirrel creature tokens. The absurdity that a powerful Eldritch Abomination known for destroying entire armies in-lore is defeatable by a relatively small group of squirrels gameplay-wise made the theoretical matchup a popular meme within the fandom. (Note that, even gameplay-wise, fifteen squirrel tokens would have a hard time defeating Emrakul, due to her Annihilator ability likely getting rid of some of them and the squirrels' inability to block her due to their lack of flying or reach.)
• Reading the card explains the card.^ExplanationSometimes shortened to "RTFC." Some interaction questions can be easily explained because the one asking the question skipped over a small bit of text that would provide the answer. Sometimes this line gets quoted ironically in cases where obscure rulings are needed to resolve a situation, or when special printings of a card (such as the Phyrexian text promos) are literally unreadable.
  • "What does Questing Beast do?"^ExplanationThis incredibly powerful creature has a total of six abilities, some more situational than others. It's so wordy that most opponents may overlook an ability when trying to play around it, thus defying "reading the card explains the card". It's often joked that Questing Beast's text box changes every time you look at it, and there's even a fanmade quiz that tests your knowledge of its attributes!
• It's probably nothing.^ExplanationA reference to the flavor text of Steady Progress, used whenever the Phyrexian oil makes an appearance.
• Although not an infamously bad card (and is in fact infamously good in certain formats), The Gitrog Monster has been getting similar Interrupting Meme treatment to the Scornful Egotist with comments like "ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD". Its name also spawns a few other comments like "gitgood" or "gitreckt".
• After Nicol Bolas turned out to be the villain in two consecutive sets, there are a number of players who assume everything is his fault now. This has even been referenced on an official Wizards column.
  • In the third, it's a minor variation: The Phyrexians do control Mirrodin, but they don't have a planeswalker.
  • Also stated as "BOLAS ALWAYS WINS!"
  • Bolas did nothing wrong. ^ExplanationThe (usually joking) insistence that Nicol Bolas is actually the hero of the story, and the actual protagonists are just messing up his carefully-laid plans of bringing peace and unity to the multiverse.
• I know a great combo: Humility and Opalescence. ^ExplanationHumility is an enchantment that turns all creatures into 1/1s and removes their game text. While merely a bystander in this case of fail, Opalescence is an enchantment that turns all other enchantments into creatures. Get them together, and you've got Humility removing its own ability, but then there's no need to, so it doesn't, but now it has to, but now there's no need to, but now it has to... This one combination of cards required one of the longest and most complicated rules explainations in the Oracle database, which invokes incredibly obscure and specific rules that were essentially invented just to resolve this one interaction; see here.
• We've always been at war with Pokémon, I mean Yu-Gi-Oh!. ^ExplanationFan Haters, though it's been Magic versus all other CCGs since 1993.
• "Rosewater confirms X!" ^ExplanationMark Rosewater, the face of the game, often teases information about future sets. Some fans use this as a joke to say that everything he says is a spoiler.
• Don't fuck with horseshoe crabs. ^ExplanationA joke on the 1/3 stats of a garden-variety horseshoe crab, which, in comparison to other cards, would make it equal in battle to an elven warrior and able to shrug off the assault of a grizzly bear. Other cards get this, but the crab seems to be the favored son for how oddball it is.
  • In a similar vein, Philosophers in Magic are hardened badasses who can go toe-to-toe with bears.
• Fblthp, as seen on the art for Totally Lost, gained massive popularity fast, was the feature of a story on the site, and Wizards sold Fblthp plushies for a brief while. He's even playable in Magic Puzzle Quest.
• Platinum Angel: You can't lose The Game. ^ExplanationOften jokingly given as a a "counter" to losing "The Game". Sometimes also in other contexts. Jokes are also sometimes made about MtG games themselves. (In reality, of course, a judge can disqualify you at any moment, Platinum Angel or not.)
• Everything about Siege Rhino has become Memetic Mutation, mostly due to its place dominating the meta.
• The flavor text for the Innistrad printing of Ancient Grudge is utterly Narm-worthy, and with the Spring 2016 set returning to the plane, it's gained a fair bit of notoriety.
  If there's anything a werewolf hates, it's a collar — especially Avacyn's Collar, the symbol of her church.
• Avacyn hates fishermen.^ExplanationThe French version of the card Descend Upon the Sinful mistranslated "Sinful" (pécheurs) as "Fishermen" (pêcheurs). Ascended as of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, where one of the new mechanics (Disturb) was introduced with a card (Baithook Angler) representing a fisherman dying and becoming a spirit. The video introducing the mechanic talks at length about how being a fisherman on Innistrad never ends well.
• "Hit him with ur crossbow steve" ^ExplanationA Reddit meme referencing the 8/8 Octopus token from Battle for Zendikar, whose art depicts a pair of soldiers aiming a crossbow at an octopus that is waaaaaay too big to be more than temporarily annoyed (if that) by a crossbow bolt. The two soldiers get referenced again a few sets later.
• Urabrask is a total bro^note Urabrask the Hidden, the Red Praetor of New Phyrexia, is the only one who actually understands living beings to an extent and is even sheltering the Mirran resistance. This has led to jokes about he is a total bro.
  • This became something of an Ascended Meme in Streets of New Capenna, where he pulls a full Heel–Face Turn and explicitly plots to turn the tide of the war in the Mirran's favor.
• The Jacetice League ^ExplanationA fan name for the Gatewatch, spoofing the Follow the Leader way it was inspired by the Justice League; Jace was a founding member. Its usage is often also a Streisand Effect after Magic's head designer, Mark Rosewater, criticized people for using the term.
• "Meanwhile on Innistrad, Sorin Markov is still stuck in a rock." ^ExplanationA joke about Planeswalker Sorin Markov that's regularly repeated with new stories, about how when he was last seen, he'd been trapped in a rock in such a way that makes it difficult for him to leave. Became an Ascended Meme when he returned in War of the Spark and both the set and the novel had characters pointing out how he finally got free.
• Jace The Mind Sculptor, Better Than All! ^ExplanationThis version of Jace, one of the most powerful Planeswalker cards ever printed, inspired a rap song from some pro players thanks to his overpowering performance in Standard at the time. Jace was later unbanned in the Modern format, reviving the meme.
• The cycle of curses from Commander 2017 all heavily feature a man who has been dubbed The Most Interesting Man in the Multiverse.
• Queen Marchesa (long may she reign) ^ExplanationThis card depicts a popular villain from the plane of Fiora after a successful Klingon Promotion. The "long may she reign" subtitle was added as a joke in her Oracle rulings text, and has been picked up by the Commander community as her official name.
• Yes, your opponent can't even. We know.^ExplanationVoid Winnower is a card that stops your opponents from doing really anything that involves even numbers. (Yes, that's a really weird effect - it's an Eldrazi, it's supposed to be weird.) The last ruling in Oracle for it is just "Yes, your opponent can't even. We know." because so many people made that joke when the card was first revealed.
• Belzenlok did that. ^ExplanationIn the Return to Dominaria storyline, it is revealed that the Cabal has started engaging in Orwellian Retcons inserting their leader, Demonlord Belzenlok, into moments from history that he couldn't possibly have been a part of. Naturally, the fandom has embraced this and taken it up to eleven, replacing every character they can get their hands on with Belzenlok.
• The Yargle vs. Slimefoot debate during the Dominaria Launch over which was the most powerful card in the entire set. For context, Slimefoot took on an internet headcanon of being a "mushroom mommy" with its ability to create small tokens, while Yargle was seen as an invincible Commander — being a 9/3 Frog Spirit that... has no abilities. Wizard's Twitter asked the community what the proper response to an opponent successfully playing both cards. The overwhelming response? Scoop.
• This [x] is now a 3/3 Elk. ^ExplanationRefers to the overwhelming dominance of the planeswalker Oko, Thief of Crowns, which has the power to turn any artifact or creature into a 3/3 Elk creature with no other abilities. As it turns out, shutting off all creature and artifact abilities was more potent than the Play Design team expected, especially when the ability added loyalty counters to the planeswalker in question instead of removing them (as planeswalker abilities that can be used defensively usually do, making the planeswalker more vulnerable to being removed through combat damage). Became an Ascended Meme in with the release of Unfinity, where one of the flavor texts for Storybook Ride, a card representing the set where Oko appeared, was "You leave the ride either entertained or an elk. Usually the latter."
• Chandra only has decidedly male romantic interests^ExplanationThe War of the Spark: Forsaken novel by Greg Weisman has generated an immense amount of controversy within the fandom and even within the company itself (specifically the Creative Team) for essentially retconning Chandra's sexuality to her only liking "decidedly male" hunks like Gideon after several stories building up her pansexuality by focusing on a burgeoning attraction between her and Nissa (on top of a crush on Gideon). Memes have taken this and run with it by altering Gideon cards to make him even more manly than usual, depicting Chandra as a man so she can have a relationship with Nissa, pretending that Magic's most prominent gay characters, Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, are in fact "two bros" looking for female companionship, and so on. Thankfully, this bit of lore has been jettisoned as of March of the Machine.
  • "Aye girl" said Ajani, grinning his leonin grin^ExplanationAnother oft-parodied part of the novel, cited as a prime example of its low quality and lazy writing.
  • Nissa Ravine^ExplanationNissa's name was misspelled as such in its first mention within the novel. As above, detractors use this as evidence that there was very little care and effort put into this work, since it passed through many people that didn't bother to notice or correct such a typo
  • "And he did. Because he could. Which he did." ^ExplanationAnother commonly-parodied example.
• Sending a message. ^ExplanationRefers to the act of making a useless attack just because you can. Can frequently happen on accident on some of Magic's digital clients, which have an "Attack with all" option that might wind up sending in a creature that can't possibly hurt the opponent or can't possibly make a difference to the outcome. The "message" being sent varies, but is usually either an expression of dominance ("I have this game so locked up that I'll send this useless thing at you just because I can") or defiance ("I have no real means of winning this game, but I'll kick you in the shins on my way out").
• Eight Fucking Bears ^ExplanationAn edited card◊ featuring eight bears with Jolrael, Empress of Bears responding with "holy shit":
  • Often edited further, such as the Eight Fucking Ground Types.
  • “holY shit” ^ExplanationJoke flavor text for cards that are just a group of some previous card combined into one, such as Llanowar Tribe, which costs as much as three Llanowar Elves, has the combined power and toughness of three Llanowar Elves, and taps for the exact amount of mana produced by three Llanowar Elves. The meme is a reference to that fan-made joke card Eight Fucking Bears. Memetic references are usually attributed to a corresponding character for the creature type on the card, such as Ezuri, Renegade Leader, a famous elf, for Llanowar tribe.
• Maybe it'll see play when Polukranos rotates. ^ExplanationRefers to a comment from card previews saying that Siege Rhino might see play when Polukranos, a card that served a similar role, leaves Standard play legality as a result of set rotation. Siege Rhino went on to become one of the most infamously overpowered cards of its era, while Polukranos had comparatively no impact, so this joke has been repeated for any card that seems obviously overpowered.
• [KTK] Meandering Towershell. ^ExplanationMeandering Towershell is a giant turtle from Khans of Tarkir (KTK) that comes back "late" whenever it attacks, emphasizing its slow nature. Players made it a joke to post spoilers for it during spoiler season for several sets after its release, as though its spoiler had arrived late as well.
• N💧pe. ^ExplanationThe "o" in "Nope" is replaced with a blue mana symbol. Blue's most iconic spell is Counterspell, and the color has a wide variety of ways to ruin another player's carefully-laid schemes with a "nope" at the right time. This meme has its own T-shirts, and there's even an Un-card (Spike, Tournament Grinder) depicting someone wearing such a shirt; fittingly, it's the card representing the competitive Magic player archetype.
• "X can't block warriors." ^ExplanationA reference to Boldwyr Intimidator, whose ability makes it so cowards (a type of creature) can't block warriors (another type of creature), in addition to having the ability to turn creatures into cowards or warriors; the term became a joking way to call people or groups cowardly.
• Colossal Dreadmaw. ^Explanation This dinosaur first appeared in Ixalan as a Boring, but Practical win condition for green in draft. It was reprinted three times in the following year, much to players' astonishment and amusement. Because of that, the card became a huge meme — especially in the subreddit r/magicthecirclejerking — being transformed, edited into other cards and even spawning its own subreddit. Then things got weird when Modern Horizons 2 introduced Phantasmal Dreadmaw, a blue illusion variation of the card.
• The white one is gonna make you gain 2 life. ^ExplanationA response to White's notably low power-level during the F.I.R.E. era, where every other color got a considerable number of powerful cards (Green in particular became The Scrappy due to getting too powerful), but White got almost no useful Standard cards aside from Elspeth Conquers Death and some hybrid/multicolored cards. Refers also to Wizards' infamous tradition of having massive power-level disparity on its monocolor cycles (check the Game-Breaker page for more information), where White rarely gets the most powerful cards, while often getting the worst cards in the cycle, with effects usually either insignificant or too rewarding to your opponent.
• WOW
  • FUCK
    • TRON^ExplanationUrzatron, usually shortened to Tron, is a name for a deck that seeks to assemble the three different Urza's lands to produce a vast amount of colorless mana quickly; the name is based on Voltron. Because of the deck's high power and because it's fast enough that some people find it frustrating to play against, it attracts a lot of hate, which led to WOW FUCK TRON as a joking summary or response. Memetic Mutation eventually turned this into a comment that appears on forums whenever a new card is revealed that either seems useful in Tron or which seems intended for use against Tron (not uncommon, since the deck is so powerful that Wizards of the Coast tries to ensure there are always answers to it), often with different posters saying the meme one word at a time as if to "assemble" the three pieces of WOW FUCK TRON in order to defeat Tron. Sometimes the meme is invoked simply in response to Tron being mentioned, regardless of context.
• Comparing Nahiri to a Karen due to her hairstyle.
• Neon Dynasty essentially mutated Jin-Gitaxias into a weeb due to wearing traditional Japanese pants and compleating Tamiyo, the latter leading to a lot of waifu jokes. A variant of this evolved when Ajani was compleated, with Jin-Gitaxias accusing Sheoldred of being a furry.
• Urabrask in a suit ^ExplanationFollowing the aforementioned wearing of Japanese pants in Neon Dynasty, many hoped that the Red Praetor would show up in the following set, New Capenna, dressed in some kind of mob boss outfit to go with the Plane's theme, ranging from just a fedora to a full pinstripe suit or trench coat. While Urabrask did show up, sadly his damaged body from using the Planar Bridge wasn't wearing any kind of native attire.
• (It works.) ^ExplanationA Hand Wave that frequently appears on custom cards, especially in r/HellsCube, for unusual mechanics which are easy to explain intuitively but difficult to define within and/or explicitly contrary to the official Magic rules.
• It is the will of Zedruu that you should have this trope.^ExplanationZedruu the Greathearted is a popular commander with the ability to give your permanents to your opponents and benefit from doing so; naturally, people use this to give useless or even Trojan Horse gifts that harm their opponents. Somewhere along the line it became customary to say this line when giving a "gift" using Zedruu, this seems to originate with this post on a now defunct MTG blog.
• Glorious X.^ExplanationIn mid-2022, someone noticed that Charge is exactly the same as Glorious Charge, except that the latter costs 1 more mana. Thus, many memes have been going around with "Glorious" versions of cards that cost 1 more mana for the same effect.
• Cat dad betrayal (or, alternatively, "no!")^note A combination of fan sadness at Ajani's fate + a reference to his planeswalker card, which reads like a normal Ajani card until you get to the ultimate...
• Daddy of the Machines.^note A play on Yawgmoth's title Father of the Machines, due to his canonically attractive looks when he was still a human, as described in The Thran and shown in his card from Modern Horizons.
  • Likewise for Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines almost universally being referred to as "mommy" and seen as a motherly Dominatrix figure. It doesn't help that even her title abbreviates to "MOM".
• Autochthon Wurm sneers at your puniness!^ExplanationAutochthon Wurm is a creature with an impressive 14 toughness, which was almost unheard of back when it was printed and still remains rare even to this day. Removal spells that don't simply destroy a creature outright tend to cap out at thirteen damage, as evidenced by cards like Shivan Meteor, Blasphemous Act, Into the Maw of Hell or Tragic Slip. This turned Autochthon Wurm into a Memetic Badass that casually withstands meteor impacts and falling into Hell itself. And yet it still dies to Doom Blade.
• Magic as Richard Garfield intended.^ExplanationThere are several Game-Breaker strategies in the game that can do things that allow them to ignore the general core game design philosophies, most blatantly casting lots of things for free and ignoring the mana curve, far differently from how the game's original designer may have envisioned the game.
• We did it, we finally broke X!^ExplanationAn Obligatory Joke, especially on r/BadMtgCombos, for when someone theorycrafts a combo that can easily win the game, but relies on one or more cards that were already Game Breakers.
• Comparing the teaser trailer for Phyrexia: All Will Be One to a fragrance ad, thanks to its minimalist aesthetics combined with Elesh Norn's elegant pose and flowing silk garments.
• Lukka fucks up again.^ExplanationSo far, Lukka is 3 for 3 on being on the villainous side of a conflict despite being a "hero". His rash and overly impulsive attitude, combined with a tendency of always making the worst decisions, has led to widespread mockery from the community, including jokes that the real plan against Phyrexia was to let Lukka be compleated and screw up Phyrexia from the inside.
  • Even Elesh Norn doesn't like Lukka/I don't care for Lukka^ExplanationLukka's status as a Memetic Loser hit its apex after the first story of March of the Machine showed that even Elesh Norn can't stand him and his ego. There were also a lot of comparisons showing Lukka as The Unfavorite compared to all the other planeswalkers Phyrexia had compleated.
  • Jace has special bad ideas.^ExplanationJace isn't exempt from dumb decisions in the Phyrexian storyline, either - recruiting Lukka for the assault when using his ability on Phyrexian fauna would be (and was) outright suicidal, succumbing to an obvious trap involving Vraska, and for nearly nuking an unknown percentage of the Multiverse. This line, taken straight from the story ^note  "I [Kaito] have plenty of terrible ideas, but they don't usually get everybody around me dead. But Jace has special bad ideas, I guess." , sums up Jace's actions in the Phyrexian arc (and in some of his previous story arcs too) pretty well.
• Urabrask the wife guy. ^ExplanationUrabrask is the only Praetor who believes compleation should be undergone willingly, rather than forced upon others. Then the first March of the Machine previews showed that Ayara from Eldraine would be compleated, and while the card itself wasn't shown her art and title of "Furnace Queen" heavily implied that she would be going from black to black-red and be tied to Urabrask. Fans took these facts and determined that not only did Urabrask personally compleat her, but did so after getting together with her and the two of them became a Phyrexian power couple.
• Questing Beast gets another line of text every time you look at it.^ExplanationQuesting Beast is infamous for having so many abilities (three keyword abilities and three full sentences) that it's hard to remember exactly what it does.
• "Don't worry, guys! It's not that kind of (Zur) deck!" ^ExplanationA disclaimer attempting to mollify other players when bringing a Zur the Enchanter/Atraxa, Praetors' Voice/Derevi, Empyrial Tactician/(insert other infamous Legend here) deck out in a game of Commander, eliciting groans from the table due to widely-disliked play patterns normally used with that particular Legend. Usually considered Implausible Deniability, because often that deck is "that sort of deck" and the player running it is being disingenuous to gain an easy win by pulling the wool over the eyes of the other participants, or (more charitably) is trying to avoid being ganged-up on by the other players.
• "Guess we're playing Archenemy now." ^ExplanationOften said ruefully or as a complaint when one player in a typical 4-person pod of Commander players pulls far enough ahead (or is playing a particularly infamous Legend as their Commander) that the rest of the table focus on that one person instead of the typical free-for-all pattern of Commander games. Archenemy is a format that is explicitly 3-on-1, where one player has a very powerful deck along with a number of power Scheme cards to even the odds against three other players.
  • Similarly, the player who is the focus of a pod's ire (whether because they're ahead or made a particularly unpopular play) is often known as the Archenemy, and the state of having the enmity of all the other players in your pod is "being the Archenemy".
• "What power level is my deck? Um, about a 7, I think." ^ExplanationBecause of the sheer variety in quality and power level of decks in Commander, many groups have a discussion about which sort of decks are allowable for a particular game to ensure all the players are on roughly even footing — usually using a ten-point scale (with a 1 generally assumed to be an unplayable pile of cards built around some obscure theme, a 5 around the level of a typical preconstructed deck and a 10 reserved for hyper-competitive decks with many expensive cards designed to quickly and reliably assemble game-winning combos within the first few turns). A 7 is generally regarded as the "sweet spot" — enough effort has been put into the deck to make it capable of powerful and impressive plays, but not so hyper-competitive that no one else could beat it without playing a similarly hyper-optimized (and thus, very expensive) deck. However, this scale is largely arbitrary, with no universally-accepted standard as to what "counts" to mark a deck as being of a certain power level, and some players deliberately misidentify their decks to lull others into playing weaker decks they can easily beat. Thus, every deck people bring out is a "7" until proved otherwise.
• Gli Occhi del Pretore ^ExplanationItalian for "The Eyes of the Praetor". With the quality of the lore in March of the Machine being heavily lambasted, Italian players started to liken it to "Gli Occhi del Cuore" ("The Eyes of the Heart"), the artfully bad Show Within a Show in Boris.
• Hats! ^ExplanationDetractors of Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction accused the sets of being unrealistc because many characters wore hats matching the theme of the story (Deerstalkers in Murders, Stetsons in Outlaws). Most people pointed out this is far from the strangest thing that's appeared in the setting and a weird thing to get hung up on, and many pushed the joke to sillier spaces (such as claiming the hats were the next multiversal threat after New Phyrexia, or accusing the sets as a get-rich-quick scheme by Goblin Haberdasher.
• Jace and Vraska's convoluted adoption scheme ^{Explanation (Thunder Junction spoilers!)}When it was confirmed that Vraska would be appearing in Outlaws of Thunder Juction, many theories arose as to how and why she was there, often with Jace involved since it was implied he had been partially responsible for her de-compleation. One of the popular joke-y ones was that she was after the payday to "help fund her and Jace's convoluted adoption scheme". The phrase only picked up steam when the final chapters revealed that a) there was, in fact, a child inside the fault; b) Jace had been with Vraska the whole time in disguise; and c) that the entire scheme began because the couple's musings about adoption sparked a memory in Jace of him finding the vault years ago and sensing the child inside.

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