Meme or Dream? Divine Gambit (Standard)
A few months ago, Wizards started publishing deck lists from Magic Arena. To qualify for publication, a deck needs to win at least six matches in a row at platinum rank or better. This sounds simple on its face, but some incredibly janky lists end up being posted every time lists are published. This has led to speculation that a bug in the system allows decks that didn't actually win six matches in a row to be published or, for the most tin-foil-hatted crowd, the idea that Wizards just publishes whatever it wants, to make the metagame look more diverse than it really is.
After a couple of weeks off because Wizards didn't publish any lists, we're back with one of the least comprehensible decks I've ever seen. The best I can figure, the idea is to exile Unwilling Ingredient with Angelic Ascension or Resculpt and hope that the 4/4 token goes all the way. But basically, everything about the deck is strange. Most of the cards in the deck have the word "exile" on them. We only have six creatures, with one being General's Enforcer, even though it's our only Human. We also are leaning on four copies of Dire Tactics as removal, although we'll almost always have to spend a bunch of life to cast it. We're also running four Spell Satchels, which is a card I've never seen cast in constructed.
All of this weirdness is burying the lede. The biggest reason we're playing the deck is that it has four copies of perhaps the most mocked and memeiest card printed in years: Divine Gambit. We're not really built around the card in any way; we're just hoping that the removal spell that Show and Tells the opponent will work out. While Divine Gambit has been a laughingstock pretty much since the minute it was spoiled, some people have asked if it maybe could be better than it looks since no one has bothered to try it. Well, today is the day. Not only are we going to see if it's possible to win with one of the strangest decks I've ever seen, but we're also going to sling some Divine Gambits and see what happens, which I guess means Meme or Dream? is a double episode. Is the deck itself a meme or dream? What about Divine Gambit? Let's jump into some games and find out!
