Meme or Dream? "How Many Different 6+ Drops Can I Fit in My Emergent Ultimatum Deck?" (Standard)
A few months ago, Wizards started publishing decklists 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 published 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.
This week was actually a fairly normal week as far as Magic Arena decks are concerned. All of the lists Wizards published had sideboards, which is more than you can say for most weeks. However, we still have some weirdness to check out today: a deck built around Emergent Ultimatum with a massive 18 one-ofs, 21 cards that cost six or more mana, and some cards that I've honestly never seen anyone play in Standard before, like Demon of Loathing, Void Beckoner, and Titanoth Rex. Even though this week's deck is normal by Meme or Dream? standards, compared to a typical Standard deck, it's still pretty wild and quite far off the beaten path. Does the "bad" Ultimatum have a place in Standard? What's the best Emergent Ultimatum pile you can construct in Standard, which is lacking the "I win" combo cards for Emergent Ultimatum we have in other formats? Is Emergent Ultimatum a meme or dream? Let's find out!