Wizards of the Coast sometimes respond to memes through Magic: The Gathering cards. Just look at the original Strixhaven set from six years ago.
Magic is no stranger into inserting a lot of contemporary references into their cards. A lot of them can be broad, such as Harry Potter influencing Strixhaven and Redwall influencing Bloomburrow. Some are a bit more direct, with Murders at Karlov Manor referencing famed murder mystery media like Clue or Duskmourn referencing modern horror classics.
But, perhaps most unusually, modern Magic decides to go after memes every now and then. Not internal Magic memes - the Un-series tends to do this already. Plus, well known ones like Storm Crow being the best Magic card ever have been done to death. The real art of it is inserting a meme or a well known movie or TV line into the flavor text of a card, then changing it enough to make it make sense in-universe. And with Strixhaven having it's first sequel after the first one came out six years ago, we can look at the perfect time this occurred in that set...with a card called Heated Debate.
The card itself is pretty good - an instant that hits for four damage like that can't be countered. But it's the flavor text that probably sounds most familiar: “While you were wasting time with abstract equations, I mastered ancient Oggyar fire magic. Your move.”
For the uninitiated, it is a vaguely cool selling line. But, as you may have surmised by now, yes, it comes straight from a meme. Specifically this one.
Of course "While You Were Partying, I Studied the Blade." is a bit of a mockery. But this meme became huge in 2016 and 2017 ... right when Strixhaven was in the early stages of development. Magic's turnaround time doesn't always make for he most rapid commentary on things. However, by Magic standards, a few years for a card response is pretty fast - older sets would have simlar joke quotes to incidents from five or six years before.
In the grand scheme of a game, Magic occasionally doing this doesn't alter the game besides from a chuckle or two from players. But what it does show is that the developers are still aiming for fun and humor and keeping that spark of creative Magic alive. Players new and old, pro and anti UB, or even those opting for only select expansions to play can generally agree that connections with Magic of the past is good, and this is one way they do it.
