Colossal Dreadmaw

Submission 26,065

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About

Colossal Dreadmaw is an exploitable and creature card in the customizable card game Magic the Gathering, first printed in the Ixalan set. The card has been the subject of jokes and memes among the Magic community for its initial redundancy compared to other creature cards printed in its initial set, a large amount of reprinting of the card within subsequent sets over the course of four years and parodies or photoshops created by fans of the game online.

Origin

The Colossal Dreadmaw card was originally released in the Ixalan expansion block on September 29th, 2017 (seen below, left).^[1] Reception among the Magic community declared the card largely "redundant" for competitive use when compared to the card Carnage Tyrant, which many felt effectively did its job better in comparison while having the exact same casting cost as the former. The card was reprinted for the following set Rivals of Ixalan on January 18th, 2018, much to the community's perplexed astonishment, sporting a changed flavor text (seen below, right).^[2]

Since its debut, it has had multiple reprints over the years in subsequent sets, the latest of which occurred in Core Set 2021 on July 3rd, 2020.

Spread

Colossal Dreadmaw garnered significant parodies or memes among Magic the Gathering communities, especially on the subreddit /r/magicthecirclejerking,^[4] a community where memes involving the cardgame are commonplace. One such example was posted to /r/magicthecirclejerking^[5] on June 11th, 2018, by Redditor Average_Toaster, receiving over 1,600 upvotes and 210 comments in six months. In the comments, users discussed the humor of the card, with Redditor PraiseTheKappa accumulating 621 upvotes for their top reply of "At this point WotC are just memeing us, aren't they…?"

On September 19th, 2018, Redditor^[6] SaltedDucks posted a meme featuring the card using That Wasn't Very Cash Money Of You, receiving 979 upvotes and 12 comments in six months (seen below, left). On June 12th, 2020, Redditor RWT1998 posted another example to /r/DinosaursMTG,^[7] receiving nearly 100 upvotes in four months (seen below, right).

On January 8th, 2019, YouTuber^[8] MTGGoldfish uploaded a video discussing Colossal Dreadmaw, which references it as "the meme card Colossal Dreadmaw," accumulating over 37,100 views, 728 likes and 117 comments in nearly two years (shown below).