Banlist update: 7 cards banned for offensive imagery/names

ilovesaprolings
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Post by ilovesaprolings » 3 years ago

rogerandover wrote:
3 years ago
Well, it's hard to argue anything when you say full stop after your sentiment :)

Say, if my 6 year old daugther by chance draw a picture of some people i pointed hoods, should I tell her she can't and destroy that drawing? Can't we depict anyone in pointed hoods anywhere? Just because some crazed Democrats chose to make such a group? If we chose to silence something to death, that sounds like "Nineteen eighty-four" to me. If we wanted to deal with everything that's racist about our whole civilization, we might aswell burn the whole thing down. Sure, Crusade was something Christians did against heretics, but nowadays you can crusade against alot of stuff. Langauge has several meanings. Else, stop easter. Stop Christmas. Racist too, right?

The only this changes for me, is that if I choose to play Invoke Prejudice again, people could now point out that it's racist, while they might not even notice before this ban. I think this is more counterintuitive, since it's putting specific cards into a certain light.

To make a hyperbole statement: who chose what to ban? What about vegans? Should we make the game more approchable to vegans? Should Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves be okay, but not Devour Flesh?
I mean first you compare the drawing of a 6 years old with the drawing of a professional illustrator who is a known nazi sympathizer. Then you compare racism to hating vegans?
Can you get more strawman than that?
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Post by rogerandover » 3 years ago

Did I?

I didn't really consider the artists, but what was being depictured. And I didn't compare racism and vegans. It was a hyperbole statement about who gets to choose what is being banned. What is offensive to some, might not be for others and vice versa.

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Post by Yawgmoth Reborn » 3 years ago

My take on the cards themselves: They do not say whether the concept or act depicted on them is good or bad. Therefore no position on them is taken. Does the art or text say this act of "invoking prejudice" was a good thing? no. All it suggests is that this thing can happen...its up to the player to decide whether or not to do it in the game of magic. If you as a player wish not to do these things in magic that is fine, if you want the effect created by playing the card with such a concept on it then that's fine too. If you feel offended by something on a card don't play it.

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
He is a literal neo-Nazi that illustrated a card with Klansmen on it. The art is racist.
1) I am aware of who the artist is.
2) Depicting a racist thing doesn't make the art itself racist.
3) The artist being racist doesn't make the art itself racist.

Not to say that those things make it not racist. But I never got a "look how cool these guys are" vibe from the card personally. I got a "these guys are racist bad guys, but bad guys are a thing that exists in fantasy games" vibe. Even if it's a little "too real" in this case.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Still, whether you want to argue the card itself is meant to be glorifying racism or speaking against it (which I'm done doing at this point), that doesn't excuse a very poor decision by WotC to invoke real life imagery with an extremely negative connotation.
It's not that anyone thinks seeing the card at a table across from them is going to cause someone to have a mental breakdown. It's that the card is a blatant reminder of how %$#% real life is and some people are, when the whole goal of Magic is to escape for a while and have fun. Normally I wouldn't bring real life politics into the forum, but this is relevant. We have a sitting president who was endorsed by David Duke. We have neo-Nazis counterprotesting in the streets. We have the state of Tennessee fighting a proposal to remove a bust of the founder of the KKK from a government building. The KKK is quite active right now in the year 2020 and they've been emboldened by the last 4 years of Donald Trump. Racism is a very real thing that for minorities is ingrained in their everyday life. So yes, to a privileged white person (in the overall demographic of Magic players) there is the attitude of "what's the big deal" because they have no idea what it's like to be a minority. But for a minority, seeing that card is yet another reminder of the %$#% they have to deal with on a daily basis.
3drinks seems to think it will.

I agree that it could be a microaggression to someone, and that's not an unreasonable reason to ban it. But I also don't think it was a huge problem, the card is incredibly rarely played. I also think that makes wotc's decision to be both trivial, and it happens to be inconvenient for me personally which is why I find it annoying. I don't have any particular love for the card, as I said it wotc offered to buy up all the copies I'd be a lot less bothered by it. Especially since they'd actually be putting their money where the mouth is, instead of making a meaningless gesture.

I guess there are some edgelords at my LGS, maybe one of them will buy the damnable thing.
Sorry you experienced a minor inconvenienced because you don't have to deal with systematic racism on a daily basis or think about how the game you love playing is at best so apathetic or at worst glorifying it to the extent that even when confronted with being shown that a card with Klansmen on it, drawn by a neonazi, and assigned a number associated to Nazis, that they STILL refused to take any action to make even the simple change of assigning a new Gatherer ID number?
rogerandover wrote:
3 years ago
Say, if my 6 year old daugther by chance draw a picture of some people i pointed hoods, should I tell her she can't and destroy that drawing? Can't we depict anyone in pointed hoods anywhere? Just because some crazed Democrats chose to make such a group? If we chose to silence something to death, that sounds like "Nineteen eighty-four" to me. If we wanted to deal with everything that's racist about our whole civilization, we might aswell burn the whole thing down. Sure, Crusade was something Christians did against heretics, but nowadays you can crusade against alot of stuff. Langauge has several meanings. Else, stop easter. Stop Christmas. Racist too, right?

The only this changes for me, is that if I choose to play Invoke Prejudice again, people could now point out that it's racist, while they might not even notice before this ban. I think this is more counterintuitive, since it's putting specific cards into a certain light.

To make a hyperbole statement: who chose what to ban? What about vegans? Should we make the game more approchable to vegans? Should Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves be okay, but not Devour Flesh?
First off, you and anyone else who state that "Democrats created the KKK" are being disingenuous and spreading a false narrative. I'm not going to allow that on here.

But yes, if your 6 year old daughter were suddenly drawing people in pointy hoods (that looked sufficiently enough like KKK which is why I assume you brought it up) then I would expect that if you stop her and explain why it is wrong and she shouldn't draw them.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of this. It isn't productive to engage in the level of slippery slope fallacy and hyperbole that you want to use to prop up your argument.
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Whether the art glorifies racism is a completely unrelated topic, imo, from the artist's personal views. There's no duck to look or quack like except the art itself, and I don't see it quacking personally. Willing to be wrong.
Still, whether you want to argue the card itself is meant to be glorifying racism or speaking against it (which I'm done doing at this point), that doesn't excuse a very poor decision by WotC to invoke real life imagery with an extremely negative connotation.
I don't remember you making any arguments about why the art glorifies racism. Can you point me to them? (of course, I mean the art not the artist)
Sorry you experienced a minor inconvenienced because you don't have to deal with systematic racism on a daily basis or think about how the game you love playing is at best so apathetic or at worst glorifying it to the extent that even when confronted with being shown that a card with Klansmen on it, drawn by a neonazi, and assigned a number associated to Nazis, that they STILL refused to take any action to make even the simple change of assigning a new Gatherer ID number?
1) It's a $250 card that I may never be able to sell. That's not a trivial amount of money. If you woke up and found that you'd lost $250 out of nowhere, you'd be within your rights to be pissed.
2) Trivializing problems because they aren't the #1 biggest problem ever is extremely dismissive. There's a huge swath of people that argue "people can't be oppressed by racism today, because segregation was real racism - anyone complaining about racism today is just being a whiner and they should get over it." so maybe be careful with that line of "other people have it worse" reasoning. I think I'm allowed to be bothered that I've lost a significant amount of money without getting trivialized for it, just because "other people have it worse". There are always other people who have it worse, that doesn't make problems go away. Problems are still problems.
3) I guess I'm just rehashing this point, but I don't see how the art itself is glorifying racism, any more than, say, reanimate glorifies necromancy. Willing to be proven wrong.
4) If I got to choose how wotc handled this, personally this is what I think would have been best:
-don't make a big deal about it with an announcement that brings all these cards back into the public consciousness and makes it look like you're trying to score points.
-instead of having a piss-weak "this card is racist so it isn't part of magic" message, how about an apology that actual admits fault instead of just deciding it doesn't exist anymore.
-make a sizeable donation to something that actually matters, so your actual money is on the line.
-improve company culture - of course this could still theoretically happen, but maybe consider at least having a plan to show, so that it doesn't look like you're doing nothing except dicking over a few collectors so you can shirk responsibility for doing something more difficult and meaningful.
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I do think it would not be out of bounds for wizards to consider offering a trade-in of some kind . But lots of baggage with that such as increasing the value of old copies and such.

It'd be interesting if this somehow wound up in a test of the annoying legal doctrine that protects the reserve list - e.g. wizards being liable for devaluing cards based on a promise or whatever. Promissory estoppel or what not?

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I do think it would not be out of bounds for wizards to consider offering a trade-in of some kind . But lots of baggage with that such as increasing the value of old copies and such.
Obviously a trade-in would make me the happiest, but if they at least gave a big donation to the bail fund or something it'd seem like they actually, y'know, gave a crap? In a meaningful way? And didn't just pick the option that screwed me over without sacrificing anything whatsoever themselves.

I shudder to think what kind of people would want to buy the card at this point. But I also don't really want to take a total loss on it. Ugh.
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I am in a different boat perhaps since I got mine for 35 bucks and I don't mind eating that.

I imagine they could provide some kind of product based buyback that avoids explicitly acknowledging the secondary market.

But the logistics involved in such an undertaking are mindboggling. And also it might encourage people to spec on other offensive cards. Ugh. It's a big can of worms.

I don't think I can justify going through my collection and throwing stuff away though. I've got a complete set of the dark I completed last year for example.

It's a thorny situation as a collector.

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Post by Dunharrow » 3 years ago

The number of people coming in and saying that WOTC is being hypocritical obviously do not realize that for decades the hypocrisy was WOTC pretending these cards didn't exist. I have personally written to WOTC 2-3 times about Harold McNeill. Invoke Prejudice should be removed from existence.
In my opinion, WOTC should also buy back all cards with McNeill's art and make new versions of cards like Darkness. I hate having cards in my collection done by a neo-Nazi.

I never picked up Jihad or Crusade because those cards are disgusting to me. To me this full list makes sense. And I get that they have used the word Crusade in many ways over the years, and that banning Mirran Crusader might piss people off. I don't know what the answer is.

Just because some of you 'don't get' why these cards are being banned, doesn't mean that WOTC hasn't been receiving complaints for years about their existence. The fact is that these cards are upsetting to many magic players, and this game is about inclusion.

I was so happy to see this announcement. It is not your job to judge how you think these cards affect people. They were selected because they upset people.
And don't give WOTC flack for doing something long overdue. They had never made a statement on Invoke Prejudice until now.
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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
Whether the art glorifies racism is a completely unrelated topic, imo, from the artist's personal views. There's no duck to look or quack like except the art itself, and I don't see it quacking personally. Willing to be wrong.
You can't divorce intent, or the artist, completely for art. Guernica is a piece of artwork, but it looses a massive portion of it's impact without the context of Picaso's mindset and political statement at the time it was first displayed. Sure, this piece isn't nearly that deep but it also comes from a time period in MTG's history before they had thoroughly planted their feet into commissioned illustration. There was no art director, and likely a lot less unity and input on WotC's side as to what they wanted for each card to depict.

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Post by 5colorsrainbow » 3 years ago

To echo others, this a start that should have happened years ago and I won't be giving kudos until I see more solid action taken place within the company.

That said the fact Invoke Prejudice looks the way is does and the illustrator is a nazi is creepy and disgusting to me a a Jewish person. If you don't get why it or other cards might be upsetting it really shows your level of privilege and you need to educate yourself.
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I am in a different boat perhaps since I got mine for 35 bucks and I don't mind eating that.
The price has temporarily spiked. If I had a copy I'd be trying to sell it right now, while the price is high and some people are looking to buy.

I totally get the sentiment of like, "whoever would be trying to buy this card right now because it's racist is a garbage person", but at the same time... Taking away money from a garbage person in exchange for cardboard that no longer holds value to you is probably a good thing, and puts a couple hundred extra dollars in your pocket, right?
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Airi wrote:
3 years ago
You can't divorce intent, or the artist, completely for art.
Whether art stands on its own, or the creator's intention is part of the art, is certainly an interesting question that people have debated for a long time.

Personally (and as an artist myself) I tend to lean towards the art standing on its own. But of course either position is perfectly valid since it's a matter of opinion.
ZenN wrote:
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The price has temporarily spiked. If I had a copy I'd be trying to sell it right now, while the price is high and some people are looking to buy.
As I'm living in NZ at the moment, things are a bit trickier. But as I said, there are some edgelords around so who knows.
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
The price has temporarily spiked. If I had a copy I'd be trying to sell it right now, while the price is high and some people are looking to buy.
As I'm living in NZ at the moment, things are a bit trickier. But as I said, there are some edgelords around so who knows.
eBay or some other online selling method is likely your best bet.
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Post by tstorm823 » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
First off, you and anyone else who state that "Democrats created the KKK" are being disingenuous and spreading a false narrative. I'm not going to allow that on here.
I'm admittedly biased the other way, and more irritated by 60 years of trying to make the Republican Party seem racist than someone stating actual history out of context, but "I'm not going to allow that" is decidedly the wrong response. The moment we are in right now is acknowledging problems of the past and cleaning them out. If you skip the acknowledgment part, you're just white-washing.
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Post by UnfulfilledDesires » 3 years ago

Dunharrow wrote:
3 years ago
In my opinion, WOTC should also buy back all cards with McNeill's art and make new versions of cards like Darkness. I hate having cards in my collection done by a neo-Nazi.


I've personally decided to move away from cards with art by Harold McNeill. I bought a Nether Void a little while ago because locking opponents out of the game with mana denial is one of the many strategies I enjoy & world enchantment are super cool. I knew about McNeill's horrible views at the time but thought I could separate the art from the artist. At the this point, I'm no longer comfortable with that & have sold the Void at a modest loss. (I regret buying it the first place; perhaps I should have burned the card instead of selling.) I hope they reprint Sylvan Library again soon with the new art or ban all of McNeill's cards. (The banning of Crusade suggests the possibility of a blanket ban on Sylvan Library, as Crusade also has new art.)
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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

This is my last warning on this, anyone who wants to continue this argument here will be getting infracted and/or suspended. Having a debate on "this political party did this 80 years ago, and "this party believed this" is not a useful discussion to the issue at hand.

Both US parties had a massive shift in their base, their party values, etc. In the late 60's/early 70's. Neither essentially exist anymore. Trying to throw around past actions while assigning mondern fault based on a party that only exists in name today, in either direction is not doing anyone any favors.

Knock it off.

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
First off, you and anyone else who state that "Democrats created the KKK" are being disingenuous and spreading a false narrative. I'm not going to allow that on here.
I'm admittedly biased the other way, and more irritated by 60 years of trying to make the Republican Party seem racist than someone stating actual history out of context, but "I'm not going to allow that" is decidedly the wrong response. The moment we are in right now is acknowledging problems of the past and cleaning them out. If you skip the acknowledgment part, you're just white-washing.
What I mean is that this particular discussion is completely off topic and unrelated to Magic so it is inappropriate to discuss on this forum. If you want yo hit me up in a PM and try to convince me that the Right hasn't spent the last 60 years trying to look pretty damn racist then knock yourself out.
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Post by tstorm823 » 3 years ago

@Airi
If you really want the debate out of the thread, take the second paragraph out of that warning.
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Airi
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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
3 years ago
Airi
If you really want the debate out of the thread, take the second paragraph out of that warning.
If you have issues with it, you're free to take that up over PM, but the point, and the general warning, isn't up for debate. I did add a line to my paragraph for clarification, because I will concede that it was not quite the tone I intended to convey. I attempted a more neutral approach a page ago, and several people chose to ignore it.

However, if you'd like to talk about the magic ban, feel free to do so within reason. I'd rather not lock people's outlet for discussion, but I will absolutely do so if I have to keep handing out infractions at the rate I have been.

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ZenN
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

I'm sure we can keep this to a civil discussion purely about WotC's decisions, their handling of those decisions, and the impacts and implications of those decisions. Especially if we don't want this thread to get locked and just not be able to discuss this at all.

I'm not sure if WotC truly thought about the size of the can of worms they were opening with this. I've been seeing a ton of people digging for other cards to complain about now, and even worse, a lot of people have been editing the images of the cards that got banned to make them more offensive, either by modifying the text to be explicitly prejudiced or by pasting racist depictions of certain races into the art, and spreading those edits around. Also a lot of people accusing WotC of further racism over this, by banning some cards that seemingly no (or few) people actually thought were racist. One example being supposedly a lot of middle eastern people being upset about the banning of Jihad, because of what that term/idea actually means to them and the card only being seen as racist by people getting offended on their behalf rather than they themselves. (I say supposedly because I know this only from second hand accounts; I've not actually seen this for myself, nor am I middle eastern myself, and am only recounting what I've heard from others/seen elsewhere on the internet.)

An attempt to reduce racism (whether sincere or as a PR stunt, either way) is instead producing further racism, and antagonism from many of the people they were trying to support. This action has served to draw more attention to cards that rarely saw the light of day to begin with, and for any people who may truly feel emotionally harmed by these cards (as some in this thread have stated seems to be the case), I can only imagine that would just make things worse.
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Post by Hermes_ » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago

It'd be interesting if this somehow wound up in a test of the annoying legal doctrine that protects the reserve list - e.g. wizards being liable for devaluing cards based on a promise or whatever. Promissory estoppel or what not?
Now there's a way to make the RL irrelevant...ban all the cards on it :laugh:
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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

UnfulfilledDesires wrote:
3 years ago

I've personally decided to move away from cards with art by Harold McNeill. I bought a Nether Void a little while ago because locking opponents out of the game with mana denial is one of the many strategies I enjoy & world enchantment are super cool. I knew about McNeill's horrible views at the time but thought I could separate the art from the artist. At the this point, I'm no longer comfortable with that & have sold the Void at a modest loss. (I regret buying it the first place; perhaps I should have burned the card instead of selling.) I hope they reprint Sylvan Library again soon with the new art or ban all of McNeill's cards. (The banning of Crusade suggests the possibility of a blanket ban on Sylvan Library, as Crusade also has new art.)
After nearly 20 years of playing MTG, I have only just now found out the artist for Sylvan Library.

Before knowing now, I never cared about who the artist was. After knowing now, I still don't care. So I can say that you can divorce the artist from his work. We do it all the time. Kobe is still my favorite NBA player. From the music we listen to (do you know the composers of all the music that's commonly played? what about even the top 3 classical music still played), the films we watch (I cannot name directors of most all movies I see), or the products we buy (hard to know the source of the entire supply chain).

The UUUU card is definitely a special circumstance. Someone locally just told me about a "lynching"/racist theme deck that an opponent once pulled out for a casual game. Can't deny that that's messed up.

I would gladly forego dreams of locking opponents out from resolving summon spells in order to make other players feel welcome. But then I'd also probably have to forego playing stax, counters, or removal. /s

However, I still remain skeptical of any plans WOTC has.

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Post by Segrus » 3 years ago

UnfulfilledDesires wrote:
3 years ago
I hope they reprint Sylvan Library again soon with the new art or ban all of McNeill's cards.
The latter option ends up with some bans which are somewhat awkward, at least to me, since this includes Fog|MIR with 22 printings and like 5 different arts total.

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Post by UnfulfilledDesires » 3 years ago

Segrus wrote:
3 years ago
UnfulfilledDesires wrote:
3 years ago
I hope they reprint Sylvan Library again soon with the new art or ban all of McNeill's cards.
The latter option ends up with some bans which are somewhat awkward, at least to me, since this includes Fog|MIR with 22 printings and like 5 different arts total.
That's a good point. It's possible they could base it on original art, which would save Fog. Given the response from folks to this first round of bans, including Rich Shay's criticism, I rather doubt they'll ban a bunch more cards. We'll see. I've just decided to be done with Harold McNeill. Though I like his MTG artwork aesthetically, I've long felt icky about having art by someone sympathetic to fascism on my cards. & unlike Terese Nielsen, who also holds politics I deeply disagree with, McNeill's art only appears on a few relevant cards, so getting away from it is relatively easy.

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