Banlist update: 7 cards banned for offensive imagery/names

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Hermes_
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Post by Hermes_ » 3 years ago

RxPhantom wrote:
3 years ago
Hermes_ wrote:
3 years ago
What i find slightly ironic is no one is upset over C.A.H which if you really go through all 1000+ cards you'd find something that would actually offend everyone at some point, but I guess since that's the point of CAH or it's meant to be funny that's okay?
You can't be serious. You're comparing a children's card game to one specifically marketed to adults 17+ (right on the box) with the tagline "A party game for horrible people." People sit down to games of Cards Against Humanity with that stuff in mind; Magic players generally don't go into games seeking racist overtones.
Only slightly,but that brings up another point: Having the age requirement that is ignored and that tag line makes it okay? So if MTG was aimed at the same group as CAH the cards that got banned wouldn't be banned? :hmm:

BTW MTG is aimed at 13+ (if you read the packaging) not really a child's game more of teen and up :P
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Post by Legend » 3 years ago

RxPhantom wrote:
3 years ago
Hermes_ wrote:
3 years ago
What i find slightly ironic is no one is upset over C.A.H which if you really go through all 1000+ cards you'd find something that would actually offend everyone at some point, but I guess since that's the point of CAH or it's meant to be funny that's okay?
You can't be serious. You're comparing a children's card game to one specifically marketed to adults 17+ (right on the box) with the tagline "A party game for horrible people." People sit down to games of Cards Against Humanity with that stuff in mind; Magic players generally don't go into games seeking racist overtones.
Children aren't spam tweeting WotC about offensive cards. And the adults doing it aren't doing it for their children. Maybe 1/2500 cards are legit offensive to a vocal minority. Let those people play the other 24,490 cards. Even if people were doing it for their children, what a great teaching opportunity for them! "Prejudice is bad, sweetie." And so on. Rather than pretending like these things don't exist. It strengthens children instead of grooming them to be snowflakes.
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Airi
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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

Hermes_ wrote:
3 years ago
Only slightly,but that brings up another point: Having the age requirement that is ignored and that tag line makes it okay? So if MTG was aimed at the same group as CAH the cards that got banned wouldn't be banned? :hmm:

BTW MTG is aimed at 13+ (if you read the packaging) not really a child's game more of teen and up :P
CAH is supposed to be satire, MTG is not, and specifically those cards were definitely not made with satire in mind.

Whether or not that satire crosses lines is another conversation, but I don't really think you can fairly compare the two games, they're two entirely different beasts.

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Post by bobthefunny » 3 years ago

Hermes_ wrote:
3 years ago
Only slightly,but that brings up another point: Having the age requirement that is ignored and that tag line makes it okay? So if MTG was aimed at the same group as CAH the cards that got banned wouldn't be banned? :hmm:
Assuredly (on the age requirement, at least).

In fact, there are several card games aimed at adults that depict far raunchier and more sexualized cards than Magic does (Such as the card game made by Magic artists Phil and Kaja Foglio). Turns out that having a different audience, a different context, and a different expectation makes a big difference in what is acceptable or accepted - as does context, tone, and intended message.

Same thing with why video games, and even movies, have ratings on them. Different themes are acceptable to different audiences.

It would in fact not be difficult to make a fantasy card game with more adult themes, aimed at an older audience, with possibly darker themes, increased violence... etc. But that's not where magic is, or wants to be.

Almost like context matters.

-

Now for the second question - would the cards have not been banned? Again - that depends on the message that Wizards wants to put out, and the audience they want to put it out to. You could certainly make a game full of cards with racist stereotypes and market it CAH style to an older audience... whether you sell anything is a different question.


-

My takeaway is that if any of the cards that were 'banned' today had never existed - and then Wizards tried to print them today (with the art) - the uproar over it would be ridiculous.

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Being offended is a feature of CAH, not a bug, and that's a major difference. You play the game with the expectation that something will offend you, but since it's anarchic absurdity it frames everything as stupid and silly, which removes much of the power from the ideas and imagery generated in the game.

It's juvenile, and markets itself as juvenile, which casts all the offensive ideas within as juvenile and unfit for serious consideration.

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Legend wrote:
3 years ago
Airi wrote:
3 years ago
Legend wrote:
3 years ago

So what you're saying is, Murder is consensual and comfortable? I find it rather convenient for people to want genders to be equal until it's inconvenient. So it's cool if a female character is represented in card art as the victorious captain of a ship, but not as a ground-bound and defeated foe. If there was a white male in the art instead of the female, nobody would even notice.
Yeah, Earthbind is way worse of a depiction than Murder. It would still be a worse depiction than the card Murder, if it featured a man in that exact same pose, and Murder featured a woman in the same predicament. Or if both cards featured the same gender. Because, again, the problem with Earthbind isn't because it shows a woman, but because it shows a submissive, non-consensual sexual pose.

You don't know me nearly well enough to make the assertion that it wouldn't be problematic if it were a man depicted.

Edit: The reason I'm using that kind of wording (non-consensual/subkmissive/etc.) Is because I cant say its outright depicting rape. Its not, even if its making allusions to that. And also trying to convey that bondage in of itself isn't inherently problematic. It probably is in the context of a card game partially marketed at kids, but isn't bad on its own. So tl;dr allusions to rape are bad regardless of gender, mmkay?
Unless the artist is on record stating that the art is an allusion to rape, then those that view it that way may be prudes that are projecting latent fantasies. Nothing sexual never even crossed my mind upon looking at that art
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and I like (EDIT: *consensual) bondage.
The flavor nor the context just isn't there to support such a notion.
"I'm not offended therefore everyone who is must be wrong." This is a horribly poor argument in just about every situation. And sadly, it is used too frequently, often by white men who are privileged enough to never have to be the victim of anything.
Hermes_ wrote:
3 years ago
What i find slightly ironic is no one is upset over C.A.H which if you really go through all 1000+ cards you'd find something that would actually offend everyone at some point, but I guess since that's the point of CAH or it's meant to be funny that's okay?
A lot of people have spoken out about CAH because it's goal is "we can make fun of this stuff because we are making fun of all of it", when in fact it just profits from enforcing bigoted stereotypes.
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Post by Legend » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
"I'm not offended therefore everyone who is must be wrong." This is a horribly poor argument in just about every situation. And sadly, it is used too frequently, often by white men who are privileged enough to never have to be the victim of anything.
But "white man bad" is a good argument? I didn't take you for a racist. -99 respect. The remaining 1% is for showing your true colors. (Pun not intended.)
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 3 years ago

Legend wrote:
3 years ago
But "white man bad" is a good argument? I didn't take you for a racist. -99 respect. The remaining 1% is for showing your true colors. (Pun not intended.)
I'm surprised you're not advocating for Brain Maggot to be banned, considering your condition.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Legend wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
"I'm not offended therefore everyone who is must be wrong." This is a horribly poor argument in just about every situation. And sadly, it is used too frequently, often by white men who are privileged enough to never have to be the victim of anything.
But "white man bad" is a good argument? I didn't take you for a racist. -99 respect. The remaining 1% is for showing your true colors. (Pun not intended.)
I will humor you this once and assume that you're interpreting Cryo wrong on accident instead of being either intentionally argumentative or a very committed ideologue.

The argument clearly is not that white men are bad. It's that white men often deliver that particular lazy "argument" because they are privileged by our society in nearly every respect.

The lazy argument is "I'm not offended therefore everyone who is must be wrong."

The people who I most often hear it from as well are privileged white men. Allow me to share this meme for you that perhaps illustrates the situation:
image.png

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cryogen
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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Legend wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
"I'm not offended therefore everyone who is must be wrong." This is a horribly poor argument in just about every situation. And sadly, it is used too frequently, often by white men who are privileged enough to never have to be the victim of anything.
But "white man bad" is a good argument? I didn't take you for a racist. -99 respect. The remaining 1% is for showing your true colors. (Pun not intended.)
That wasn't my argument though. I was stating a fairly well documented statistic that white men come from a place of privilege whether we realize it or not (actually we typically don't realize it unless we're the 1%ers). And therein lies the problem: we don't realize that just living a normal middle class existence means not getting talked down to, not getting racially profiled, having to work harder than someon of another race or gender just to earn equality, and not growing up in constant fear that the slightest mistake could land us in jail or dead.
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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

Sorry folks, but I think we've realistically moved past the point where we're discussing MTG, which puts this past the scope of this forum, so I'll be locking this thread.

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