Magic The Gathering Cosplay/Deplatforming Fallout - Magic has certainly gathered. Grab your popcorn.

[Dunsparce]

For people like @Jaimas mentioning the extremely thorough process of the Pokemon TCG background checks many pages back... Wizards of the Coast has nothing to do with that.

Wizards of the Coast was merely the company that translated the original Japanese cards into the English language, they didn't create the game in any capacity(Media Factory is the company that designed it). In 2003 they lost the rights to translate the game and now every aspect of the game is handled by The Pokemon Company International.

 

[Jaimas]

In @KillThemCrackasBabies defense, Jeremy can be ungodly cringeworthy. And I say that as someone who likes Jeremy's content.
I would argue, however, that the dude is a gold mine for us the same reason SidAlpha was during the Alex Mauer saga.

What I will say about the ongoing controversy involving Magic: The Gathering is this:

Over in the lawsuit against Google, we have confirmed cases where Google blacklisted employees for wanting a traditional family life. We have confirmed cases of "unbias committees" where they demanded that occupants recognize the legitimacy of headmates and otherkin status or risk firing. We have a major corporation openly recruiting for fucking ANTIFA. And that's just in the deposition, which ample proof for all of it. That they openly broke employment law is a foregone conclusion - there's a credible case to made that they also broke the law in sufficient ways to constitute a RICO statute. One of the most powerful corporations on the planet, so ridden with this shit that you honest-to-god see less autistic shit in parts of the Rat King or Tumblr subforums. We now know that Liz Fong-Jones' autistic screed against Null was not an isolated occurrence.

So with this in mind: Do any of you really think that this exact cancer couldn't just as easily spread through an insular nerd hobby that's been driving away its customer-base through PC culture for the last few years? Pedophile acceptance is one of many batshit crazy things pushed by Social Justice, and there's a reason it keeps surfacing each time these nutjobs coalesce.

For people like @Jaimas mentioning the extremely thorough process of the Pokemon TCG background checks many pages back... Wizards of the Coast has nothing to do with that.

Wizards of the Coast was merely the company that translated the original Japanese cards into the English language, they didn't create the game in any capacity(Media Factory is the company that designed it). In 2003 they lost the rights to translate the game and now every aspect of the game is handled by The Pokemon Company International.

I genuinely did not know this.

 

[proteus4994]

So with this in mind: Do any of you really think that this exact cancer couldn't just as easily spread through an insular nerd hobby that's been driving away its customer-base through PC culture for the last few years?

I do, for one singular reason. MTG is, as you said, a niche insular nerd hobby. If they start driving away their customers, they're toast. MTG will cease to exist.

That's not to say they won't be retards and do it anyway. But I feel like it's less likely at a small, closer community like MTG than a multinational company that can play by its own rules because they have a billion users per day. WOTC might head down that path, but if the sales start going down the toilet, MTG will either die or it will be forced to revert back to its nerd appeal days (both acceptable outcomes to a company pushing an agenda). That kind of pressure can't be put on Google without some sort of coordinated worldwide push that will never happen.

 

[CrunkLord420]

As per Rudy's declaration Wizard's of the Coast is implementing background checks: http://company.wizards.com/article/news/making-magic-spaces-safer (https://archive.fo/1lZ9D)

Spoiler: Statement

The safety of Magic events is of paramount importance to us.

Recently, a few former judges and players had their sex offender status posted to social media. In accordance with our policy, the majority had already had their access to Magic organized play suspended indefinitely, and were not active in the Magic community.

We learned, however, that an individual reported to the Judge Conduct Committee was inadvertently not decertified by Magic Judges nor reported to Wizards. You can read more about that here. However, once this was brought to our attention, Wizards immediately coordinated with Magic Judges—an independent community-run organization that operates and manages the judge community and its Judge Conduct Committee—to address the situation. That individual has now been indefinitely suspended as a player and the Magic Judges decertified the individual's status as a Magic judge. When Wizards learns that a DCI member or a Wizards Play Network (WPN) retailer is on a sex offender registry, we take immediate action to remove them from organized play and our promotional programs. We have a zero-tolerance policy. Sex offenders have no place in the Magic community.

As part of our commitment to safe and inclusive spaces, tournament organizers and retailers will be explicitly required to conduct background checks for all staff (as permitted by applicable law). This includes CFB Events' Grand Prix, local store events like Friday NightMagic, and professional events like the Pro Tour and World Magic Cup as well as convention play run by Wizards.

We remain committed to working with tournament organizers, local game stores, and the Magic community to foster safe and inclusive environments. The proper channels for reporting misconduct are as follows: report judge misconduct to the Judge Conduct Committee at magicjudgefeedback@gmail.com, and retailer or player misconduct to investigations@wizards.com.

Jeremy celebrating: https://twitter.com/UnsleevedMedia/status/951901385892794369 (https://archive.fo/tDEah)

It should be noted they just say background checks without explicitly stating what would set off a red flag. What if someone was a murderer? or had assaulted someone? shop lifted magic cards? Lots of unattended backpacks at these things, opportunity to steal cards. Who is paying for these checks? Retailers and random "organizers"? How is the logistics of this handled?

Statement on one of the pedo judges: https://blogs.magicjudges.org/conduct/2018/01/11/statement-ross-prajzner/ (https://archive.fo/hC8VQ)

Spoiler: Statement on the decertification of Ross Prajzner

Statement on the decertification of Ross Prajzner
Posted on January 11, 2018 by Johanna Virtanen
Late last year, it was reported on social media that Level 1 judge Ross Prajzner was convicted of a sex crime in 2015. After hearing about these reports on December 25th 2017, I immediately contacted the Judge Conduct Committee and Prajzner’s Regional Coordinator to begin an expedited decertification process. This process was completed within 24 hours, Prajzner was decertified, and Wizards of the Coast was informed soon afterwards. Prajzner was not active as a judge in 2017 and he was scheduled to be demoted as part of annual level maintenance requirement checks.

Prajzner’s name was also removed from the May 2016 Judge Anniversaries post, which was based on certification date lists and not current activity status.

Recently, it was reported that the case was sent to the magicjudgefeedback@gmail.com address already in July 2017. This is true. Due to an administrative error, the case was not handled at that time, and I wasn’t aware of the e-mail until it was shared on social media. This is very unfortunate, and I am sorry. We strive to prevent such errors from happening in the future. I am not aware of whether the case was also reported to the Wizards of the Coast at that time.

While the Judge Conduct Committee cannot respond to every piece of feedback it receives, the Magic community has the right to expect this type of case to be handled and responded to in a timely manner. If you do not receive a response to your report within a month, please send another message or ask your local Regional Coordinator to follow up on the matter with the current JCC lead. If possible, use the Magic Judge Feedback Form at http://feedback.magicjudges.orgrather than e-mail – this helps the JCC lead track which cases have been handled, and gives us the information we need in a more structured way. Finally, please understand that we cannot always share details about investigations or disciplinary actions that were taken.

The JCC remains committed to protecting the Magic community and keeping the game fair and fun for everyone.

This guy is a "if you have nothing to hide" cuck

Jeremy is doing a pretty good run of posting his own salt snapshots: https://twitter.com/UnsleevedMedia/status/951916599442837504 (https://archive.fo/bvGo8)

https://twitter.com/UnsleevedMedia/status/951914629663424512 (https://archive.fo/7LwoO)

Link to the reddit thread to mine your own salt: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/7pyvey/making_magic_spaces_safer_new_background_check/ (https://archive.fo/PWhH1)

Reminder to aggressively archive the subreddit thread, as the mods are prone to mass graveyarding of comments.

One of the top voted comments is just so salty and couldn't give less of a fuck about the privacy intrusion/safety issue.

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

It should be noted they just say background checks without explicitly stating what would set off a red flag. What if someone was a murderer? or had assaulted someone? shop lifted magic cards? Lots of unattended backpacks at these things, opportunity to steal cards. Who is paying for these checks? Retailers and random "organizers"? How is the logistics of this handled?

This. I'm curious to see how they actually intend to enforce this, and if that'll be Jeremys new angle (he's obiously just not going to suddenly stop sperging, they stole all his innernet money after all).

 

[captkrisma]

This. I'm curious to see how they actually intend to enforce this, and if that'll be Jeremys new angle (he's obiously just not going to suddenly stop sperging, they stole all his innernet money after all).

The statement says Tournament Organizers. Not Judges. This is specifically for stores and tournament staff. This is a far easier way to perform background checks since it takes a lot more to get into the WPN to sell the cards and run games than it does to judge the games rules.

JUDGES DO NOT GET CHECKS. STORE OWNERS DO.

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

The statement says Tournament Organizers. Not Judges. This is specifically for stores and tournament staff. This is a far easier way to perform background checks since it takes a lot more to get into the WPN to sell the cards and run games than it does to judge the games rules.

JUDGES DO NOT GET CHECKS. STORE OWNERS DO.

Ooooooh alright, that's more reasonable.

I wonder if that will be his plan of attack next, then; just harping at "Well no, that's not far enough. Background check everybody!".

 

[Jaimas]

I do, for one singular reason. MTG is, as you said, a niche insular nerd hobby. If they start driving away their customers, they're toast. MTG will cease to exist.

That's not to say they won't be exceptional individuals and do it anyway. But I feel like it's less likely at a small, closer community like MTG than a multinational company that can play by its own rules because they have a billion users per day. WOTC might head down that path, but if the sales start going down the toilet, MTG will either die or it will be forced to revert back to its nerd appeal days (both acceptable outcomes to a company pushing an agenda). That kind of pressure can't be put on Google without some sort of coordinated worldwide push that will never happen.

There's a lot of evidence to support that theory, actually.

 

[Cummunism]

Is it really too hard to tell some SJW "I don't care about gender, I'm trying to kill this dinosaur with my werewolf?" Why does everything have to be a culture war? Just play the game you enjoy.

 

[Jaimas]

Is it really too hard to tell some SJW "I don't care about gender, I'm trying to kill this dinosaur with my werewolf?" Why does everything have to be a culture war? Just play the game you enjoy.

Here's the thing about the Social Justice culture war nonsense: Nobody else fucking cares.

Magic players would have been content to play magic, vidya hobbyists would have been content to play vidya, and tabletop gamers would have been content to play their wargames and RPGs, until said crowd decided, apropos of nothing, to bring said war to their doorstep and accuse them all of being evil misogynists/transpobes/whatever. The common thread is that these are all insular nerd hobbies and the individuals who pulled this shit did so with the intent being that the communities involved with said hobbies would evict their own paying customers.

That simply hasn't happened. Vidya wound up dropping these clowns like a bad habit because their shit sells like candy-coated anthrax tablets and while Tabletop Gaming and Magic have a pretty big infestation all their own, everyone remotely associated with Social Justice knows that they are not a market, and that pandering to these clowns is a fucking worthless overture because they account for such a tiny slice of the market. Eventually, the community will either die or start pushing back, and since Twitter is the main battleground of these clowns, the culture war is fought entirely with shitposts.

A war of shitposts between one side that can't afford to offend anyone versus a side that's willing to go for the throat. Gee, it's almost like they weren't ready for the fucking wars they started.

 

[Boones Farm Strawberry]

Here's the thing about the Social Justice culture war nonsense: Nobody else fucking cares.

Magic players would have been content to play magic, vidya hobbyists would have been content to play vidya, and tabletop gamers would have been content to play their wargames and RPGs, until said crowd decided, apropos of nothing, to bring said war to their doorstep and accuse them all of being evil misogynists/transpobes/whatever. The common thread is that these are all insular nerd hobbies and the individuals who pulled this shit did so with the intent being that the communities involved with said hobbies would evict their own paying customers.

That simply hasn't happened. Vidya wound up dropping these clowns like a bad habit because their shit sells like candy-coated anthrax tablets and while Tabletop Gaming and Magic have a pretty big infestation all their own, everyone remotely associated with Social Justice knows that they are not a market, and that pandering to these clowns is a fucking worthless overture because they account for such a tiny slice of the market. Eventually, the community will either die or start pushing back, and since Twitter is the main battleground of these clowns, the culture war is fought entirely with shitposts.

A war of shitposts between one side that can't afford to offend anyone versus a side that's willing to go for the throat. Gee, it's almost like they weren't ready for the fucking wars they started.

remember the people making the business decisions to pander to SJWs are getting their world view from twitter, either directly or from 20-30 something underlings who spend their lives in that bubble of unreality where donald trump simply could not ever become president

it's taken a few years since gamergate for those decision makers to see the disconnect between twitter and the real world of the income statement; I definitely think the tide has turned and word has gotten out from that the twitterati talk a big game but in the end dont contribute shit to the bottom line and may in fact drive away actual paying customers - see marvel's dropping their entire line of SJW pandering zero-selling titles like a hot potato recently

 

[Alex's Waifu]

I really wish MTG wasn't labelled as a "kids game". I get that now with Hasbro owning WoTC it's sort of stuck in that category, but in the 90s there was this push to make "mature" nerd shit (muh graphic novels). If I had to guess I don't think WoTC was describing themselves as a "kids game" back in the day. Especially with their more edgy/satanic art style, which was even more taboo in the 90s with the religious puritanism still in style.

As the late Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald's) learned from the late great Walt Disney, if you want to be profitable, market to kids.

Not surprisingly, all this mess is just exposing how painfully clueless WotC is at managing their company.

Should they run background checks on their judges? Sure.
Would it be easy? Yes.
Will it actually prevent anything? Not really.
Should they ban convinced felons from judging? Probably.
Will any of this truely effect their profits? Probably not.
Will any of this actually fix the real problems they are having? (Card stock for example.) Not at all.

Seems like a lot of wasted effort to me when they should be focusing on the real issues that are effecting their percentagages.

 

[Fervent Champion]

remember the people making the business decisions to pander to SJWs are getting their world view from twitter, either directly or from 20-30 something underlings who spend their lives in that bubble of unreality where donald trump simply could not ever become president

it's taken a few years since gamergate for those decision makers to see the disconnect between twitter and the real world of the income statement; I definitely think the tide has turned and word has gotten out from that the twitterati talk a big game but in the end dont contribute shit to the bottom line and may in fact drive away actual paying customers - see marvel's dropping their entire line of SJW pandering zero-selling titles like a hot potato recently

Agreed. As someone who plays regular I can tell most people who actually play the game are more interested in interactions and mechanics than anything else. As bad as they are Wizards has been focusing more on what players actually want so hopefully they're being to gets their heads out of their asses.

 

[Jaimas]

As per Rudy's declaration Wizard's of the Coast is implementing background checks: http://company.wizards.com/article/news/making-magic-spaces-safer (https://archive.fo/1lZ9D)
View attachment 355126

Spoiler: Statement

The safety of Magic events is of paramount importance to us.

Recently, a few former judges and players had their sex offender status posted to social media. In accordance with our policy, the majority had already had their access to Magic organized play suspended indefinitely, and were not active in the Magic community.

We learned, however, that an individual reported to the Judge Conduct Committee was inadvertently not decertified by Magic Judges nor reported to Wizards. You can read more about that here. However, once this was brought to our attention, Wizards immediately coordinated with Magic Judges—an independent community-run organization that operates and manages the judge community and its Judge Conduct Committee—to address the situation. That individual has now been indefinitely suspended as a player and the Magic Judges decertified the individual's status as a Magic judge. When Wizards learns that a DCI member or a Wizards Play Network (WPN) retailer is on a sex offender registry, we take immediate action to remove them from organized play and our promotional programs. We have a zero-tolerance policy. Sex offenders have no place in the Magic community.

As part of our commitment to safe and inclusive spaces, tournament organizers and retailers will be explicitly required to conduct background checks for all staff (as permitted by applicable law). This includes CFB Events' Grand Prix, local store events like Friday NightMagic, and professional events like the Pro Tour and World Magic Cup as well as convention play run by Wizards.

We remain committed to working with tournament organizers, local game stores, and the Magic community to foster safe and inclusive environments. The proper channels for reporting misconduct are as follows: report judge misconduct to the Judge Conduct Committee at magicjudgefeedback@gmail.com, and retailer or player misconduct to investigations@wizards.com.

Jeremy celebrating: https://twitter.com/UnsleevedMedia/status/951901385892794369 (https://archive.fo/tDEah)
View attachment 355127

It should be noted they just say background checks without explicitly stating what would set off a red flag. What if someone was a murderer? or had assaulted someone? shop lifted magic cards? Lots of unattended backpacks at these things, opportunity to steal cards. Who is paying for these checks? Retailers and random "organizers"? How is the logistics of this handled?

Statement on one of the pedo judges: https://blogs.magicjudges.org/conduct/2018/01/11/statement-ross-prajzner/ (https://archive.fo/hC8VQ)

Spoiler: Statement on the decertification of Ross Prajzner

Statement on the decertification of Ross Prajzner
Posted on January 11, 2018 by Johanna Virtanen
Late last year, it was reported on social media that Level 1 judge Ross Prajzner was convicted of a sex crime in 2015. After hearing about these reports on December 25th 2017, I immediately contacted the Judge Conduct Committee and Prajzner’s Regional Coordinator to begin an expedited decertification process. This process was completed within 24 hours, Prajzner was decertified, and Wizards of the Coast was informed soon afterwards. Prajzner was not active as a judge in 2017 and he was scheduled to be demoted as part of annual level maintenance requirement checks.

Prajzner’s name was also removed from the May 2016 Judge Anniversaries post, which was based on certification date lists and not current activity status.

Recently, it was reported that the case was sent to the magicjudgefeedback@gmail.com address already in July 2017. This is true. Due to an administrative error, the case was not handled at that time, and I wasn’t aware of the e-mail until it was shared on social media. This is very unfortunate, and I am sorry. We strive to prevent such errors from happening in the future. I am not aware of whether the case was also reported to the Wizards of the Coast at that time.

While the Judge Conduct Committee cannot respond to every piece of feedback it receives, the Magic community has the right to expect this type of case to be handled and responded to in a timely manner. If you do not receive a response to your report within a month, please send another message or ask your local Regional Coordinator to follow up on the matter with the current JCC lead. If possible, use the Magic Judge Feedback Form at http://feedback.magicjudges.orgrather than e-mail – this helps the JCC lead track which cases have been handled, and gives us the information we need in a more structured way. Finally, please understand that we cannot always share details about investigations or disciplinary actions that were taken.

The JCC remains committed to protecting the Magic community and keeping the game fair and fun for everyone.

This guy is a "if you have nothing to hide" cuck
View attachment 355136

Jeremy is doing a pretty good run of posting his own salt snapshots: https://twitter.com/UnsleevedMedia/status/951916599442837504 (https://archive.fo/bvGo8)
View attachment 355139
View attachment 355140
https://twitter.com/UnsleevedMedia/status/951914629663424512 (https://archive.fo/7LwoO)
View attachment 355141
View attachment 355142

Link to the reddit thread to mine your own salt: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/7pyvey/making_magic_spaces_safer_new_background_check/ (https://archive.fo/PWhH1)

Reminder to aggressively archive the subreddit thread, as the mods are prone to mass graveyarding of comments.

One of the top voted comments is just so salty and couldn't give less of a fuck about the privacy intrusion/safety issue.
View attachment 355145

OK, pause.

What Minor has Jeremy doxed? This is like the fourth time I've seen this accusation and considering the caliber of the other accusations leveraged against Jeremy (such as him being a Nazi, etc), I'm at best reasonably sure it's fake. That said, where the hell did this come from? Is this one of those things where Vade was claiming @Meowthkip had bullied toddlers to suicide?

 

[robobobo]

What Minor has Jeremy doxed? This is like the fourth time I've seen this accusation and considering the caliber of the other accusations leveraged against Jeremy (such as him being a Nazi, etc), I'm at best reasonably sure it's fake. That said, where the hell did this come from? Is this one of those things where Vade was claiming @Meowthkip had bullied toddlers to suicide?

Firstly, he hasn't "doxed" anyone that I've seen. This is Twitterdoxing, where posting someone's public facebook page is all it takes. With that out of the way, I believe the claim hinges on his publishing the list of judges, with the belief that there are minors running around out there as judges. Additional spedbux come from the fact that the list he published was already publicly accessible from the judge website itself.

 

[Jaimas]

Firstly, he hasn't "doxed" anyone that I've seen. This is Twitterdoxing, where posting someone's public facebook page is all it takes. With that out of the way, I believe the claim hinges on his publishing the list of judges, with the belief that there are minors running around out there as judges. Additional spedbux come from the fact that the list he published was already publicly accessible from the judge website itself.

I understand phone companies used to have entire books full of that sort of doxing.

 

[TiggerNits]

A gun would make sense to background check for, is the thing.

"Aha, but wouldn't it be a great moneymaking opportunity? Riddle me that!". No, because it'll strike the vast majority of people who would be asked to do it as unnecessary. Aren't all of you people advocates of "the consumer" to begin with? How many people do you know would actually go for that shit? I listened to what he said, and then kept listening, and then acknowledged he literally had nothing else to work with other than 'I mean you'd get some cash if you knew what the fuck you were doing...', with it just sort of assumed that would ever actually fly with anyone who would be asked to do so.

I understand most of you think sweet sweet Jeremy has a super good point and everyone is out to just fuck with him for no reason, but there's no way none of you think that's actually a bulletproof system they refused to adopt out of sheer stubbornness or spite of the guy who thought of it.

Any other job where your expected to work with minors requires a fingerprint check at the least in most states. It's really not crazy to think that a fantasy card game would be too out there to have the same expectation

 

[robobobo]

This looks like the absolute bare-bones minimum WotC could possibly do to cover their asses. "Hey stores, check your staff, kthx." It doesn't involve WotC paying a cent to do it or apparently even maintaining records of any sort, as it appears to work on the honor system. Now if it turns out that Judge Pedovan was giving special lessons to Timmy in the bathroom, WotC can just shrug and look incredulous and say, "Oh gee, well we told the stores to run checks! Thoughts are with the family, etc, not our fault, bye."

 

[CrunkLord420]

Rudy says Wizards of the Coast/Magic The Gathering is being evaluated by Hasbro and market speculators as having "peaked". Rumor is they're going to get sold off in other to capitalize on it's current value before it loses more.

It's basically unrelated but I'm just going to say this cosplayer killed MTG.

 

[proteus4994]

It's basically unrelated but I'm just going to say this cosplayer killed MTG.

I said it earlier in the thread, but when a small company (Hasbro isn't small, but WOTC, and specifically the MTG division, is) with a niche group of product users decides to push an agenda, they have two options. Pull back on the agenda, or die.

Looks like MTG chose option number 2.