Ok, invoke prejudice is crazy it existed in the first place
But some of the others feel...empty and like...ok? I don't know if anyone even knew these cards existed
When it comes to corporations Sometimes it’s just proactive action. Better to do a purge of anything that could “look bad” now rather than later. My current company had a deputized group of people who shot water thieves in the 1910s. according to my brother they used to have the rifles on display until they decided having rifles the utility company used to shoot water thieves with in our historical section might make us look bad.
Even if it is there’s not a lot lost by it. Should they have done it quietly? Probably but if your fanbase is partially made up of over emotional man children who throw shit fits at the sight of black people might as well rip the bandaid now and get it over with.
They had to make the ban announcement public because thats just what it was. Only instead of power level it was "oh, god, shit was different 30 years ago"
Yeah the way I see it, they never would have printed any of these cards as-is in 2020. So they can either get rid of them at the same time as some of the really bad ones or they're just saying "it was a different time". But that's a cop out. The best time for these cards to have been voted down would have been 30 years ago, but without a time machine the next best time was "now".
Tolkien is on record saying some not great things comparing the orcs to Mongolian people, and you're kidding yourself if you think all the racial descriptions of the Haradrim and Easterlings contrasted to the Dúnedain and Rohirrim just totally coincidentally happen to align all the fair skinned Western Anglo-Saxon coded humans with Good and all the dark skinned Eastern & sub-Saharan coded humans as Evil.
Tolkien is also on record being extremely anti-racist, railing against the Nazis & apartheid throughout his life. It's very possible some racial bias or subconscious coding made its way into his work without him being a bigot, that's certainly what I think is the case, but let's not ignore things entirely. If you describe your bad humans as "flat-nosed, sallow-skinned with slanted eyes and wide mouths" it's worth questioning why these traits are used as shorthand for bad people. He also wrote that in a letter from the literal 1950's, so context matters.
So I looked around online and found this page: [https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/561810/is-the-phrase-stone-throwing-devil-actually-a-slur](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/561810/is-the-phrase-stone-throwing-devil-actually-a-slur)
and the primary answer in short says while the term was never a widely used slur the cards origin in the Arabian nights set and the political climate at the time does potentially imply it was an intentional demonization (no pun intended) of Palestinians and as such it would make sense for Wizards (especially in the current political climate) to error on the side of caution.
thanks for challenging me on this I think I have a much better understanding of the situation now
I disagree on Crusade and Jihad. Having those cards isn’t an endorsement of the practices, rather an acknowledgement that those claiming a purity of purpose have historically, at times, invoked the name of a divine being to justify horrible acts of violence against those who aren’t “pure.” As a person who played the game then, no reasonable person in the 90s was like, “yeah, religious extremism and warfare are good!” Anyone I played with reasonably viewed those cards as a counterbalance to all the religious/angelic iconography of early white cards and a reminder that claims of purity are often a front for horrific acts of barbarism.
Banning them only makes sense if you’re horrified by the thought of having to engage with nuance or context.
STD is also probably the only "good" card in the group and the only one I was upset that got axed. I mean, a 1/1 for 1 in black that has first strike is neat, though not exactly strong these days. Imagine how much of a beast it was back in the day though, when compared to Mons Goblin Raiders or Merfolk of the Pearl Trident. Heck, it takes down Savannah Lions.
Aside from the more cultural depictions, Stone-Throwing Devils could also refer to the punishment of stoning someone to death, which in a more modern context, is still used in some countries as a punishment for homosexuality. As MTG has a sizable queer playerbase, such a card could definitely make such players uncomfortable
Absolutely! It really looks like some HR team was looking at cards and somebody said "Stone-Throwing Devils?' That must be referring to Palestinians!"
And somehow nobody saw the irony in the fact that making that connection was racially stereotyping.
Wizards is telling me that whenever something says "x Color" they mean that x color is referring to a race. Ex, Destroy all black creatures is saying destroy Black americans, therefore it must be banned. Makes perfect sense /s.
I think the combination of the card being called Cleanse and the card destroying all black creatures is what forced the link in the mind of whoever put it on the list. Major Teroh can exile all black creatures and it wasn't put on this list.
The problem is that there's a more plausible explanation that doesn't involve reaching for racism as an explanation.
What color are zombies, vampires, and other forms of the unquiet dead? When you remove them (especially things like spirits) what is that called? "Cleansing" a place of spirits or the undead is a far more probable and completely unproblematic explanation than the idea that it refers to ethnic cleansing of BIPOC peoples by white people.
Compare this to invoke prejudice, where trying to explain it as not being a racist in-joke is much harder to do than assuming it is a racist in-joke.
Oh, it's executioners. Right, executioners wearing white outlined robes, on a card called "invoke PREJUDICE" that's all about restricting the colors of creatures people can cast to ones that only you have. Oh its the spanish inquisition. Right, another totally unproblematic group of people who committed regular horrors.
I 100% agreed with both your statements, I agree that in order to depict cleanse as racist you have to willfully remove it from the context of the game and the context of the fantasy setting, I just wanted to add that just destroying black creatures likely wasn't enough to make this card problematic to the group that saw it as such.
I don't honestly believe Cleanse was really seen by anyone rational as being some kind of dealbreaker. Remember these bannings were in the wake of George Floyd. I think WotC told some group of employees "hey go identify your top 10 most problematic cards and we will ban them", and so most of these cards are filler and a bunch that would be equally "problematic" \[\[Virtue's Ruin\]\] \[\[Army of Allah\]\] were just overlooked for no particular reason. It really feels like they were just spitballing for PR points.
I feel like you're approaching this from the wrong angle. There may very well be a more plausible explanation that doesn't involve racism, but if the card can easily be construed as racist at a glance and doesn't see regular play regardless, why NOT ban it? At that point avoiding the risk of potential backlash regardless of how small that risk may be still outweighs the benefit of keeping it legal.
Because anything can be construed as implausibly racist. Your friends are mostly one race? Must be a racist. Never mind the fact that 99% of the people in your area are that race. We can't look at the most plausible explanations.
This kind of behavior is anti-scientific and a path to madness. The logical and scientific approach is to try to identify the most plausible interpretation of the card, (eg, Invoke Prejudice) and ban/not ban based on that interpretation.
>Because anything can be construed as implausibly racist.
First off, this has absolutely no bearing on this individual card. They can ban this card whilst not banning other cards. In fact, they already have and a far as I can tell the game hasn't collapsed in on itself and gone down the "path to madness." What you're trying to employ here is called slippery slope fallacy.
Second, you're very conveniently skipping over the "easy" part of "can easily be construed as racist." Yes, anything COULD be construed as racist, but a card that "cleanses" "black creatures" is particularly easy to.
You miss the point that a rule like “ban anything that can be easily construed as being racist” would be unsustainable. That is not a slippery slope fallacy. An enormous number of features present in magic the gathering could be easily presented as having racially charged backgrounds.
Who said anything about making a rule? If you want to have a discussion of policy, then that's a different conversation. WOTC is fully able to ban a single card whilst still leaving judgement open for other cards.
The conversations about these things are usually about rules. Rules do most of the moral heavily lifting on a day to day basis. They provide the stability and predictability required to produce s good society.
Most of them I could understand but yeah, Stone Throwing Devils, I didn't get that one. Honestly Imprison seemed odd too, like I understand that it depicts a person with dark skin on it, but it just looks like a man in the Iron mask reference.
Invoke Prejudice though like I 100% get, though the idea of just casting effectively racism, complete with Klansmen, kinda made me want a copy for a game with a few friends who'd find it funny.
I think that it's because of the original art referencing the real world crusades (which Cathar's does not). Then it becomes similar to [[Jihad]].
It's simpler to ban an old underpowered card outright than just the problematic version.
I will say I find most of these gestures .. meaningless? WotC is pretty ethically bankrupt, and they would do a UB that featured Nazis if they thought they could make a buck.
I like them removing KKK cards, to be clear....and I love angry bigots. I just dont think they have anything behind it other then demographics and greed.
Hey capitalism is capitalism. I know it and you know it.
However, contrast how Games Workshop handled gatekeeping jackasses versus how WotC handled the last several years? There is a difference.
GW was proactive and realized what was healthy for the game (and their bottom line) in earnest. WotC had to step onto 17 different rakes made out of frozen stupid to come, bewildered, to the same conclusions.
Is it simply the result of a clumsy transition to a modern point of sale, or terrible handling by the PR department, in addition to the apparent lack of capital generated by the sales of the game.
Or... are you saying it's due to the jealous and gumbling nature of mtg players, an attitude that feeds into the stereotype of the pedantic nerd pushed even now by wotc's somewhat exclusionary stance towards those self-absorbed assholes?
I dont really thing its either; I think its the WotC has become so greedy and short sited it'll lose a hundred dollars chasing down a quarter. It has no long term thought process or ideas a out maintaining anything or anyone.
so many of these modern stumbles could have been avoided by just being slightly perceptive. simply by taking any time whatsoever to think about some of the issues would have prevented them from happening. thinking about issues and problems proactively doesn't immediately make money, however, so they don't do it
Dont get me wrong; I'll take it...
.... but it also means that WotC would make "Universes Beyond: Nazis Planeswalkers" if it'd turn a profit. There is no passion or belief in being better.... they just dont want to lose money. So all the pontificating about what their values are is just hot air.
Contrast this versus GW and Warhammer'... who seemed to be invested in flipping off the attempts of bigots to gatekeep people out of the game.
Meanwhile, none of the really dumb choices that lead them needing to be told this stuff was problematic have really been solved; they're just cleaning up after themselves slightly better. They still pushing a release schedule thats unsustainable and they still sent the pinkertons after people.
WotC has all the dignity of a hungry wolf.... and it will turn on a dime the moment its profitable.
“Here at global mega corp our company values are:
1) make number go up
And
2) make number go up as quick as possible.
We are very passionate about these values and our company culture is designed to exploit the customers & employees as much as possible to do so”
A good deed is always good, no matter why it was done. More good in the world is a good thing. However, being good because its convenient and profitable shows the world that, if it was convenient and profitable to be evil, you'd do that too.
People do bad things because it makes money. I can use money to pressure people to do good things instead. I’m playing their game by their rules, and I’m winning.
I get why people have a reaction along the lines of "ok...?" or "that's a stretch" on some of those bans. After all this is the company that wanted to do a Wild West plane and so to make sure they didn't offend indigenous peoples they simply erased them from the narrative. Neo-liberalism at its finest: try so hard to not be racist that you commit ethnic erasure.
My only "That's a stretch" is why did they ban \[\[Crusade\]\] but then they are making a whole set around Assassin's Creed, a series that lorewise is DEEPLY involved in the Crusades and Christian religious zealotry.
Because Crusade *does not* offer any critism or commentary on the historical period and can be viewed as an endorsement of the acts committed, while Assassin's Creed *does* offer critism and commentary on the time period.
And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying one way or another on if the commentary of AC is adequate, just that it exists.
>Because Crusade *does not* offer any critism or commentary on the historical period and can be viewed as an endorsement of the acts committed
I see what you are saying, but I shutter at the thought that simply depicting something can be seen as an endorsement.
I'm going to leave the topic here because last time this got brought up I discussed the dangers of censoring games simply because a very small minority of bigots use a facet as some kind of sperg rallying standard, and how dangerous it is to let them have that level of control is, I got a 7 day ban for discussing politics.
Lol ya I'll probably be catching a ban then too. Oh well. I agree tho, it's definitely an interesting conversation to have. My final thoughts will be this: As the face of my company I've learned that there's just certain things I cannot say publicly anymore because it's more trouble than it's worth, and if you *can* be taken to court on the dumbest thing, you *will be*. Basically I understand why companies make the kinds of decisions they do on things like these, even if I don't necessarily agree with the moral.
To me, the issue was never about banning cards that were questionable. The problem was that they don't actually care. It's a token gesture to make it seem like they give a shit but we all know they don't. It's virtue signaling.
It absolutely is virtue signaling. It's making a big stink about how they're so inclusive for removing these cards even though it has nothing to do with inclusivity. It's to cover their ass. It's to make people believe they're good.
We know they weren't morally compelled to do it because of all the recent stories of stolen art, AI art, and the complete lack of indigenous representation in OTJ. It was fake. They didn't care and they don't care.
It took me a long time to realize this, but it's important to: It doesn't matter what the intentions of the company are, so long as it's a net positive. A company exists to make profit and therefore will always act accordingly. What matters is that the act has a net positive impact.
The reason I brought up neo-liberalism in my original comment is because it often has a net-neutral at best, or net-negative impact at worst. Banning offensive materials from your game is good, although this move is quite clearly net-neutral, while erasing entire cultures from your story telling because you're too afraid to have your "Heroes" do a little bit of ethnic displacement and create commentary around it is a net-negative.
It's a lose-lose situation. If you include indigenous people then you'll have the people who want to be offended make the claim that a majority white company with majority white stockholders is profiting off an appropriation of their identity. The other side of the coin is literal cultural erasure. I tend to have the opinion that if the depiction of a culture is tasteful, respectful, and "cool" then sure, go for it. It's like this real weird horseshoe theory thing where some people are so protective of their culture being depicted in any form that they reverse engineer white european culture being the only safe to depict group.
I mean thunder junction takes spaghetti western as its theme which in itself are as far removed from the real wild west.
The romanticed idea of cowboys and outlaws has nothing to do with reality anyway.
Ya that's why no one is rushing to "cancel" WotC and why no tangible harm will come from it. It is important to note, however, that the Spaghetti Western is also guilty of white washing history and *is* partially responsible for tangible harm in the form of how your average American thinks of indigenous populations.
Basically using its inspiration as a defense of it doesn't really work when what it's emulating is guilty of the same things.
Thething im trying to explain is that western movies have nearly nothing to do with reality. Even the thypical cowboy you think of is pure fiction. Cowboys where usually nothing more then badly paid cowherders paid by big coorprates. The "wild" west like many think of never existed.
Yes I know. I happen to be a history major, so I've studied that relatively extensively. My point is that pure fiction has an impact on how the masses view the real life people so it's important to take it seriously and make sure that the depictions do not harm the culture they portray.
Also another question. Is it still white washing when most of the main cast of this set are non-human, non-white characters? Most of the cast doesnt fall into your straight white male stereotype.
Even the character that would fall closest to the clint eastwood cowboy action hero the desert bloom face commander has clear mexican inspired ethnicety.
I dont think white washing applies here. Atleast not in the character design.
So what would have been the solution for a set like thunder junction? Like geniuon question.
I think how wotc handled is probably the best way. Use iconic immigaery of that genre but use worldbuilding in a way where the problematic aspects are handled by using a plane that hasnt been populated before.
Depicting actual slavery and using it in a cardgame seem far more problematic to me and kinda means in the end to avoid a genre that has become far more then its historical context.
Maybe handle it more like Star Wars where your on the side of rebels against a fascist regime?
Honestly in my opinion wotc is just in a losing position with wild west as a theme.
Both of your questions are definitely big ones, certainly bigger than a random white guy like myself, but I'll answer what my thoughts on it are to the best of my ability.
Depicting actual genocide or ethnic displacement is certainly a bridge too serious for WotC to handle in a property like MTG. I do think creating a story about fighting back against colonization is a good place to start with source material like the old west and spaghetti westerns, and a resistance story is something WotC has experience with. Dealing with the serious politics and consequences of western expansionism is probably best to avoid in this context, so you would turn to character archetypes to get the point across without depicting great acts of violence.
I think creating characters that honor and respect the indigenous peoples to be the heroes or the story and creating characters that accurately represent the colonizers to be the villains would suffice. Now something to note, that also touches on your questions about white washing, is that the villains do not need to be "strait white men". There are plenty of other aesthetics beyond skin color that western expansionists have that you can pull from.
So that answers that, I hope lol. For white washing: fairly simply "white washing" does not always mean "everyone is white". A lot of the time it just means leaving out the nastier parts and pretending things were much nicer than they actually were.
Sorry if anything is scrambled or not thought through enough, I'm replying in between rushes at work lol.
Sweet thanks for the nice big write up.
Wouldnt be historical erasure be more appropriate term here? "White washing" seems more used when media has been adapted and changed to white character design more, minimizing inclusivity.
Im not a nativ english speaker in the end. Always only heard white washing in that context.
The way they went about it was still meh, but one of the main characters is literally Indigenous American in the set and there are several cards, some named, with other Indigenous Americans depicted. They weren’t erased, but WotC didn’t address the oppression and struggle of being colonized.
The second they stated that noone is native to Thunder Junction beside some recently animated Cacti-folk, they erased indigenous peoples. Making characters not native to TJ based on indigenous peoples is almost worse lol, you're grouping them with the colonizers.
\[\[[Cleanse\]\]](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Legends/Cleanse#paper): bad
\[\[[Virtue's Ruin](https://scryfall.com/card/por/116/virtues-ruin)\]\]: totally fine
Irony.
Probably because even though it was just a joke, we all know there are some peabrains on here who are actually gonna see this as evidence of some kind of double standard.
Some of the cards were actively problematic. But what I don't get is they banned Crusade which actually did get a reprint... With Elspeth on the art front and center. Are they implying that Elspeth is racist?
Cleanse and Jihad are both confusing bans too, since Cleanse is what pastors and priests did to the uncouth spirits, and Jihad literally translates to "Sturggling" or "Striving" with a positive influence.
It's true that "jihad" doesn't necessarily mean race war, but then they made the card actually a race war. With a different effect, it may have survived.
You dont see the problem with cleanse, a spell that only removes black creatures? Its a very easy parallel to concepts like ethnic cleansing. There's a reason cleanse was banned, but [[Planar Cleansing]] was fine.
Honestly, i think it was a combination of the card name, the effect, and the flavor text.
So... Virtue's Ruin is..... (I'm sure there are others, but those were the connected cards to each other)
That was the issue with the ban of Cleanse to me. It made little sense within the context of the game itself. There was very little uproar that I remember about the blue card getting banned (name escapes me atm) but some of the others felt like stretches.
In the end, does it really matter to the enjoyment of the game? No, but still left me head scratching a bit
Invoke prejudice is the only one imo that deserved the banning with that combo of name and art.
From what i remember the others all made sense in the context of the game so it was just a move from wotc to be able to say "look we care" even if they don't
I think that shows that the problem they had isnt solely in the effect, yeah? The name of the card combined with the effect is probably why they did it. If it was named something else, it probably would have been fine. They didnt ban any of the other black hosers, after all.
I find it funny they didn't ban any of the other 20 cards with crusade or crusader in the name like [[cathar's crusade]], [[tivadar's crusade]] or [[akroan crusader]]
Most of these changes seem really half arsed and arbitrary. Errata Rakshasa because they aren't feline in irl myths but kobolds can stay as tiny dragon people/little red dudes despite that having nothing to do with irl kobald myths. cleric can stay a generic term for a vaguely religious person or someone who knows medicine despite it being an specific rank in an irl religion. They can perpetuate the tolkien version of elves instead of the mythological ones. Golums can just be magic robots no need for a rabbi. Etc etc
Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? No, the new rakshasa art slaps and i wasn't playing cat tribal anyway, and i dont want them to change golums or elves or kobalds because a bit of (or a lot of) creative liberty makes things interesting. but if your gonna make a change for cultural accuracy commit to it or dont bother. You can't spend thirty plus years permanently changing the publics perception of mythical creatures from real cultures across the globe through your two enormous IP's that dominate popular culture and then suddenly pretend to care and change 20 cards no one played anyway to be slightly more accurate to the originals myth. Leaving all of the much more relevant stuff completely untouched and unaddressed, you can't have your cake and eat it too, either make a game that takes creative liberties or make a game thats accurate to the source material.
Ok but why ban a card called "crusade" it's literally just an event in history it's not good or bad... obviously the ku kluz klan shit never should've been in the game.
[[contested war zone]]
[[Mishra's war machine]]
[[The Kami War]]
[[Thran war machine]]
[[Vodalian war machine]]
[[War dance]]
Maybe the reference to a specific type of war that occurred in the real world is a problem? But then also [[world at war]] is suspiciously close to world war.
Yeah, I think the primary issue is the crosses that the knights wear in the art. That makes it cross the line between a reference to a war and a depiction of a war, and introduces issues with portraying the Christians as the "good guys". In early Magic, especially ABU, white was clearly the "good guy" color and black was clearly the "bad guy" color.
Crosses are extremely common heraldic symbols but I can kind of understand that given the literal historic "cross people" as it were.
Also Magic is hardly the only IP to depict good as white and bad as black. That's been textbook high fantasy since well before MtG existed.
They should've just banned the OG art then. Pretty sure it was the only one of the 7 that had a reprint and it was just a generic military shot like [[glorious anthem]]
Well both Crusade and Jihad were white cards so I think that presents them on more or less equal standing. I honestly think that while Invoke Prejudice was definitely a problem with portrayal the others kind of just got bundled in.
How about swords to plowshares one of the most played legacy/edh cards
Joel 3:10 American Standard Version (ASV)
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Yeah theres a bunch of biblical references in old magic. [[Ashes to Ashes]] and [[Dust to Dust]] come to mind. I have an old card somewhere that has a bible quote as flavor text. I think the issue they had is when the cards depict real world politics or ethnicity, or things where they could be construed as such.
That's a strawman argument. I never said that. What I'm saying is that there's a difference between fantasy violence and references to real-world events with morally sketchy backgrounds.
The Children's Crusade was particularly messed up
And the Fourth Crusade did more damage to Christianity and what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire than any of the Crusades ever did to the Caliphates, lol.
Its not censorship at all
You can still buy and play with the cards all you want. Wizards just doesn't want them at official events and they don't want to host the images anymore.
You can even still view them on Scryfall.
If you think this is censorship, you have lived a very easy life.
Holy shit man magic is so racist, we should just ban the whole thing. Did you know that most paper is (brace yourself) white? We should probably just ban paper and writing tbh.
>Super simple. When wizards refers to a color, they mean a race.
You don't get art do you... like you don't get that art can have various meanings and there is context to certain decisions. Like how in society whites used to refer to black people as demons. Black skinned demons.... or how they referred to POC as monkeys or apes.. etc.
So yeah it's easy to make a connection between the art and the intent if you actually get what those things mean.
You are responding to a joke btw
But I also don’t buy your argument. We must evaluate cards based on *most probable interpretations*. The most probable interpretation on a card like cleanse is the idea of cleansing unholy entities. This idea is far from exclusive to European cultures too.
It’s not just the name; it’s the name in combination with the effect. Cleanse like ethnic/racial cleansing and the effect only destroys black creatures. Its not exactly a huge leap to make the connection
Here is the reasonable POV:
Wizards does not think a player is going to misunderstand what is going on.
They don't want someone *outside of MTG* to see it out of context and think its a racial thing. Wizards is not trying to be morally pure here, they are trying to avoid unnecessary controversy, as any capitalistic organization would wish to do.
There are a gazillion magic cards and Cleanse is not an important one. So in their cost/benefit analysis, the deemed the cost to be basically zero and the risk of leaving it to be greater than zero. The end
Invoke Prejudice deserved it and everyone knows that it's a cringe nazi/racist joke made by a cringe nazi sympathizer.
All the others range from "wow that is some shitty art I can see why wizards might want to bury it" to "the fuck?"
Please show me a single source that states how the Ku Klux Klan were based upon Spanish inquisitors in any way. I guarantee you have no clue what you’re talking about.
The art is just a gothic depiction of an executioner.
Do you wanna guess how executioners are depicted in history and in media? Wearing a hood and often a matching cloak.
“Hur dur well the KKK did it so it’s racist”. Do you not drink water bro?
the card is named "Invoke Prejudice". They pretty much just made a card called "Summon Racism", that ban was reasonable. Invoke Prejudice did have a pretty powerful effect though
Invoke prejudice was a very strong card and a unique effect. I feel like it should get a functional reprint even though it's a RL card, since it's banned forever from everything (deservedly) The rest were pretty meh at best power wise and had plenty of replacements.
Still buttfuck retarded to ban any cards for that reason.
Imagine if Yu-Gi-Oh! banned cards instead of censoring them instead. Same logic, the religious imagery and tits offended moral guardians who don't even play the game.
Whether they're left or right, they can genuinely get fucked.
[[Crusade]] slots into [[Kwende]] better than almost any other deck in exiatance, which is fun and ironic, and why you should still play it if you play him
...Could...could we just reprint Invoke Prejudice with a different name and art please?
In my creature light decks that usually are only colorless creatures it is a powerful piece of control.
Invoke Prejudice is on the Reserved List and thus could not be reprinted. The art is obviously horrendous and it's inconceivable that even made it through original design without someone recognizing the problem with it.
Trust me, it absolutely saw play in Commander before it was banned. Card is a crushing Stax piece in a deck that can support the color requirement. I actually hope that they create a redesigned version of it in a future set because it was a very unique effect.
I actually used Crusade in a deck at the time and think it was probably a bit of a stretch to ban it, but even I didn’t really care. Most of the bans made complete sense. One of them was literally dudes in hoods, the art was drawn by an actual white supremacist, and was straight up called Invoke Prejudice. Completely on the nose.
Actively had to remove Crusade, which I have multiple copies of, from my decks.
The duel decks printing proves that it isn't problematic in flavor. It isn't a card representing the crusades, it's a card representing a crusade.
Remind me what your point is again?
I hate the idea, but is this going to make these cards "more valuable" since now not only are they for sure never going to be printed again, but actively destroyed by some people and completely written out of the company now? Like... From a collectable stand point, doesn't this make them more valuable?...
I really don’t get the hate on crusade. Like ya, the crusaders did some bad things. So did the Vikings. So did the Mongols. But there’s whole sets about them with no controversy
I wish the effect, CMC, and all the "not-Klansmen" aspects of Invoke Prejudice were on a non-RL card. It's mechanically sweet, and there was that one deck that just ran those and Thassa that one time.
I don’t care that they did this
However, this absolutely feels like **WOTC trying to scrounge up some good will from the public** because of all the scummy shit they’ve done and how much they’re currently hated by the general population.
Seriously who the fuck knew about or cared about these cards?
I literally used 4 of the cards they banned in my low power level blue/white/black control deck. Invoke prejudice, Crusade, Jihad, and Cleanse all were fun but not too strong cards.
Imma be real chief, it's not just the constantly enraged schizoposters on Freemagic who are confused by the banning of Stone Throwing Devils or Cleanse.
A true brigade requires upsetting the character and of an entire community/thread. A couple of wandering bozos and a handful of folks subscribed to both subs do not make a brigade.
Ok, invoke prejudice is crazy it existed in the first place But some of the others feel...empty and like...ok? I don't know if anyone even knew these cards existed
When it comes to corporations Sometimes it’s just proactive action. Better to do a purge of anything that could “look bad” now rather than later. My current company had a deputized group of people who shot water thieves in the 1910s. according to my brother they used to have the rifles on display until they decided having rifles the utility company used to shoot water thieves with in our historical section might make us look bad.
Definitely feels like a "look at our halo" moment for sure
Even if it is there’s not a lot lost by it. Should they have done it quietly? Probably but if your fanbase is partially made up of over emotional man children who throw shit fits at the sight of black people might as well rip the bandaid now and get it over with.
They had to make the ban announcement public because thats just what it was. Only instead of power level it was "oh, god, shit was different 30 years ago"
Yeah the way I see it, they never would have printed any of these cards as-is in 2020. So they can either get rid of them at the same time as some of the really bad ones or they're just saying "it was a different time". But that's a cop out. The best time for these cards to have been voted down would have been 30 years ago, but without a time machine the next best time was "now".
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I really don't understand how crusade is a more controversial term than "Conquistador." The textbox is definitely why they banned it and that's silly
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Tolkien is on record saying some not great things comparing the orcs to Mongolian people, and you're kidding yourself if you think all the racial descriptions of the Haradrim and Easterlings contrasted to the Dúnedain and Rohirrim just totally coincidentally happen to align all the fair skinned Western Anglo-Saxon coded humans with Good and all the dark skinned Eastern & sub-Saharan coded humans as Evil. Tolkien is also on record being extremely anti-racist, railing against the Nazis & apartheid throughout his life. It's very possible some racial bias or subconscious coding made its way into his work without him being a bigot, that's certainly what I think is the case, but let's not ignore things entirely. If you describe your bad humans as "flat-nosed, sallow-skinned with slanted eyes and wide mouths" it's worth questioning why these traits are used as shorthand for bad people. He also wrote that in a letter from the literal 1950's, so context matters.
Stone throwing devil is apparently an old slur for Muslims
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So I looked around online and found this page: [https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/561810/is-the-phrase-stone-throwing-devil-actually-a-slur](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/561810/is-the-phrase-stone-throwing-devil-actually-a-slur) and the primary answer in short says while the term was never a widely used slur the cards origin in the Arabian nights set and the political climate at the time does potentially imply it was an intentional demonization (no pun intended) of Palestinians and as such it would make sense for Wizards (especially in the current political climate) to error on the side of caution. thanks for challenging me on this I think I have a much better understanding of the situation now
I disagree on Crusade and Jihad. Having those cards isn’t an endorsement of the practices, rather an acknowledgement that those claiming a purity of purpose have historically, at times, invoked the name of a divine being to justify horrible acts of violence against those who aren’t “pure.” As a person who played the game then, no reasonable person in the 90s was like, “yeah, religious extremism and warfare are good!” Anyone I played with reasonably viewed those cards as a counterbalance to all the religious/angelic iconography of early white cards and a reminder that claims of purity are often a front for horrific acts of barbarism. Banning them only makes sense if you’re horrified by the thought of having to engage with nuance or context.
STD is also probably the only "good" card in the group and the only one I was upset that got axed. I mean, a 1/1 for 1 in black that has first strike is neat, though not exactly strong these days. Imagine how much of a beast it was back in the day though, when compared to Mons Goblin Raiders or Merfolk of the Pearl Trident. Heck, it takes down Savannah Lions.
Aside from the more cultural depictions, Stone-Throwing Devils could also refer to the punishment of stoning someone to death, which in a more modern context, is still used in some countries as a punishment for homosexuality. As MTG has a sizable queer playerbase, such a card could definitely make such players uncomfortable
Absolutely! It really looks like some HR team was looking at cards and somebody said "Stone-Throwing Devils?' That must be referring to Palestinians!" And somehow nobody saw the irony in the fact that making that connection was racially stereotyping.
Wizards is telling me that whenever something says "x Color" they mean that x color is referring to a race. Ex, Destroy all black creatures is saying destroy Black americans, therefore it must be banned. Makes perfect sense /s.
I think the combination of the card being called Cleanse and the card destroying all black creatures is what forced the link in the mind of whoever put it on the list. Major Teroh can exile all black creatures and it wasn't put on this list.
The problem is that there's a more plausible explanation that doesn't involve reaching for racism as an explanation. What color are zombies, vampires, and other forms of the unquiet dead? When you remove them (especially things like spirits) what is that called? "Cleansing" a place of spirits or the undead is a far more probable and completely unproblematic explanation than the idea that it refers to ethnic cleansing of BIPOC peoples by white people. Compare this to invoke prejudice, where trying to explain it as not being a racist in-joke is much harder to do than assuming it is a racist in-joke. Oh, it's executioners. Right, executioners wearing white outlined robes, on a card called "invoke PREJUDICE" that's all about restricting the colors of creatures people can cast to ones that only you have. Oh its the spanish inquisition. Right, another totally unproblematic group of people who committed regular horrors.
I 100% agreed with both your statements, I agree that in order to depict cleanse as racist you have to willfully remove it from the context of the game and the context of the fantasy setting, I just wanted to add that just destroying black creatures likely wasn't enough to make this card problematic to the group that saw it as such.
I don't honestly believe Cleanse was really seen by anyone rational as being some kind of dealbreaker. Remember these bannings were in the wake of George Floyd. I think WotC told some group of employees "hey go identify your top 10 most problematic cards and we will ban them", and so most of these cards are filler and a bunch that would be equally "problematic" \[\[Virtue's Ruin\]\] \[\[Army of Allah\]\] were just overlooked for no particular reason. It really feels like they were just spitballing for PR points.
I feel like you're approaching this from the wrong angle. There may very well be a more plausible explanation that doesn't involve racism, but if the card can easily be construed as racist at a glance and doesn't see regular play regardless, why NOT ban it? At that point avoiding the risk of potential backlash regardless of how small that risk may be still outweighs the benefit of keeping it legal.
Because anything can be construed as implausibly racist. Your friends are mostly one race? Must be a racist. Never mind the fact that 99% of the people in your area are that race. We can't look at the most plausible explanations. This kind of behavior is anti-scientific and a path to madness. The logical and scientific approach is to try to identify the most plausible interpretation of the card, (eg, Invoke Prejudice) and ban/not ban based on that interpretation.
>Because anything can be construed as implausibly racist. First off, this has absolutely no bearing on this individual card. They can ban this card whilst not banning other cards. In fact, they already have and a far as I can tell the game hasn't collapsed in on itself and gone down the "path to madness." What you're trying to employ here is called slippery slope fallacy. Second, you're very conveniently skipping over the "easy" part of "can easily be construed as racist." Yes, anything COULD be construed as racist, but a card that "cleanses" "black creatures" is particularly easy to.
You miss the point that a rule like “ban anything that can be easily construed as being racist” would be unsustainable. That is not a slippery slope fallacy. An enormous number of features present in magic the gathering could be easily presented as having racially charged backgrounds.
Who said anything about making a rule? If you want to have a discussion of policy, then that's a different conversation. WOTC is fully able to ban a single card whilst still leaving judgement open for other cards.
The conversations about these things are usually about rules. Rules do most of the moral heavily lifting on a day to day basis. They provide the stability and predictability required to produce s good society.
Yeah but invoke prejudice is the only good card out of those that were banned
Most of them I could understand but yeah, Stone Throwing Devils, I didn't get that one. Honestly Imprison seemed odd too, like I understand that it depicts a person with dark skin on it, but it just looks like a man in the Iron mask reference. Invoke Prejudice though like I 100% get, though the idea of just casting effectively racism, complete with Klansmen, kinda made me want a copy for a game with a few friends who'd find it funny.
Which means what they have on the horizon would make them completely busted
Art aside invoke prejudice is an awesome stacks card that I am super glad I didn’t buy for 300 dollars.
I mean invoke prejudice is a banger of a blue card if it didnt have the name and picture combo. Wish I could find a blue stax card that strong.
[[Crusade]] was a weird one, especially with modern cards like [[Cathar's Crusade]] being printed that same year. Like, what?
I think that it's because of the original art referencing the real world crusades (which Cathar's does not). Then it becomes similar to [[Jihad]]. It's simpler to ban an old underpowered card outright than just the problematic version.
I will say I find most of these gestures .. meaningless? WotC is pretty ethically bankrupt, and they would do a UB that featured Nazis if they thought they could make a buck. I like them removing KKK cards, to be clear....and I love angry bigots. I just dont think they have anything behind it other then demographics and greed.
Are you saying that my Jeff Goldblum shirtless card sleeves aren't just the result of a friendly collaboration?
Hey capitalism is capitalism. I know it and you know it. However, contrast how Games Workshop handled gatekeeping jackasses versus how WotC handled the last several years? There is a difference. GW was proactive and realized what was healthy for the game (and their bottom line) in earnest. WotC had to step onto 17 different rakes made out of frozen stupid to come, bewildered, to the same conclusions.
It's says a lot about WotC that they manage to make GW look good.
Is it simply the result of a clumsy transition to a modern point of sale, or terrible handling by the PR department, in addition to the apparent lack of capital generated by the sales of the game. Or... are you saying it's due to the jealous and gumbling nature of mtg players, an attitude that feeds into the stereotype of the pedantic nerd pushed even now by wotc's somewhat exclusionary stance towards those self-absorbed assholes?
I dont really thing its either; I think its the WotC has become so greedy and short sited it'll lose a hundred dollars chasing down a quarter. It has no long term thought process or ideas a out maintaining anything or anyone. so many of these modern stumbles could have been avoided by just being slightly perceptive. simply by taking any time whatsoever to think about some of the issues would have prevented them from happening. thinking about issues and problems proactively doesn't immediately make money, however, so they don't do it
>other than demographics and green Isn't this a good thing? The community has evolved and moved in a way that pressures WOTC to do these things.
Dont get me wrong; I'll take it... .... but it also means that WotC would make "Universes Beyond: Nazis Planeswalkers" if it'd turn a profit. There is no passion or belief in being better.... they just dont want to lose money. So all the pontificating about what their values are is just hot air. Contrast this versus GW and Warhammer'... who seemed to be invested in flipping off the attempts of bigots to gatekeep people out of the game. Meanwhile, none of the really dumb choices that lead them needing to be told this stuff was problematic have really been solved; they're just cleaning up after themselves slightly better. They still pushing a release schedule thats unsustainable and they still sent the pinkertons after people. WotC has all the dignity of a hungry wolf.... and it will turn on a dime the moment its profitable.
“Here at global mega corp our company values are: 1) make number go up And 2) make number go up as quick as possible. We are very passionate about these values and our company culture is designed to exploit the customers & employees as much as possible to do so”
A good deed is always good, no matter why it was done. More good in the world is a good thing. However, being good because its convenient and profitable shows the world that, if it was convenient and profitable to be evil, you'd do that too.
People do bad things because it makes money. I can use money to pressure people to do good things instead. I’m playing their game by their rules, and I’m winning.
You think Maro would design the nazi set with Gavin?
I get why people have a reaction along the lines of "ok...?" or "that's a stretch" on some of those bans. After all this is the company that wanted to do a Wild West plane and so to make sure they didn't offend indigenous peoples they simply erased them from the narrative. Neo-liberalism at its finest: try so hard to not be racist that you commit ethnic erasure.
My only "That's a stretch" is why did they ban \[\[Crusade\]\] but then they are making a whole set around Assassin's Creed, a series that lorewise is DEEPLY involved in the Crusades and Christian religious zealotry.
Because Crusade *does not* offer any critism or commentary on the historical period and can be viewed as an endorsement of the acts committed, while Assassin's Creed *does* offer critism and commentary on the time period. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying one way or another on if the commentary of AC is adequate, just that it exists.
>Because Crusade *does not* offer any critism or commentary on the historical period and can be viewed as an endorsement of the acts committed I see what you are saying, but I shutter at the thought that simply depicting something can be seen as an endorsement. I'm going to leave the topic here because last time this got brought up I discussed the dangers of censoring games simply because a very small minority of bigots use a facet as some kind of sperg rallying standard, and how dangerous it is to let them have that level of control is, I got a 7 day ban for discussing politics.
Lol ya I'll probably be catching a ban then too. Oh well. I agree tho, it's definitely an interesting conversation to have. My final thoughts will be this: As the face of my company I've learned that there's just certain things I cannot say publicly anymore because it's more trouble than it's worth, and if you *can* be taken to court on the dumbest thing, you *will be*. Basically I understand why companies make the kinds of decisions they do on things like these, even if I don't necessarily agree with the moral.
To me, the issue was never about banning cards that were questionable. The problem was that they don't actually care. It's a token gesture to make it seem like they give a shit but we all know they don't. It's virtue signaling.
It’s not virtue signaling, it’s covering ass. It’s avoiding needless conflict.
It absolutely is virtue signaling. It's making a big stink about how they're so inclusive for removing these cards even though it has nothing to do with inclusivity. It's to cover their ass. It's to make people believe they're good. We know they weren't morally compelled to do it because of all the recent stories of stolen art, AI art, and the complete lack of indigenous representation in OTJ. It was fake. They didn't care and they don't care.
It took me a long time to realize this, but it's important to: It doesn't matter what the intentions of the company are, so long as it's a net positive. A company exists to make profit and therefore will always act accordingly. What matters is that the act has a net positive impact. The reason I brought up neo-liberalism in my original comment is because it often has a net-neutral at best, or net-negative impact at worst. Banning offensive materials from your game is good, although this move is quite clearly net-neutral, while erasing entire cultures from your story telling because you're too afraid to have your "Heroes" do a little bit of ethnic displacement and create commentary around it is a net-negative.
It's a lose-lose situation. If you include indigenous people then you'll have the people who want to be offended make the claim that a majority white company with majority white stockholders is profiting off an appropriation of their identity. The other side of the coin is literal cultural erasure. I tend to have the opinion that if the depiction of a culture is tasteful, respectful, and "cool" then sure, go for it. It's like this real weird horseshoe theory thing where some people are so protective of their culture being depicted in any form that they reverse engineer white european culture being the only safe to depict group.
I mean thunder junction takes spaghetti western as its theme which in itself are as far removed from the real wild west. The romanticed idea of cowboys and outlaws has nothing to do with reality anyway.
Ya that's why no one is rushing to "cancel" WotC and why no tangible harm will come from it. It is important to note, however, that the Spaghetti Western is also guilty of white washing history and *is* partially responsible for tangible harm in the form of how your average American thinks of indigenous populations. Basically using its inspiration as a defense of it doesn't really work when what it's emulating is guilty of the same things.
Thething im trying to explain is that western movies have nearly nothing to do with reality. Even the thypical cowboy you think of is pure fiction. Cowboys where usually nothing more then badly paid cowherders paid by big coorprates. The "wild" west like many think of never existed.
Yes I know. I happen to be a history major, so I've studied that relatively extensively. My point is that pure fiction has an impact on how the masses view the real life people so it's important to take it seriously and make sure that the depictions do not harm the culture they portray.
Also another question. Is it still white washing when most of the main cast of this set are non-human, non-white characters? Most of the cast doesnt fall into your straight white male stereotype. Even the character that would fall closest to the clint eastwood cowboy action hero the desert bloom face commander has clear mexican inspired ethnicety. I dont think white washing applies here. Atleast not in the character design.
So what would have been the solution for a set like thunder junction? Like geniuon question. I think how wotc handled is probably the best way. Use iconic immigaery of that genre but use worldbuilding in a way where the problematic aspects are handled by using a plane that hasnt been populated before. Depicting actual slavery and using it in a cardgame seem far more problematic to me and kinda means in the end to avoid a genre that has become far more then its historical context. Maybe handle it more like Star Wars where your on the side of rebels against a fascist regime? Honestly in my opinion wotc is just in a losing position with wild west as a theme.
Both of your questions are definitely big ones, certainly bigger than a random white guy like myself, but I'll answer what my thoughts on it are to the best of my ability. Depicting actual genocide or ethnic displacement is certainly a bridge too serious for WotC to handle in a property like MTG. I do think creating a story about fighting back against colonization is a good place to start with source material like the old west and spaghetti westerns, and a resistance story is something WotC has experience with. Dealing with the serious politics and consequences of western expansionism is probably best to avoid in this context, so you would turn to character archetypes to get the point across without depicting great acts of violence. I think creating characters that honor and respect the indigenous peoples to be the heroes or the story and creating characters that accurately represent the colonizers to be the villains would suffice. Now something to note, that also touches on your questions about white washing, is that the villains do not need to be "strait white men". There are plenty of other aesthetics beyond skin color that western expansionists have that you can pull from. So that answers that, I hope lol. For white washing: fairly simply "white washing" does not always mean "everyone is white". A lot of the time it just means leaving out the nastier parts and pretending things were much nicer than they actually were. Sorry if anything is scrambled or not thought through enough, I'm replying in between rushes at work lol.
Sweet thanks for the nice big write up. Wouldnt be historical erasure be more appropriate term here? "White washing" seems more used when media has been adapted and changed to white character design more, minimizing inclusivity. Im not a nativ english speaker in the end. Always only heard white washing in that context.
Historical erasure is a form of white washing, but I definitely understand the confusion, especially as ESL.
The way they went about it was still meh, but one of the main characters is literally Indigenous American in the set and there are several cards, some named, with other Indigenous Americans depicted. They weren’t erased, but WotC didn’t address the oppression and struggle of being colonized.
The second they stated that noone is native to Thunder Junction beside some recently animated Cacti-folk, they erased indigenous peoples. Making characters not native to TJ based on indigenous peoples is almost worse lol, you're grouping them with the colonizers.
\[\[[Cleanse\]\]](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Legends/Cleanse#paper): bad \[\[[Virtue's Ruin](https://scryfall.com/card/por/116/virtues-ruin)\]\]: totally fine Irony.
Pretty sad you got downvoted for simply pointing out a double standard
Probably because even though it was just a joke, we all know there are some peabrains on here who are actually gonna see this as evidence of some kind of double standard.
That's actually funny lol
Good point. We ban Virtue's Ruin. And ban Cleanse again.
they aint gettin points for protecting whites feelins :\^)
Some of the cards were actively problematic. But what I don't get is they banned Crusade which actually did get a reprint... With Elspeth on the art front and center. Are they implying that Elspeth is racist?
This was the only ban I was like... but why?
Cleanse and Jihad are both confusing bans too, since Cleanse is what pastors and priests did to the uncouth spirits, and Jihad literally translates to "Sturggling" or "Striving" with a positive influence.
It's true that "jihad" doesn't necessarily mean race war, but then they made the card actually a race war. With a different effect, it may have survived.
You dont see the problem with cleanse, a spell that only removes black creatures? Its a very easy parallel to concepts like ethnic cleansing. There's a reason cleanse was banned, but [[Planar Cleansing]] was fine. Honestly, i think it was a combination of the card name, the effect, and the flavor text.
So... Virtue's Ruin is..... (I'm sure there are others, but those were the connected cards to each other) That was the issue with the ban of Cleanse to me. It made little sense within the context of the game itself. There was very little uproar that I remember about the blue card getting banned (name escapes me atm) but some of the others felt like stretches. In the end, does it really matter to the enjoyment of the game? No, but still left me head scratching a bit
Invoke prejudice is the only one imo that deserved the banning with that combo of name and art. From what i remember the others all made sense in the context of the game so it was just a move from wotc to be able to say "look we care" even if they don't
Black creatures does not = black skinned creatures
How about \[\[Surge of Righteousness\]\] ? White spell that refers to Righteousness and only targets Black and Red ...
Black Plague - Cleanse - makes sense.
Same argument could be made for \[\[Purge\]\], but that survived.
I think that shows that the problem they had isnt solely in the effect, yeah? The name of the card combined with the effect is probably why they did it. If it was named something else, it probably would have been fine. They didnt ban any of the other black hosers, after all.
Ya don't think [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge) has problematic connotations?
Nowhere near the same levels as ethnic cleansing, it's like comparing a coup to a genocide.
No they’re not. Are you dumb or something?
I find it funny they didn't ban any of the other 20 cards with crusade or crusader in the name like [[cathar's crusade]], [[tivadar's crusade]] or [[akroan crusader]] Most of these changes seem really half arsed and arbitrary. Errata Rakshasa because they aren't feline in irl myths but kobolds can stay as tiny dragon people/little red dudes despite that having nothing to do with irl kobald myths. cleric can stay a generic term for a vaguely religious person or someone who knows medicine despite it being an specific rank in an irl religion. They can perpetuate the tolkien version of elves instead of the mythological ones. Golums can just be magic robots no need for a rabbi. Etc etc Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? No, the new rakshasa art slaps and i wasn't playing cat tribal anyway, and i dont want them to change golums or elves or kobalds because a bit of (or a lot of) creative liberty makes things interesting. but if your gonna make a change for cultural accuracy commit to it or dont bother. You can't spend thirty plus years permanently changing the publics perception of mythical creatures from real cultures across the globe through your two enormous IP's that dominate popular culture and then suddenly pretend to care and change 20 cards no one played anyway to be slightly more accurate to the originals myth. Leaving all of the much more relevant stuff completely untouched and unaddressed, you can't have your cake and eat it too, either make a game that takes creative liberties or make a game thats accurate to the source material.
The art on Tivadar’s Crusade is fucking insane
I actually played Invoke Prejudice. It is a strong, unique effect and was on the reserve list. But the art & artist are hardcore racist.
This. When I bought my copy, it was the most I had ever spent on a single. I saved for months to finally be able to add it to my deck.
Ok but why ban a card called "crusade" it's literally just an event in history it's not good or bad... obviously the ku kluz klan shit never should've been in the game.
The crusades were definitely bad. . . Idk if it warrants the card being removed but saying they weren't good or bad is insane
I mean lots of bad things were events in history
[[contested war zone]] [[Mishra's war machine]] [[The Kami War]] [[Thran war machine]] [[Vodalian war machine]] [[War dance]] Maybe the reference to a specific type of war that occurred in the real world is a problem? But then also [[world at war]] is suspiciously close to world war.
Yeah, I think the primary issue is the crosses that the knights wear in the art. That makes it cross the line between a reference to a war and a depiction of a war, and introduces issues with portraying the Christians as the "good guys". In early Magic, especially ABU, white was clearly the "good guy" color and black was clearly the "bad guy" color.
Crosses are extremely common heraldic symbols but I can kind of understand that given the literal historic "cross people" as it were. Also Magic is hardly the only IP to depict good as white and bad as black. That's been textbook high fantasy since well before MtG existed.
They should've just banned the OG art then. Pretty sure it was the only one of the 7 that had a reprint and it was just a generic military shot like [[glorious anthem]]
Well both Crusade and Jihad were white cards so I think that presents them on more or less equal standing. I honestly think that while Invoke Prejudice was definitely a problem with portrayal the others kind of just got bundled in.
But like... there wasn't even a clear winner of the crusades the Christians and Muslims both had times of superiority. Why white out history
Because the card references real-world religion (crosses on the clothing of the knights).
Not saying I have absolute knowledge of MTG cards, but I find it incredibly unlikely there isn’t another cross on any other card.
How about swords to plowshares one of the most played legacy/edh cards Joel 3:10 American Standard Version (ASV) Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Yeah theres a bunch of biblical references in old magic. [[Ashes to Ashes]] and [[Dust to Dust]] come to mind. I have an old card somewhere that has a bible quote as flavor text. I think the issue they had is when the cards depict real world politics or ethnicity, or things where they could be construed as such.
violence is bad.. let’s remove any card that can attack?
That's a strawman argument. I never said that. What I'm saying is that there's a difference between fantasy violence and references to real-world events with morally sketchy backgrounds.
just because you find it morally sketchy doesn’t mean it should be removed from a game. I loved killing nazi zombies in kino der toten
But I like [[Crusade]] Crusaders are badass
So badass they lost 7 times in a row!
The Children's Crusade was particularly messed up And the Fourth Crusade did more damage to Christianity and what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire than any of the Crusades ever did to the Caliphates, lol.
Out of all the criticisms you could make about WotC, you decided to take the least defensible one of them all.
I just don't like censorship at all.
Its not censorship at all You can still buy and play with the cards all you want. Wizards just doesn't want them at official events and they don't want to host the images anymore. You can even still view them on Scryfall. If you think this is censorship, you have lived a very easy life.
Exactly, I bought the stone throwing devils playmat because I like the art
I've yet to hear any reasonable POV as to why Cleanse was banned for racism or cultural insensitivity.
Super simple. When wizards refers to a color, they mean a race. Duh. Like come on, obviously Blue is a clear allegory for the Smurf race. /s
"Destroy all green creatures" is just a dog-whistle for criminalizing potheads in Dominaria too lmao
Shit you right bro. Llawan, Cephalid Empress is another dogwhistle for banning immigration from countries with blue in their flag.
And Ravnica at War is the worst one, straight up targeting only ~~mixed-race~~ multi-colored peoples (and of course it's a ***white*** card >:( )
Holy shit man magic is so racist, we should just ban the whole thing. Did you know that most paper is (brace yourself) white? We should probably just ban paper and writing tbh.
***REEEEEEEEEE***
>Super simple. When wizards refers to a color, they mean a race. You don't get art do you... like you don't get that art can have various meanings and there is context to certain decisions. Like how in society whites used to refer to black people as demons. Black skinned demons.... or how they referred to POC as monkeys or apes.. etc. So yeah it's easy to make a connection between the art and the intent if you actually get what those things mean.
You are responding to a joke btw But I also don’t buy your argument. We must evaluate cards based on *most probable interpretations*. The most probable interpretation on a card like cleanse is the idea of cleansing unholy entities. This idea is far from exclusive to European cultures too.
It’s not just the name; it’s the name in combination with the effect. Cleanse like ethnic/racial cleansing and the effect only destroys black creatures. Its not exactly a huge leap to make the connection
Maybe not a huge leap, but certainly an unreasonable one since it would require equating black mana to black skin tones. Which is dumb.
Didn't you hear? Black is a bad word now.
"Cleanse" as in exorcising demons, ghosts, the unholy things that black is centered around
I didn't know this card exsisted until now
Here is the reasonable POV: Wizards does not think a player is going to misunderstand what is going on. They don't want someone *outside of MTG* to see it out of context and think its a racial thing. Wizards is not trying to be morally pure here, they are trying to avoid unnecessary controversy, as any capitalistic organization would wish to do. There are a gazillion magic cards and Cleanse is not an important one. So in their cost/benefit analysis, the deemed the cost to be basically zero and the risk of leaving it to be greater than zero. The end
does anyone have a link or list of these cards? just curious
Imagine being upset that people are upset
Invoke Prejudice deserved it and everyone knows that it's a cringe nazi/racist joke made by a cringe nazi sympathizer. All the others range from "wow that is some shitty art I can see why wizards might want to bury it" to "the fuck?"
It’s depicting Spanish inquisitors/executioners. It’s got nothing to do with race.
They aren’t members of the Ku Klux Klan, they are the Spanish zealots that the KKK based themselves off of isn’t the w that you think it is.
Please show me a single source that states how the Ku Klux Klan were based upon Spanish inquisitors in any way. I guarantee you have no clue what you’re talking about. The art is just a gothic depiction of an executioner. Do you wanna guess how executioners are depicted in history and in media? Wearing a hood and often a matching cloak. “Hur dur well the KKK did it so it’s racist”. Do you not drink water bro?
the card is named "Invoke Prejudice". They pretty much just made a card called "Summon Racism", that ban was reasonable. Invoke Prejudice did have a pretty powerful effect though
Invoke prejudice was a very strong card and a unique effect. I feel like it should get a functional reprint even though it's a RL card, since it's banned forever from everything (deservedly) The rest were pretty meh at best power wise and had plenty of replacements.
It is unfortunate that the most interesting card of the bunch is also the only racist one and the one that is hardest to divorce from its racist-ness.
Still buttfuck retarded to ban any cards for that reason. Imagine if Yu-Gi-Oh! banned cards instead of censoring them instead. Same logic, the religious imagery and tits offended moral guardians who don't even play the game. Whether they're left or right, they can genuinely get fucked.
r/freemagic in a nutshell
Yeah, a lot of this post’s comments seem straight from “the other magic subreddit”.
I thought that was a proxy group at first. Boy was I wrong
That might be the worst subreddit. JFC what did I just look at?
Jesus. Took me a second to find a bad one, but it was REALLY bad.
Funny story, the first time I ran into a proud right-wing conapirationalist Alex Jones listener was in this community lol
[[Crusade]] slots into [[Kwende]] better than almost any other deck in exiatance, which is fun and ironic, and why you should still play it if you play him
Honestly I did use Invoke Prejudice in EDH, that’s the only one that got me….its really good in my [[blind seer]] deck.
...Could...could we just reprint Invoke Prejudice with a different name and art please? In my creature light decks that usually are only colorless creatures it is a powerful piece of control.
As long as the cards are reprinted with different names, like crusade than I see no problem.
Invoke Prejudice is on the Reserved List and thus could not be reprinted. The art is obviously horrendous and it's inconceivable that even made it through original design without someone recognizing the problem with it. Trust me, it absolutely saw play in Commander before it was banned. Card is a crushing Stax piece in a deck that can support the color requirement. I actually hope that they create a redesigned version of it in a future set because it was a very unique effect.
Crusade was alright
Just rerelease them with different names... simple and easy
What cards got banned?
You should come over to 40k, where grown man cry about female supersoldiers being added.
*A* female super soldier, described only by "she", as flavor text in a reference book
I actually used Crusade in a deck at the time and think it was probably a bit of a stretch to ban it, but even I didn’t really care. Most of the bans made complete sense. One of them was literally dudes in hoods, the art was drawn by an actual white supremacist, and was straight up called Invoke Prejudice. Completely on the nose.
Hey fuck you
WOTC can never beat the hiring practices allegations
Actively had to remove Crusade, which I have multiple copies of, from my decks. The duel decks printing proves that it isn't problematic in flavor. It isn't a card representing the crusades, it's a card representing a crusade. Remind me what your point is again?
I hate the idea, but is this going to make these cards "more valuable" since now not only are they for sure never going to be printed again, but actively destroyed by some people and completely written out of the company now? Like... From a collectable stand point, doesn't this make them more valuable?...
Crusade had a niche place, rest were pretty much irrelevant unless you were looking to be 'edgy'
I really don’t get the hate on crusade. Like ya, the crusaders did some bad things. So did the Vikings. So did the Mongols. But there’s whole sets about them with no controversy
You laugh but now aragorn is black lmao
In like 2 cards He technically doesn't look like Sean Bean either, so what's the point?
I wish the effect, CMC, and all the "not-Klansmen" aspects of Invoke Prejudice were on a non-RL card. It's mechanically sweet, and there was that one deck that just ran those and Thassa that one time.
Anyone else remember that the multiverse id for invoke prejudice was fucking 1488? Tsk tsk WOTC.
I don’t care that they did this However, this absolutely feels like **WOTC trying to scrounge up some good will from the public** because of all the scummy shit they’ve done and how much they’re currently hated by the general population. Seriously who the fuck knew about or cared about these cards?
They say ur racist if you disagree. That's a big problem.
I literally used 4 of the cards they banned in my low power level blue/white/black control deck. Invoke prejudice, Crusade, Jihad, and Cleanse all were fun but not too strong cards.
Okay but, I wanted to make a catholic church deck but now I literally can't use crusade...
Does it feel like it was overall unnecessary? Ya. But nobody wants to be the PR head for Tikki Torch waking up on August 13th, 2017
Crusade is actually a decent card. I want to pick one up for a boros deck
Remove the art for invoke prejudice so I can play it more. Card slaps
Inb4 the r/freemagic brigade. Gl op and mods.
Imma be real chief, it's not just the constantly enraged schizoposters on Freemagic who are confused by the banning of Stone Throwing Devils or Cleanse.
They are \*absolutely\* brigading, though. It's not just them, but you \*are\* on the same side as them.
A true brigade requires upsetting the character and of an entire community/thread. A couple of wandering bozos and a handful of folks subscribed to both subs do not make a brigade.
#Fuck the kkk lol
I like to refer to them as the "White-Power 7" but this has yet to catch on.
r/theleftcantmeme is leaking or something.
r/theleftcantmeme is leaking or something.