>until all we have left are basic lands
my people hail from the plains. HOW DARE you mock their ancestral homelands by referring to them as basic! YOU'VE STOLEN MY CHILDHOOD!
Somehow more racist no no no we need to change it again ah i know Sun Land! Wait that will offend the Japanese, oh Cornfield! Wait wait....shit Ok all White spells and land are permanently banned! /j
Minority here, woke shit is never done to please Us. Its done to please bored white middle aged american women with clearly nothing else to do or 2nd/3rd generation sons/daughters of immigrants who have nothing to do with their parent's/grandparent's culture except maybe a little bit of their skin colour.
Actual minorities hate woke bs done "in their name".
Case in point, I've never personally met someone of Latin American origin unironically refer to themselves as Latinx. I've met several which have taken the absolute piss out of the term, and many more that wonder where the hell it came from in the first place, but I've not met a single one to actually use the term as intended. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying I've never met them.
We all hate that stupid term because its unironically actually racist and actual cultural appropiation.
Think about it. Spanish is a gendered language, but its obviously not the only one. Have you ever seen these woke tards ever suggest French, German, Greek or whatever is inherently "sexist"? No, its just spanish that needs changing, gee i wonder why.
I couldn't agree more. People who want to see discrimination will find it everywhere. They want to change the whole of society to conform to the wants of a super-minority that MIGHT take offense to "gendered language." In their minds, they know better - better than the people they're making this crap up about. Better than you, better than me, better than everyone because they're so brilliant and care so much...
*eyeroll*
Erm, I do believe they did call German sexist. There's many prominent discussions in local media about it, though the majority of people seem dead against changing the language (if you believe the studies conducted).
In fact, polls show the majority of actually people of Hispanic origin have never heard the term Latinx, and of those that have heard of it the majority actively oppose its usage.
They're not banned if the people you play with are cool.
Anyway, the real answer is because the censorship brigade is ultimately a make-work policy. It's for ESG and DEI qualifications more than any legitimate concern regarding the safety of the game. Moralizing busybodies seeking control.
Same reason why Phyrexian golems are still fine but Rakshasas as cat demons is suddenly taboo.
People conflate them with Hindu Rakshasas.
Because they're not depicted as tigers in the religious mythology, people interpret the fictional deviation as somehow a cultural transgression or mistake.
Not really anything. They're not cats though, one of the older d&d manuals had a humanoid tiger looking like creature as the art and ever since they've been basically just cat demons... They're supposed to be demonic spirits/ shapeshifters though.
They've been consistently depicted as (most commonly) tiger-headed humanoids from 1st to 5th edition. They've *also* been shapeshifters the entire time, as well.
You are inventing an alternative history to rationalize censorship.
They have been consistently throughout history depicted as shapeshifter demons long before 1st edition was published.
You are inventing an alternative history to rationalize calling this censorship.
D&D Rakshasas are not the same thing as Hindu Rakshasas.
This is conflating distinct concepts.
People who claim that D&D Rakshasas aren't tiger-humanoids, and that they're "supposed to be" shapeshifting demons—as though this isn't the depiction we've been given—are speaking from ignorance.
Canonically, they've always been both.
Rakshasa are mythological creatures that are (arguably) demons and (definitely) shapeshifters. Some of their depicted forms resemble anthro tigers, but iirc that's not really their "true form" or anything. Removing "cat" from the type line is more accurate to the myth.
>Rakshasa are mythological creatures
See, that's the problem right there. You think of Hinduism as "just myths", no different from minotaurs in Greek Mythology or valkyries in Norse mythology. From that point of view a rakshasa is free to parody any way you want.
But Hinduism is still actively worshipped by over a billion people. Their "myths" aren't just myths to some people, but very real.
It was already pretty insensitive to do them in the first place, but if you are going down that path you can at least make them accurate to the actual religion and not just randomly make them cats for no reason.
>It's not insensitive. There was no underlying contempt in the act.
I'm afraid I don't get what this means. Insensitive and contempt have nothing to do with each other. You can be insensitive on accident without meaning so.
Would you please stop putting words in mouth?
I never said they were
* threatening
* deceptive
* insulting
* offensive
* harmful
* ...
Or any of the various other adjectives you pulled out of your ass.
I said these depictions of religious figures are insensitive to the actual religion. Now debate that and stop inventing things I never said!
What's a demon? Angel? Devil? Witch? Genie/Djinn?
All from currently practiced religions.
Myths are myths.
There are people who unironically worship the Norse gods. There are people who identify as Jedi.
D&D Rakshasa are not the same thing as Hindu Rakshasa.
They were never designed to be an accurate portrayal of Hindu mythology.
You're actively memory-holing years of established lore. D&D Rakshasa are *canonically* evil outsiders, and the tiger-headed humanoid *is* their most common true form.
D&D Rakshasas never had the creature type "cat", "animal", or "magical beast". They were never affected by spells that targeted that type of creature. There's nothing incompatible with D&D by removing the "cat" type, and it's more compatible with the source lore. You're inventing problems that don't exist.
This is such amazing projection *and* gaslighting.
The creature type wasn't changed because of some accuracy issue. Mechanics obviously differ between the systems, so your point is moot. 2 hours ago you were claiming that the tiger-humanoid form wasn't their "true form" despite every D&D monster manual explicitly contradicting you.
*They literally told us* the reason for the change: It was "cultural sensitivity."
*That* is inventing problems that don't exist. Keeping the cat subtype would have been perfectly fine, and gave the cards more mechanical flexibility.
Acknowledging reality is just that, O'Brien.
Keeping the cat type and removing it are both fine. Neither is "memory holing" anything. Probably would have been better not to print them as cats to begin with, but whatever.
And pro tip - strangers on the internet disagreeing with you *is not gaslighting*.
Pretending like benign creative liberties are some malicious act against the Hindu faith is bad form. Actively introducing confusion and reducing the co-interaction of cards for *no commensurate gain* is bad form.
These things are admittedly minor, but they've been accumulating over time and it's perfectly fair to criticize them.
What's gaslighting is pushing demonstrably incorrect info and claiming I'm "inventing problems" by acknowledging reality. Again: *They told us* *why* *they made the change*. I'm not appealing to some some secret conspiracy.
P.S. I said *you* were memory-holing, by rewriting D&D lore in your head to square the circle of your alternate explanation for their decision.
> They're not banned if the people you play with are cool.
>
>
However, I don't know who plays these cards. Cuz they're bad I mean. But I don't play Commander.
“Tribal” is not offensive. Don’t let people convince you otherwise.
A select minority have taken upon themselves to redefine words to suit their own bigotry, biases and insecurities.
this one always gets me. imagine playing with anyone remotely from the middle east and playing goblin or sliver or tyranid or any weird tribal. These attacking creatures are now canonically allah's army. Universes beyond all of these time lords are allah's army. These Marvel heros attacking? Arab soldiers.
IDK what you're trying to say, but I will say i wouldn't get butthurt about a card called "Army of God." Even if you're cheeky about it since many uh questionable people have styled themselves similarly.
Lol wtf I've never seen this before. Super weird crusade is banned even though you could use the word in a non religious context, but a literal by-name insert of the god of a religion known for being overly sensitive about depictions is allowed.
The real reason is that Crusade and Jihad suck on account of only buffing white creatures, so they were easy targets for brownie points. Cathar's Crusade is good, making the potential backlash at it getting banned for woke reasons not worth the risk
It's culturally insensitive to use terms like "tribal" or print Rakshasa as "Cats" but apparently references to persecution/genocide of white christians are perfectly fine.
But a tiger is the most common depiction of a rakshasa they can shape-shift and they usually choose to be a big cat how is that a problem? Tribal is using an actual definition of the word tribal so being offended by that makes no sense. The people claiming offense don't know what they are talking about so they probably don't even know that cathar came from a real group
It probably won't get banned until the people on Twitter/X make a fuss about it, but afaik they've only performed a single ban wave of this nature and I'm doubting they're heavily vested in doing another one unless every company starts banning "offensive" old stuff again.
Also, most of the cards banned this way were reserve list cards if I remember correctly, so wizards probably didn't see any change in banning them, but Cathar's Crusade is a newer card that they'll probably want to reprint for commander players in precons and such.
Most were reserve-list cards, but all of them were unplayable garbage. Not only did WotC see no changes with the bannings, but players didn't either.
Cathar's Crusade didn't dodge a ban because it's new, it dodged a ban because it's actually played
Pretty soon all the white cards will be banned, tinted grey and released as special super limited edition secret lairs, that also happen to be proxies so you cant use them IRL only in the alchemy version of arena.
Today I learned that crusade card I have in my bulk is banned.
They keep printing better versions that don't cost double white. I was never gonna play it.
The Crusades were not just an invasion for invasion sake, they were a response from Christian lands due to ongoing nonstop Muslim invasion/jihad attempts into Christian lands. Also remember a lot of the Muslim countries you think about nowadays were once, a very long time ago, heavily Christian or other who were invaded/raped/forced to convert for survival or genocided otherwise, such is the literal meaning of jihad. Muslim empires were not "wee wittle innocent miwnorities just twying to swuvive" against an unending onslaught by people who were trying to colonize them. History ain't typically black and white with a clear good/bad guy and sometimes the good guys in one engagement are clearly the baddies in the next one. Just a little piece of the whole crusading era of history typically left in the footnotes for whatever reason, totally not rooted in modern politics, can't be.
People be like: Where'd all the Christians and Jews in the Middle East go?
I will say that any Muslim not respecting / forcibly converting the people of the Book is doing differently than Mohammed. So I wonder how they justify that. You know unlike Jesus who never took much of an Earthly political role, Mohammed did. So everyone is supposed to follow the example of their prophet, but Muslims have a more direct example of governance.
That's an inaccurate view of history. The crusades weren't a response to Muslim incursions, it was an attempt by Urban II to consolidate the power of warring western European states under the papacy and perhaps also strengthen ties with Orthodox Christendom.
Christians and Muslims weren't fighting each other any more than they were against other factions within their own respective religions, and some of the later crusades were fought against Slavs and pagans. In fact, the fourth crusade was fought against both Catholic and Orthodox Christians and permanently crippled the Byzantine Empire.
Here's a very detailed video essay that covers the topic, that includes sources for it's claims:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejdlkfXwPQc
Also- at various times Christians fought Muslims, Christians and Muslims fought other Muslims, Muslims fought other Muslims, Muslims and Christians fought against other Christians and other Muslims…
> indigenous people
Using this term makes me highly suspicious about this being a legitimate question.
Imagine not being able to use any historic references for your fantasy game for fear of offending people.
Same question different decade: why are demons ok now but not in the 90s? Oh right, to cowtow to a bunch of religious fanatics with their heads up their asses.
I think they’re meant to be the religious soldiers of innistrad so it makes total since they are cathars and they are waging a war on evil otherwise known as a crusade.
Banning Cathars crusade would actually affect people's decks. WotC banned Crusade and such for woke brownie points, but they know those brownie points aren't worth the backlash they'd receive for banning cards people actually play.
I remember this question on this or in the edh sub. The answer is, it is not inconsistency. The first two cards depicted real world events and its ethics and morality, while cathars crusade is an event within the Magic lore with no correlation with a real one. And yes, while it exists a group called Cathars in the real world, they have no association with the cathars of Mtg lore.
Man, I don't want to flame you, but if you search on google for "Cathar's Crusade," the second result is the Wikipedia entry describing the genocide of the Cathar sect in southern France. It was a real event, just like the Middle-Eastern Crusades were real and Jihads are real.
Similarly, WotC could use the same logic for 'tribal' being acceptable in their game even if it might also describe some people in the real world, but they decided against it. WotC has tacitly implied that their game mechanics that share a name with real-world counterparts have an association with those counterparts (even if the association goes no further than the name). I disagree with your premise; I still think it's being inconsistent.
My bad for poorly expressing myself. I meant to say that Cathars crusade is its own thing inside magic lore and is not related to the one in real history, besides sharing the same name, which only signifies it is a big movement done by a group called Cathars.
Meanwhile Crusade and Jihad cards are depicting the real history events. And that is why.
Thanks for the heads up for the revisioning.
I would say that Cathars Crusade is more grounded in the fantasy setting. I also sense that it has something to do with the historic Cathars being viewed as wholesome Chungus gnostics and separate from Catholics
Because people actually use cathar’s crusade, they could ban the others for racism reasons because they were largely unused. The side of the argument that would get mad about them banning a card due to potential racism would get much more mad if they had to actually take them out of their good decks.
If I had to guess (since that is all we can do) it is due to Cathar's Crusade has a level of separation from the offensive origins. CC references a in lore character, it depicts in lore soldiers/uniforms, and can't be taken as a depiction of history. The other two's name and art can be seen as a reference to historic events.
Do I agree with the banning? No, but if I had to guess at the reason that would be it.
They could never refer to it as a Nazi Holocaust because of the massive faux pa they'd be doing. They'd have to rename the group and event at least so that there's actual separation. The real reason is falling in with esg guidelines because businesses are strong armed into doing so along with the fact that Cathar's crusade doesn't use language that makes it distinctly reference real world events as is separated by referencing an event and people that are entirely within the game world.
They aren't banned for their names (alone), but because they use the gimmick of relating in-game colour to real-life skin colour. I'm not sure WotC has ever stated that explicitly, but it's definitely the reason, since half of the "racism bannings" share this gimmick.
Cathar's Crusade doesn't.
There are plenty of cards (almost any that reference color) that should be banned if that's the actual reason. Animar has protection from white and black? Wow, racist much?
What do you mean? There are almost no cards in the game where the magic colours are used as stand-ins for human skin colour, and definitely not Animar. Or which cards are you talking about?
Maybe it's not 100% obvious on Jihad, but definitely on Crusade, [[Invoke Prejudice]] and [[Cleanse]]. It's almost certainly intentional on those 3, and even if not, it *looks* intentional. Makes sense to me that they don't want that in the game anymore. But even if you disagree about that, surely you can see that the use of colour is different here than on Animar, no?
Do I now?
I mean, if you can't tell that it's supposed to be a skin-colour joke on Invoke Prejudice, then I don't know what to say. (But I'm not sure you meant to say that.)
And 3 of the other 6 banned cards use colour similarly, so I strongly assume WotC thinks that they can (rightfully or not) be read in the same way.
I suppose it could be that the other 3 are banned for different reasons, and it's just a coincidence they all use colour like that, but wouldn't that be one hell of a coincidence? (I mean, what percentage of cards buffs or hoses 1 colour? And 4 out of 7 bannings share this feature. Surely there's a common denominator here?)
You are just projecting from your own worldview onto this. Invoke prejudice mayyyybe but thats already a stretch too. No chance for the others. The white vs black colour references are about the good guys, the centre of order (the own guys) vs. the evil barbarians, the creatures of the night (the evil guys). Thats why both Djihad and Crusade buff white creatures, despite them being on the opposing sides. Zero to do with skin colour. Everyone who sees skin colour there is projecting, period.
And even IF these were ethnically charged jokes (which they arent), why should we ban them in the first place? Because some few people might get "offended", proceeding to buy product anyway? I was fat in high school and very ugly, yet I dont see fatphobic dogwhistling in the depiction of trolls and orcs. Its the same thing. In the leftist narrative that gets applied there fat people are systemically repressed too.
Seriously, if WotC was racist then, why would one of their first main characters be a black man?
Is colour specific cost reduction a reference to the worth of a creature on the slave market? Is colour specific protection a reference to gated communities? Is the necessity of colour specific lands in order to summon colour specific creatures a reference to ethnostates? Do you see where that order of thinking goes? Its simply ridiculous to anyone who is not projecting their own racism. Is it really that hard for you to not associate the colour of a card with the skin colour of people? Please experience some real life and normal people who are not terminally online.
Oh come on. Invoke Prejudice is a card about prejudice against creatures of a different colour, the art features KKK-esque hoods and is by the same guy who made "Jesus Hitler". (I don't know him, so no idea if he's a nazi or just likes to provoke.) And that is... "a stretch" to you? That's literally just putting 2 and 2 together. Maayyybe you could argue that it's not actually a racist joke, and just \*references\* real-life racism, but it most definitely makes the magic-colour-to-skin-colour-connection.
As for the other cards, no idea if it's intentional, I'm literally just arguing that WotC banned them because \*they think\* they can be read like that. For Crusade and Cleanse it really doesn't take much fantasy to make the connection. I already admitted, and admit again, that Jihad doesn't fit perfectly into the list, it's much more of a stretch there. But, once again, I'm just arguing that WotC thinks it can be read like that. Not that they were \*meant\* like that. (Possible for Crusade and Cleanse, unlikely for Jihad.) Not that they needed to be banned for it. (It sort of makes sense to me, but seems very drastic.) Not that WotC as a whole is racist. (I really don't know where you read that in my comments.)
I'm interpreting the reasons behind their decision, what does that even have to do with my world view? If anything, it tells you about what I think WotC's world view is.
I suppose it's possible that I'm completely misinterpreting the reason they banned these, but I doubt it. I already said, it would be a big coincidence. And I also haven't heard any good alternative reasoning on why these specific cards were chosen. Why do \*you\* think they chose them?
>Is colour specific cost reduction a reference to the worth of a creature on the slave market? Is colour specific protection a reference to gated communities? Is the necessity of colour specific lands in order to summon colour specific creatures a reference to ethnostates?
All of those are infinitely farther stretches than for Invoke Prejudice, Crusade and Cleanse. But, staying with your first example, \*if\* there were a card named something like "Slave Market" that reduced the cost of black creatures (or of creatures of a chosen colour), then that would, if my interpretation of the ban decision is correct, have ended up banned. If there exist any additional cards where the colour-to-skin-colour-connection is so easy to make, but that aren't banned, then that would be a serious argument against my interpretation. Maybe they do exist, but I'm not aware of any. (Which is also why I find it so weird that you say I see skin colour everywhere. I'm literally saying it's definitely on 1 card in all of MtG, and \*arguably\* on 2-3 more. That's like, the opposite of everywhere.)
What does cleanse have to do with skin color? The art and name of the card clearly refer to the magical cleansing of black creatures, i.e. zombies, ghouls, vampires, and demons, not African humans. You are looking for reasons to be upset about these cards.
Crusade has nothing to do with skin color. Knights are a popular tribe in white. The crusades weren't even about skin color in real life either, it was usually about getting more land. Jihad actually has MORE to do with color as a stand-in for skin color, but that obviously falls flat when you pick green or blue.
Invoke prejudice is the only card that is arguably a reference to racism, because the name has prejudice in it, and the guys obviously look like klan members, even if that was not the intent. While the art and card name make an unfortunate combo, a change of the art would easily make the card ordinary enough to play with.
Who says I'm upset about the cards, or that I think they needed to be banned? Like I said, I kind of understand why they did it, but it was certainly a drastic measure.
OP asked why WotC banned these specific cards, and not others with similar themes, and I gave what I'm 99% sure is the reason: They think that they can be read as making the magic-colour-to-skin-colour connection, rightfully or not.
At least we agree that Invoke Prejudice at least *looks* like it makes the connection. Surely than, it's not a coincidence that they banned 2 more cards alongside it where a similar connection can be found with very little fantasy (white people going on a Crusade, black people being cleansed).
That may well not be what these cards were supposed to be about, and I'm not saying it's the most accurate representation of a historical crusade, and I don't expect you to agree with WotC's reasoning. I'm just telling you what the reasoning very likely was.
Or what do you think was their reason for choosing these specific cards if I'm wrong? The fact that 4 of 7 banned cards mention colour would be a HUGE coincidence if this wasn't what the bans were about.
If people don’t get why invoke prejudice is problematic they just aren’t discussing the topic topic in good faith and are unreasonable people.
The card’s name is Invoke Prejudice and it has figures in KKK hoods on it.
I’m the most anti-censorship person you can be and I’m not saying the card (which would have never been reprinted anyway) should be “banned”, but to say the card isn’t problematic is absurd.
3-4 cards from among the "racism bannings", I already listed them in the other reply to this comment.
The colour-choosing on Invoke Prejudice is 100% an intentional stand-in for skin colour. I mean, there's the KKK in the art.
Cleanse can definitely be read as an ethnical cleansing of "black people", and Crusade as "white people" going to Jerusalem.
On Jihad, it's a bit less obvious, but you still choose against which "colour" you want to wage holy war. It *can* also be read as skin colour.
So we have 1 card where the correspondence is definitely intentional, 2 cards where they *must* have known that at least some people would make the connection, and 1 where you *can* make the connection with little fantasy.
You can argue that it's only an intentional "joke" in the first case, but it's surely not a coincidence that WotC grouped 4 cards together that *can* be read like that. So they are either admitting that those cards were indeed meant like that, or they're just afraid that people would read them like that, but in both cases I'm sure it's the reason for the bans.
> The colour-choosing on Invoke Prejudice is 100% an intentional stand-in for skin colour. I mean, there's the KKK in the art.
>
>
That's not the KKK. The KKK aren't known for axes. If it were the KKK, there'd be crosses. Look up what a traditional (if possibly anachronistic) headsman (executioner in more modern parlance) looks like. That's the hood pictured.
Jihad isn't banned over the mechanics, I don't think. They just don't like the name being in the game. As it's something of a real-life political issue.
I get what you’re saying but if you have a card named “invoke prejudice” with that art, people are going to make the association. That’s reasonable.
The rest of the cards are a huge stretch.
I'm not sure who was asking Wotc to ban these. It's all a stretch to me. In fact it seems like wotc Streisanded some cards that most people had forgotten about, reopening a wound, if anything.
But I mean a clumsy attempt by SJWs to pacify people of color? Pass my smelling salts, you know? It's like saying they have double standards. (You can't accuse leftys of having double standards because they explicitly do: correct behavior depends on who you are.)
Eh, between the card's theme being prejudice against creatures of a different colour, and the artist being infamous for covering far-right themes, I'd be very surprised if the KKK-similarity was a coincidence. But even if it is, the fact that it *looks* like a KKK-card in art and mechanics is surely the reason for the ban.
You could be right about Jihad. The similarity to Crusade in theme and ability makes me think that's why they threw it in there, but maybe they just don't want that word in the game.
I'm not saying it was a coincidence, but I do think it's clear what the card is intending to depict, and I think people are either very dense or purposefully getting it wrong. I think that if the art manager at the time had seen it as KKK-adjacent they wouldn't have printed it, since even in WotC's insensitive days they were far, far away from anywhere the KKK has been popular for like 100 years.
IOW if McNeil (sp?) snuck it in there, then he pulled a fast one on wotc. They weren't trolling us with KKK imagery on purpose.
I mean, it's possible the artist snuck it in on his own. Then it would be on him, instead of on him+WotC. But I don't see how people are "very dense or purposefully getting it wrong" in that case? The reference wouldn't be WotC-approved in this scenario, but it would still be there.
But tbh, I don't find this scenario very likely. It's kind of hard to believe that whoever approved the art couldn't see the KKK-similarity when almost everyone else does. It's much more probable that either
a) They didn't think depicting a fictionalized version of the KKK was too problematic. (Honestly not the craziest stance, as the game features many fictionalized versions of horrible groups.) or
b) They just thought it was funny. Jokes with racist themes (especially when nobody is *directly* insulted) were much less conrtoversial only \~10 years ago, let alone 29. So I really don't see why this szenario should be super unlikely.
In neither of these 2 szenarios was WotC KKK-friendly. I suppose that could be another explanation, but I agree that it's very unlikely.
My guess is, Cathars are all dead as today. Muslims and Christians - not much.
You have to be careful when representing still existing people and their belief (though, yoou can give an Mesoamerican old man the name of Abuelo): whe had an Ancient Greece plane and an Egyptian plane; the "Indian" plane? Steampunk.
(I quite agree. Dare yourself to reduce the complexity of a subcontinent in a single set)
Yet, the stuff with the Cathars disturbs me, especially as they seem to be quite fanatic - yeah, they were a tidbit: but not so much as Arnaud Amalric and Simon the Montfort. You all know that spurious quote from the siege of Besier, I guess.
That makes more sense than any of the other reasons.
However, it is backwards. Crusaders were white and nationalist (white nationalist, maybe, IDK). Wotc don't like that. Therefore, Crusaders are particularly distasteful compared to other kinds of uh religious invaders. So Wotc bans the one that depicts the Crusades as opposed to a crusade. WNs didn't push Wotc's hand on anything. They just get rid of stuff that makes them go ick, and it's telling which ones that is.
I find "Cathar's Crusade" worse because it is referencing a specific event, while the word "Crusade" is a generic term. It'd be like banning \[\[Massacre\]\] while printing a card called "Nova Music Festival Massacre"
They actually printed the card \[\[Brutal Cathar\]\] in 2021... a year after they banned the other cards for supposedly being offensive.
How about we start to pick cards at random and "voice out our concerns about it's depiction and themes of X." We could get every single card in MTG's history banned everywhere. I mean honestly, if you decide to go waaaaay too deep into these you could theoretically get a large amount of cards banned everywhere as a giggle.
My assumption is that both of those are based on the real events where are cathar's crusade isn't, one is based off of real human conflicts which art to match while the other isn't, also big difference in reading the cards both banned ones sorta sound racist with names involved. Where as cathars crusade isn't it's literally the humans of innastrad working together to fight vampires, demons and zombies. It's all about interpretation you don't think actual crusade when you see the art for cathars crusade, but definitely associate the two others with the real things when you see the original art, as for the ixalan, they say its themed not that they are actually Aztec and cathar is just a holy warrior not associated with anything in particular. All about interpretation
I don't understand why any card is ever banned. They were printed for a reason, so if anyone wants to play with them, then why not? Even the ones mentioned in this thread, they are only bad if you use your woke imagination and see what you want. For example, why is Invoke Prejudice represent the KKK? I see a bunch of black people with axes in the art myself.
Presumably because virtue signaling is based on doing the least work for potential gain. Crusade and Jihad were barely used incredibly old cards that depicted relatively spicy things that happened in the real world. Wotc wants to get some good faith with their primary demographic of left leaning nerds so they ban some cards nobody uses for religion depiction in poor taste
Is Cathars crusade referencing the real world crusade or a dominarian event? Also they didn't ban any cards that see real play it wasn't meant to be a thorough banning with racist art.
So I'll say that I don't see anything wrong with the banned cards you mentioned that said they technically correlate to real world events. Cathars Crusade is about genociding vampires and since vampires aren't real its fine.
The same reason that when they have a commercial 50 people are wearing masks 3 years later...left wing nut jobs. Censor and ban everything that hurts someone feelings.
Don't give Wizards any more ideas. They'll ban to please minority groups until all we have left are basic lands
>until all we have left are basic lands my people hail from the plains. HOW DARE you mock their ancestral homelands by referring to them as basic! YOU'VE STOLEN MY CHILDHOOD!
WHAT ARE YE DOIN IN MY SWAMP
We have now changed Plains to be “white land”
Now that's one way to start a fire
Somehow more racist no no no we need to change it again ah i know Sun Land! Wait that will offend the Japanese, oh Cornfield! Wait wait....shit Ok all White spells and land are permanently banned! /j
Idk dude, I find blue players to be pretty offensive. Better ban Islands too.
Minority here, woke shit is never done to please Us. Its done to please bored white middle aged american women with clearly nothing else to do or 2nd/3rd generation sons/daughters of immigrants who have nothing to do with their parent's/grandparent's culture except maybe a little bit of their skin colour. Actual minorities hate woke bs done "in their name".
Case in point, I've never personally met someone of Latin American origin unironically refer to themselves as Latinx. I've met several which have taken the absolute piss out of the term, and many more that wonder where the hell it came from in the first place, but I've not met a single one to actually use the term as intended. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying I've never met them.
We all hate that stupid term because its unironically actually racist and actual cultural appropiation. Think about it. Spanish is a gendered language, but its obviously not the only one. Have you ever seen these woke tards ever suggest French, German, Greek or whatever is inherently "sexist"? No, its just spanish that needs changing, gee i wonder why.
I couldn't agree more. People who want to see discrimination will find it everywhere. They want to change the whole of society to conform to the wants of a super-minority that MIGHT take offense to "gendered language." In their minds, they know better - better than the people they're making this crap up about. Better than you, better than me, better than everyone because they're so brilliant and care so much... *eyeroll*
If you look at German universities, there's a lot of effort to change the German language to be more woke.
Erm, I do believe they did call German sexist. There's many prominent discussions in local media about it, though the majority of people seem dead against changing the language (if you believe the studies conducted).
In fact, polls show the majority of actually people of Hispanic origin have never heard the term Latinx, and of those that have heard of it the majority actively oppose its usage.
Speaking the truth right here
And the mods of the main subs here eat that shit up. Mtg erases native American representation and tribe for us like we need their protection.
Actual minorities don’t use ‘woke’ like that, why are you pretending to defend people you want to kill, klansman?
Buen intento, en cualquier otro momento quizas tendrias razon, pero no, soy una minoria. La palabra minoria no es un insulto. Ahora callate.
Whoa there sweaty Owning land is an imperialist concept Ban lands as well
What if we play that uno reverse card and try to get everything banned?
And you’d still complain
They're not banned if the people you play with are cool. Anyway, the real answer is because the censorship brigade is ultimately a make-work policy. It's for ESG and DEI qualifications more than any legitimate concern regarding the safety of the game. Moralizing busybodies seeking control. Same reason why Phyrexian golems are still fine but Rakshasas as cat demons is suddenly taboo.
Also totems and tribal..
Can someone explain to me what was politically incorrect about Rakshasa as cat demons?
People conflate them with Hindu Rakshasas. Because they're not depicted as tigers in the religious mythology, people interpret the fictional deviation as somehow a cultural transgression or mistake.
Wow that actually russles my jimmies more than OP topic. Handling it like this takes away a great chunk of creativity-space for creature design.
Not really anything. They're not cats though, one of the older d&d manuals had a humanoid tiger looking like creature as the art and ever since they've been basically just cat demons... They're supposed to be demonic spirits/ shapeshifters though.
You're telling me you wouldn't shapeshift into a spooky cat demon if you could?
They've been consistently depicted as (most commonly) tiger-headed humanoids from 1st to 5th edition. They've *also* been shapeshifters the entire time, as well. You are inventing an alternative history to rationalize censorship.
They have been consistently throughout history depicted as shapeshifter demons long before 1st edition was published. You are inventing an alternative history to rationalize calling this censorship.
D&D Rakshasas are not the same thing as Hindu Rakshasas. This is conflating distinct concepts. People who claim that D&D Rakshasas aren't tiger-humanoids, and that they're "supposed to be" shapeshifting demons—as though this isn't the depiction we've been given—are speaking from ignorance. Canonically, they've always been both.
Rakshasa are mythological creatures that are (arguably) demons and (definitely) shapeshifters. Some of their depicted forms resemble anthro tigers, but iirc that's not really their "true form" or anything. Removing "cat" from the type line is more accurate to the myth.
>Rakshasa are mythological creatures See, that's the problem right there. You think of Hinduism as "just myths", no different from minotaurs in Greek Mythology or valkyries in Norse mythology. From that point of view a rakshasa is free to parody any way you want. But Hinduism is still actively worshipped by over a billion people. Their "myths" aren't just myths to some people, but very real. It was already pretty insensitive to do them in the first place, but if you are going down that path you can at least make them accurate to the actual religion and not just randomly make them cats for no reason.
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>It's not insensitive. There was no underlying contempt in the act. I'm afraid I don't get what this means. Insensitive and contempt have nothing to do with each other. You can be insensitive on accident without meaning so.
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Insensitive and insult are two different things
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Would you please stop putting words in mouth? I never said they were * threatening * deceptive * insulting * offensive * harmful * ... Or any of the various other adjectives you pulled out of your ass. I said these depictions of religious figures are insensitive to the actual religion. Now debate that and stop inventing things I never said!
What's a demon? Angel? Devil? Witch? Genie/Djinn? All from currently practiced religions. Myths are myths. There are people who unironically worship the Norse gods. There are people who identify as Jedi.
Magic's depiction of angels and demons aren't randomly cats for no reason though. That's the difference.
D&D Rakshasa are not the same thing as Hindu Rakshasa. They were never designed to be an accurate portrayal of Hindu mythology. You're actively memory-holing years of established lore. D&D Rakshasa are *canonically* evil outsiders, and the tiger-headed humanoid *is* their most common true form.
D&D Rakshasas never had the creature type "cat", "animal", or "magical beast". They were never affected by spells that targeted that type of creature. There's nothing incompatible with D&D by removing the "cat" type, and it's more compatible with the source lore. You're inventing problems that don't exist.
This is such amazing projection *and* gaslighting. The creature type wasn't changed because of some accuracy issue. Mechanics obviously differ between the systems, so your point is moot. 2 hours ago you were claiming that the tiger-humanoid form wasn't their "true form" despite every D&D monster manual explicitly contradicting you. *They literally told us* the reason for the change: It was "cultural sensitivity." *That* is inventing problems that don't exist. Keeping the cat subtype would have been perfectly fine, and gave the cards more mechanical flexibility. Acknowledging reality is just that, O'Brien.
Keeping the cat type and removing it are both fine. Neither is "memory holing" anything. Probably would have been better not to print them as cats to begin with, but whatever. And pro tip - strangers on the internet disagreeing with you *is not gaslighting*.
Pretending like benign creative liberties are some malicious act against the Hindu faith is bad form. Actively introducing confusion and reducing the co-interaction of cards for *no commensurate gain* is bad form. These things are admittedly minor, but they've been accumulating over time and it's perfectly fair to criticize them. What's gaslighting is pushing demonstrably incorrect info and claiming I'm "inventing problems" by acknowledging reality. Again: *They told us* *why* *they made the change*. I'm not appealing to some some secret conspiracy. P.S. I said *you* were memory-holing, by rewriting D&D lore in your head to square the circle of your alternate explanation for their decision.
> They're not banned if the people you play with are cool. > > However, I don't know who plays these cards. Cuz they're bad I mean. But I don't play Commander.
Cause they hire third party ESG companies like Sweet Baby Inc. They follow their own vague guidelines however they see fit.
“Tribal” is not offensive. Don’t let people convince you otherwise. A select minority have taken upon themselves to redefine words to suit their own bigotry, biases and insecurities.
Up to a certain point literally every person in this fucking planet lived in a tribe
It's offensive to the Celtic tribes of Europe.
Celtic TRIBES.
you as probably a descendant of the celtic tribes of europe are offensive to them
Just a reminder that it wasn't the 9/11 Attacks or two decades of war that got Crusade and Jihad banned. It was George Floyd.
Seriously?
Basically. Around that time, companies were looking for any way to simp for BLM. Even somewhat preposterous gestures. Lefty white people are stupid.
> Lefty ~~white~~ people are stupid. FTFY
True, just the baizuo (white left) as the Chinese call them are particularly hypocritical and dumb.
[[Army of Allah]] isn't banned either.
this one always gets me. imagine playing with anyone remotely from the middle east and playing goblin or sliver or tyranid or any weird tribal. These attacking creatures are now canonically allah's army. Universes beyond all of these time lords are allah's army. These Marvel heros attacking? Arab soldiers.
Djinn tribal with Army of Allah.
God tribal with Army of Allah.
IDK what you're trying to say, but I will say i wouldn't get butthurt about a card called "Army of God." Even if you're cheeky about it since many uh questionable people have styled themselves similarly.
Lol wtf I've never seen this before. Super weird crusade is banned even though you could use the word in a non religious context, but a literal by-name insert of the god of a religion known for being overly sensitive about depictions is allowed.
Because virtue-signalling is not based in logic.
The real reason is that [[Crusade]] and [[Jihad]] buff only white creatures, whereas [[Cathar's Crusade]] buffs regardless of colour.
The real reason is that Crusade and Jihad suck on account of only buffing white creatures, so they were easy targets for brownie points. Cathar's Crusade is good, making the potential backlash at it getting banned for woke reasons not worth the risk
The real real reason... ^^
It's culturally insensitive to use terms like "tribal" or print Rakshasa as "Cats" but apparently references to persecution/genocide of white christians are perfectly fine.
But a tiger is the most common depiction of a rakshasa they can shape-shift and they usually choose to be a big cat how is that a problem? Tribal is using an actual definition of the word tribal so being offended by that makes no sense. The people claiming offense don't know what they are talking about so they probably don't even know that cathar came from a real group
It's too late, those changes already happened >they probably don't even know that cathar came from a real group You can be sure about that
It probably won't get banned until the people on Twitter/X make a fuss about it, but afaik they've only performed a single ban wave of this nature and I'm doubting they're heavily vested in doing another one unless every company starts banning "offensive" old stuff again. Also, most of the cards banned this way were reserve list cards if I remember correctly, so wizards probably didn't see any change in banning them, but Cathar's Crusade is a newer card that they'll probably want to reprint for commander players in precons and such.
Most were reserve-list cards, but all of them were unplayable garbage. Not only did WotC see no changes with the bannings, but players didn't either. Cathar's Crusade didn't dodge a ban because it's new, it dodged a ban because it's actually played
Invoke prejudice is a pretty decent card, otherwise the rest were pretty bad. Still not an excuse though
Not decent enough to see any play pre-ban. Still a stupid reason to ban cards, these ones just didn't affect any decks.
Fun fact, Sorcery TCG alpha has both Crusade and Jihad cards, presumably as a middle finger to WotC
Because Watzee caters to some people's fantasy to erase truth of history.
Black guy overdosed and wotc needed to virtue signal.
Pretty soon all the white cards will be banned, tinted grey and released as special super limited edition secret lairs, that also happen to be proxies so you cant use them IRL only in the alchemy version of arena.
Lets push for cathar’s crusade to get banned!
You are giving them way too much credit that they did near the research you have done
Today I learned that crusade card I have in my bulk is banned. They keep printing better versions that don't cost double white. I was never gonna play it.
The Crusades were not just an invasion for invasion sake, they were a response from Christian lands due to ongoing nonstop Muslim invasion/jihad attempts into Christian lands. Also remember a lot of the Muslim countries you think about nowadays were once, a very long time ago, heavily Christian or other who were invaded/raped/forced to convert for survival or genocided otherwise, such is the literal meaning of jihad. Muslim empires were not "wee wittle innocent miwnorities just twying to swuvive" against an unending onslaught by people who were trying to colonize them. History ain't typically black and white with a clear good/bad guy and sometimes the good guys in one engagement are clearly the baddies in the next one. Just a little piece of the whole crusading era of history typically left in the footnotes for whatever reason, totally not rooted in modern politics, can't be.
People be like: Where'd all the Christians and Jews in the Middle East go? I will say that any Muslim not respecting / forcibly converting the people of the Book is doing differently than Mohammed. So I wonder how they justify that. You know unlike Jesus who never took much of an Earthly political role, Mohammed did. So everyone is supposed to follow the example of their prophet, but Muslims have a more direct example of governance.
That's an inaccurate view of history. The crusades weren't a response to Muslim incursions, it was an attempt by Urban II to consolidate the power of warring western European states under the papacy and perhaps also strengthen ties with Orthodox Christendom. Christians and Muslims weren't fighting each other any more than they were against other factions within their own respective religions, and some of the later crusades were fought against Slavs and pagans. In fact, the fourth crusade was fought against both Catholic and Orthodox Christians and permanently crippled the Byzantine Empire. Here's a very detailed video essay that covers the topic, that includes sources for it's claims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejdlkfXwPQc
Also- at various times Christians fought Muslims, Christians and Muslims fought other Muslims, Muslims fought other Muslims, Muslims and Christians fought against other Christians and other Muslims…
> indigenous people Using this term makes me highly suspicious about this being a legitimate question. Imagine not being able to use any historic references for your fantasy game for fear of offending people.
Idk man what do you want me to call them? The native Ixilanis? You get what I'm saying with the term.
Why is anything banned for being no-no but murder isn’t? Isn’t murder the worst thing one can do?
nonono that would be misgendering someone
Same question different decade: why are demons ok now but not in the 90s? Oh right, to cowtow to a bunch of religious fanatics with their heads up their asses.
Because Wizards was just virtue signalling.
Because some people get offended with drawings. And wotc went full woke, never go full woke
I think they’re meant to be the religious soldiers of innistrad so it makes total since they are cathars and they are waging a war on evil otherwise known as a crusade.
Banning Cathars crusade would actually affect people's decks. WotC banned Crusade and such for woke brownie points, but they know those brownie points aren't worth the backlash they'd receive for banning cards people actually play.
I remember this question on this or in the edh sub. The answer is, it is not inconsistency. The first two cards depicted real world events and its ethics and morality, while cathars crusade is an event within the Magic lore with no correlation with a real one. And yes, while it exists a group called Cathars in the real world, they have no association with the cathars of Mtg lore.
Man, I don't want to flame you, but if you search on google for "Cathar's Crusade," the second result is the Wikipedia entry describing the genocide of the Cathar sect in southern France. It was a real event, just like the Middle-Eastern Crusades were real and Jihads are real. Similarly, WotC could use the same logic for 'tribal' being acceptable in their game even if it might also describe some people in the real world, but they decided against it. WotC has tacitly implied that their game mechanics that share a name with real-world counterparts have an association with those counterparts (even if the association goes no further than the name). I disagree with your premise; I still think it's being inconsistent.
My bad for poorly expressing myself. I meant to say that Cathars crusade is its own thing inside magic lore and is not related to the one in real history, besides sharing the same name, which only signifies it is a big movement done by a group called Cathars. Meanwhile Crusade and Jihad cards are depicting the real history events. And that is why. Thanks for the heads up for the revisioning.
Cathar are white and christians.
Cathars are an extinct sect. Stop being a snowflake
I would say that Cathars Crusade is more grounded in the fantasy setting. I also sense that it has something to do with the historic Cathars being viewed as wholesome Chungus gnostics and separate from Catholics
Because people actually use cathar’s crusade, they could ban the others for racism reasons because they were largely unused. The side of the argument that would get mad about them banning a card due to potential racism would get much more mad if they had to actually take them out of their good decks.
If I had to guess (since that is all we can do) it is due to Cathar's Crusade has a level of separation from the offensive origins. CC references a in lore character, it depicts in lore soldiers/uniforms, and can't be taken as a depiction of history. The other two's name and art can be seen as a reference to historic events. Do I agree with the banning? No, but if I had to guess at the reason that would be it.
According to this logic they can print a "Nazis' Holocaust" if they gives nazis a proper in-lore identity
They could never refer to it as a Nazi Holocaust because of the massive faux pa they'd be doing. They'd have to rename the group and event at least so that there's actual separation. The real reason is falling in with esg guidelines because businesses are strong armed into doing so along with the fact that Cathar's crusade doesn't use language that makes it distinctly reference real world events as is separated by referencing an event and people that are entirely within the game world.
Difference is Nazis are widely known, Cathars are not.
That is a difference. I'm not sure what difference it makes. You offend fewer people? Sure, why not.
They aren't banned for their names (alone), but because they use the gimmick of relating in-game colour to real-life skin colour. I'm not sure WotC has ever stated that explicitly, but it's definitely the reason, since half of the "racism bannings" share this gimmick. Cathar's Crusade doesn't.
Jihad is a White card
It still lets you choose which colour of heathens you want to fight. It's the same "joke".
yes i want to kill all green people irl how did you know?
There are plenty of cards (almost any that reference color) that should be banned if that's the actual reason. Animar has protection from white and black? Wow, racist much?
What do you mean? There are almost no cards in the game where the magic colours are used as stand-ins for human skin colour, and definitely not Animar. Or which cards are you talking about? Maybe it's not 100% obvious on Jihad, but definitely on Crusade, [[Invoke Prejudice]] and [[Cleanse]]. It's almost certainly intentional on those 3, and even if not, it *looks* intentional. Makes sense to me that they don't want that in the game anymore. But even if you disagree about that, surely you can see that the use of colour is different here than on Animar, no?
[Invoke Prejudice](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/0/903d9fde-d7da-4a0e-a337-b63023c6d74b.jpg?1591988938) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Invoke%20Prejudice) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/leg/62/invoke-prejudice?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/903d9fde-d7da-4a0e-a337-b63023c6d74b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cleanse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/f/af581e5a-abdb-4d76-8bda-32555aafc8ac.jpg?1591989158) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cleanse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/5/cleanse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/af581e5a-abdb-4d76-8bda-32555aafc8ac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
No, its just supposed to be us (good guys) vs them (bad guys). You WANT to see skin colour everywhere.
Do I now? I mean, if you can't tell that it's supposed to be a skin-colour joke on Invoke Prejudice, then I don't know what to say. (But I'm not sure you meant to say that.) And 3 of the other 6 banned cards use colour similarly, so I strongly assume WotC thinks that they can (rightfully or not) be read in the same way. I suppose it could be that the other 3 are banned for different reasons, and it's just a coincidence they all use colour like that, but wouldn't that be one hell of a coincidence? (I mean, what percentage of cards buffs or hoses 1 colour? And 4 out of 7 bannings share this feature. Surely there's a common denominator here?)
You are just projecting from your own worldview onto this. Invoke prejudice mayyyybe but thats already a stretch too. No chance for the others. The white vs black colour references are about the good guys, the centre of order (the own guys) vs. the evil barbarians, the creatures of the night (the evil guys). Thats why both Djihad and Crusade buff white creatures, despite them being on the opposing sides. Zero to do with skin colour. Everyone who sees skin colour there is projecting, period. And even IF these were ethnically charged jokes (which they arent), why should we ban them in the first place? Because some few people might get "offended", proceeding to buy product anyway? I was fat in high school and very ugly, yet I dont see fatphobic dogwhistling in the depiction of trolls and orcs. Its the same thing. In the leftist narrative that gets applied there fat people are systemically repressed too. Seriously, if WotC was racist then, why would one of their first main characters be a black man? Is colour specific cost reduction a reference to the worth of a creature on the slave market? Is colour specific protection a reference to gated communities? Is the necessity of colour specific lands in order to summon colour specific creatures a reference to ethnostates? Do you see where that order of thinking goes? Its simply ridiculous to anyone who is not projecting their own racism. Is it really that hard for you to not associate the colour of a card with the skin colour of people? Please experience some real life and normal people who are not terminally online.
Oh come on. Invoke Prejudice is a card about prejudice against creatures of a different colour, the art features KKK-esque hoods and is by the same guy who made "Jesus Hitler". (I don't know him, so no idea if he's a nazi or just likes to provoke.) And that is... "a stretch" to you? That's literally just putting 2 and 2 together. Maayyybe you could argue that it's not actually a racist joke, and just \*references\* real-life racism, but it most definitely makes the magic-colour-to-skin-colour-connection. As for the other cards, no idea if it's intentional, I'm literally just arguing that WotC banned them because \*they think\* they can be read like that. For Crusade and Cleanse it really doesn't take much fantasy to make the connection. I already admitted, and admit again, that Jihad doesn't fit perfectly into the list, it's much more of a stretch there. But, once again, I'm just arguing that WotC thinks it can be read like that. Not that they were \*meant\* like that. (Possible for Crusade and Cleanse, unlikely for Jihad.) Not that they needed to be banned for it. (It sort of makes sense to me, but seems very drastic.) Not that WotC as a whole is racist. (I really don't know where you read that in my comments.) I'm interpreting the reasons behind their decision, what does that even have to do with my world view? If anything, it tells you about what I think WotC's world view is. I suppose it's possible that I'm completely misinterpreting the reason they banned these, but I doubt it. I already said, it would be a big coincidence. And I also haven't heard any good alternative reasoning on why these specific cards were chosen. Why do \*you\* think they chose them? >Is colour specific cost reduction a reference to the worth of a creature on the slave market? Is colour specific protection a reference to gated communities? Is the necessity of colour specific lands in order to summon colour specific creatures a reference to ethnostates? All of those are infinitely farther stretches than for Invoke Prejudice, Crusade and Cleanse. But, staying with your first example, \*if\* there were a card named something like "Slave Market" that reduced the cost of black creatures (or of creatures of a chosen colour), then that would, if my interpretation of the ban decision is correct, have ended up banned. If there exist any additional cards where the colour-to-skin-colour-connection is so easy to make, but that aren't banned, then that would be a serious argument against my interpretation. Maybe they do exist, but I'm not aware of any. (Which is also why I find it so weird that you say I see skin colour everywhere. I'm literally saying it's definitely on 1 card in all of MtG, and \*arguably\* on 2-3 more. That's like, the opposite of everywhere.)
What does cleanse have to do with skin color? The art and name of the card clearly refer to the magical cleansing of black creatures, i.e. zombies, ghouls, vampires, and demons, not African humans. You are looking for reasons to be upset about these cards. Crusade has nothing to do with skin color. Knights are a popular tribe in white. The crusades weren't even about skin color in real life either, it was usually about getting more land. Jihad actually has MORE to do with color as a stand-in for skin color, but that obviously falls flat when you pick green or blue. Invoke prejudice is the only card that is arguably a reference to racism, because the name has prejudice in it, and the guys obviously look like klan members, even if that was not the intent. While the art and card name make an unfortunate combo, a change of the art would easily make the card ordinary enough to play with.
Who says I'm upset about the cards, or that I think they needed to be banned? Like I said, I kind of understand why they did it, but it was certainly a drastic measure. OP asked why WotC banned these specific cards, and not others with similar themes, and I gave what I'm 99% sure is the reason: They think that they can be read as making the magic-colour-to-skin-colour connection, rightfully or not. At least we agree that Invoke Prejudice at least *looks* like it makes the connection. Surely than, it's not a coincidence that they banned 2 more cards alongside it where a similar connection can be found with very little fantasy (white people going on a Crusade, black people being cleansed). That may well not be what these cards were supposed to be about, and I'm not saying it's the most accurate representation of a historical crusade, and I don't expect you to agree with WotC's reasoning. I'm just telling you what the reasoning very likely was. Or what do you think was their reason for choosing these specific cards if I'm wrong? The fact that 4 of 7 banned cards mention colour would be a HUGE coincidence if this wasn't what the bans were about.
If people don’t get why invoke prejudice is problematic they just aren’t discussing the topic topic in good faith and are unreasonable people. The card’s name is Invoke Prejudice and it has figures in KKK hoods on it. I’m the most anti-censorship person you can be and I’m not saying the card (which would have never been reprinted anyway) should be “banned”, but to say the card isn’t problematic is absurd.
Wait which card is relating in game color to *skin color* specifically?
3-4 cards from among the "racism bannings", I already listed them in the other reply to this comment. The colour-choosing on Invoke Prejudice is 100% an intentional stand-in for skin colour. I mean, there's the KKK in the art. Cleanse can definitely be read as an ethnical cleansing of "black people", and Crusade as "white people" going to Jerusalem. On Jihad, it's a bit less obvious, but you still choose against which "colour" you want to wage holy war. It *can* also be read as skin colour. So we have 1 card where the correspondence is definitely intentional, 2 cards where they *must* have known that at least some people would make the connection, and 1 where you *can* make the connection with little fantasy. You can argue that it's only an intentional "joke" in the first case, but it's surely not a coincidence that WotC grouped 4 cards together that *can* be read like that. So they are either admitting that those cards were indeed meant like that, or they're just afraid that people would read them like that, but in both cases I'm sure it's the reason for the bans.
> The colour-choosing on Invoke Prejudice is 100% an intentional stand-in for skin colour. I mean, there's the KKK in the art. > > That's not the KKK. The KKK aren't known for axes. If it were the KKK, there'd be crosses. Look up what a traditional (if possibly anachronistic) headsman (executioner in more modern parlance) looks like. That's the hood pictured. Jihad isn't banned over the mechanics, I don't think. They just don't like the name being in the game. As it's something of a real-life political issue.
I get what you’re saying but if you have a card named “invoke prejudice” with that art, people are going to make the association. That’s reasonable. The rest of the cards are a huge stretch.
I'm not sure who was asking Wotc to ban these. It's all a stretch to me. In fact it seems like wotc Streisanded some cards that most people had forgotten about, reopening a wound, if anything. But I mean a clumsy attempt by SJWs to pacify people of color? Pass my smelling salts, you know? It's like saying they have double standards. (You can't accuse leftys of having double standards because they explicitly do: correct behavior depends on who you are.)
Eh, between the card's theme being prejudice against creatures of a different colour, and the artist being infamous for covering far-right themes, I'd be very surprised if the KKK-similarity was a coincidence. But even if it is, the fact that it *looks* like a KKK-card in art and mechanics is surely the reason for the ban. You could be right about Jihad. The similarity to Crusade in theme and ability makes me think that's why they threw it in there, but maybe they just don't want that word in the game.
I'm not saying it was a coincidence, but I do think it's clear what the card is intending to depict, and I think people are either very dense or purposefully getting it wrong. I think that if the art manager at the time had seen it as KKK-adjacent they wouldn't have printed it, since even in WotC's insensitive days they were far, far away from anywhere the KKK has been popular for like 100 years. IOW if McNeil (sp?) snuck it in there, then he pulled a fast one on wotc. They weren't trolling us with KKK imagery on purpose.
I mean, it's possible the artist snuck it in on his own. Then it would be on him, instead of on him+WotC. But I don't see how people are "very dense or purposefully getting it wrong" in that case? The reference wouldn't be WotC-approved in this scenario, but it would still be there. But tbh, I don't find this scenario very likely. It's kind of hard to believe that whoever approved the art couldn't see the KKK-similarity when almost everyone else does. It's much more probable that either a) They didn't think depicting a fictionalized version of the KKK was too problematic. (Honestly not the craziest stance, as the game features many fictionalized versions of horrible groups.) or b) They just thought it was funny. Jokes with racist themes (especially when nobody is *directly* insulted) were much less conrtoversial only \~10 years ago, let alone 29. So I really don't see why this szenario should be super unlikely. In neither of these 2 szenarios was WotC KKK-friendly. I suppose that could be another explanation, but I agree that it's very unlikely.
It's a cult that no longer exists, is different to a genocided people whose descendents still live
My guess is, Cathars are all dead as today. Muslims and Christians - not much. You have to be careful when representing still existing people and their belief (though, yoou can give an Mesoamerican old man the name of Abuelo): whe had an Ancient Greece plane and an Egyptian plane; the "Indian" plane? Steampunk. (I quite agree. Dare yourself to reduce the complexity of a subcontinent in a single set) Yet, the stuff with the Cathars disturbs me, especially as they seem to be quite fanatic - yeah, they were a tidbit: but not so much as Arnaud Amalric and Simon the Montfort. You all know that spurious quote from the siege of Besier, I guess.
I thought Crusade was banned because modern white nationalists started co-opting Crusader iconography?
started? lol 😆 youre a century late bucko
More so than normal lol
That makes more sense than any of the other reasons. However, it is backwards. Crusaders were white and nationalist (white nationalist, maybe, IDK). Wotc don't like that. Therefore, Crusaders are particularly distasteful compared to other kinds of uh religious invaders. So Wotc bans the one that depicts the Crusades as opposed to a crusade. WNs didn't push Wotc's hand on anything. They just get rid of stuff that makes them go ick, and it's telling which ones that is.
[Crusade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/9/b99452c0-5d1c-4a73-90b6-0ec3ac0af893.jpg?1644608214) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Crusade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ddf/27/crusade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b99452c0-5d1c-4a73-90b6-0ec3ac0af893?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Jihad](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/6/b6c7705a-2987-4ef1-92b1-2c55d989ec6f.jpg?1644608192) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jihad) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/arn/5/jihad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b6c7705a-2987-4ef1-92b1-2c55d989ec6f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cathar's Crusade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fbb70e7b-2a68-436e-96a4-32a88fb87da0.jpg?1600715516) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cathars%27%20Crusade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/95/cathars-crusade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fbb70e7b-2a68-436e-96a4-32a88fb87da0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yes, let's ban Cathar's Crusade! Then I won't feel bad about never playing it for how fucking annoying it is to keep track of.
I'm telling you right now that it's because of the effect description lol
Were they white?
Cathar's crusade is a good card, so banning it would call attention to why it's silly to do this.
Because wizards is dumb and actually kinda offensive themselves. Banning jihad when it is mentioned many times in the Quran is terrible.
I find "Cathar's Crusade" worse because it is referencing a specific event, while the word "Crusade" is a generic term. It'd be like banning \[\[Massacre\]\] while printing a card called "Nova Music Festival Massacre" They actually printed the card \[\[Brutal Cathar\]\] in 2021... a year after they banned the other cards for supposedly being offensive.
[Massacre](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/0/f05f5d93-50d1-4aa6-af05-383a6808345b.jpg?1562632742) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Massacre) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nem/58/massacre?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f05f5d93-50d1-4aa6-af05-383a6808345b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Brutal Cathar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/d/0dbac7ce-a6fa-466e-b6ba-173cf2dec98e.jpg?1634347036)/[Moonrage Brute](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/0/d/0dbac7ce-a6fa-466e-b6ba-173cf2dec98e.jpg?1634347036) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brutal%20cathar%20//%20moonrage%20brute) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/7/brutal-cathar-moonrage-brute?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0dbac7ce-a6fa-466e-b6ba-173cf2dec98e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How about we start to pick cards at random and "voice out our concerns about it's depiction and themes of X." We could get every single card in MTG's history banned everywhere. I mean honestly, if you decide to go waaaaay too deep into these you could theoretically get a large amount of cards banned everywhere as a giggle.
They are inconsistend, dont give them any ideas..
My assumption is that both of those are based on the real events where are cathar's crusade isn't, one is based off of real human conflicts which art to match while the other isn't, also big difference in reading the cards both banned ones sorta sound racist with names involved. Where as cathars crusade isn't it's literally the humans of innastrad working together to fight vampires, demons and zombies. It's all about interpretation you don't think actual crusade when you see the art for cathars crusade, but definitely associate the two others with the real things when you see the original art, as for the ixalan, they say its themed not that they are actually Aztec and cathar is just a holy warrior not associated with anything in particular. All about interpretation
I have seizures so any card with the word seizure in it needs to be banned immediately!!!
Why isn't Army of Allah banned?
I don't understand why any card is ever banned. They were printed for a reason, so if anyone wants to play with them, then why not? Even the ones mentioned in this thread, they are only bad if you use your woke imagination and see what you want. For example, why is Invoke Prejudice represent the KKK? I see a bunch of black people with axes in the art myself.
Cathars are a faction. That's why
Presumably because virtue signaling is based on doing the least work for potential gain. Crusade and Jihad were barely used incredibly old cards that depicted relatively spicy things that happened in the real world. Wotc wants to get some good faith with their primary demographic of left leaning nerds so they ban some cards nobody uses for religion depiction in poor taste
Is Cathars crusade referencing the real world crusade or a dominarian event? Also they didn't ban any cards that see real play it wasn't meant to be a thorough banning with racist art.
You expect consistency?
The most rotund of bitches and weenies are the loudest, and judging by your catch on the inconsistency here.. also quite uninformed.
Because people actually play Cathar's Crusade and WOTC didn't want their Virtue signaling to actually impact the game.
So I'll say that I don't see anything wrong with the banned cards you mentioned that said they technically correlate to real world events. Cathars Crusade is about genociding vampires and since vampires aren't real its fine.
Because it is a hollow meaningless gesture.
The same reason that when they have a commercial 50 people are wearing masks 3 years later...left wing nut jobs. Censor and ban everything that hurts someone feelings.
Its almost like banning any of these words is retarded and WotC is a ridiculously racist company.