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Wizards of the Coast to retire 7 Magic The Gathering cards because of racism

royox

Member
Today, we will be changing the multiverse ID and removing the Gatherer card image for the card Invoke Prejudice, originally printed in 1994. The card is racist and made even worse by the multiverse ID it was unfortunately codified with years ago. There's no place for racism in our game, nor anywhere else.

But to that point, it should never have been published nor placed in the Gatherer. And for that we are sorry. The events of the past weeks and the ongoing conversation about how we can better support people of color have caused us to examine ourselves, our actions, and our inactions. We appreciate everyone helping us to recognize when we fall short. We should have been better, we can be better, and we will be better.

To that end, we will be removing a number of images from our database that are racist or culturally offensive, including:

Invoke Prejudice
Cleanse
Stone-Throwing Devils
Pradesh Gypsies
Jihad
Imprison
Crusade
Replacing those card images will be the following statement:

"We have removed this card image from our database due to its racist depiction, text, or combination thereof. Racism in any form is unacceptable and has no place in our games, nor anywhere else."

Additionally, these cards will be banned in all sanctioned tournament play.

There's much more work to be done as we continue to make our games, communities, and company more inclusive. Know that we work every day to be better and that we hear you. We look forward to sharing more of our plans with you as our games and organization evolve.

Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/depictions-racism-magic-2020-06-10

The cards being:
kyvxhfcaxztsyriyzd7e.jpg

cekbctmpmdopxiwfjrd4.jpg
ec1s1ucpuffbdz6v8avk.jpg
imprison-96662-medium.jpg
hlzb7tubtf75cmhhceq8.jpg
xjemzjt33dst52abstvo.jpg
d0ximfcj1ncaex9znxb0.png



All I see is a Marketing Campaign to remind people Magic still exists, there's absolutely no point of talking about those cards that haven't been used since 1995 or even before.
 
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royox

Member
What am I missing with the stone throwing devils one? What’s the racist part to that?

Could be the muslim-like building behind them?
I'm more concerned by the Cleanse one. I don't see literally anything wrong except the text saying "destroy black creatures" lol
 

Shouta

Member
Could be the muslim-like building behind them?
I'm more concerned by the Cleanse one. I don't see literally anything wrong except the text saying "destroy black creatures" lol

I think the fact it's also a White Card probably has to do with it for Cleanse. Invoke Prejudice and Jihad are along those lines. Crusade kinda too but that and the others aren't nearly as clear.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Is there any card that grants +1 something to all black creatures? Or it is only for white creatures?
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
8f8a75da-ea3c-43e7-9d32-1c92f8ec0fd2.jpg
paragon-of-open-graves.png



By the new standard, this card also should be banned as it's literally "cards not like this gets -1/-1"
picture.php



And this is the counterpart of the Cleanse card, guess it will be banned too?
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Well shit than why they are doing this? It's not like there is only white privileges cards in the game...
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
I bet 99.999999999% of MTG players don't care.

They only did this in case some Twitter keyboard warrior who never heard of the game went searching in the card database for anything racist to try to cancel the brand on Twitter.
 

Faenrir

Member
Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/depictions-racism-magic-2020-06-10

The cards being:
kyvxhfcaxztsyriyzd7e.jpg

cekbctmpmdopxiwfjrd4.jpg
ec1s1ucpuffbdz6v8avk.jpg
imprison-96662-medium.jpg
hlzb7tubtf75cmhhceq8.jpg
xjemzjt33dst52abstvo.jpg
d0ximfcj1ncaex9znxb0.png



All I see is a Marketing Campaign to remind people Magic still exists, there's absolutely no point of talking about those cards that haven't been used since 1995 or even before.
I can understand about Jihad and Crusade but Cleanse makes no sense. Black is the color that represents death, rot, decay, etc. usually demonic creatures, vampires and such so it makes sense.
If cleansing monsters is racist...err people are making weird assumpations about a word that does NOT mean afro american or "of african origin".
Chances are it is indeed just a publicity stunt anyway :)
Else they'd have to rename the black color to something else and reissue tons of cards.
 

Echelon

Member
Are they changing all Black cards to Black Lives Matter cards too? You know, just to fully embrace the performative wokeness.
 
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Jooxed

Gold Member
I’m sorry maybe I’m an idiot but none of these make sense to me and there were literally opposite cards for everything listed. I played a lot of magic when I was younger.

Next if you play a swamp deck you start with 10 more life. Give me a break.
 

Mossybrew

Gold Member
Since these cards haven't been printed in like 20-something years this really changes nothing, but I guess they want to get in on the signaling too.
 
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Amory

Member
by calling cards like "Cleanse" racist, you're literally making them racist. Who does this help?

Black in MTG is the death/evil/pestilence/malevolence color. The card implies cleansing evil, not killing black people. Unless WOTC is trying to say that killing black people was what was meant the whole time?

We've lost the plot. I'm never someone to say something as cringey as 'fuck the world' or whatever, but the world seriously fucking sucks now.
 

Sejan

Member
Sure, Gypsies, Prejudice and Jihad clearly have some issues. With that said, most of these cards have been out of print for so long that they probably would have been best left forgotten. This movie is nothing more than pandering to get people to notice them. They are hoping that by addressing their "racism" they'll sell a few more packs.
 

Amory

Member
Did they really review every white and black card for anything that could seen as racist in this context?

That's so weird.
they definitely didn't, which is why this is doubly bizarre.

like if they really want to open this can of worms and start arbitrarily selecting old MTG cards as 'problematic' and 'racist', why not just start with the whole concept of black being the evil color? would that be any more stupid than what they're doing here?
 
I’m sorry maybe I’m an idiot but none of these make sense to me and there were literally opposite cards for everything listed. I played a lot of magic when I was younger.

Next if you play a swamp deck you start with 10 more life. Give me a break.
We must be racist sacks of shit because I don't get it either. The gypsies one isn't OK because of the word I guess, but the rest?
 
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8f8a75da-ea3c-43e7-9d32-1c92f8ec0fd2.jpg
paragon-of-open-graves.png



By the new standard, this card also should be banned as it's literally "cards not like this gets -1/-1"
picture.php



And this is the counterpart of the Cleanse card, guess it will be banned too?
7854928a-d467-4616-b96b-de7e5fe7303e.jpg

Now this makes it really stupid. Just leave it well alone, it was already balanced. Is there more than just black and white cards e.g. green, red, blah blah blah.

I've said it before, George Carlin is rolling in his fucking grave man.
 
Yesterday during timpool irl thye have a 20 minutes segment all abnout this. Tim mention he is goign to made the most racist deck ever lol

 
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Ogrebushi

Neo Member
Oh gods other than the invoke predjudice which while kinda sketchy i mean its not endorsement here no more than we'd tell someone to hit someone with a fireball or lightningbolt (mind you isnt lightning bolt gone now too.. im and old ass player)
The stone throwing devils one from what i can decipher is such a reach that -nothing- is safe.
I'm not 100% sure but looking around other comments (since the only results of stone throwing devils is said card and the bans articles with no information), is that it could be a slur towards muslims since theres a tradition of "Stoning of the devil" but the whole flavour text even is the christian "let he without sin"
Of course this kinda has me digging around at cards again .. hmm wonder if i can find someone to atually give me the ~12$/beta land i could use the 250$

Also quick looking wonder if this will survive for the same reasons cleanse got nuked
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