Racist Magic: The Gathering Cards Banned, Removed From Database By Publisher (polygon.com) 324
On Wednesday, Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast took unprecedented measures to remove racist cards from its game. Seven cards in all, dating back to 1994, are now banned from play. Their images will also being removed from the game's official online database. Polygon reports: "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," Wizards said in a statement. "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." The list of now-banned cards is: Invoke Prejudice, Cleanse, Stone-Throwing Devils, Pradesh Gypsies, Jihad, Imprison, and Crusade.
One card in particular, Invoke Prejudice, was singled out. It shows a hooded executioner with a black axe. "If opponent casts a Summon spell that does not match the color of one of the creatures under your control, that spell is countered," says the card. It effectively kills off creatures that don't look like the creatures already on the table. Gatherer, the official online database of every Magic card ever published, displays the card at a web URL ending in "1488," numbers that are synonymous with white supremacy. All cards will be replaced online with a note that calls out their racist depictions, text, or a combination thereof.
One card in particular, Invoke Prejudice, was singled out. It shows a hooded executioner with a black axe. "If opponent casts a Summon spell that does not match the color of one of the creatures under your control, that spell is countered," says the card. It effectively kills off creatures that don't look like the creatures already on the table. Gatherer, the official online database of every Magic card ever published, displays the card at a web URL ending in "1488," numbers that are synonymous with white supremacy. All cards will be replaced online with a note that calls out their racist depictions, text, or a combination thereof.
Mmmmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
I love the smell of moral panic in the morning.
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Re:Mmmmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I looked over those cards and none of them are racist. It's especially laughable when they say cards that refer to white or black creatures are racist when it's in reference to good and evil, not skin colour.
It's also extremely arrogant, controlling and freedom-hating for them to claim "There’s no place for racism in our game, nor anywhere else." If someone wants to be racist or prejudiced (everyone is, though some aren't honest or brave enough to admit it), then they are free to be. Having freedom means accepting that others won't necessarily hold the same views and values.
Re:Mmmmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, almost no one in the world associates 1488 with anything.
Huh?! It is widely known as a common RS232 driver. The 1489 is the receiver. Sure, the Maxim charge pump chips have probably become more popular, but the 1488 is an iconic part of RS232 history.
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How exactly? I hear this a lot but I don't see much empirical to support this claim. I ask as a "black" person from the US.
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Does it matter that one of the cards being banned was drawn by a known white supremacist? If anything they acted way too late.
Look up Harold McNeil
https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a... [coolstuffinc.com]
http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.... [blogspot.com]
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That linked content accuses Harold McNeil of being a racist but doesn't have any evidence to support those claims. Even the out of context quotes that they copypasta'd aren't remotely racist.
Sorry, but I don't just believe things because some attention-seeking, perpetually faux-offended, instigating SJW nutjob said so. Provide solid proof or shut the fuck up.
Re:Mmmmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, everything is racist.
IF you don't believe everything is racist, that's because you're racist.
IF you argue with me, you're a racist.
Don't worry, you're still a racist even if you agree with me.
Just admit you're a racist. If you don't admit it, its because you're a racist. By admitting your a racist, you're still a racist, just a slightly better one.
See, wasn't that easy?
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There is only one race on this planet, the human race, I recognise no other races, only one race, the human race (sure psychopaths can be considered to be a parasitic subspecies but even they are not a race). I am not a racist, I only recognise one race on this planet, the human race, I see no others and hence I can not be racist against anyone.
Just to be clear, my gender is Bungil, my preferred pronoun cheeky bastard and my skin colour changes from winter to summer, so I vary from brown to off white depend
Re:Mmmmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
GP also points out that "everything is racist". It's coming to that... We're being told to be on the alert for racism everywhere and all the time. And if people look for racism everywhere, they will find it, even if it isn't there.
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It's like if you step on someone's foot by accident.
No, it's like being asked to apologise for insulting someone and their ancestors, because you passed them on the left on the sidewalk. Or maybe it was because you used the word "recognition"... You can't really tell anymore, these days.
Has anyone outside of the massive shitfest of Twitter ever actually told you that?
Oh yes. Supposedly authorative people on TV and in the media. And in the mandatory lecture on diversity and inclusiveness at work.
GP also points out that "everything is racist". Which is stupid histrionics.
It is fast becoming less of a joke... precisely because "We're being told to be on the alert for racism everywhere and all the time". which
Re:Mmmmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm actually of the opinion that we're all mostly racist: we make decisions in a snap second that have to do with the colour of someone's skin. I can't remember who, but a black celebrity was on some news program (on CNN, I think, maybe 5+ years ago?) saying that even HE had been conditioned to not trust other black men. He would shy away from them on dark streets, he was distrustful of other black men in hoodies, even if they weren't doing anything suspicious or ominous.
I'm racist—I'll own it. I'm just not complacent about it. I actively challenge my own internal narrative when I notice it, I certainly try to pay attention more during times like these when black people are pointing out how racism affects their daily lives.
I don't understand why people can't just be a little calmer about this. You don't have to be lynching people to be a racist. Structural racism pervades our society and it's all been taught to you over time, and that can be hard to shake off. You also aren't *necessarily* a terrible person if you have racist thoughts—if you think you're mostly a good person and you try not to discriminate against other people based on their ethnicity (or religion, though I know that's not racism per se), just admit to yourself that it was a bad thought to have and try to work it out.
Nobody's actually asking for perfection, if you think they are, maybe ponder that for a bit. In all likelihood what they're asking for is pretty reasonable. Don't say overtly racist things, don't call the cops on black people for having a BBQ, don't say that slavery was a lie and blackface is fine. Just, like, try.
Re:Mmmmmmm (Score:4, Funny)
He was very much in favor of infrastructure development, a campaigner for animal welfare, a vegetarian, and strongly anti-abortion.
Animal welfare activists, vegetarians and pro-life campaigners today respond to this by absolutely insisting that Hitler could not possibly have ever supported their causes because... well, Hitler!
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Remember for all the bad that Hitler did, he had the redeeming quality that he did in fact kill Hitler.
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Yeah, but he also shot the guy who killed Hitler.
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After a tyrannical dividing force (TDF) is conquered, the harder part is reunification.
Some people join the this TDF because they actually believe in its ideals. These are the most dangerous ones who usually will get locked up.
Some people join TDF because they were influenced by the propaganda. These are not necessarily bad people but got fed bad information. They often can be reeducated.
Some people join TDF to limit its damage. They are often in high positions but try to moderate the worst of the worse.
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The value of that card just went through the roof....
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, imagine that "executioner" colored in white
But it's NOT colored in white. Now we are banning stuff based on what we could IMAGINE it to be if we altered it?
Re: RTFA (Score:2)
And what would the druids now wear?
Re:I'm not exactly sure (Score:4, Interesting)
Speak of the SS uniform, it is both black and it has gay porn fetish written all over it. Both of those things represent minority empowerment. Perhaps the protestors should consider wearing it as a sign of progressivism. That wouldn't be any different from how the LGBT community adopted the pink triangle, which itself is rooted in Nazism.
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I trust you can show us these alleged record and this hyper-racist blog.
Re:Ok, I know this is gonna be hard (Score:5, Interesting)
but ask yourself... why isn't he colored white?
Probably because an executioners hood was almost always black?
Maybe that would be a bit much even for 1994? Maybe an editor (or the artist) changed it to obscure the origin?
The origin of what?
Because the alternative is that the artist & editors were so clueless they didn't realize that a pointed hat an an executioner in America means KKK. Go watch this [youtube.com] for an epic example of that in practice and a detailed explanation of why it's a bad thing (tm).
Riiiight. Cuz we've seen so many instances of KKK in black hoods wandering around with 6 foot poleaxes.
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Are you suggesting that the KKK (presumably the reason this card is "problematic") were socially acceptable 26 years ago?
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's a card that's called Invoke Prejudice and the imagery is obviously attempting to call attention to the KKK. It works because the KKK is a defacto prejudiced institution. The card isn't attempting to recruit people into the KKK or claim the KKK is a great and moral organization, it's playing to the stereotype of them as the bad guys. This is akin to banning a WW2 movie because it depicts Nazis. Yes, times have changed - and the biggest change is that people are so used to having their thoughts fed to them in bite-size tweets and headlines that they have forgotten how to look for or understand nuance in lieu of just reacting to immediate emotion.
you got to be kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:you got to be kidding (Score:5, Funny)
just wait for nonbinary chess
Chess is not long for this world (Score:5, Funny)
just wait for nonbinary chess
Chess is not long for this world. A game based on white attacking black.
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And of course, the white guys get to move first.
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Cool thing, originally chess had either color going first. The players were free to choose either color when they went first. The most popular color was black, because it was considered good luck.
When the starting color was randomly picked and black won, wasn't that opening moved called "defense"? So we still have the white attacks black metaphor?
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When the starting color was randomly picked and black won, wasn't that opening moved called "defense"?
No, the defense is played by the player who moves second. So if white moved second, then the white player was playing defense.
Incidentally, the pieces weren't standardized until the 1800s, with Howard Staunton. Chess clocks and some rules like en passant were standardized then, too. George Washington had a chess set that was red and white. [pinimg.com]
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Wouldn't Chess be even more racist if black got to move first?
Black is the aggressor and white is only defending itself!
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Re:you got to be kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
pretty sure their hair would catch on fire if they got a peek a my Fat Albert collectable cards... hehe
Seriously though, racism is only a problem when people think it's OK. Attempting to hide it, bury it, expunge it from the records, or pretend it never happened just begs the Streisand Effect, and then you get the impressionable (like oh say, KIDS, playing with CARDS) go exploring on their own to dig up the mystery, and have to try to figure out what's right and wrong on their own because nobody is allowed to talk about it...
Most kids believe that adults hide "the good stuff" from them. Do you really want your kids to think racism is GOOD? idiots. Hiding things is never the answer. Education is the only answer. Don't hide stuff from your kids, talk with them about it. Have an interesting, informative, thought-provoking conversation with them. They're going to think about it, with or without you. You'll all be much better off if you're a part of the conversation.
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This dude's slashdot ID ends in a number associated with white supermacists, I think we need to ban him as well.
Also, anyone whose ID ends in the digits 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 is clearly a white supremacist and needs to be banned in order to Signal our Virtue.
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They should at least put their money where their mouth is; Randomly banning cards from tournaments rings crappy... If these cards are so bad, then they should have to recall these individual cards and ask customers to turn them in to be destroyed and exchanged with a replacement card that has the same in-game value.
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"So they didn't ban "Bad Moon" - Enchantment , Black creatures get +1/+1."
No they didn't. And they didn't ban 100 other cards that give white creates +1/+1 either.
Its not simply the effect; but the names... e.g. "Crusade", "Jihad", etc combined with color and imagery. Plus most were REALLY old, before MtG was entirely its own universe -- and the earliest sets ... "Arabian Nights" in particular is a little more connected to the real world so allusions are a little more direct.
I don't really agree with this m
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And if anything this whole fiasco gives the cards/images far more power than they had before..
Right. Of all people, the MtG folks should know how rarity affects price.
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It's named Invoke Prejudice and has people wearing what equates to black KKK robes. It doesn't actually matter what the card itself does for that alone to be considered offensive to some people.
Actually it looks more like a Grim Reaper https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q... [duckduckgo.com] only with a battle Axe instead of a sickle
Next . . . chess is racist (Score:2)
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So is checkers and Go. And so are pianos. (Score:2)
Pianos have black and white keys. And there is that one song about Ebony and Ivory?
<Sigh> (Score:3, Interesting)
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And so it goes. I wonder what's the next company to signal its virtue? I'm amazed at just how fast companies can turn on a dime and raise their woke flag.
Live by the sword of capitalism, die by the sword of capitalism. Companies need customers, and if enough of their customers think racism is bad, then they need to act on that.
If you don't like it, try communism where the government mandates the companies and they don't have to bend to the whim of their customers. Or communism where free speech is banned so
Begone Satanic Magic Cards! (Score:2)
Every religion eventually has its book-burning phase.
So what are prices for cards doing on Mt Gox? (Score:2)
Are players destroying these cards? (Score:2)
easy money (Score:2)
Master/Slave (Score:2)
So when do we start to update our various programming models from the Master/Slave model to a more politically correct and socially acceptable model? Or will I be forever TypeCast as a racist for using such unWoke methods of interactions within my software?
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Yesterday? https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/10/1922255/tech-terms-face-scrutiny-amid-anti-racism-efforts
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Kohai Senpai
Help me out here... (Score:2)
Some of these cards I can see the 'racist' part (if you squint really, really hard and are easily offended), but... stone throwing devils? Is this a racial stereotype I've missed all these years?
"Yeah, you know how them there darkies like throwing them stones around!"
WOTC are hyporcrites (Score:2)
Mandatory watching of Blazing Saddles (Score:4, Funny)
There's not even a victim (Score:2)
So definitely let them stay.
The effect of that spell was a cool one, the victim are card creatures of fire, water, air, land or earth right?
I assure you they don't care or suffer.
Horseshoe theory got something right (Score:3)
I fail to see any racial offence ... (Score:3)
We have to stop over associating racial sensitivities, I'm almost surprised that we haven't dropped coloured labels from colours. Maybe the very existence of the colour "black" is enough to show how long we've have entrenched racism, of course we have to ignore "white", because it's the most racist / xenophobic colour of all (even though both are shades).
Companies strive for broad appeal (Score:3)
Here's the thing:
* Companies try to be as broadly appealing as possible, so they can have the widest possible customer base, and thus have the most profit.
* Corporate policy tends to track center-left-leaning policy because both seek to be as broadly appealing as possible.
If MTG did not do this, a disinformation could be launched against them on social media, which would reduce their profits. "MTG is racist!" would be the cry, and racism currently attracts a lot of attention. MTG's appeal and thus profit would be reduced.
It's interesting how and why social media can be used for pressure and disinformation campaigns.
Net result of this - some about-to-be valuable cards.
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- 50's Red Scare / Reefer Madness
- 60's ??
- 70's ??
- 80's Satanic Panic / Dungeons and Dragons / Metal
- 90's Rap lyrics panic
- 00's ??
- 10's Pepe Frogs
- 20's (so far) literally everything is racist, Police Panic
1946 Disney's Song of the South.
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70's Radical Commie Hippies
00's Owning a firearm designed after the year 1903
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2020 Commie hippies take off the mask?
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- 50's Red Scare / Reefer Madness
- 60's Sexual revolution
- 70's Halloween candy tampering / violence in video games / war on drugs
- 80's Satanic Panic / Dungeons and Dragons / Metal
- 90's Rap lyrics panic / Y2K
- 00's Violence in video games
- 10's Pepe Frogs
- 20's (so far) literally everything is racist, Police Panic
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Violence in video games was mostly a 90's affair, it largely started after Night Trap (there multiple congressional hearings about that one, despite how tame it really was) and then again when Mortal Kombat came out.
Y2K wasn't a moral panic because it wasn't about morality, instead it was just another doomsday prediction like 2012 or that stupid clock.
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you boneheads cant think of anything that happened in the 00s?
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you boneheads cant think of anything that happened in the 00s?
Not that would be politically correct to mention
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The Waltz. The 1820s I believe.
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Are "black" axes racist now when the spell is "prejudice" because it bans a particular "color"?
I think you're missing the pointy hooded robes.
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The BLACK pointy headed hood? Are we just going to ban all colors of pointy headed robes outright in imagery because it might be construed as a KKK outfit?
Re:I'm sorry - this is damn stupid (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, the artist is known to be rather racist, and this is considered to be pretty damn intentional on his part. He proudly sells a Jesus Hitler painting on his website, if you want to know just how racist.
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Re:I'm sorry - this is damn stupid (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't actually know it at the time. He did the art for them in the early 90s, before the internet was a way to look people up. He did art for them for a few years, and they dropped him permanently when they found out about this stuff.
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What about deliberate invocation of evil ideas? (Score:2)
Personally, if you look at MtG as a whole, you'll see that it often invokes outright evil ideas for its cards. Especially for "Black", which is used for its connotations of death, not skin color.
For example, even the white cards will sometimes imply people going a little too far into concepts of purity.
"Invoke Prejudice", at least to me, seems to be a deliberately negative connotation to it. Perhaps useful to the immoral immortal planeswalker using it, but there you go. Just like some of the black spells
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Wrong. (Score:2)
Why on earth would banned cards go up in value? Their rarity hasn't increased, meanwhile they now only have value to collectors, everyone else who only buys cards to play the game won't be able to sell them for shit.
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Because racists didn't know they existed before. My LGS had people buying these cards as soon as the ban was announced, and not by anyone who looked like they played the game.
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My LGS had people buying these cards as soon as the ban was announced, and not by anyone who looked like they played the game.
Then they are stupid. The ban has made exactly zero copies of this card disappear, meanwhile these cards are banned from game play which means they have zero value to anybody but collectors. On top of that, the best of those cards in modern game play (they're all cards from Magic's infancy) are mediocre at best. Fact is, before this ban almost every one of those cards were only valuable to collectors anyways. They'd only ever be good in junk decks built for fun and that would never be competitive among comp
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Oh, I'm banking on it. I'm selling my copies now while the nuts are buying, and plan to buy them back in a year or so after they crash. (Or not if they don't go back down - no real loss, I'm OK missing another card or two from those sets.)
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Sensible. Within a year they'll be dust in the wind. I'm not even sure why you'd want to buy them back. The only cards that have real value from those early sets are the ones that have value in modern game play and most of them do not have that.
Re: This is non the Onion (Score:2)
Re: This is non the Onion (Score:2)
For 1488, the 88 is a reference to the "heil hitler" salute ( H is the 8th letter of the alphabet) and 14 is a reference to a prominent neo-nazi slogan with 14 words in it. Obviously though MTG wasn't thinking about this when numbering the card.
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https://www.eliteprospects.com... [eliteprospects.com]
Miroslav Satan (yes, real name) was the 666th player in the NHL and thus, entered into a creepy coincidence.
People who don't believe in coincidences have a tough time with this one.
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There's coincidences, and then there's co-incidences.
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That's because black is dark, and darkness is often associated with criminal or evil behavior. "The dark side". "Black magic". "The dark web". The list is endless.
The association of darkness to evil has existed since well before written history, and I dare say it might even predate when humanity spread far enough around the globe for the divergent coloration we see today to visibly emerge.
Re:Warning: Slippery Slope (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it really funny how racist this move is by Wizards of The Coast. These cards were created by following historic perceptions that have nothing to do with race. White has always represented illumination, which itself has always represented knowledge and the filling of emptiness. Black has always represented the lack of light, and therefore emptiness. This has always been logical, because it mirrors nature (where there is no light, there is darkness).
Darkness, the lack of illumination and knowledge, has always been associated with bad things. This general apprehension of bad things therefore manifested in storytelling, where light and knowledge were desirable, and the opposite was undesirable. This inevitably resulted in white being good and black being bad.
Now come the racists who assign this perfectly logical symbolic progression to skin color, while simultaneously claiming to not be racist. I find the whole thing rather amusing.
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White has always represented illumination, which itself has always represented knowledge and the filling of emptiness. Black has always represented the lack of light, and therefore emptiness. This has always been logical, because it mirrors nature (where there is no light, there is darkness).
In European culture. Other cultures had different ideas. Islamic scholars didn't see it that way, Chinese scholars didn't see it that way.
Anyway, there is nothing wrong with discarding old ideas that we decide no longer fit our modern morals. Clinging to the past is what holds us back.
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I mean ... they paid for the cards? Then they're being told they can't use them? How is being pissed that the thing you bought for a purpose that is then expressly forbidden to be used by the company you bought it from entitlement?
I don't care either, but your view point makes no sense to me.
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It happens regularly, mostly because they decide one card is too powerful so withdraw it from official use.
You can of course still use it with your own house rules.
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Meta Wooooosh
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Obviously you are dog-whistling. Or something.