Imagine having a racists in a fantasy world where creatures of different species, races and confessions are constantly killing each other. That sounds crazy!
Its hard to grasp any usefull information as people don't put the same ammount of time in the game. For example, even the best player in the world won't achieve top 50 Master without investing 8h/day at least. On the other side, there are plenty of casuals who fills lower tier ranks by playing for just a few days and then never touching the game again.
But if you want an estimative, i'd say Gold is average, Platinun is above average, Diamond is elite and Masters should be around 5% of all active accounts.
I don't play too much rank but I got to silver quite quickly in about 3 hours(from iron) so you need to put quite a lot of time to climb even to gold, I think also many players have "ladder anxiety" just as I do a lot of players don't even touch ranked.. so saying 5% of the playerbase is masters is saying too much in HS 5% of the play base were diamond 5+(equvalent of old rank 5) in that star system with win streaks..
The answer is that.. it depends on how the LP system actually works.. we need stats from Riot and they will release it probably at some point.
I don't think Blizzard ever told the reason, people just noticed it about...2-3 patches ago? Can't remember if they even mentioned it in the patch notes. The new name does fit the art better, but I'm not sure if the change was necessary anyway.
(For those that can't remember, Pharaoh's Warmask was previously called Ramkahen Roar.)
I amazed some of those cards even got released.. sure some cards are not that bad, but cleanse is just outright the most racist I ever saw a card be.
I thought to be mad about those cards being "unjustly censored" but actually wtf.. those cards are too much really.. it's not like the blood censorship in HS that had little reason to be censored (Cause of SOME religions feel offended about blood ... really? IDK even which is that religion), why the card game even has cards with those names.. crusade? jihad? why? guess the creativity dies at some point while making cards for 20 years.
Actually Crusade was part of the first release of the game as a card and Jihad of first expansion (both released 1993).
hmm just looks weird to mix religious wars in card games, IDK maybe it's some theme to be had there, that being said I never played M:TG so I might not get the theme of the card game as a whole.. I mean in HS it's all about WOW.. in M:TG it seems all over the place as far as cards go, lately I saw some zombies and undead expansion so it is a fantasy world of sort, so why go as far as to use real religious war terms?
I think just those 2 cards feel weird, (not the effect give all white creatures +1/+1.. I now realized there is a same card for black creatures.. and that card is fine?) , I don't like them being in a fantasy world card game that's all.
I changed my mind looking at the context of M:TG cleanse is actually an ok cards as black creatures are demons/undead so it makes sense, people taking it too far to be offended if they don't know what's the game is about.
I think the whole "black discrimination" is very hypocrite cause when it's said about white people it's fine.. if "kill all white" exists then it's fine for the politically correct.
I might have missed something, but what is the reason the quest reward of Unseal the Vault is renamed? Or does someone have the link to the information ^^.
I commented on cards specifically in response to Alfi below, but I also want to make a wider point about this kind of act by WotC or any other company/government/etc.
To everyone who was never offended by these cards and never became racist because of them, these moves can seem unnecessary and almost like hopping on the band-wagon just to improve reputation. But while that cynical viewpoint has a shred of validity to it, it also completely misses the point.
The statue of a slave trader
I grew up in Bristol, UK, where a week ago protesters tore down a statue of a prominent slave trader who left much of his wealth to the city when he died, hence why there was a statue of him. People had been kindly asking for its removal for decades, but while the city council was publicly sympathetic it was never removed. The council would say things to the effect of "it's important to not censor the past when it is not actively hurting anyone today", which is basically the same argument as you might have for not banning the cards in MtG.
In the end the simple presence of the statue told people the city is not ashamed enough of its involvement in slave trading to do something as trivial as take down the image of a slave trader. When it finally came to the public tearing it down themselves the police chose not to stop them and the mayor even said he wasn't at all upset about it. So if no one had a problem with it, why did it not happen beforehand?
Diversity and museums
It is clear to me there are 3 types of people:
Those who do find this material offensive,.
Those who don't find it offensive but also disagree with the possible racist messages and connotations.
Those who agree with the possible racist messages and connotations, and may use their public presence as justification for their views.
Importantly all 3 types of people still exist, and racist imagery is only harmless to those in category 2. Thankfully there are places racist imagery belongs without being censored: museums and history books. People should absolutely learn about the crusades, the slave trade and the Nazis, but only in a way that rightly puts it in the past. What we shouldn't be doing is keeping this imagery in public life in a way that suggests it is still part of modern society, because if you do that it will be part of modern society.
The better question
Does this all mean these MtG cards should be banned? I'd answer that with another question: what do we lose if the cards are removed or replaced with something mechanically the same but without racist connotations? Given the historical background is still readily available in places like museums and Wikipedia: nothing but a risk of a few people finding false justification for racist beliefs.
I amazed some of those cards even got released.. sure some cards are not that bad, but cleanse is just outright the most racist I ever saw a card be.
I thought to be mad about those cards being "unjustly censored" but actually wtf.. those cards are too much really.. it's not like the blood censorship in HS that had little reason to be censored (Cause of SOME religions feel offended about blood ... really? IDK even which is that religion), why the card game even has cards with those names.. crusade? jihad? why? guess the creativity dies at some point while making cards for 20 years.
Actually Crusade was part of the first release of the game as a card and Jihad of first expansion (both released 1993).
I’ll start with a disclaimer: I don’t play a whole lot of battlegrounds, therefore my analysis might be flawed.
Anyways, Pirates are great fun! I love both the economy and the buff-when-attacking synergy.
But especially the later is causing some problems imo. Late game pirate builds snowball so incredibly hard from their first attack, that any comeback is very difficult. Attacking second in a mirror is a guaranteed loss. Not only that, you oftentimes lose by a lot because the buffs keep coming. The same goes for the parrot-deathrattle build to a certain extend. Without a huge divine shield - taunt you are basicly Toast In this meta, after losing the coin flip of attack initiative.
How are your experiences? Have you found a way around that?
The word 'Jihad' being considered offensive is a strange lean into recognising american anti-islamism and preventing offense by not taking a stance. The art is actually very nice for it's attention to detail in the armour and headdressing on the horses.
White started out as the colour of fantasy crypto-abrahamists, which were standard for fantasy of the time. King solomon is also in the arabian nights set, and plenty of cards have quotes from the Qur'an for flavour text.
Not sure about the crusade ban, but it's probably a run-off of the general desire to steer clear of the 'deus vult'-posting crowd.
Harold McNiell's art is obviously suggestive of the klan, and I understand why that would be removed.
You forgot about all the censorship that happened in Hearthstone as well.
Still waiting for that un-nerfed Jaina, doubt it'll happen
I haven't, but, unless I am mistaken, certain hearthstone artwork got changed only because it showed too much female skin/body. Yu-Gi-Oh! is well known for its massive censorship of its cards due to one thing or another.
I amazed some of those cards even got released.. sure some cards are not that bad, but cleanse is just outright the most racist I ever saw a card be.
I thought to be mad about those cards being "unjustly censored" but actually wtf.. those cards are too much really.. it's not like the blood censorship in HS that had little reason to be censored (Cause of SOME religions feel offended about blood ... really? IDK even which is that religion), why the card game even has cards with those names.. crusade? jihad? why? guess the creativity dies at some point while making cards for 20 years.
Its hard to grasp any usefull information as people don't put the same ammount of time in the game. For example, even the best player in the world won't achieve top 50 Master without investing 8h/day at least. On the other side, there are plenty of casuals who fills lower tier ranks by playing for just a few days and then never touch the game again.
But if you want an estimative, i'd say Gold is average, Platinun is above average, Diamond is elite and Masters should be around 5% of all active accounts.
Its always slightly amusing to me how the entertainment industry is always reacting to world events by washing away all hints of cultural/gender/religious/political themes in their product so everything is as safe as it can be in a vain hope of keeping all sides happy and free from potential boycotts.
I'm a little curious. Does these industry even care enough to ask minorities if they are even slightly offended by depictions, themes, and images of what can only be a sliver of resemblance (if at all) to what they are or practiced?
The entertainment industry is strangely coming close to the disney romance where all minorities are universally adapted into heroic positions while all villains are as absurdly generalized as possible from any racial/religious hints.
+1
I also don't mind historical references in (card) games, as, I believe, those could be used for informational reasons. Like, depicting or just hinting such events could kindle the curiosity of some individuals and they could decide to inform themselves more about those events (I know, that I would). That's why I would be really interested in seeing such design more often, but I guess not all people are open-minded and some can take those things personally. And, tbh, I don't blame them. A person has to be very careful how they approach such design - for example, it should be clear that the designer doesn't sympathize with the illustrated mistreatment and they are just making an innocent reference. But I guess this might not be possible, as everyone interprets those references in their own way and those could still find a reason to get offended no matter how innocent or well presented the said reference is.
Btw, you probably know this, but censorship is something very common for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, so for me it's not really surprising how Wizards decided to do the same to their own game.
Honestly, I find it more offensive that WotC apparently thinks that their Players are made out of Paper and that their poor Minds can't handle these Themes.
Also, no Matter the Context, censoring Art is always wrong.
Given the title of the thread, i believe other reputable members won't even bother to answer as it does seem like a BIAS rant, which usually don't generate any productive discussions.
But if by chance you are being serious, there are plenty of other cards that are just as powerfull that will win the game by themselves with very little counterplay in expedition: Warmother's Call, Commander Ledros, The Harrowing and even Captain Farron which is considered a joke in constructed, can potentially close games you are already winning.
Pay attention to that last part: close games you are already winning.
While i agree with you Unyielding Spirit can feel very opressive to play against when we are losing, given it takes away all hope for a comeback (as every other card i've listed), it should amost never win games we are ahead outside some crazy combo with a big Lifesteal unit.
Also, for your information, at the moment there are no broken cards in the game. Riot is doing a great job so far on the balance subject.
This post actually made me laugh :) ...if it was April today, I would be 100% sure that this is just a joke
Especially the Cleanse and Crusade - oviously there are exactly the same effects in black color (Virtue's Ruin for example) but those are fine, no racism there. But there are so many effects like this - the whole philosophy of colors in MtG is that there are enemy colors and white and black happen to be one of those enemy colors, so obviously they have effects targeted against each other. I really don't think this ban has to do anything with the images (at least in case of those 2 cards) so I don't understand why they ban just those two. White is a color which is always against black in MtG, so I think Wizards should just ban all white cards, that makes sense, right?
Black is in reference to the color of mana of the creatures (think of them kind of like the classes of Hearthstone). In total there’s 5 colors, red, white, black, blue, and green.
I dont play MTG myself, but something tells me that 2 of those colors are going to be changed to purple and bright pink, colors that doesnt come anywhere remotely near resemblance to human skin tones at present.
Cleanse's artwork depicting demonic creatures, and not humans of any race, would mean that card's problems are in the combination of the word 'cleanse' and destroying blacks, which is problematic given the foul racist idea that black people are unclean.
As for Crusade, the crusades were a European religious endeavour that, so far as I ever saw in England, no one is ashamed of. Of course no one would support them these days, so I'm sure the 1000 year gap has something to do with the lack of shame. Were they racist? Yeah, they were actively anti-Islam. My understanding is that they were trying to reclaim the holy land rather than directly trying to wipe out Islam, but at the same time I would be amazed if most of the soldiers involved wouldn't have done so if they had the means to.
The even more religious Jihad just should never have been made in any form. Jihads are things that are very poorly understood by most in the West because we only hear the military side and then rarely seek to understand them better than the media's limited portrayal. Add to that the card's text, which in context basically says "choose which colour you want to wage a race war against", and yes you have a stupid design.
I'm pretty sure 'gypsies' is an offensive derogatory term, which incidentally has its origins in the country name Egypt which is itself a misunderstanding of the people it labels.
'Stone-throwing devils' is apparently a racial slur, albeit one I had never encountered personally. I'd guess it relates to the practice of stoning as a punishment, but I won't comment further because I am clearly not qualified to.
Then the easy ones are Invoke Pejudice -> KKK, and Imprision -> black slave, which is wearing a black mask to make it even worse.
Off-Meta Hearthstone Decks Highlighting Some Underused Saviors of Uldum Legendaries
Thanks Frosty! I do must say I play the quest regularly, but never noticed the name of the HP was changed until now..
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Imagine having a racists in a fantasy world where creatures of different species, races and confessions are constantly killing each other. That sounds crazy!
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
The whole trope/concept of white representing good and life versus black representing evil and death is becoming problematic in many games.
Rank popularly stats. Where are they?
I don't play too much rank but I got to silver quite quickly in about 3 hours(from iron) so you need to put quite a lot of time to climb even to gold, I think also many players have "ladder anxiety" just as I do a lot of players don't even touch ranked.. so saying 5% of the playerbase is masters is saying too much in HS 5% of the play base were diamond 5+(equvalent of old rank 5) in that star system with win streaks..
The answer is that.. it depends on how the LP system actually works.. we need stats from Riot and they will release it probably at some point.
Off-Meta Hearthstone Decks Highlighting Some Underused Saviors of Uldum Legendaries
I don't think Blizzard ever told the reason, people just noticed it about...2-3 patches ago? Can't remember if they even mentioned it in the patch notes. The new name does fit the art better, but I'm not sure if the change was necessary anyway.
(For those that can't remember, Pharaoh's Warmask was previously called Ramkahen Roar.)
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
hmm just looks weird to mix religious wars in card games, IDK maybe it's some theme to be had there, that being said I never played M:TG so I might not get the theme of the card game as a whole.. I mean in HS it's all about WOW.. in M:TG it seems all over the place as far as cards go, lately I saw some zombies and undead expansion so it is a fantasy world of sort, so why go as far as to use real religious war terms?
I think just those 2 cards feel weird, (not the effect give all white creatures +1/+1.. I now realized there is a same card for black creatures.. and that card is fine?) , I don't like them being in a fantasy world card game that's all.
I changed my mind looking at the context of M:TG cleanse is actually an ok cards as black creatures are demons/undead so it makes sense, people taking it too far to be offended if they don't know what's the game is about.
I think the whole "black discrimination" is very hypocrite cause when it's said about white people it's fine.. if "kill all white" exists then it's fine for the politically correct.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
ya Cleanse is a big Yikes 😬
Off-Meta Hearthstone Decks Highlighting Some Underused Saviors of Uldum Legendaries
I might have missed something, but what is the reason the quest reward of Unseal the Vault is renamed? Or does someone have the link to the information ^^.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
I commented on cards specifically in response to Alfi below, but I also want to make a wider point about this kind of act by WotC or any other company/government/etc.
To everyone who was never offended by these cards and never became racist because of them, these moves can seem unnecessary and almost like hopping on the band-wagon just to improve reputation. But while that cynical viewpoint has a shred of validity to it, it also completely misses the point.
The statue of a slave trader
I grew up in Bristol, UK, where a week ago protesters tore down a statue of a prominent slave trader who left much of his wealth to the city when he died, hence why there was a statue of him. People had been kindly asking for its removal for decades, but while the city council was publicly sympathetic it was never removed. The council would say things to the effect of "it's important to not censor the past when it is not actively hurting anyone today", which is basically the same argument as you might have for not banning the cards in MtG.
In the end the simple presence of the statue told people the city is not ashamed enough of its involvement in slave trading to do something as trivial as take down the image of a slave trader. When it finally came to the public tearing it down themselves the police chose not to stop them and the mayor even said he wasn't at all upset about it. So if no one had a problem with it, why did it not happen beforehand?
Diversity and museums
It is clear to me there are 3 types of people:
Importantly all 3 types of people still exist, and racist imagery is only harmless to those in category 2. Thankfully there are places racist imagery belongs without being censored: museums and history books. People should absolutely learn about the crusades, the slave trade and the Nazis, but only in a way that rightly puts it in the past. What we shouldn't be doing is keeping this imagery in public life in a way that suggests it is still part of modern society, because if you do that it will be part of modern society.
The better question
Does this all mean these MtG cards should be banned? I'd answer that with another question: what do we lose if the cards are removed or replaced with something mechanically the same but without racist connotations? Given the historical background is still readily available in places like museums and Wikipedia: nothing but a risk of a few people finding false justification for racist beliefs.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Actually Crusade was part of the first release of the game as a card and Jihad of first expansion (both released 1993).
Attack initiative in BG
Hey all,
I’ll start with a disclaimer: I don’t play a whole lot of battlegrounds, therefore my analysis might be flawed.
Anyways, Pirates are great fun! I love both the economy and the buff-when-attacking synergy.
But especially the later is causing some problems imo. Late game pirate builds snowball so incredibly hard from their first attack, that any comeback is very difficult. Attacking second in a mirror is a guaranteed loss. Not only that, you oftentimes lose by a lot because the buffs keep coming.
The same goes for the parrot-deathrattle build to a certain extend.
Without a huge divine shield - taunt you are basicly Toast In this meta, after losing the coin flip of attack initiative.
How are your experiences? Have you found a way around that?
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
I was always a fan of the arabian nights set.
The word 'Jihad' being considered offensive is a strange lean into recognising american anti-islamism and preventing offense by not taking a stance. The art is actually very nice for it's attention to detail in the armour and headdressing on the horses.
White started out as the colour of fantasy crypto-abrahamists, which were standard for fantasy of the time. King solomon is also in the arabian nights set, and plenty of cards have quotes from the Qur'an for flavour text.
Not sure about the crusade ban, but it's probably a run-off of the general desire to steer clear of the 'deus vult'-posting crowd.
Harold McNiell's art is obviously suggestive of the klan, and I understand why that would be removed.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Cleanse states "kill all black creatures" while being something "good" like cleansing.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Why is cleanse racist? Or undead things now is a race?
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
I haven't, but, unless I am mistaken, certain hearthstone artwork got changed only because it showed too much female skin/body. Yu-Gi-Oh! is well known for its massive censorship of its cards due to one thing or another.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
I amazed some of those cards even got released.. sure some cards are not that bad, but cleanse is just outright the most racist I ever saw a card be.
I thought to be mad about those cards being "unjustly censored" but actually wtf.. those cards are too much really.. it's not like the blood censorship in HS that had little reason to be censored (Cause of SOME religions feel offended about blood ... really? IDK even which is that religion), why the card game even has cards with those names.. crusade? jihad? why? guess the creativity dies at some point while making cards for 20 years.
Rank popularly stats. Where are they?
Its hard to grasp any usefull information as people don't put the same ammount of time in the game.
For example, even the best player in the world won't achieve top 50 Master without investing 8h/day at least.
On the other side, there are plenty of casuals who fills lower tier ranks by playing for just a few days and then never touch the game again.
But if you want an estimative, i'd say Gold is average, Platinun is above average, Diamond is elite and Masters should be around 5% of all active accounts.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
You forgot about all the censorship that happened in Hearthstone as well.
Still waiting for that un-nerfed Jaina, doubt it'll happen
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
+1
I also don't mind historical references in (card) games, as, I believe, those could be used for informational reasons. Like, depicting or just hinting such events could kindle the curiosity of some individuals and they could decide to inform themselves more about those events (I know, that I would). That's why I would be really interested in seeing such design more often, but I guess not all people are open-minded and some can take those things personally. And, tbh, I don't blame them. A person has to be very careful how they approach such design - for example, it should be clear that the designer doesn't sympathize with the illustrated mistreatment and they are just making an innocent reference. But I guess this might not be possible, as everyone interprets those references in their own way and those could still find a reason to get offended no matter how innocent or well presented the said reference is.
Btw, you probably know this, but censorship is something very common for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, so for me it's not really surprising how Wizards decided to do the same to their own game.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Honestly, I find it more offensive that WotC apparently thinks that their Players are made out of Paper and that their poor Minds can't handle these Themes.
Also, no Matter the Context, censoring Art is always wrong.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
this is just stupid.... it's a card game
Completely Broken Cards
Given the title of the thread, i believe other reputable members won't even bother to answer as it does seem like a BIAS rant, which usually don't generate any productive discussions.
But if by chance you are being serious, there are plenty of other cards that are just as powerfull that will win the game by themselves with very little counterplay in expedition:
Warmother's Call,
Commander Ledros,
The Harrowing and even
Captain Farron which is considered a joke in constructed, can potentially close games you are already winning.
Pay attention to that last part: close games you are already winning.
While i agree with you Unyielding Spirit can feel very opressive to play against when we are losing, given it takes away all hope for a comeback (as every other card i've listed), it should amost never win games we are ahead outside some crazy combo with a big Lifesteal unit.
Also, for your information, at the moment there are no broken cards in the game.
Riot is doing a great job so far on the balance subject.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
This post actually made me laugh :) ...if it was April today, I would be 100% sure that this is just a joke
Especially the Cleanse and Crusade - oviously there are exactly the same effects in black color (Virtue's Ruin for example) but those are fine, no racism there. But there are so many effects like this - the whole philosophy of colors in MtG is that there are enemy colors and white and black happen to be one of those enemy colors, so obviously they have effects targeted against each other. I really don't think this ban has to do anything with the images (at least in case of those 2 cards) so I don't understand why they ban just those two. White is a color which is always against black in MtG, so I think Wizards should just ban all white cards, that makes sense, right?
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
I dont play MTG myself, but something tells me that 2 of those colors are going to be changed to purple and bright pink, colors that doesnt come anywhere remotely near resemblance to human skin tones at present.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Cleanse's artwork depicting demonic creatures, and not humans of any race, would mean that card's problems are in the combination of the word 'cleanse' and destroying blacks, which is problematic given the foul racist idea that black people are unclean.
As for Crusade, the crusades were a European religious endeavour that, so far as I ever saw in England, no one is ashamed of. Of course no one would support them these days, so I'm sure the 1000 year gap has something to do with the lack of shame. Were they racist? Yeah, they were actively anti-Islam. My understanding is that they were trying to reclaim the holy land rather than directly trying to wipe out Islam, but at the same time I would be amazed if most of the soldiers involved wouldn't have done so if they had the means to.
The even more religious Jihad just should never have been made in any form. Jihads are things that are very poorly understood by most in the West because we only hear the military side and then rarely seek to understand them better than the media's limited portrayal. Add to that the card's text, which in context basically says "choose which colour you want to wage a race war against", and yes you have a stupid design.
I'm pretty sure 'gypsies' is an offensive derogatory term, which incidentally has its origins in the country name Egypt which is itself a misunderstanding of the people it labels.
'Stone-throwing devils' is apparently a racial slur, albeit one I had never encountered personally. I'd guess it relates to the practice of stoning as a punishment, but I won't comment further because I am clearly not qualified to.
Then the easy ones are Invoke Pejudice -> KKK, and Imprision -> black slave, which is wearing a black mask to make it even worse.