MTG thread

Are you still drunk from Christmas eve? Your questions don't even make sense.

They went after 'very few people' because they were the ones they coulddirectlylink to the source of the leak. You are trying to say that they 'persecuted'this group because they couldn't ban everyone on reddit? Are you off your meds?

Great to see you bring the same hyperbole to MtG discussion that you do to all topics on this forum. Rofl.

Pretty sure the crime is the guy who actually leaked it and probably violated an NDA. The rest of the folks caught 3 month bans for being involved in multiple leaks since March.

And did you just try and trash me for my tuconets? Haha.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Lol at thinking colorless mana is necessary because of Sol Ring confusion over a decade ago.

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Yup, that's exactly what I said.

Drtyrm_sl said:

They went after 'very few people' because they were the ones they coulddirectlylink to the source of the leak. You are trying to say that they 'persecuted'this group because they couldn't ban everyone on reddit? Are you off your meds?

Great to see you bring the same hyperbole to MtG discussion that you do to all topics on this forum. Rofl.

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Not sure how they directly linked the one guy to the leak in the group who hadn't even logged in to Facebook in three months.

Drtyrm_sl said:

The rest of the folks caught 3 month bans for being involved in multiple leaks since March.

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This is just what I'm talking about Bergerot - she doesn't say this and she certainly doesn't provide any examples and zero evidence. But the thing you're now saying is being propagated around the internet ie claims these guys have been leaking stuff time and again. What she says is :

"this group had access to confidential information not once, not twice, but multiple times, at least since March this year."

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She also accuses the group of leaking information this one time when it wasn't the group, it was one member of the group. With the actual source of the leak being a WotC employee.


MTG Focus - Helene Bergeot interview on recent leaks and suspensions : magicTCG

R: (Interrupting) I know that you can't say what the source was, but can we safely assume that the person responsible was reprimanded inside of Wizards?

H: "I think I was specific enough that we identified the source of the leak and then we took internal disciplinary action." That is the source of leak. There is then a second group, that made it public to a large group of people, to the rest of the internet, this is the group that got the multiple years suspension.The third group just received this information on multiple occasions.

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I don't know how to make it any clearer than that. The 3 month suspensions were from that third group of people with knowledge of an ongoing source for spoilers.

H: "There status as judges was not used to determine the type of infraction." "However, when we got the report from the investigation team, we had do decide about the penalty. We discussed a reduced penalty because they were actively contributing to the community. The original proposal [this is within Helene's penalty committee] was actually reduced for this reason." "The penalty was made lighter because we wanted to recognize that they were contributing to their local community."

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So they actually caught a break because they were judges and 'contributing to the community'.

I also don't understand your request for evidence from WotC? They don't provide evidence for any other DCI suspensions right?

It doesn't say they leaked information there, which is what you and many others are asserting. It says they received information.

As said above one guy hadn't even logged in to Facebook in months, yet got banned because he is a member of this Facebook group.

Look, the problem is wotc banned a few too MANY people. They wanted to bring the hammer down and send a message. So, they erred on the side of banning anyone with access to the channel. Now, I can sort of understand the logic. They are saying that this group leaked spoilers multiple times in the past, prior to the last 3 months that that one guy hasn't logged into facebook. So, the small bans aren't just due to this recent leak, it's for previous ones as well. At least, that's what they are trying to infer.

The community's issue is that they came down TOO hard, and with insufficient evidence, especially since it's not commonly know that failing to report a potential leak is grounds for a ban. If all the other people in the channel just got a 3 month ban, effectively a slap on the wrist to send the message that they should have reported the leak source, then that's not that bad really. But, I thought some of the guys in the channel got 1year + bans just for being in the channel/group, which is excessive.

Basically, Wotc needs to be a little more clear on who got banned and for what in this instance, because the community is operating under some contradicting information.

a_skeleton_03 has it right here. All this means is that future leaks will be posted anonymously to Reddit/imgur first because WotC threw the equivelant of a corporate temper tantrum.

The best part? The bannings have nothing to do with the leak that actually mattered: The entire expeditions and mythics in Oath of the Gate watch bring leaked. Kozilek and Wasteland being leaked early isn't a big deal and WotCs marketing should have been able to roll with it like WB did when Suicide Squad leaked. The mythics/expeditions being leaked is much harder for marketing to roll with.

I should also add that, in a lot of ways, this is the final straw breaking the camel's back. Judges are generally treated like shit by WotC considering everything they do.

Check with Heylel. The 3 month bans were for being a member of the group that had seen spoilers since March and did nothing about it. The super hammer came down on like 2 people that were directly involved with the leaker.

Remember this is the guy who doesn't even like competitive MTG at all and has a chip on his shoulder about disliking judges.

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Also, thanks again a_skeleton_03 for putting even more words in my mouth. Never let your desperate need to win an internet argument stop you. You forgot to mention my poor Tuconets/Post ratio as well.

The spoilers since March thing really has me pissed off. You know what they'd had "since March"? Imgur links, just like you, me, and everyone else. Links that had hundreds of views by the time they were ever linked in the chat. WotC is using the fact that the same chat channel had discussed previous leaks *just like everyone else* as evidence of some kind of ongoing conspiracy. This is not some kind of tut tut, you should have known better thing. There's no ongoing conspiracy. Ubernostrum on reddit, the same judge who controls JudgeApps, has been arguing pretty strongly since the beginning that WotC is very careful about their messaging around this. They tell you something definitive, like that a leak happened, and then surround it with a bunch of statements that are incredibly vague but designed to lead you to a specific conclusion. "Access to leaks since March" makes it sound like they were engaged in a long-term campaign to leak MTG cards. You know who else had access to leak since March? Anyone else on the Internet. It's a meaningless assertion.

I listened to Helene's interview the day it hit, and it really did not impress me. Nothing about this distinction between public and private viewing links makes any sense or is enforceable. WotC's stance, based on that podcast, is that they can suspend anyone for any reason at any time and you're welcome to appeal once they do.

Xalara_sl said:

a_skeleton_03 has it right here. All this means is that future leaks will be posted anonymously to Reddit/imgur first because WotC threw the equivelant of a corporate temper tantrum.

The best part? The bannings have nothing to do with the leak that actually mattered: The entire expeditions and mythics in Oath of the Gate watch bring leaked. Kozilek and Wasteland being leaked early isn't a big deal and WotCs marketing should have been able to roll with it like WB did when Suicide Squad leaked. The mythics/expeditions being leaked is much harder for marketing to roll with.

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And the giant leak still hasn't been tackled at all. WotC's strategy here appears to be "make an example of whoever we can pin this to." They haven't gone out of their way to clarify that distinction. The only reason people know is because some of the affected judges have stated it.

Everyone has appeals in and is just waiting out the holidays for WotC to return to the office. Hopefully we'll know quickly in January if it has any effect.

Drtyrm_sl said:

On the other hand, I've yet to see any of the punished folks respond to the spoilers since March fact that has been stated by WotC. It's a lot harder to claim 'I thought they were fakes' when there had been previous spoilers leaked to your chat group beforehand.

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From assorted cjshrader posts on reddit:

"I know at least one of them never saw any spoiled cards, fake or otherwise, in the chat. A "thorough investigation" probably should have discovered that. They were IN the chat, yeah, but almost never checked in."

"It's a Facebook chat for coordinating the SE region, you don't generally kick people out. We didn't realize it was our responsibility to police WotC's IP, and, in most instances, leaks never went beyond our chat. They only got out once.
My only point here is that wording is intentionally vague as to make it sound like they can pin every leak over the past year on us. That isn't true."

"Yeah, most of us didn't every circulate a leak, and we're suspended just the same. Also only one leak came from our chat despite the vague wording to the contrary."

"No, we discussed all kinds of spoilers in the chat. Some were real, some weren't. Kozilek and Wastes was the first time it was real and apparently leaked out of our chat though."

"We're staying a little close-lipped right now despite WotC giving us no chance to defend ourselves and saying all these things about us, but rest assured I have never spread the leak of a Magic card. This line has made me...miffed."

"Yep, all I'm saying is it sounds like we're accused of more than one leak (as in, a card going public before it should). That simply isn't true.
To touch on your earlier point, this FB chat generates approximately 1000 messages a day. We are vocal. Quite a few people in the chat don't log in daily, or even weekly, and just pop their heads in from time to time to say hello. They don't read all the old messages, and any time we discuss a spoiler (Whether it's from imgur or Facebook or through a friend or wherever) that's merely a small portion of one day's discussion. It is entirely reasonable that a person could miss every spoiler we discuss. And I know for a fact this is true of at least one person, but I suspect more than one."

"I can actually guarantee that 4 people never saw Kozilek and Wastes while in the group, though I can't prove that anymore with the way that FB chats work."


If you want the context of all those statements, search his username on reddit. I just thought it was worth showing you that yes, they have acknowledged it. Most of the affected judges haven't made any kind of public statement at all. CJ is an outlier in that he has interfaced with reddit a little bit.