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3.11.2014

GP Richmond 'Crackgate'

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Our apologies for the late day post folks but as it was just so damn nice outside today, we spent most of the day outside working.  That unfortunately will all be changing as an area of low pressure is working itself from Kansas up north past the Great Lakes to dump another wallop of winter on us near Toronto.

Anywhoos - we wanted to yatter about the exciting constant state of flux in this very exciting game of Magic: the Gathering.  Specifically, how our local meta game has evolved strategies towards more control from earlier aggro iterations and how we, through some recent card singles purchase from MTG Mint Card, we were going to try our luck with our take on Naya Auras. That topic has now changed now as Magic: the Gathering has hit a LOT of social media outlets - and not in a very good light.  Here's how things rolled out . . .

We saw this tweet from Helene Bergeot (whom by-the-way we think most highly off and cannot say enough of her tireless efforts for our gaming community), Director of Global Organized Play for Wizards of the Coast. 
We had thought at the time that this reminder was as result of some unsportsmanlike conduct which took recently at Grand Prix Richmond.  We now realise that this may have been tweeted likely due to what Redditor OB1FMB had posted - essentially a 'photo diary' of him posing with gamers whose pants were hanging a titch too low on their backsides.  Within a day, this story has spread across the interwebs - from videos posted to YouTube to Chive and many others.


If you didn't know, we've got three kids (most of 'em teenagers now) and they had quite a few laughs - which may be quite easy given some of the witty comments on Reddit and other places.  At the end of it all, we thought on to the Magic: the Gathering brand and could see how this sort of thing is growing a negative stereotype and not growing a community.  We think we agree most with what @CardboardNirvan had to say, quite eloquently in this tweet . . .

Where do you stand?  Pop a comment in below.
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5 comments:

  1. Call me insensitive, but I think MTG events are places I should be able to go without risking having to see sweaty butt cracks all day while smelling nothing but BO. I think this negative publicity may be the catalyst needed to get some people to clean themselves up

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  2. Honestly, as things go, he didn't show faces, name names, or show anything that they weren't showing everyone on the floor. It was mean, yes. He probably deserves at least a bit of a punishment for this.

    But still, if they weren't OK with showing off their butt cracks, there's a simple solution: a belt. Or a piece of rope, even. It went viral, and what of their cheeks they were showing off to hundreds became tens of thousands. But they were still exposed that much to hundreds.

    I dunno, am I blaming the victims here? They've been embarrassed on a internet-wide stage here, and that's cruel. But it's not like they'll be recognized by anyone except their friends in the future. Especially if they pull their pants up.

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  3. What he did was quite inappropriate, but they wouldn't be risking humiliation if they would just pull up their pants. Crack is a huge problem at tournaments, and I wish I didn't have to be exposed to seeing it. Maybe crackgate will cause players to be more conscious of the issue and check themselves as they sit down

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  4. where do i stand? i stand in pants that fit. mean? yes. needed? definitely.

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  5. Magic is a game of extreme skill and tests each and every one of a wizard's powers - no holds barred. Humiliation, shame, and defeat are all risks you take when you enter a Magic tournament.

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