The Commander bans last week made a lot of MTG players very angry, and seemed to invoke a tirade of abuse from a subsection of fans – much of it flung at people who had no part to play in the decision or were actively positioned against it. Now, Magic: The Gathering’s head designer has asked the game’s community to “be better” in a blogpost about the impact of angry online messages.
“I don’t know if people really process the harm they’re doing when they get negative online, especially towards another person,” he writes, in a post on his Blogatog blog published September 28. “Most people do not have the years of processing angry messages like I do,” he adds.
He says those wanting to vent or complain about an MTG banlist change or any other aspect of Magic should make it about the decision not the person behind the decision and watch their language. Above all, his point is that getting nasty on the net has a real, negative impact on people.
“Community is what we as individuals choose for it to be. One of the things I love about the Magic community is how kind it can be, how accepting it can be, how uplifting it can be. But that’s because we each individually choose to do that. The Magic community can get ugly, but only if we allow it to become so.”
Members of the Commander rules committee who made the decision to ban Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Mana Crypt (seems like no one mourned for poor Nadu) certainly saw the ugly side of the community last week, as petitions were made calling for them to be fired.
Presumably due to the messages she was receiving online, RC member Jim Lapage broke from the policy of not discussing votes to reveal that Olivia Gobert-Hicks was the only dissenting voice on the banlist. On Twitter he wrote, “If you hate the bans, she was your voice in the room.” Lapage himself has now set his account to private.
Members of the CAG (Commander Advisory Group) that exists to assist the rules committee and provide a broader range of opinions have revealed they weren’t consulted on the Commander banlist update, but – at least at first – this didn’t spare them from fans’ hurt feelings and smarting wallets.
Several members of the group have now resigned including Josh Lee Kwai from The Command Zone, though whether this was due to the unwarranted attacks, personal feelings on the bans, or the fact they were left out of the process altogether is unclear.
For more Magic: The Gathering content check out our MTG release schedule guide or our list of every MTG set ever released in order.
Source: Wargamer
