A particular trend is starting to catch the attention of the wider MTG community. Wizards of the Coast has been trying to modernize Magic: the Gathering to make it more socially acceptable to modern social norms. MTG has a 30-year history, and what has been considered socially acceptable and unacceptable has changed a lot over this time period. As a result, some cards and art nowadays may be deemed inappropriate. An example of this was seen with the recent spike in old Earthbind cards in relation to its controversial artwork.
As 2023 begins to roll in, these controversial banned cards seem to be disappearing from some major vendors. Players are beginning to notice that eBay, in particular, is taking down MTG card sales left and right. Different sources are reporting various reasons for this. Still, one thing seems to be consistent between all the information gathered so far: these socially unacceptable MTG cards may become very difficult to acquire.
What ‘Banned’ Cards are Being Affected?
Banned cards have various meanings in the MTG community, so, to make things clear, the MTG community is not referring to cards commonly banned in constructed formats like Oko, Thief of Crowns, or Time Walk. We are specifically looking at cards that Wizards of the Coast has deemed inappropriate for current social expectations. A more recent addition to this list is the Earthbind card discussed above, labeled controversial for its artwork. Notably, only the original cards flagged for inappropriate social content seem to be affected by this event, not the ones addressed in the controversial 30th Anniversary Edition reprinting.
However, these MTG cards depict some rather… dated ideas. The following cards have been banned from sanctioned play for depicting ideas no longer considered acceptable:
- Invoke Prejudice
- Cleanse
- Stone-Throwing Devils
- Pradesh Gypsies
- Jihad
- Imprison
- Crusade
As stated in the Wizards of the Coast article discussing these bans, “We have removed this card image from our database due to its racist depiction, text, or combination thereof. Racism in any form is unacceptable and has no place in our games, nor anywhere else.”
What do Sales Look Like?
You can still find listings of these socially inappropriate MTG cards on eBay, but sellers have been using techniques to avoid their products being delisted. Generally, these mean altering the name somewhat in the listing. The first example of Jihad has an extra H. The Crusade listing pictured has an added ‘s’ at the end, and Pradesh Gypsies are using various different terms. That said, there are still a lot of normal listings for some of the cards, particularly Crusade and Invoke Prejudice. These all, however, appear to be quite recent listings.
There are also reports of MTG sales with the word ‘proxy’ in their names being affected. This is reportedly, having an unfortunate effect on the MTG card from The Brothers’ War named Arcane Proxy. That said, only half of these listings have altered names like the picture shown above, so while the altered listing suggests some of these cards are being removed, it does not seem universal. While listings for most of these cards are at a minimum, you can still find listings that use these cards’ real names.
Read More: MTG Arena Is Getting Even Better for Free-To-Play Players
Player Reports
Among smaller Reddit threads discussing this is a larger one on MTGFinance. Many eBay sellers report the issues they’ve been having trying to list these controversial collectables:
“I’ve had multiple listings up for banned cards. Nearly all of them have been removed by eBay in the last 2 weeks.” – pick_one_4me
“Can’t even properly list Arcane Proxy because of the dumb filter. You can’t list Cathars’ Crusade, but Cathars’ CrusadeS is just fine. Really stupid filtering system.” – Dogsy
In terms of whether players are happy about these changes or not, its safe to say that, while addressing the social concerns brought up with these cards is a good thing, there is a party unhappy with how difficult these cards may be to acquire in the future:
“This is so stupid. I’m not in the market for any of these cards so i wouldn’t have noticed unless it was brought up. I get why these cards are kinda touchy and why WotC doesn’t want them to be part of the face of modern day magic. But wiping them out from people who are even actively looking for them on a sales platform just seems so dumb.” – First_Revenge
