People shouldn't downplay his crime at all, he's committed a horrible act and as far as I can see he makes no effort to hide this. But there are two sides to the coin here. What happened to rehabilitating criminals into society? If I stole an apple 20 years ago (I was 8 at that time), does that mean I'm still a thief now? How about if I stole said apple 10 years ago? People do change and reform, and to punish someone for a crime committed (and dealt with) over a decade ago is insane.
He's a PAST Rapist. He committed the crime. Is he likely to rape someone again now? I have my doubts. Even so, if he was such a risk, surely it wasn't up to WOTC to punish him further - it would be the police who would be onto him in no time.
The only reason WOTC got on his case was because a SJW-wannabe decided his e-peen could do with some stroking, so he brought up these facts and went on a campaign to get him outed for the public. WOTC's reason for banning Zach was "To protect our players/to make them feel safe". FROM WHAT? Statistically speaking, there should be at least ten other convicted rapists among the somewhat regular tournament goers. Not to mention pedophiles, thieves, and god knows who else. Is WOTC going to protect us from them too? Or is WOTC only going after those that get hounded by "white knights"?
Has he done a disgusting thing? Oh yes. Would I be happy to be paired against him with that knowledge? Probably not. But I didn't need to know this. Sure, perhaps I could google his name and figure out on my own, but who the hell googles all their tournament opponents?
This post seems a bit unhinged, but I'm just genuinely baffled at some of the responses here. So let's try a TL;DR:
- He's done a heinous crime which should NEVER be downplayed, as has also been specifically stated in the OP.
- He's done jailtime for it and spent years without his civil rights as a result.
- Drew Levin should have never posted about this on Twitter and deserves to be banned himself for causing this massive uproar. As well as breaking three specific examples of the USP ruling:
Player takes action towards one or more individuals that could reasonably be expected to create a feeling of being harassed, threatened, bullied, or stalked
E. A spectator uses social media to bully another player.
If the offense was committed with malicious intent, the player displays no remorse, or the offense is repeated at a later time, the penalty is upgraded to Disqualification and removal from the venue.
- We need not know our opponent's backgrounds. As long as they're currently law-abiding citizens, who cares?
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Jul 3, 20159
Cyan posted a message on Zach Jesse BanningFor people trying to defend Patrick Chapin here: He did not go to jail for USING drugs. He went to jail for SELLING them(largely heroin). And he would STILL be in jail if not for the fact that the main witness against him died(from an overdose) before Chapin went to trial. If Zack Jesse's behavior warrants a ban, then there is no question that Chapin's did as well.Posted in: Debate
Ultimately, WOTC can do literally whatever they want. But they handled this as poorly as possible. In particular, banning him from MTGO is just a joke. From what I've been able to find online(re: what Zack Jesse did), we are talking about one isolated incident that occurred while Jesse was drunk, and it occurred over a decade ago. He served his team(which was only 3 months to begin with) and has had no problems with the law since. People have to be allowed to move on from their past mistakes. The reason that we have such a high rate of recidivism in the US in criminals is precisely because no one ever wants to let anything go. Jail can rehabilitate people, when handled properly. It is pretty clear in Zack Jesse's case that it DID rehabilitate him.
The person that I am most disgusted with in all of this is Drew Levin. He literally went digging into Zack Jesse's past to find this, and then made a ridiculously big deal out of it when absolutely no one else knew about it. It was a complete non-issue. His behavior here is despicable.
Does any of this excuse Jesse's behavior? Of course not. But he has already served his sentence. The idea that he was declared fit to enter back into society and given a clean bill of mental health, but..somehow he's not fit to play Magic..is complete nonsense. -
Mar 31, 20151
General_Mills posted a message on [[Official]] General Discussion of the Official Multiplayer BanlistPosted in: Commander Rules Discussion ForumQuote from soldier_of_yawgmoth »Ok your first two reasons are just opinions. I for one think that tucking someones commander always felt kind of cheap. This is a format based around building a deck with a particular legendary creature at the helm, which you are supposed to always have access to. I for one like to build my deck around my general, to try to use his ability to its fullest and create a theme that way. A deck that functions just fine without the general or doesn't even need to play it is most likely just a good stuff deck. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with having good stuff, I just think its more fun to have a theme and try to expand on that, rather than having a toolbox of staple cards.
Also maybe the ban list needs to get larger. It has been known that there are some generals that just cause a problem and really the only justification for not banning them in the eyes of some was "well you can just play tuck to take care of them". Now with that excuse out of the way, we can make some progress in getting rid of some of the more unfun generals because essentially, this format is about having fun and not a cutthroat competition.
1. Commenting that someone's reasons are "just opinions" and then immediately following it with your own opinions and believing yours somehow have more credence takes cojones.
2. If you build a deck that completely folds if it's missing a single card, then you built a bad deck. Period. This is true in EVERY FORMAT in EVERY TRADING CARD GAME EVER. There are supposed to be downsides to building an extremely powerful but narrow deck, and one of those downsides is that if the deck is so narrow that it needs a single card to function at all, you lose. Changing this rule ensures that this is no longer the case. There is no longer a single downside to building ultra-narrow commander-based decks beyond becoming the Archenemy of your playgroup, and there are plenty (possibly even most) of us who don't have a defined playgroup to where that would actually matter.
3. You can build a deck with a theme that the commander supports and heavily reinforces without the commander having to be the lynchpin of the deck's success. Zenana/Dracogenius/Sydri/Jarad don't have to come down at all in their respective decks but all benefit heavily from the themes I've given those decks (+1/+1 counters/spells+draw/artifacts/dredge). Even my Nekusar and Narset decks, which both rely pretty heavily on the commander, can survive without them because I've built redundancies in for each of them. That's how deck building works.
4. At no point in any game should a person rationally desire a larger banlist. If a person truly values diversity, that person should want as many options open to them as possible. Banning should only be used as an absolute last resort when all other alternatives have been tried. Eliminating one of those alternatives to then immediately ban multiple other things is asinine to the extreme.
5. Do you have any idea how many generals immediately cross over into auto-banworthy without tuck? I fully expect Derevi, Prossh, Maelstrom Wanderer, Sigarda, and Narset to be tossed immediately, and Skullbriar (as a card with literally no answers anymore) should be in the discussion as well. After that I wouldn't be surprised to see any Voltron general with strong protections (Uril and Animar are the first two I thought of, but I'm sure there are plenty of others) as well as any combo general (Maralen of the Mornsong/Zombie Sidisi are the obvious ones) get the axe. So now we're talking what, 9+ DECKS that get banned out of existence because a few people don't want to learn how to build resilient decks? How is that any healthier for the format? -
Oct 11, 201067
Megiddo posted a message on Club Flamingo ☆ Exclusively for Custom Card Connoisseurs and Great PeoplePosted in: Custom Card Contests and GamesCLUB FLAMINGO
Check Near the End of the Thread for the Current Challenge
Remember: Use IIWs for all challenges
Quote from Little_Money
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it's Megiddo's club we just post in it.
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Use any criteria you want for the judging! It's up to you (and sometimes me)! If you can't be bothered, use the below rubric.
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Sep 16, 20142
Waiting in the Weeds posted a message on [[Official]] General Discussion of the Official Multiplayer Banlist"HEY! I thought black Braids was banned!"Posted in: Commander Rules Discussion Forum
"No, she's only banned as a commander, you can play her in the 99"
"Oh"
And that's about as far as it goes. If this was done for simplicities sake, they need to do a lot more changes. So many questions are brought up by new players about
-command zone: tucking, whether or not they hit the graveyard before you can put them in command zone, if casting from hand affects the 2 extra per cast etc.
-mana base: why you can play City of Brass but not Savage Lands in your BR deck, why you can play Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in any deck, or why you can't produce other colored mana with City of Brass and the like to use cards stolen from other players
-How many of the interactions with the hundreds and hundreds of magic cards that they are expected to know the interactions to. Having a new player to Magic in general start with EDH is one of the worst ways to go about it (believe me, me and my playgroup have tried)
These were all much more confusing and convoluted than "Banned" and "Banned as a Commander". I mean should vintage get rid of the restricted list and just ban them for simplicities sake? I realize vintage isn't a format for new players, but neither is EDH (to a much lesser extent of course). These are just some of the many times I've had to explain the rules of EDH to players (even some who have played for a long time).
Another reason we're all outraged - this seems like a permanent change. I can see RC unbanning cards, but I don't see them going back on this one. Rofellos, Braids, and Erayo will always be banned and, funny enough, new players will always ask "Why? Aren't they just broken as a commander?" -
Sep 16, 2014
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atlas_hugged posted a message on [[Official]] General Discussion of the Official Multiplayer BanlistPosted in: Commander Rules Discussion ForumQuote from papa_funk »Quote from Set »
However, that said - the Rules Committee has frequently shown a disconnect with the playerbase (that has expanded to include players outside of just their niche group). The response to the removal of "banned as commander" has been overwhelmingly negative from nearly everyone.
That's true if everyone has been defined as MTGS readers, who represent a segment of the playerbase who least benefits from the change. The response from, for example, WotC, who cares about a lot of the same things the RC does, has been quite positive. (see, for example https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/510443086183292929). There are people who understand what we're trying to do and why. It just happens that the downside of this particular change helps the newer players (who aren't here) while negatively impacting the more competitive ones (who are).
I appreciate what you're doing, but posting a tweet from a WotC employee doesn't help deal with people's worries that the RC is in an ivory tower. It just adds another room to the ivory tower. A WotC designer probably has different concerns than a regular joe schmoe who just wants to play with his favorite cards. I don't doubt that there are regular folks who support the elimination of the banned as commander list, but I imagine those actually informed about it are probably against it.
Could you enlighten us about the thought process going into this? Did you get community input before hand? What was the reason for simplification?
Quote from MRHblue »No one, especially the RC, are saying people were confused or didn't get it. People keep setting this same argument up, but it's irrelevant.
The RC just said above you that the change benefits new players. Some people might think that means it is one less rule for a new player to understand, the obvious risk being that they don't understand it if it exists. The original post IIRC even referenced people not getting it, or something similar. There's been some mixed messages from honest mistakes in the RC transmitting its intentions. It's understandable that this keeps coming up.
This constant attack on people who like the base rules, support the RC, or use the social contract to not play against people or decks they find undesirable, gets old. Not wanting online play to negatively impact live EDH is not excluding online play. Online play has pluses (play people far away / any time of day) and minuses (lack of flexibility), but many choices do. Choosing to avoid people or decks that are not fun to me is a mature choice as long as I treat the other person respectfully as I do so.
The thing that I think you disregard is that by actually being able to modify the banlist, it affects you far less than the banlist does online players. Take your sensei example: If the RC in some crazy hypothetical world decided to ban sensei's for time limits in online play (there's actually some good reasons to ban it for those same reasons in the real world, but I really don't think top will ever be banned in multiplayer), you could just houserule it. But the online player can't. If we're looking at it purely from who needs the most consideration in the banlist, those who can't modify it need it the most, because it affects them the most, whether they're online or not. I'm not trying to attack you, I'm simply trying to address what I view to be a deficiency in the current banlist philosophy. Having the banlist philosophy take into account the fact that many people are unable to modify it couldn't hurt you. -
Mar 6, 20131
kpaca posted a message on Mafia League Beta Season Round 3 PCQ entriesMan I hope chimes doesnt win as thats the only one I can't see myself playing.Posted in: Mafia - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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Sigh.
Your colleague has been really light on the questions, buddy.
That answers the laziness question, but not the question of your vote(s).
Brilliant.
Iso started the day with that plan, we talked, and I think short width of day 0, I just decided to go with it. Again, bad plan > no plan in my eyes. I also voted for SC, as I said I would.
12 hours + 48, I optimistically (I shouldn't even have to use that word) assumed most people would at least look at. 60 hours is not a stretch to expect people to at least check the thread, especially when every player has at least 1 night action that targets another player.
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So, what is Trump going to do? What plans does he have that makes him better than Clinton? Frankly, most of his policies line up with the establishment, including his social policies. Even his supporters don't refer to him as a democrat, as some of them do to Kasich.
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Mississippi might be the first state where Trump actually gets 50%+ of the vote. Unfortunately, Mississippi is one of the few states where 50+ doesn't get all of the delegates.
Kasich, I am not sure what to make of. A better showing in Michigan than I thought, but in other states, he is barely scraping the barrel (7% in Mississippi, and really wasn't that good on Super Tuesday).
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I think you are underestimating how done the Republican voter base is with "establishment candidates" (even though Cruz should technically be considered a n establisthment candidate). Even though neither has a majority by themselves, if you were to combine their percentages against all of the other candidates, they would get the nomination (even boldly assuming Rubio or Kasich got 100% of the other's support)
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I take everything so literally sometimes over the internet. "Bad guys" should have been the tip off I suppose
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<3
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Bitteroot is correct in this aspect, but I think it is rather naive so assume Wizards didn't do this because of Jesse's action(s).
Considering how silly some of the First World Third Wave Feminism "issues" are, I can't say I am surprised some are undervalued. There is also a fun little saying about how anything before a "but" is irrelevant. "I am not saying they are rape apologists, but....
I know, right? It's like I want him to move on with his life, rather than keep dredging up the past. That conversation, should it ever happen, would be between Jesse and that woman, if she chose to get additional closure.
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Punishment is listed as "the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense." The removal of this "privilege" I would say is a penalty, for the offense of either his past, or perhaps people finding out about it. I am sure if I was WOTC, I wouldn't want to see it as a punishment either.
Anyone with half a brain realizes that this statement is calling anyone who supports Jesse is a rape apologist. Trying to make it sound prettier doesn't make your statement any different.
That's a completely different discussion, and personally, the sex registry list seems silly for Jesse. The list was primary a way to keep track of pedophiles, and make sure they stay away from children. Putting him on the registry does nothing but basically give him a scarlet letter. If he was perhaps a danger of being a repeat offender, or had to stay away from women, maybe I could see the justification, but since neither is obviously the case...
No one here has actually disputed the legal rights of banning Jesse (except perhaps in the MTGO sense of compensation). Welcomed with open arms seems a little silly, I just would rather not ostracize someone who did something I was not influenced or affected by.