Late on Sunday, as most of you know, a monstrously huge spoiler was leaked. Most of the Mythics and all of the Expeditions have been spoiled from Oath of the Gatewatch. I call this Oathgate.
What does that mean to you and I?
Well, we know that a bunch of cards we won’t likely open are going to be opened. I have trouble getting hyped up for expeditions myself. I like them, I think the idea is awesome, but it means very little to me personally. It’s extra value with the likelihood for winning $200 on a scratch-off lotto ticket. We also know a bunch of Mythics and one of the Creaturelands (WR looks like it’s in Italian and I’m guessing it’s a 2/1 Double strike, which fits the power level of the other Creaturelands.)
Now, what does this mean for the Magic community as a whole?
Let’s start with the spoiler season, you might as well cancel it. That’s right you can cancel Christmas in Dominaria. Sure it’s cool to get a look at a few sneak previews this way, but ultimately knowing the entire mythic sheet is pretty anticlimactic. Wizards may or may not set up sites with spoilers now. And if they already have will they offer new spoilers? And for what? Uncommons? I’m sure all the rares are spoken for.
Say goodbye to the hype this Christmas Season. We normally get a couple spoilers over the Christmas holiday. I mean those are really great because generally the twitterverse is abuzz with commentary and discussion about each card. I’m going to miss that.
Financewise you can expect presales to take a bit of a dive. Giving us a two month window to “cool our heels” can’t be good for impulse buying.
The only positive for this really is that pros have just a little bit more access to these cards before the Pro Tour. And since this is a Modern Pro Tour that’s not really too relevant either. Even if we consider limited this is utterly worthless without an idea of the full set. And honestly, since I’m not a pro nor am I on the tour, I’m not calling that a positive.
How does something like this happen?
I can only speculate as to how Oathgate could happen. Obviously internal leaks are the easiest to explain. Someone with the info leaks it. Possibly because they have an axe to grind or they think it services the community somehow. In this particular case I’d lean toward axe to grind. If you looked at the spoilers (Spoiler Alert) there was an Urza’s Rage at the beginning of the imgur page. This was not a new print either—it was a copy from Fire and Lightning. Is this a message to WotC from some jilted employee? Or merely coincidence and just a way to throw the casual observer off balance? Will we ever know? I don’t have the answer. It could be. Leak from their printer? Truly I have no idea.
What WotC can do to stop this sort of thing. If Anything?
I mean assuming this leak was from the inside, and not just some throwaway print run, this means WotC is going to be very tight about in-company security. I can’t imagine this is the sort of thing that gets a light slap on the wrist if the culprit gets caught. Likely, a person would lose their job over something like this. Think about your job, imagine if company emails leaked. Someone would be in the hot seat. Especially if Hundred of Thousands (Millions?) of dollars were lost as a result.
What can we as a community do?
Obviously, this many spoiled cards is hard to ignore. If you are active in the community it’s impossible to pretend to not look. Eventually, you’ll have to just join the conversation. I think we can show our displeasure for this sort of thing though. We shouldn’t offer any praise for this person for sure. What else? We can still do spoiler season, as well. Spoiler season is about discussing the cards, speculation, brewing, as much as it is unveiling the cards. The real value in Spoiler season is the dialogue about the cards. Assuming that spoiler season still happens I motion that we make a special effort to read the articles and participate. Otherwise, the bad people win, Amiright?
Zac Clark
Zac Clark is the Founder of Hipsters of the Coast. An avid gamer since his early teens, Zac can often be found in Brooklyn either playing games or taking photos. When he’s not drawing extra cards, wrathing boards and countering spells, he’s taking pictures of other peoples good times and listening to 90’s Music.