Another Magic: the Gathering Youtuber Is Being Investigated by WOTC for Code of Conduct Violations

A Magic: The Gathering youtube channel with over 25,000 subscribers and 17 million video views, MTG Lion, is being investigated by Wizards of the Coast for potentially breaking the Code of Conduct. The Youtube channel uploaded a video today with the following message from Wizards of the Coast:

"I'm an investigator at Wizards of the Coast. I am writing to you because we received allegations that you violated Wizards' Code of Conduct (available at https://company.wizards.com/legal/code-conduct). We have received complaints that your alleged statements and accounts on social media violate the terms of Wizards' Code of Conduct; specifically, several videos posted on Youtube during the month of January 2018.

Wizards is currently investigating these claims and would like to give you the opportunity to provide a statement or any additional information you would like Wizards to consider. If you would like to participate in this investigation, please review your posts and respond to this email with any information you believe would be relevant.

Thank you,

Wizards of the Coast"

The letter didn't state what specific section of the Code of Conduct was broken or which videos were the cause of the investigation. It did say that the investigation was started because of complaints submitted to them for videos published in the month of January 2018. MTG Lion publishes videos almost once a day, so it is hard to say what might have triggered the review by WOTC. You can watch the video where MTG Lion breaks the news of the investigation here:

"As you can see, they don't tell me what video or what section in the Code of Conduct I'm violating. They want me to respond with relevant information, without tell[ing] me what I'm responding to. Essentially, how can I defend myself without knowing what I'm accused of? I wrote them a response but have not heard back... Until they are more specific as to what videos, I don't know why they are targeting me."

The news of MTG Lion's channel investigation comes about 2 months after another active MTG Youtuber, Jeremy from Unsleeved Media, was banned for life for breaking the Code of Conduct on social media. Conservative news outlets gave the story nationwide attention. It has since been dubbed Magicgate. Breitbart published a scathing critique of the ban:

"If you play Magic: The Gathering — Wizards of the Coast seems sincerely to believe — then the Wizards of the Coast can police, judge and punish you, 24/7. They are so stringent, in fact that, essentially, Wizards of the Coast is reserving the right to own the life of any player who plays its card game — and to banish them permanently at the drop of a hat should he or she (though, face it, 99.99 times out of a 100 it's going to be a he) fail to meet its exacting standards of personal behavior."

In contrast, many Magic: the Gathering players applauded WOTC for the ban.

In addition to Jeremy, some players recently received bans for social media use on platforms like Facebook. Travis Woo, a well-known player, received a temporary ban in December of 2017. The reason for the ban was for creating and administrating a Facebook group called Magic for Bad which had posts by other members that broke the COC.

Do you applaud WOTC for their recent actions to uphold the COC with DCI Bans, or do you think that it goes too far? Leave us a comment below!