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On Leaks


It wasn't that long ago that massive leaks were the hallmark of most new Magic set releases. Most of Dominaria was leaked. An entire rare sheet of Ixalan somehow walked out of a factory and onto the Internet. New Phyrexia saw its "god book" go from the hands of a writer to a friend and eventually everywhere. And this doesn't even include all of the mundane leaks that happen almost every setwith some even coming from Wizards itself where it accidentally posted cards on one of its sites before it intended to.

Things seemed to settle down over the past few sets. Sure, there has been a consistent drip of text-based leaks on reddit, some of which have ended up being true, while others were not, but major leaks containing a significant portion of a new set seemed to (maybe?) be a thing of the past. Now, with Commander Legends, they are back and arguably bigger than ever. After some booster packs of Commander Legends ended up in the wild early, before the delayed spoiler season for the set even began, they were listed, and some were even sold, through eBay. Now, day by day, people are opening packs of Commander Legends and posting their results on the Internet for all to see. 

One thing that pretty much everyone— both Wizards and the community—agrees on is that leaks suck. Wizards does some cool, fun things with how it releases spoilers and often times the release of cards to help tell the set's story. Having a bunch of random cards unofficially spoiled early due to leaks, at the very least, diminishes the excitement of spoiler season and, at worst, can more or less ruin Wizards' plans altogether. From the community side, many content creators look forward to the opportunity to show off a new card to their audience, and while the impact, in terms of views and clicks, of having a card leaked is up for debate, there is no doubt that showing off a card that at least some people have already seen due to a leak is less fun and exciting than revealing a brand-new, never-before-seen card. 

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Of course, as members of the community, there really isn't much any of us can do to stop leaks from happening. While leaks might seem like a relatively new invention, if you've been on the Magic portion of the Internet for a while, you'll know this isn't true, with the infamous Rancored Elf leaks and subsequent lawsuit exemplifying just how long leaks have been happening in Magic. Sadly, there isn't really a way for Wizards to stop all leaks either. While it should be able to avoid accidentally leaking cards itself and can potentially punish leakers (especially the source of the leaks, who have likely signed an NDA) to try to keep others from following suit, all it takes is a single person from the massive supply chain who takes a Magic card from an idea in Mark Rosewater's brain to your kitchen table—R&D employees, printers, translators, distributors, vendors, tournament organizers—to disregard their NDA and post something about what they have seen on the Internet for a leak to happen. 

Since Magic leaks have been happening forever, there certainly is no way that the community can stop them, and Wizards may not have a way to stop them all either, all that's left is for the community to figure out how to deal with leaks when they occur. Considering that—as we have seen—most sets have some sort of leak, and some sets have major leaks, taking the time to think and talk through the topic seems important.

Before going any further, it's important to clarify what I mean by a "leak." What we're talking about today is what I would consider public leaks: cards that have not yet been officially previewed by Wizards but, in one way or another, end up on reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or other public Magic forums. These are leaks that, by the time you've seen them, have been seen by thousands or even millions of other Magic players. On the other hand, if you somehow end up in possession of a leak that is not already public knowledge, you should immediately contact Wizards and should not tell anyone else about the leak, and you should definitely not make a reddit / Facebook  / Twitter post about it. While ending up with a non-public leak is extremely unlikely for the average Magic player, if it happens and you are the person who first posts about it on the Internet (or spreads the information to someone else who posts it publicly), there is a high chance that you'll end up getting banned. 

Back to public leaks. Since we can't stop them, how do we deal with them? Right now, the answer seems to be that we yell at each other on social media. Leaked cards are one of the most polarizing issues in all of Magic, and neither side seems to be all that interested in hearing the other side's perspective, even though there are legitimate concerns on both sides of the issue. 

Some people are extremely anti-leak, not just avoiding leaks themselves but also telling others that the right thing to do is avoid all leaks. The two biggest arguments from this perspective are that leaks hurt content creators and that leaked spoilers are objectively worse than non-leaked spoilers since the cards were not previewed in the way that Wizards had planned or intended. Both of these things are true, at least to some extent. A grainy photo from a flip phone is certainly not as interesting as a well-designed official spoiler, and as we talked about a little while ago, as a content creator, having your spoiler card leaked at the very least feels bad, and it could have a negative impact on content that you spend a lot of time creating since at least, in theory, some people might not read your article or watch your video because they've already seen the card. 

On the other hand, others (myself included) are pro-leak, not in the sense that they want cards to be leaked (remember, pretty much everyone agrees that leaks suck, even the pro-leak group) but based on the argument that once a leak is public, the information should be available to anyone who wants it, in the interest of fairness and having an even playing field. The foundation of this argument is based mostly on the Magic economy. I think we can all agree that Magic cards are extremely expensive. Between MTG finance and vendors, selling cards is big business. Leaks change card prices. Avoiding leaks has the potential to be quite expensive. Here's an easy, recent example:

Not to give away too much information, but it was recently learned due to a leak that Three Visits will soon be reprinted. As you can see in the price chart, the sorcery was over $200 a week ago thanks to its scarcity and Commander playability. Now, it is just over $100. Let's say you're building a Commander deck and you really want to include a copy of Three Visits. You go to eBay and find a copy for $175. That's a great deal! You quickly snap it up, only to find out a week or two later what the person selling Three Visits already knew: a reprint was happening, and the price of Three Visits is about to drop hard. In this case, avoiding leaks could quite easily cost you $100 or more.

The same thing can happen in the opposite direction as well. Last year, just before War of the Spark spoiler season, some of the planeswalkers from the set were leaked, including Karn, the Great Creator. Within a few days of the leak (and days before the card was officially previewed), Mycosynth Lattice was bought out, with its price increasing from $10 to $30 (and later to $60). With knowledge of the leak, you should have at least had a chance to pick up your copies of Mycosynth Lattice before the huge price spike. If you avoided the leak, then by the time you knew about Karn, the Great Creator, you'd have to pay at least three times as much to get a Mycosynth Lattice to combo with your Karn, the Great Creator

As you can see, there are very real concerns on all sides of the leak issue. Leaks are an objectively worse way of a card being spoiled than an official spoiler would be. They do have the potential to negatively impact content creators. They also do change card prices and have the potential to make the already very expensive game we all love even more expensive. Unlike some issues, where there is a pretty clear right or wrong answer, leaks firmly fall into a very gray area, in which how you personally interact with the game and how much disposable income you have to spend on the game likely play huge roles in where you stand on the issue. 

If you're someone who avoids leaks, this isn't intended to change your mind and convince you to start looking at leaked cards. In fact, I don't want to change your mind. Choosing to avoid leaked cards is a respectable, reasonable position that I support. Instead, the goal is to illustrate why choosing to look at leaks is an equally respectable and reasonable position. Magic is a massive game, and people interact with it in many ways. For some people, getting the cards they need as cheaply as possible is extremely important. Magic's expensive, and not everyone has hundreds of dollars to lose on Three Visits or to pay for a post-spike playset of Mycosynth Lattice. Telling someone who is playing as much Magic as possible on a tight budget that they should avoid leaks and thereby pay more for their cards—because you place a higher value on Wizards' preview planning or a content creator's spoiler article getting as many clicks as possible—isn't fair or right.

Imagine telling a Pauper player that their format is horrible and they are wrong for playing and enjoying it. After all, if they were a real Magic player, they'd be playing your favorite format: Modern. I think pretty much everyone in the community would agree this is unacceptable. People enjoy Magic in different ways. That is, in large part, what makes Magic such a great and successful game. Telling someone they are horrible because they look at leaked cards is no different; it's the expectation that everyone should interact with and enjoy Magic the same way that you do because how you interact with and enjoy Magic is the "right" way for everyone.

Before this sounds like an indictment of the anti-leak crowd, it's important to point out that this concept goes both ways. The anti-leak group isn't wrong for wanting to avoid leaks. Wanting to experience spoilers in the way that Wizards intended them to be experienced and to support content creators are both positive goals. People who choose to avoid leaks just value a different aspect of a new set being released, compared to people who choose to engage with leaks. No one should have to see leaked cards if they don't want to, and if you are someone who chooses to interact with leaks, I'd argue that posting them on your social media is just as wrong as yelling at people for looking at leaks. It's next to impossible to avoid seeing an image coming across your Twitter or Facebook. As a result, by posting leaks in an unavoidable way, you're not giving the people who wish to avoid leaks the opportunity to opt out and interact with Magic in the way they choose. This also isn't right.

Perhaps the biggest issue with leaks isn't that they happen; it's that the way the community reacts to leaks makes what should be one of the most joyful, fun times on the Magic calendar—the release of a new set—much less enjoyable for all involved. You have some people getting yelled at because they are excited about a new card they saw on the official Magic forum r/magictcg, while other members of the community feel like they need to avoid Magic social media altogether, or else they are likely to have a leak they don't want to see pop up in front of their eyes due to an inconsiderate post. A new set release should be an event that brings the community together, a celebration of the game itself. It's the good of Magic and why we love the game. Instead, when a leak happens, rather than a joyous occasion, it tends to devolve into bickering and infighting, which sometimes overshadows the set and cards themselves. At this point, the conversation, anger, and fighting around the issue of leaks are quite possibly more problematic and toxic for the community than the leaks themselves.

The bottom line is this: if you choose to interact with leaks, great! If you choose to avoid leaks, just as great! The important thing is that we all look outside of our bubbles, to realize that leaks are an issue with a lot of gray area and that no matter what choice you make, people on the other side of the issue have legitimate feelings and reasons for their actions and choices regarding leaks. Shaming someone because they don't want to risk losing money based on leaks is wrong, as is disrespecting someone by forcing them to view leaks that they are trying to avoid by haphazardly posting them on social media. While everyone interacts with the leaks differently, just as everyone has their personal favorite format or deck, we all need to remember that people who believe differently than us love Magic just as much as we do. Respect each other. Love each other, even when the choices someone else makes are different than those you make for yourself. Let's try to get back to a place where a new set release is a celebration of the greatest game in the world, rather than a time for anger, rage, and division. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@mtggoldfish.com.



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