{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. They contain, at most, eight to twelve rares. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Wildfire, Llanowar Wastes, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. His playtest partners, however, are excellent. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks “set in stone” or “done.” If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}
The SCG Free Plug
This is my first piece for the new SCG Free thing that we’re trying here, and, frankly, I’m so excited that, well, you can’t see it, but I could cut glass. I’m stoked by the idea of having my own day, and being the featured Free guy for that day.
What does this mean to you? How will I, Chris Romeo, change? Well, for one thing, I’ll be an even more pompous ass than before. I mean, heck, I have my own day! The only other person I know who has his own day is Thor, after whom we named Thorsday. It also means that you will know that, barring tragedy, you’ll be able to read the writer (or type of article, depending on the day) you want on the same day each week. Think about that. No guessing. We hope, of course, that you tune in each and every day, but my ego’s not that big. I know that there are six or seven of you guys who don’t read my stuff, who are just waiting to see Sean’s or blisterguy or Abe’s stuff, and that’s cool, you know. They’re excellent, too. Maybe a little too excellent. But I digress…
Just get ready for a heck of a ride. Keep your hands and feet inside at all times. And no spitting over the side. I saw that.
…
As you all should know by now, I like to answer some of my e-mail and forum comments in public. I do this either because I find it entertaining, or because I want to humiliate you. Often, it’s both. In other words, if you don’t want me to mention you in this column, either don’t send me e-mails or forum posts, or tell me specifically that you don’t want me to lambaste you in public.* It might just work.
…
Romeo,
Why didn’t you apply for the StartCityGames.com editor’s job when Ted left? Mandatory cheesecake would be awesome!
Dear Double-D,
As many of you know, I am a masochist of sorts. I write about cheap decks that I usually play in tournaments and with which I lose as often (or more often) than I win, when I could just as easily play a net deck and do much better. I am married with four cats (we got George in September). I’m Catholic, and I’ve been an altar boy. But there’s no way in hell, or even Virginia, that I’d subject myself to the torture that must surely go along with editing a web site like this. I’m sorry what? The salary is how many Jaguars a month? Crud. [At last count, it’s six. — Craig]
Imagine that you’re an editor at a publishing house like Simon & Schuster. All day long, you get to read and edit works by professional authors, many of whom passed English on their very first try. Now, imagine reading what must come across Craig’s desk every day. Some possible “sentences” include:
• d00d tappt his Loxodon Hirearch to use his Glare on my guy whod all ready attackt and I’m all like d00d yer soooooooo st00pid you st00pid n00b!
• Then, I attacked my brother’s monster with my flying guy whose attack was two, but he intercepted with Boomerang.
• Please ignore it, even though it’s probably wrong (or Bent), and even if it was meant for TurboEli, well, a little bit for Romeo, even if it’s not really that obscure, unless you’re under the age of, say, 30, which, in this case, would make it nearly impossible for you to have a chance, much as I intended.
(Please, note: one and only one of these is an actual sentence from a John F. Rizzo piece that was published on this very web site.)
As for mandatory cheesecake, cheesecake must come from the heart and soul. You can not force cheesecake onto a writer any more than you can force a writer to be original. Why, if you could force a writer to be original, you wouldn’t be able to sum up every one of John Grisham’s books like this:
Step 1) Write story about a solitary lawyer — usually one who’s down-and-out — with a heart of gold, beating the big Corporate Law Machine.
Step 2) Sell movie rights.
Step 3) Cash check.
Step 4) Repeat.
In other words, I didn’t apply because I knew I’d go stark, raving loony doing the job. I hope Craig can stay sane. Or maybe not. Sanity is overrated as it relates to creativity. Ask Jackson Pollock or Jim Morrison. As for cheesecake, I hope the stuff that I can dig up is good enough.
Chris
…
Dear Chris,
We love that mono-Green Gleancrawler–Primordial Sage deck. Why didn’t you use Wood Elves instead of Sakura-Tribe Elder? With those seven one-drop mana-elves in there, you should consistently get a second-turn Wood Elves. Plus, they’re so good with Stampeding Serow.
Love,
Pretty Much Everyone
Dear P.M.E.,
This was the numero uno suggestion that I got for that deck. So, I modified the deck just to see what might happen. Out went the four Elders; in came four Wood Elves.
Wow.
Yeah, it’s a good trade. In a mono-Green deck, all the Elder’s ever going to grab is a Forest. That’s exactly what the Wood Elves do, but it stays in play while doing it. That means that I can bring it back to my hand with the Serow. I didn’t realize how big a change it would end up being. The first ten times I played the deck, I got a second-turn Wood Elves six times. It would have been a seventh, but Shock ate my Elves of Deep Shadow. You can’t get an Elder any faster than turn two. Moreover, the land thinning noticeably helped my draws.
We’re so sorry, Uncle Albert. You don’t have to go home, but you gotta get the heck outta here. Welcome Wood Elves.
Chris
…
Chris,
Quick. I need a witty line or two to get me through the day.
Thanks a ton,
Enrique
Oh, Ricky,
How about this one, from the second episode of My Name is Earl to be shown on the new NBC Thursday comedy lineup? It was so appropriate for my life that I laughed and cried at the same time. I’ll bet you’ll feel the same:
Randy: That guy’s a jerk. You oughta tell the manager.
Earl: He is the manager.
Randy: Oh . . . I guess he already knows then.
Dang, I love that show. It’s karma-riffic.
Enjoy,
Chris
…
Romeo,
Okay, seriously, why don’t you try harder to win and maybe even qualify for the Pro Tour? I’ve seen you play. You know the game, but you continue to handicap yourself. Why?
Thanks,
Jonathan
Dear Jonathan,
The truth, I think, has two parts to it. First, I’m a lazy bastard. It would take way too much work for me to qualify. There’s the testing. That’s just to get the deck into shape. Me, I’d have to work on actually playing well. You’ve seen me play. I’m too social. I watch other games. I get distracted, especially when my opponent takes seventeen minutes to decide whether or not to counter my Armageddon. I’d have to take the time just to work on paying attention. That is a whole lot tougher for me than it should be.
Second, I don’t think the payoff would do me any good. Let’s say, for example, that I qualified for Pro Tour, I dunno, let’s say, Miami. It’s in my neck of the U.S. of A. but far enough away that I’d need time off of work to get there. I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Me: Hey, boss, can I have Thursday, Friday, and Monday off to play on the Pro Tour?
Boss: No.
Me: Why not? I have four weeks of vacation left.
Boss: We don’t have any open vacation slots.
You see, Travelers has this system that only allows a certain number of employees to be off on any given day. I understand that. I used to run retail stores. You gotta have people to run the place. Too many people on vacation, and the place shuts down. The thing is, we’re not talking about a store with twelve employees. We’re talking about a “business center” that is one of five in the country. I’m one of several hundred people who do this job. An extra one of me missing for a couple of days won’t make a hill of beans of difference.
Think I’m exaggerating about not being able to get the time off? Check this out. Back in August my wife’s boss, and his wife, offered to take the two of us on a cruise. They were paying. That’s twelve grand worth of free cruises. Why? Just because they like her. All I needed to do was to get six days off work. Under our system, I was good to go on three of them. There was a free slot for those days, and I had plenty of vacation left. Three of them, however, were full up. So, we needed to get a “special exception” from the vice-president, to allow an extra person off on those three days. The vice-president, by the way, sits about fifty feet from me. The days went on, and I heard nothing. Finally, the drop-dead date hit. I needed to know that day. Sorry, but they couldn’t afford to do without me, they said. (“Funny,” I thought. “For someone so indispensable, I’m paid for sh**.”) Luanne wouldn’t go without me. So, no cruise for us.
To rub salt in the wound, my supervisor actually came up to me and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll get another chance.” Huh? Do you really think that people are just slinging twelve-thousand dollar cruise packages at me? Really? I was thirty-nine when it first happened. At that rate, I’ll be seventy-eight when it happens again, *sswipe.
If I’m not getting time off for a free cruise that was a gift to my wife, I’m not getting time off for playing cards.
In other words, too much work for too little payoff. I’d rather have fun slinging my homemade decks and winning whatever few packs I pick up here and there. Oh, yeah, and writing about it for StarCityGames.com!
Thanks for asking,
Chris
…
Dear Chris,
So, how does it feel to be a Magic Online sell-out? Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yours truly,
Jaymes
Dear JayMeS,
It feels like many of my liaisons with women in New Orleans: dirty, yet exhilarating. On the one hand, I still hate the idea of paying real money for fake cards. Every time I click “OK” to have my credit card charged for some purchase, I wonder if this is the time that my entire MTGO account will be wiped out. I’d still rather see a monthly fee system with access to any cards you want, but the model that Hasbro and Wizards is using right now is way, way, way too successful for them to stop. Of course, there’s also the gameplay, which doesn’t include much human interaction. Even in real games, if you sit across from one of those “I also play poker, so no tells for you” guys, at least there’s a person sitting there. I’ve often gone hours on MTGO without having an opponent say more that “Hello and good luck” and “Good game.” Sometimes not even that. I need more. That’s why I like playing Magic with friends.
On the other hand, it’s two-and-a-half loads of fun any time I want. I can jump into a game just a few seconds after I end one. Testing is a breeze. Peter Jahn did a great series on the usefulness of MTGO as a testing tool for serious players. I know this for us less-than-serious ones: it’s a godsend. Compare this to real life. Let’s say, IRL, that, after a set of games, I want to make changes to my deck. There’s a few ways to go. “Okay, everybody. Just remember, the Kiku’s Shadows are now Pyroclasms, mmmm-kay?” I don’t know about you, but my friends and I often forget. Either that, or I forget, they remember, and they don’t remind me. The second way is to grab the Sharpie (Sharpie: The Unofficial Pen of Cheap Magic Players Everywhere!) and make more proxies. During this time, your playtest partner starts “just one game” with another one of the hangers-on. Trouble is that it’s R/G Warp World versus U/R Warp World. That means you have to wait seventy-five minutes to play your next game. The worst option, of course, is where you have to search all through your cards to find those Pyroclasms. This really gets you off-track as you start worrying that you loaned them all out when you can’t find them right away. If you did loan them out, you won’t have them for the tournament because the guy you loaned them to is on vacation in Costa Rica until mid-May. This often leads to you completely giving up on the deck.
With MTGO, you just change the deck list with a couple of quick clicks, and you’re off.
So, as with some ladies I’ve known, I don’t want to do it, but I’m too weak to stop myself.
Yours,
Chris
…
Romeo,
I know you have another wacky idea that you’re going to spring on me when I’m least expecting it. Give a brother a chance and let me in on some stuff you’re working on so I can back door some hate.
Word,
Joe
Joe,
Of course, I have some wacky ideas that I’ve been working on. Here’s a small list:
* Goblins with Blood Moon in the maindeck: I know it sounds crazy. Follow me down this path of madness, though. I was playing against a Ghazi Glare deck the other day. At one point, he had out ten lands, none of which were basic. He had four Temple Gardens, three Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree, and three Selesnya Sanctuary. I know that’s going to be extremely rare, but all I could think was that Blood Moon would hose this guy up bad. So, I started looking at some of the other top decks. They all seem to run some sort of non-basic land, typically Legendary. Blue decks run Minamo, School at Water’s Edge, for example. Almost every deck is running some non-basic that’s essential to it, so Blood Moon would really throw a monkey wrench into things. What about the decks that aren’t running non-basics essential to the deck? What about the ones that just want to smooth mana? Goblin King to the rescue! Blood Moon may not put a crimp in their hose, but it would make some nice unblockable Goblins very happy. Of course, I have to figure out how to make Goblins work in Standard, too. That’s the problem.
* Mono-Blue Aggro: Yes, really. Why not? Blue actually has some fairly aggressive creatures right now. Okay, so they’re not Watchwolf. Blue can come out swinging with some fliers, though, and some are pretty hard to remove. My favorite right now is Halcyon Glaze. The Glaze sits there doing nothing when all of a sudden, *bam* you cast a Thieving Magpie, and you have a 4/4 flying beatstick. Cerulean Sphinx is nuts, and so is Hunted Phantasm. In addition, we still have the Glasskites from Betrayers. Sure, I’m probably barking up a dead tree, but it’s what I do.
* U/B Ninjas and Hondens: I know that those two decks have been around, but people seem to have given up on them. In fact, when I did my informal poll last Summer, half the people said that the card they missed most from Eighth Edition was Sage Owl. They mentioned how U/B Ninjas would be boned by losing it. A scant few weeks later, though, we got Dimir Infiltrator. It has the same converted mana cost as the Sage Owl; it just doesn’t have that nifty comes-into-play ability. Instead, it’s tougher to kill and can’t be blocked. Talk about a Ninjustu enabler. Meanwhile, Hondens have lost nothing. I’m even so confident about the deck, that I’m thinking Shrines will be my Regionals deck. Remand is the piece that may make the non-Ideal version work for me. Or maybe not.
* White Skies: I know what you’re thinking. “He always goes back to this White Weenie thing.” I do, and I do because it’s got so many strong options. The one I’m working on now has Festival of the Guildpact in the maindeck. Why would I use such a “bad” card? Because it says “draw a card” on it. Since I can cast it with zero for the “X,” I can essentially cycle this card for half of cost of normal Cycling. Moreover, it can do some sweet stuff. Compare it to Holy Day. Holy Day prevents all combat damage. What if you don’t want it all prevented? I mean, what if you want to prevent the damage that would hit you, but not the damage that could kill some creatures? Festival of the Guildpact to the rescue.
* Two- or Three-color Bloodbond March: I’ve already built a surprisingly strong Extended deck with Bloodbond March, one that abuses Relentless Rats. There’s no such creature in Standard, though. That means that you have to be able to break the symmetry of the March. I figure there are two ways to do that, maybe even in the same deck. First, make sure that the other guy doesn’t have cards in his ‘yard to bring back. Luckily, Bloodbond March needs Black, the same color as Nezumi Graverobber. We can also use Junktroller. The part that’s throwing me, though, is getting cards into the ‘yard. I don’t just want to dump my hand. I’d like to get cards in there by drawing more cards. This pretty much points to adding Blue. I’m thinking of Compulsive Research and Thought Courier.
* R/W Brightflame Control: Okay, sure, Brightflame can be costly, but the benefits are huge. A single Brightflame can swing you from the brink of a loss back into the driver’s seat. Obviously, we’d want Wrath of God in there. Probably Pyroclasm, too.
* G/B Zombies: Since Onslaught fell off of the Standard map, we don’t usually think about Tribal decks other than Spirits. Of course, Spirits span all five colors, thanks to Kamigawa Block, so there isn’t really a “Spirits” deck, per se. Anyhoo, there are actually quite a few string Zombies in Standard right now, and the Lord of the Undead leads the pack. Nantuko Husk, Festering Goblin, Shambling Shell, Gravedigger, and, obviously, Vulturous Zombie, are all Zombies. Seems like a strong gang to me.
* Eye of the Storm: Are you telling me that no one’s figured out how to break this with, say, Soul Feast?
I think I’ve said too much…
Chris
…
Romeo,
Seriously? Goblins? Come on!
Tad Gnutson
Dear Ted,
Why do you people do this to me? You know that it’s like throwing down a gauntlet. Say that it can’t be done, and I can’t resist. So, yes, seriously. In fact, here’s what I’ve been tearing up the Casual Decks room with. Excuse me, we have a new editor. He doesn’t like it when we end sentences with prepositions. So, here’s what I’ve been tearing up the Casual Decks room with, Ted.
Now, if you want all of your critters to be able to block, you might want to switch out the Goblin Raiders for Goblin Pikers. I tried that, and I didn’t like it because I was losing a point of toughness. It doesn’t seem like much, but that’s the difference between surviving Night of Souls’ Betrayal, and not.
Chris
…
Romeo,
Okay, now I know you’re joking. Fiery Conclusion? It is to laugh.
I <3 You,
Tad
You Gnut,
Yes, really, Fiery Conclusion. Think about this… how can Frostling take down Yosei? Fiery Conclusion, baby! If Shrapnel Blast was Awesome, F.C. is at least Great. Sure, the Blast could go to the opponent’s face, but the downside was that you had to use it in an artifact-heavy deck. Not really that tough at the time, but you gotta work with me here. Fiery Conclusion can only hit creatures, but you’re going to have a bunch of creatures to chuck to it and a bunch of creatures that you’ll probably want out of the way. Check out this play from a couple of nights ago. With my opponent, playing Greater Good (ugh!), at eight life, I swung with four underwhelming creatures: two Goblin Chariots; a Goblin Raider; and a Frostling. Yosei was in the way. Before blockers were declared, I used an F.C. with Frostling to kill Yosei. Sure, all of my stuff was tapped down, but the combat damage dropped him/her to two. After combat, I dropped my Mountain, cast Shock, and won the game.
I really like Fiery Conclusion. Sure, my opponent probably should have feared being below ten and probably should have sacrificed Yosei to the Greater Good before I declared attackers, but he didn’t. So, nyah.
Blood Moon wasn’t too bad, either. My opponent’s Overgrown Tombs were useless as a way to fix mana. In fact, after the game, he showed me the Kokushos he was holding. Whoa.
So, yes, I’m serious. How serious am I? That, you’ll have to figure out yourself.
Chris
P.S. Char and Zo-Zu are also good if you have them. Honestly, I didn’t know that Zo-Zu was a Goblin Something-or-Other. Cool beans, no?
P.P.S. The rewording of the Lords (Goblin King, Elvish Champion, and Lord of the Undead) is a huge boon. Before Ninth Edition, Pyroclasm could sweep the board, even with two Goblin Kings in play. Although the other Goblins got +2/+2 from the two Kings, Pyroclasm wiped the Kings out, dropping the rest of the crew to their normal stats, which, in turn, wiped them out, too. With two Kings on board, the Kings themselves can’t be wiped out by a single Pyroclasm (or Hideous Laughter). That ends up protecting all of the other Goblins, too.
P.P.P.S. Wizards needs to reword Lord of Atlantis. I know that it’s not Standard-legal anymore, but I don’t care. Any Lord of Atlantis should be a Merfolk, just as the Goblin King is a Goblin. Don’t argue with me. Just do it already.
…
Dear Mr. Romeo,
As an attorney who worked for an intellectual property law firm as well as writer and songwriter, how do you feel about Wizards/Hasbro suing people over leaking spoilers? And who do you think will win the lawsuit?
Warren Peace
Dear Mr. Peace,
I’ve actually thought about this a lot today. To be honest, I don’t know where I come down on this, because I can see good and valid arguments for both sides. First, let’s look at WotC/Hasbro. The company exists on its intellectual property. What is intellectual property? Good question.
There are essentially three types of property in Western law: real property (land and things, such as homes and wells, so intrinsically a part of the land that it isn’t typically able to be moved); personal property (stuff that you can touch move like furniture and Magic cards); and intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trademarks, and, depending on the jurisdiction, trade secrets).
There are four kinds of intellectual properties: trademarks, which tell the world who produced the “thing;” copyrights, literally the right to make copies of certain typically intangible items; patents, which cover the rights to make certain tangible items (as well as some intangible ones such as computer programs and chemical processes); and, in some places, trade secrets.
A Magic card embodies most of these intellectual properties. The card itself, however, is not one of them. A Magic card itself is real property. Once you own it, it’s yours. You can do anything with it that you want, as long as what you do doesn’t infringe on one of Hasbro’s intellectual property rights. (It’s that thing you probably heard about in school that you have a right to throw a punch, but that right ends at the tip of my nose. Same kinda thing.) The card has the Magic: the Gathering trademark on the back. I can tell because it says “TM” right beside it. If it were a registered trademark, there would be an “R” in a circle. (To qualify as registered, the purported owner of the mark has to jump through a lot of hoops to show that the mark is identified only with them, as well as showing some other stuff. Then, it gets registered with the Patent & Trademark Office, a.k.a. the PTO, in Washington, D.C. It’s actually illegal to use the circled-R if you don’t have a registered trademark.)
The card itself also has some copyrighted elements to it. The art on the picture, as well as the basic design of the borders and frames, are copyrighted, as is the card text. (As far as I’ve been able to find, the art is copyrighted separately and then the entire card, art and all, is also copyrighted.) I haven’t looked anything up, but I also see design patent marks on the packs. I’m going to use my vast powers of deductive reasoning and figure that those are for the games rules as well as, possibly, the unique design of the cards themselves.
I can’t address any trade secrets because they’re, well, secret. There are very few protections for secrets of any sort (other than national security-type secrets, but then we’re talking about treason, not intellectual property). The patent, copyright, and trademark system was set up — brilliantly, in my humble opinion — to allow people to show their work to the world without fear of getting ripped off. “See this? I did this. Copy it, and I own you, sucka duck.” Without these laws, many ideas and inventions would be squirreled away, never seeing the light of day, for fear of theft. Western society doesn’t like that. We want people inventing and creating and putting their stuff out there for the betterment of society. Trade secrets are ones that (typically) companies chose not to publicize through those legal protections. You see, in exchange for the law giving you a monopoly for some period for your invention (patents) or creation (copyrights), you give back the right for anyone to be able to make it when those protections run out. Like when a drug “goes generic.” What that really means is that the patent ran out, and now anyone can make the drug. Companies, then, will keep some things hidden away in the hope of protecting them ad infinitum. Usually, there’s no way that anyone can figure them out anyway. The classic example is the “secret” formula for Coca-Cola. If you could figure it out, they could never stop you from making your own cola. They could, however, stop you from calling it Coca-Cola.
Okay, now you know the basics of intellectual property. (Very, very, very basic.) One of the most important rights that any copyright holder has is the right of first production. That means that you, as the copyright holder, have the right to say when the thing first gets published, a.k.a. put out there for the public to see/use/buy/consume. WotC/Hasbro has the right to control when their cards first get printed and released. You can’t print any without their say-so. Really. If you do, they can sue you, and you’ll lose.
However, releasing the information about what’s on the cards is a bit trickier. The wording on the cards, while essential to the game, is not the copyrighted creation. The entire card is copyrighted. Or so the argument is likely to go. WotC/Hasbro is likely to argue that the wording on the card is intrinsically important to the copyright. They would argue that wording is so important that, by copying that, you’ve copied the most important part of the card. Most tournament-savvy players would agree. They don’t care one whit about the art or boarder; just tell me what the card does. Thus, you’ve violated their copyright. The classic case on this is Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985). In that case, The Nation published only a small part of ex-President Gerald R. Ford’s autobiography. The “small part,” of course, was the part about what he knew about Pres. Nixon and Watergate, and why he decided to pardon Nixon. Say what you will, but, other than that part, no one really cared about Ford’s autobiography. The court agreed. Since the published excerpt was the “heart” of the work, there was copyright infringement even though it was a small part of the work as a whole. In the case of Magic cards, it would be mighty hard to argue that the rules text is just a small part of the card. Without that part, there is no game.
If you were the person being sued, you’d probably argue a couple of things. First, you didn’t get the information by illegal means. This is shaky ground, though. Even if you didn’t know for sure that the information or item that you’ve gotten is stolen or obtained by extra-legal means, if you properly should have known, you can get slapped. At this point, everybody who is involved in this game deep enough to write for a web site knows how jealously WotC has always guarded their stuff. We all know that employees, contractors, et al, sign non-disclosure agreements. So, saying that the information was given to you probably won’t cut it. If someone you know to be a jewel thief gives you diamonds, better find out where they’re from before you accept them.
The argument that might work is one of the oldest and simplest: we’ve always done it this way. If you can establish a pattern, you can possibly argue that you’re not doing anything different from what you did before. If it’s not different from what you’ve done and they didn’t complain before, it’s too late to complain now. For example, let’s say that you have a contract that requires you to make monthly payments by the first of each month. If you’re ever late, the other guy can void the contract. In the first thirty-six months, you made only five payments by the first. The other thirty-one you made by the fifth, and he never said a thing. Obviously, you’ve established a pattern that, regardless of what the contract says, the fifth is okay. All of a sudden, the thirty-seventh payment is late, and the other guy serves you notice that he’s voiding the contract. You could potentially win a suit that requires him to continue the terms of the contract because you weren’t paying any later than you had been most of the time before.
Sites that publish spoilers of upcoming Magic card lists could argue the same thing. “We’ve been publishing these lists for X years and Y sets, and you’ve never said anything was wrong with that. You’ve sat on your rights, and you can’t get up now.” While the example I used was from contract law, intellectual property law is a bit trickier. It could be that the court will find that WotC/Hasbro didn’t sit long enough to have given up their rights.
The truth is, though, that theses spoilers are only good for Magic. They really ratchet up anticipation for the new sets. No one is printing any cards from them — that, I’d be totally against. The players just want to see what’s coming. Such a suit can’t help WotC/Hasbro; it can only hurt them.
How much would it hurt them, though? Is anyone going to stop buying Magic cards if Hasbro presses this suit? (At least one forum hound says “yes.”)
There’s speculation that the suit has only to do with images of cards, but I don’t know that. I only know what the press release said, and it only mentioned “proprietary information.” That can be both the art and the card wordings.
Now, a lot of folks are thinking, “Why does it matter? They can’t get anything from Rancored_Elf.” Oh, yes, they can. If Hasbro wins the suit, they have a right to get damages. Depending on what they prove, that could be a lot. Personally, though, I’d go this route for the defense: Yup, we put up information before the cards were released. Did it with Ravnica, too. Wasn’t that your biggest seller ever? How much did we hurt you? I’d say we didn’t hurt; we helped. We request damages of one penny be all that WotC gets, your honor.
Why do that? Because the facts can’t be argued. They did “leak” the information. They should have known that it was not obtained with WotC/Hasbro’s okay. So, they’re most likely going to lose the suit. What you don’t want to lose along with the suit is everything you’ve ever worked for, or will work for.
While I don’t like that Hasbro is doing this, they almost have no choice. If they don’t protect their copyrights now, they may never be able to do so in the future. In fact, given how long WotC has allowed spoilers to leak, they may have already waited too long.
My prediction: it never goes to trial. I’ll bet Rancored_Elf and company can’t afford a lawyer for this. So, they either get a default judgment, or settle out of court. Too bad. Precedent would be nice in this case.
Christopher B. Romeo, J.D.
…
Well, that’s all for this week. Join me next time when Jim Bob may or may not lose a limb in an accident at the mill.
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com
* I reserve the right to ignore such requests at my own convenience.