Wizards Of The Coast Sends The Pinkertons After Magic: The Gathering YouTuber! | Dies To Removal 48 

Did you miss the previous episode, "Is It Safe To Return To Complaining About Magic: The Gathering Events?" Watch it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QX3g7FlB_D0.html

Many Magic the Gathering players ask the question: is it worth it to hire the Pinkertons?

WOTC got money for Pinkertons but not for noncurling foils?

Hasbro Exec: "Glad we're past that Open License PR nightmare." Secretary: "Some RU-vidr just spoiled some of the next Magic set!" Exec: "Send in the Pinkertons."

WotC could get someone killed doing this too. Pulling a similar stunt on someone else who feels their home or life is threatened could lead to a lethal escalation. This is America after all.

Don’t forget the Pinkertons sent a cease and desist with demands of royalties at Rockstar Games and Take Two because Red Dead Redemption 2 showed them in a negative light lol

WotC has pulled a similar stunt back in 2017. And Hasbro's Director of Security Risk Management was previously a director at the Pinkertons.

The DnD community is reacting worse to the Pinkerton situation than the MtG community. A bunch of DnD people are talking about even bigger boycotts. People cancelling tickets to the DnD movie, DnD Beyond, the new game, and everything. They are doing so serious heavy lifting in the get back at WotC front. I want MtG players to take this stand.

Never have I felt better about deciding to stop buying WOTC products after the new D&D OGL was leaked this year.

If WOTC thought anything illegal had occurred they would have gone to the police. They must know that isn't an option to stoop to blatant intimidation.

WOTC is really in a sad state of affairs. It seems like they can’t do anything right. Sending Pinkerton to someone’s door is just so over the line. It’s like something out of a movie.

Damn that hurt the soul when kenobi said "the old image of an Americans would sue you for anything now its they will shoot you" the look on the profs face mirroed my own....that really hurt to hear.

I love how WotC's latest statement has them saying they only did it because "several phone calls went unanswered" and that they would never "instruct any employee or contracted agency to intimidate an individual". Like, c'mon. Our phone system is inundated with spam to the point that many people don't answer unknown numbers. So that's not an excuse. If anything, it shows that you didn't actually try to seriously reach out to this person before sending in the hired goons. And you sent the freakin' Pinkertons! I'm sure WotC didn't instruct them to intimidate anyone because you don't _need_ to instruct them to intimidate people. That's what they do. That's their job! You don't need to instruct them to be thugs anymore than you need to instruct them to breathe. You only hire them in the first place because you need somebody to be stepped on.

Wanted to add this. I grew up in rural Appalachia, unions that all the men in my family were in were busted and harassed by pinkertons. He is a distant relation to me personally but hell, They *allegedly* killed Sid Hatfield which started the biggest union action in U.S. History. I grew up knowing that Pinkertons were scary and hurt people who just want to survive working for terrible companies. I doubt it goes farther thana few. But this was finally the step too far for me. Which hurts because I love the time I spend with my friends because of magic. I don't plan on selling all my collection and disavowing ever playing again. But unless something WORLD CHANGINGLY drastic is done on WotC's side. I feel like I'm morally unable to support them anymore. I'm not happy about that or excited to share it, I'm hurt by it because I have alot of emotiional investment in this hobby. But I just emotionally can't. Not trying to just air my issues, but there are parts of the U.S. that weren't suprised that the Pinkertons still exist and don't see them as a character in a video game. Appalachians especially have a long memory and even if its decades ago, we still remember how they hurt our families. Love the Behind the Bastards shoutout vince. And thank you both for talking about the subject.

Hasbro saw Nintendo sentence Gary Bowser to indentured servitude and said "We can top that."

I think the main reason they hired the Pinkertons is for the intimidation factor. Not just the RU-vidr but to the MTG community at large. It feels like they want to set a precedent, but instead it comes off as such an immature response with insanely high risk.

In 2001, prior to Odyssey being released, a friend of mine went home to China from Australia and somehow got his hands on the print templates for the entire Odyssey set. He sent those files over to myself and a few of our mates, I have no idea how it got back to WoTC that we had these but they sent a lawyer to talk to us and ask a few questions about our 'source'. He bought the 3 of us lunch, we told him we didn't really know anything and that was that. Was a weird situation for sure.

Let me just say that acceptance and even zeal for proxies has risen dramatically amongst the people I normally talk to about M:tG since Magic 30 and even more now after the Pinkerton fiasco.

The Ludlow Massacre of 1914: During a prolonged strike by coal miners in Colorado, the Pinkertons were employed by the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, owned by John D. Rockefeller Jr., to protect company property and harass striking workers. The conflict escalated into a violent confrontation, culminating in the deaths of several striking miners and their families.

Every card is a chase card when the PINKERTONS ARE AFTER YOU!

Something I'll recommend to anyone talking about this is to make sure you associate this with Hasbro, not just Wizards. If Wizards made this decision independently, you can trust that Hasbro won't let it happen again if it gets the parent company's name dragged through the mud; if it was actually a Hasbro decision, it's important that they don't get to compartmentalise the blame on just Wizards.

Bottom line, if wotc thought the cards were stolen, send the police with a warrant, not the pinkertons

The Pinkerton's detective agency was founded in 1850. So closer to two centuries than 1.

Not gonna lie, I'm done supporting Hasbro/wizards of the coast. As much as I like mtg, I can't in good conscience give them anymore of my money.

Surely prof does an is it worth it to buy a private security force to retrieve leaked cards 😂

People are discovering that Magic exists because of this. This is the first impression of your company many people outside the game are getting. I'm seeing people talking and tweeting about this... And I'm in Brazil. I mean, this is like killing a mosquito that landed in your arm throwing sulfuric acid in it!

"Over half the set spoiled" Waiwaiwait. So this dude opened a whole booster box of a set That only has 50 cards... and an UNBOXING OF A BOOSTER BOX did NOT... SPOIL... 100% OF THE SET. Am I hearing this right? Buck me. And they sent the Pinkertons over for this! For less than FIFTY UNIQUE CARDS

You guys also missed that the pinkertons went around his neighborhood interviewing his neighbors., he talks about this in a recent video.

I feel that sending The Pinkertons was not actually about Wizards getting their cards back. It was more likely about Wizards sending a message that Wizards will respond with the tactical nuke option to any instance of possible theft or breaking of street date.

Calling in the Pinkertons is pretty much the one way to keep me from ever buying anything directly from WOTC. Bad product comes and goes, but being bastards takes a long time to be forgotten.

This was a message. Not just to players and content creators, but employees as well.

I am not someone who searches out leaks, so I wasn't aware that Aftermath had been leaked until I started to see news about the Pinkerton raid. So, if Hasbro intended anything other than to intimidate future leakers, I think it backfired spectacularly.

Good to see all-star RU-vidr PK helping out a small and upcoming channel 👍

The core of the problem with Wizards and the reason they cant do any of the jokey stuff is because they take themselves waaaaay too seriously. We can’t have a true “un” set anymore because the cards are legal now. We can’t have a true celebration for the 30th anniversary because money must be made. We can’t have jokes because wizards is a serious company and we must treat this children’s card game as though it were the infinity stones.

cards used to get leaked in the 90s and early 00s bc wotc themselves would send full spoilers to magazine publishers like inquest so that the writers had time to write up a review and have it ready to be published alongside prerelease weekends. I used to print out the whole list of sets like nemesis, prophecy, and invasion and go over it with my friends literally a full month before anyone could buy any product.

I know they’re deleted now, but I watched his first video 4 hours after it was posted. His original explanation of how he acquired aftermath, explained at the beginning of that first aftermath video, was that he ordered some MOM collector boosters from his friend (it was alluded here that his friend either owns or works at a game store), and then he goes on to explain that he was shocked to receive aftermath boxes instead of MOM boxes. I get that the entire thing is sus, but from the beginning he’s maintained the same story. Now that the videos are deleted, everyone’s saying he changed his story, but he’s said this from the beginning. Unless I’m missing something here, the actual factual “wrongdoing/illegal whatever” would fall on the person who sold him the boxes, not the person who opened them on RU-vid, wouldn’t it? Either way, at least people acknowledge that the Pinkertons exist now. God, times are wild y’all. 😂

Regardless of what security company WOTC called, they security company had ZERO legal authority to go to his house and confiscate the merchandise. Doesn't matter at all how he aquire said merchandise that's not how you legally go about retreating the items.

Actually glad to see some of the big MTG creators talking about this. 5 bucks says command zone won't touch it with a ten foot pole

I just started working in the TCG industry and was getting interested in starting back up with MTG. Thank you WotC, you just saved me money I can spend on Pokemon or One Piece

I forgot to pay the 1 and the next turn the Pinkertons showed up...

Worth mentioning that Mark Rosewater's tumblr had a post a couple days before Pinkertons were sent about how upset he was about leaks and the way they ruin the spoiler season. I wrote it off when I saw it as it, I thought it was an overreaction but it is the man's whole life so I understood him being upset. Now I feel like even if he is upset, it's doing double duty as them presenting the leaker as a terrible person who made a nice old man sad in order to justify horrifying actions against them. Of course, there's no way he can speak on the Pinkertons being sent on tumblr since it would be out of line as one member of a company to either defend or denounce it on social media, but that really left a bad taste in my mouth.

I may as well mention that Ian Runkle, a Canadian lawyer and legal youtuber (his channel being Runkle of the Bailey), did a short video on WotC calling the Pinkertons as they did. His conclusions were: (1) the person who recieved the product was not in the wrong, the distributer was. WotC should've gone after the distributer. (2) even if the person was in the wrong, this was a massive PR blunder by WotC, who don't understand how to do PR or know what the Streisand effect is. To paraphrase him, the difference between a great lawyer and an excellent lawyer is knowing when to take alternitive strategies (to going after people), and that this was a situation which called for it (even without hindsight). It's worth noting that if evidence exists that the person who recieved the product was involved in some wrongdoing related to the act, Runkle was not aware of it, but his second point still stands in that case.

Secret Lairs are released so often that it would be hard for the newest one *not* to distract from something. I'm sure the timing was coincidental this time.... and it'll be coincidental next time, and the time after that, too.

Thank you for making a video about this. My biggest fear is that this will just blow over and no-one in the Magic community would be talking about this and the implications of it.

Love how they got caught hiring the Pinkertons and suddenly D&D had new content and Magic had NEW SECRET LAIR ALERT

Yeah, that moment at 16:50 about how we’re viewed outside the US and the Prof’s face saying it all for most of us here.

Wotc: *Will send Pinkerton after one guy leaking information on their new Set early, but does nothing when Star City Games busts out a 1/500 serialized foil for sale at 6k weeks before prerelease of said set*

As someome who worked in the distribution industry for 6 years (trading card distribution specifically) yeah someone probably got sent the wrong thing because someone probably picked it incorrectly since both sets HAVE THE SAME NAME. All this was a picking and shipping error (that happens way more then you think) but got blown out of proportions my wotc/hasbro

Shout out to Deadwood, one of the greatest TV shows of all time. Probably my favourite.

I can't help but ask myself, "Would I buy a pack that has only five cards in it?"

Evil megacorp sends a strike team to secure items from a private citizen. Shadowrun adventure prompt or just Hasbro things?

The Pinkertons came to my house because I taught people about mpcfill for all their proxy needs.

Thank the emperor! I thought this show was done! awesome to see you 2 putting out more episodes!

Between this and Nintendo forcing someone to pay them a huge chunk of their salary for the rest of their life for losing them a fraction of the amount he's paying, this is yet more proof we are living in a corporate dystopia.

Corporate bullies deserve the only message they will understand. A hit to their bottom line.

This is fascinating to me. The Warhammer community loves leaks and if they happen game workshop just shrugs and keeps going. Leaks often actually help build hype, but yeah when half a set gets leaked its a bit anticlimactic

Whenever you mention the "wizard police", my thought is immediately "oh noes, that poor streamer will go to Azkaban!"

Prof. and Kenobi, thank you both for talking about this. It's insane that they'd consider something like hiring a private security firm like the Pinkertons as a legitimate option for resolving this kind of problem.

Vince telling the Prof america's new stereotype looked like it hurt more than any of the last 10 bad wotc things. And as a US citizen, I get it. It's absolute lunacy here and there doesnt seem to be an out

I really want to put it out there that as someone who has been genuinely whiplashed by the rapid release of content from WotC, I really believed Aftermath was just a marketing name for March of the Machine collector boosters, not it's own... "product". And Vince's response to "What would you have done?" is 100% on point. No rational human would take the immediate step of calling the Pinkerton's, that's insanity. The wrappers are definitely an important issue, but literally anything else would have been preferable.

Even if WotC would want to send him replacement booster packs or whatever, I think that's one costumer they lost forever. I'd think they're trying to set up another visit with those guys by getting another pack to him. Sadly he'll be paranoid over this incident for a very long time, if not forever. This kind of event scars a man, cause it was so unexpected and shocking, plus scary as hell

LOVE that Behind the Bastards got a shoutout. One of the best podcasts out there, reasonably centre too. Behind the Police is one of the most eye opening pieces of media I have ever consumed.

I'm a new Magic player, and I thought Aftermath was the same set as MOM. While MTG players understand the words "Draft" "Set" Collector" "Commander" "Jumpstart" "Prerelease", for people not in the know, the word "Aftermath" could just be another format in the MOM collection of products.

Wow I'm overjoyed to have the two of you together in a new video/podcast again!

43:13 I remember when this happened in the Warhammer Community. Books get leaked often, but for the Leagues of Votann codex, it got leaked specfically because the testers felt it was FAR too powerful and in response... the rules team nerfed the book prior to release and apologised for not recognising the power of the book.

Another reason why to not support Hasbro and Wizards.

Thanks for speaking about this situation.

What an ending. Damn good screenwriting on that last question and damn great editing on that final beat. Beautiful. It's honestly baffling that within days of this debacle we've learned a Secret Lair is soon to be sold and shipped with UNFINISHED ART on a card and their solution is to include the corrected version in the next PREMIUM product?? Their product overload is obviously hurting quality control, among other things. Nothing good will come out of it in the long run. These mishaps might become so frequent that the general product could lose value, which could have a chain reaction all the way down to the Reserved List.

Amazing! Always love the DTR episodes - hopefully the next will be in less than 7 months :)

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a trading card company sent the very literal villains of Red Dead Redemption to a man's house for opening cards on RU-vid. We are truly in the *worst* timeline.

I've been waiting 8 months for an episode (because I started waiting as soon as I finished the last one)! Something about your dynamic brings out what I like most about the both of you two, so happy for another episode of DtR!

I and my entire local group have sworn off any and all Hasbro products, including those made by WotC. I'll play Magic through proxies and give WotC 0 further financial gain to put towards these kinds of strongarm tactics.

Dan Cannon, if you’re reading this, you need to press some charges. Not only for your own benefit, but as a warning to any other company that tries to do this in the future. As for the rest of the community, this is definitely not something that should be swept under the rug and forgotten about after a week. Boycotting WotC is a good first step, but it’s not enough on its own. This was blatant theft and harassment performed on a random civilian by a corporation. All parties responsible for this need to face severe scrutiny over this, and if possible, maximum legal repercussions. Precedent is a very powerful concept in the corporate world; whatever the end result of this situation is will shape how other companies behave in the future. If WotC gets away with this with no punishment, it’s very likely that other corporations will take that as a signal that it’s okay for them do this sort of thing, too. If WotC has the heavy hand of the law fall down on them, however, it’ll likely discourage other companies from trying this.

They're making it really hard to want to play Magic and D&D anymore. It's honestly starting to feel dirty when I run a game for my group.

Recently discovered this podcast, only to catch up in a few days. Glad to know you guys are still at it.

I played MTG back in the 90s growing up and loved it. Playing game after game with friends , being excited about new cards and the lore. I slowly stopped playing in the late 2000s and was just recently thinking to myself that i might want to get back into collecting and playing agian but very quickly saw what has happened to the game and now this? Idk what they were thinking but man its crazy to think they thought this was a good idea. Im glad you mentioned the points about it being a game which in there very nature are supposed to be fun and this is not fun having Hired Goons show up at your home and try and intimidate you and make your wife cry.

If Wizards had a legal leg to stand on, they would have sent lawyers. The fact that they sent a P.I. group with a reputation for aggressive behavior shows they didn't have any legal recourse OR they prioritized shock and awe over legal solutions.

"But who isnt an awesome father? It's Hasbro"! I laughed way, way too hard at this

I've been waiting so long for a new episode of Dies To Removal, thank you!

At a family party someone FINALLY knew what I was talking about when I mentioned wizards of the coast. “Oh yeah aren’t they the game company propping up Hasbro before their bankruptcy or buyout?” So glad they’re becoming known 😑

I really waited for you to address this incident, thanks for that. At first I stumbled upon a video with leaked Aftermath by accident and got bored after a few minutes, because, well, I'm still learning the cards from the new set and I feel overwhelmed by the amount of products WotC launches. I'm not even trying to be up to date anymore, I couldn't care less. I don't mind leaks, I just barely have the time to keep up with official previews. And at first, as I came across the news about WotC sending actual mercenaries after this guy, I kinda ignored it. But the more I think about it, and I think about it A LOT recently, I feel more and more disgusted. I care about the business ethics. I boycott Amazon because of their stand on unions (and, in fact, their use of Pinkertons to track ther employees trying to unionize). And it breaks my heart but I don't think I can buy any new products unless WotC at least adress the situation and apologises for it. Not for the "misunderstanding" or people "taking it the wrong way". For USING THE VIOLENCE. Because sending mercenaries instead taking legal action is just plain threatening. Threatening someone is violence, no matter if someone's got hurt or just got scared. Games are supposed to be fun. This is scary and I feel offended as a part of Magic community.

I'm really starting to wonder if someone should be looking at the C-Suite doing some insider trading and literally going short against their own company. With the number of blunders recently, I can't understand how any of them are still in office.

Congrats Vince!!! Oh man, having a daughter is so nice. I'm even expecting my second daughter in a couple months and I'm so excited. You will be so great as a father! Games and humor are big. Love you guys! Keep up the great work

It does damage WotC a lot I think. I've read many comments saying this was the last straw and they refuse to support them now. Even for me, I love the game but I would feel very gross buying an MTG product from now on.

They should have just sent Mark Rosewater and make it a PR thing, or something.

I literally just learned what the Pinkertons were a week ago in the course of reading the Sherlock Holmes novels 😂 and now this

Friendly reminder that if a PI shows up to your house unannounced the ONLY response is to contact the police

Pinkerton National Detective Agency was founded in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton and Edward Rucker. Following the civil war The Pinkertons were primarily employed for 2 tasks, controlling the working class and pursuing bank and railroad robbers. Their are many instances of them using harsh and unwise methods. On one occasion when they believed they had located the hideout of the Jesse James gang they threw in a 32 pound bomb killing a boy and injuring a woman. They were also one of the first detective agencies to understand the importance of information, records and publicity. In 1868 a Pinkerton agent tracking the Reno gang persuaded Fred and John Reno to let him photograph them. The photos were sent to Pinkerton files and within a year the gang was no more.

I think Hasbro deserves to go down. They haven't done anything positive for any of their fans for four years, and now they hired private muscle to strongarm a man and his wife for what could very well be an accident. Yeah, no, they're done.

If WOTC has a legit leak, there is a nightmare brewing with the "golden ticket" situation coming up in the LOTR set with the single serialized ONE RING card that could cast serious doubt on who actually pulls that card.

37:48 "Drug smuggling cartel of necromancers." Someone at WOTC...Write that down! Great episode.

I have to assume that their constant string of PR losses is making them more volatile... like you said, it's odd for the company to suddenly escalate to something like this over the smallest possible set leak. They've been taking big hits for quite a while and I guess it's making them tetchy. It's truly wild how inexcusable of an action it is, and how incomprehensible it is that they thought it was a good idea.

It's funny cause we all CAN do something about this. Wizard is not gonna have one single buck from me again. I am going to shamelessly print proxies and use them. If they fail and magic dies? No worries. We will make our custom cards and play custom magic. And you all can do the same and send a message. Stop this crap.

With regards to the UK debt repossesion, it is outsourced but the companies still require a county court judgement to collect.

I live and work in Oklahoma and was working on an old grocery store a while back. At the back entrance of the building there was a very old sign stating something along the lines they were protected by the Pinkerton's. I guess I didn't end up taking a picture of it, but it was crazy seeing that sign regardless.

I was starting to think this podcast would never come back! Glad to see another one here

Yes! thought this series was shelved, so glad it's back!

10 minutes in the thought comes to mind with Hasbro's other intellectual property "The Transformers", Sometimes there are figure review leaks of certain figures well before the official release that particular youtuber reviewers get well ahead of time, Rumors of transformers figures being smuggled out of the factory production floor. So why in this particular instance were the Pinkertons deemed necessary for hire in the mad scramble for an allegedly accidental card set leak when hasbro's other properties have been having similar issues?

I'm always happy when you release a new DTR. Thanks to you two

I've been having a really bad week, getting an episode of dies to removal makes it that much better.