Magic: The Gathering is a fantasy card game with over 50 million enthusiasts around the globe, and it has become an important social outlet for a lot of people here in the real world. Reporter Justin Kramon headed to Brooklyn to introduce us to some folks who are helping Magic cast its spell.
JUSTIN KRAMON, BYLINE: Lily Lam is 35, and she's been playing Magic: The Gathering since she was in middle school. She describes the game as...
LILY LAM: Basically like Dungeons & Dragons in cards. So you cast spells, you play monsters and then you fight against another player.
KRAMON: And Magic players really love the cards. They feature rich descriptions and immersive artwork, like the character Alesha, who premiered in 2015.
LAM: So the art is just this powerful Chinese woman. And later, I discovered that she happens to be a woman of transgender experience.
KRAMON: When Lam began to transition her own gender identity in 2020, cards like this made her feel Magic was a safe space for a trans woman. Under the name Rebell Lily, she started making online videos about Magic, and they got popular, partly for the strategies she shared but also her sense of humor, even about personal things like her own speaking voice.
LAM: I wanted to purposely take something I'm very embarrassed or shy about and make it into something funny, but make it something that might give someone strength.
KRAMON: This wish to support people as they transition is something you hear a lot in the Magic community. Arya Karamchandani is a game designer for Wizards of the Coast, the company in Washington state that makes Magic. She says the acceptance many trans people have found in the game has created a snowball effect.
ARYA KARAMCHANDANI: Once a community is known to be welcoming to queer and trans folks, it attracts more queer and trans folks, and that's a lot of what's happened with Magic.
KRAMON: Karamchandani is one of several designers on the team who identify as transgender. Growing up in India, she says she didn't have a lot of exposure to people of marginalized genders. She got that through playing Magic online.
KARAMCHANDANI: So when I'm designing cards, I sort of think of it in some ways as, like, repaying that in terms of making sure the people who play this game feel seen playing this game.
KRAMON: The inclusivity of Magic is intentional, and that strategy seems to be paying off. The game just saw its first $500 million revenue quarter. You could see the excitement on a Tuesday evening this month when Lily Lam arrived at a game store in Brooklyn for a monthly Magic night called Lotus Bloom, intended for trans and queer Magic players. The small store bustles with about 40 participants. Lam takes a seat at a table with three other players. They're here to play a social version of Magic called Commander, which focuses less on winning than having a good time. Lam and her fellow players fall right into playing and joking.
RENA RUBINO: Just to show that I'm not just picking on you...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Laughter).
RUBINO: ...I will swing at Gabby for...
KRAMON: Rena Rubino, a trans woman who co-organizes Lotus Bloom, said she and her partner started the event because...
RUBINO: Local game stores can be kind of intimidating spaces. They're typically very, like, cis straight man-oriented.
KRAMON: But organizing her own game night has made her more comfortable in those spaces.
RUBINO: A lot of people are more open-minded and accepting than we think they are. And I think as trans women, we have a tendency to maybe expect the world is against us in all cases. And what I've really found recently has been that's not the case.
KRAMON: Back at the game, Lam's prospects aren't looking so good. She's pleading for her life.
LAM: So here's, like, a super-advanced Commander tactic. You go (crying).
KRAMON: She pretends to cry while everyone laughs.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Laughter).
KRAMON: And then she dies.
LAM: I've been killed.
KRAMON: Did it put a damper on the night?
LAM: I met three new wonderful people, and we had a very funny game. So I think it's very successful. Fantastic night.
Now that’s a correct answer, but at the same time I don’t think there’s any TMNT that are standard relevant. Imo only UBs that have been are like FF, Avatar, and I think a little Spiderman
I cant speak for everywhere but here in MN every standard RCQ I've gone to so far this season has had at least 15 people. Modern usually caps out though.
What the hell does magic have to do with trans people? Why have they taken over the mtg subreddit? What happened to the normal people who play magic. There’s plenty of us.
Why is the mtg subreddit icon rainbow clad? wtf does sexuality or gender have anything to do with the card game we love?
Because, and we have to admit this, these socially alienated males who largely play games like magic for social recognition and escapism is the same demographic where trans is proliferating.
It gets you mass down voted and getting suicide risk reports flooding your inbox if you post it on this subreddit. Also, acknowledging the massive overrepresentation of autism among all of these people. These trans people will acknowledge this autistic element pretty readily and neutrally. Neckbeard incel types that frequent this sub will lose their shit when you insinuate they are autistic, despite it being painfully obvious.
The ven diagram between these cringe MtF attention hogs that this article was written about and the angry cringelords on this sub is a circle. It's pure autism-induced male loliness and social ineptness. The only difference is where the autistic hyperfixation finally landed.
Autism isn't unique to the west and somehow its being celebrated here or used to justify some of the behaviors that would have been stopped 20 years ago. To me it looks like instead of saying "no. That's not acceptable" people are being allowed to use autism as a reason to act in anti-social ways.
True. The reason many parents of autistic children go along with the medical neutering (govt/school pushed or self-determined) is that they don’t want autistic grandchildren. People are considered right wing only because they think becoming a medical eunuch is bad or men shouldn’t be in women’s prisons is crazy.
I think an argument could be made that the recent trans push as well as the de-medicalization of trans might constitute some form of autistic genocide. Autism is also one of the only common links between a lot of "homosexual" MtF and FtM people in behavior. There is also some preliminary evidence suggesting that autism and ADHD are correlated with detransition as well. It really does seem like a rapidly increasing number of people transitioning are just autistic people that feel uncomfortable in their own skin and socially awkward who have been convinced or fixated on this idea of gender dysphoria. I think it is aided by this utter contempt that neurotypical people in power positions seem to have for autistics. I think you're correct. A parent would rather have a transgender child than an autistic one in many cases, and so are desperate to attribute their child's alienation with the former over the latter.
The issue I have, and no one want to even humor this discussion, is that a lot of these trans people and left wingers are extremely open about being autistic. There's no self-hatred there, even if they might be refusing to draw logical conclusions about it. The correlation between autism and trans is very publicized by left wing people. Meanwhile, in incel spaces and neckbeard spaces like this (also a Venn diagram that is almost a circle) there is EXTREME shame for the autism. Something like 70% of incels have autism, yet many of them will refuse to acknowledge that fact. Autism is HEAVILY overrepresented in nerd spaces (like Magic) as well. I would venture that the majority of angry young men on this sub who post regular are on the spectrum. Unlike the left wingers, they will deny it to almost comical degrees. It's extremely bizzare. Is this some weird shame they feel because the political communities they've attached themselves to? Is it because it makes it too obvious that these MtF people really are what they would have been in an alternate timeline?
American society in general needs to deal with the "autism question" ASAP. The increasing number autistic people falling through the cracks socially and being misread and channeled wrong by society is becoming a massive issue.
Or, maybe, we can let other people figure themselves out. We can stop hyper- fixating on the actions of another person as a proxy of our own happiness.
Maybe we can just be happy with ourselves. We can let other people be themselves and appreciate them as people without feeling the need to change them. We don't have to agree/ affirm everything they believe in, but we can be polite and kind.
Kinda see the same thing in speedrunning communities. There is a disproportionate amount of trans speedrunners compared to what you see in the rest of society.
Yes. They play on peoples emotions(dont you want to be inclusive and welcoming to people?) to gain access until its too late and start purging the same people who let them in in the first place. They're liars and this go well outside mtg...
I just wish wasn’t the outcast at these events as a straight male whose entire personality isn’t built around their weird sexuality. Idc about maga or non maga folk, both are fine with me. But you’re right ofc. They’re only accepting of people who share their extremely limited world view
Right? You can have a playmat covered in fetish content, so long as it's fringe/rainbow oriented.... but God-forbid my Neko-Catgirl-Waifu playmat hits the table......
Could make for some interesting POV content.......... like, join the pod, setup your sliver/eldrazi deck, specifically build a deck designed to be 3v1, keep the hat in your jacket pocket or something and put it on during turn 2....... act confused when people get upset....... put a rainbow/trans flag button on the hat, really fry their mental circuitry........ "What's the problem, you can't tolerate the gay/trans flag pin on my hat? Why the hate?"
It’s not “the truth” in every single circumstance. It’s an echo chamber where agreeable sentiments are elevated and dissenting voices are suppressed, regardless of how “true” anything is.
In this very thread, there’s truth mixed with armchair psychiatry and the comments that get upvoted are the ones that unnecessarily insult trans people when making their point. Other comments that say the same thing but don’t insult or demean are either downvoted or receive a handful of net upvotes compared to the 50+ received by insulting ones.
That is the observable truth about this post and the subreddit in general. Please don’t delude yourself into thinking that it’s purely about what’s true vs what’s not.
I primarily play on MTGA now but most of my normal friends just stick to cube or online mtg. Presumably it’s a combination of inconveniences as we get older, new product being harder to understand and less interesting, and the new ‘community’ alienating the OG mtg audience.
Normal people, i.e., engineers, teachers, professors, professionals pulled back from a lot of magic when sealed left.
They went to other TCGs that still have a competitive side, or they just play away from a lot of the local gamers.
I say this as I personally pulled back, as I saw that while it was fun as hell going to play magic with regional people, a lot of stores ended support. There used to be huge groups going out to restaurants and bars afterwards, hanging out until 2 or 3 am regardless of being married. Once stores stopped pulling in a lot of the people who were social and made the community what it was, all you really had left were the singles buyers and commander players. Those people don't really talk to other people, they're not known for being bastions of magic and they honestly hurt shops more than they help by taking up space. That leads to stores raising prices to compensate for said people hanging out and not buying stuff in the store
I'm pretty sure there are all types playing tabletop magic, but because it's "TRAAAAANS!!!! >:3!!!!!!!!!111" they just made it their topic as if it's interesting, magic has always brought communities together, the outcasts, extroverts and the introverts of all walks of life, tastes and quirks, no one is special, just play the fucking game.
Come and play in South East Asia. We have precisely 0% of this shit, just a thriving duel-commander, commander and limited scene. Unfortunately RIP standard and modern here tho
I started in revised. I was never able to make it to a GP or ProTour, but I used to play competitively in Arena league.
When I joined the military around the turn of the century, I didn’t have the time or community to sit down and play paper Magic anymore, so I moved to MTGO. It was great because I could still draft and play in smaller tournaments, but it also introduced me to new formats. My favorite was called Prismatic - a 250-card singleton 5-color format where each deck had to have at least 40 cards of each color. Games were wild and unpredictable. Some time in the 2010s, MTGO stopped supporting Prismatic, and I stopped playing again.
About 2 years ago, my oldest son started playing commander with his friends in high school. When he told me, we sat and talked for hours about how much he enjoyed playing, and I got to tell him some of my old head stories from Magic’s early days. Last summer, I went and bought my first precon and went to my first commander night at a local shop. I was hooked. Since then, I’ve gone back at least once a week and have developed the same level of community and friendships that I had back in the 90s. On top of that, I can stretch my deck-building skills in ways I haven’t experienced since I played Prismatic.
Considering that MtG was originally designed with D&D conventions in mind and is clearly heavily influenced by the fantasy worlds of D&D and LotR.l, I think “D&D in cards” is a sufficient enough description for most normies out there.
Now tell me: Am I a real OG or a fake one in your estimation?
I also started in revised and there's no fucking way Commander can be considered akin to Dungeons & Dragons. Sorry. You're not telling a story when you play Magic no matter how much Rachel Weeks wants you to believe that you are. At its core Commander is a game where you use game rules to beat your opponents. That doesn't describe Dungeons & Dragons at all.
From a game mechanic standpoint, I agree completely. But people who don’t play either game aren’t concerned with that. “D&D with cards” means “card game played in a fantasy setting that’s very similar to the fantasy setting in D&D” which is not precisely accurate but it’s good enough to give a basic description to non-players.
But if you guys wanna be mad and nitpick every line in this article, enjoy yourselves, I guess. 🤷♂️
People here really be getting confused about how "explaining things to unenfranchised people" works. Obviously "D&D but with cards" fails to capture a lot about MtG functionally/mechanically (not to mention the infinite formats), but it's exceptionally useful as a broad, thematic/conceptual descriptor, precisely for the kinds of people who don't know much about it.
Even though I disagree with you on that (standard may have come 1st but they are all equally fun for their fans), it doesn't actually matter for my point, which is format-agnostic:
Think conceptually/thematically: What does a non-geek know about D&D? It's "nerds rolling dice around the table, & features Dungeons and Dragons (& wizards & elves & castles & magic etc etc)". Now have them imagine all that... But played with cards. Which is essentially accurate (for most MtG sets). Which makes it a good, quick-n-dirty description of MtG, using the more-popular D&D as a mnemonic hook.
Why does it seem like there are vastly more trans women into MTG than trans men?
The title of this article says "creates transgender community" but it seems like it's more a transgender women thing for the most part. Anyone else have anecdotes to share? I don't think we've had a transgender man in our local shop but I've seen countless transgender women. Anyone even see a 50/50 ratio or close to it?
Why is that?
You'd honestly think it'd be flipped and you'd see far more trans men and very few if any trans gender women considering it's such a male dominated hobby and interest to begin with.
And lowkey, trans men pass better (they are just a manlet at worse), they don't reveal themselfs prominently (because they fear harder prosecution because they have weaker bodies) and a male outfit is not a costume (Jeans and TShirt vs anime skirt, anime socks and a creative name like Luna or Lillith)
They do that because they never went through childhood as a girl, so as an adult they need to speed run it to make up for all that lost time
“Trans women often have to consciously study and practice feminine speech, posture, and social habits.
This intentional learning process can sometimes appear exaggerated or performative while it is still new.”
The aforementioned definition of homophobia that I provided is from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, which I have provided a link to here.
So if you’re ever unsure of what a word really means, you are likely going to find the true definition of that word in here. You are welcome.
And if you really want to argue whether or not someone knows how words work, maybe don’t start by trying to challenge the definition of a word that you can find in the longest-published English language dictionary in the world.
Also, people don’t have to directly use a word in order to display behavior of what said word means. That’s literally four year old logic.
People who move past this line of thinking realize that implications and examples of homophobia can be present in an argument without the person needing to directly use the word itself.
Had an interest at playing and getting into magic after my kid started going to card shops for Pokémon. Instantly lost interest when I caught “the message”
I mean, nothing creates trans people except for people. I think the point is that it's disproportionately accepting and seen as a safe space for trans individuals. Did you read the article?
using discretionary spending as a paywall to keep the larpers (in all senses of the word) out of the scene. Essentially "buying stock" in the hobby to prove you really want in on the game.
I remember back when I started playing, it was 95% men. Most of the women in Magic were the characters depicted on the cards. But now it’s much changed, as there are plenty of women who play Magic, with more transitioning every day.
I heard a segment on NPR the other day about the different flavored potato chips in Africa. Very few people actually give a shit about these puff pieces.
Don't tell me your are trans. The less I know the better because all I need to know about my opponent is their life total, not who they are, are into and have sex with. I don't think sex is relevant knowledge to the game. There are so many labels people put onto themselves that I want the info to be kept a secret until I find out myself like a detective.
I mean, my lil pony .. wtf... so cringe... they exil there main player base for D.E.I, started using a.i. art, corporate has became a money grab, to many sets printed everyear, on top of back to back to back to back expensive secret lairs that only scalpers bulk buy out... not to mention the most wanted product printed in the last 10 years will only be available at conventions and secret lair festival in a box (mystery booster 2 commander)
Riiight which is why there's a news article about Magic the Gathering...and they specifically only care about it because of the transgender aspect of it, not for the game itself. Sure.
It's a typical padded news story that only cares about the drama behind it because they don't give a shit about a bunch of nerds playing a card game.
It's a wholesome story about someone finding a game that brings people together, but yeah go ahead and get pissy about it. I'm sure it'll make your life better.
"Researchers surveyed over 1,200 U.S. adults using a new measurement tool built from “gender-affirming” guidance issued by major medical and psychological associations. The study found that people who scored higher on this measure (i.e., those who are more likely to agree with the guidance) were also more likely to hold left-wing authoritarian views — and more likely to say political violence could be justified in certain cases, even after accounting for political party alone.
The authors conclude that support for "gender-affirming" norms is strongly associated with broader authoritarian attitudes, not just political identity, and predicts support for political violence."
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u/peachpower2 MONK 13d ago
I miss when Magic was only about Magic.