Hasbro/WOTC Sends Pinkerton Agents After YouTuber For Leaking Magic Cards

Earlier this month, a YouTuber going by the name of oldschoolmtg began posting unboxing videos of an as-yet-unreleased Magic: The Gathering card expansion set called March of the Machine: The Aftermath. As Gizmodo reported:

He alleged to have 22 boxes, and uploaded multiple videos last week. It’s estimated that oldschoolmtg leaked about 75% of the entire set, or about 36 of the set’s 50 cards. The set is scheduled to be released in just a few weeks on May 12, with “official” reveals set to begin at the start of the month.

Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic: The Gathering, was not pleased with this — a response that is perhaps understandable for a corporation with a vested financial interest in protecting their IP (or at least the right to, uhh, drum up hype through selective marketing). What the company did next, however, is less understandable: they hired those infamously notorious mercenaries from the Pinkerton Agency and sent them after oldschoolmtg. As he explains in the video above:

I got up and was doing some videos, recording some videos and … right after I got done with the video, dogs are barking because somebody’s knocking at the door. I come out and my wife’s answering the door and it was the Pinkertons. If you’re not familiar with the Pinkertons, check them out. It’s like kind of a big deal. They’re, uh, they’re the largest private security firm in like the world, I think. The big heavy hitter guys. Anyway, they come knocking on the door to recover the “stolen product” from Wizards of the Coast, which was the March of the Machines: Aftermath stuff. It wasn’t “stolen product,” just to clear the record. As far as I know, nothing was stolen.

From there, oldschoolmtg goes on to explain that he had purchased the cards — as opposed to stealing them — from a supplier friend who was more interested in other trading card games than Magic: The Gathering. As such, oldschoolmth hypothesizes, his friend probably didn’t realize that the unreleased March of the Machine: The Aftermath cards were a different set from March of Marchine, which had already been released.

oldschoolmth ultimately spoke with a representative from Wizards of the Coast, who confirmed that they had hired the Pinkerton, but were reportedly “nice” and apologetic about the mix up.