The Worst Leaks in Magic's History

Well-Trod Horizons

Leaks in Magic: The Gathering have been at the center of discussion quite a bit lately thanks to the rampant leaking of Modern Horizons 3. 

I personally felt little impact from these leaks because I saw them as they happened, promptly forgot about all the words and art on each card, then enjoyed the reveals over the past few weeks as if the leaks never happened. That's what aging in a time of endless information deluge will do to you. 

Huge swaths of MH3 were leaked via a number of social media outlets in the weeks before the official reveals were scheduled to begin, effectively undercutting those reveals for many fans. It was so egregious that WotC, via a Blake Rasmussen missive on the official Magic website, addressed the leaks on April 30 with an article entitled "The Modern Horizons 3 Leaks, Nulldrifters, and You."

Rasmussen said in the article that "we've experienced leaks of this magnitude in the past, and each time, we get similar feedback -- that there is a significant contingent of our fans who prefer to engage with previews without the fuzzy, distorted potato camera photos getting in their way. We definitely prefer it." For those keeping track with a calendar, official reveals for MH3 began on May 21, meaning much of the set was in front of the eyeballs of fans for nearly a month before intended.

It was WotC's way of leaning into the leaks instead of chafing at them, and along with the article, Rasmussen provided a number of reveals, both though hi-res images of leaked cards as well as (at that point) never-before-seen cards featured in MH3. Rasmussen also pointed out indirectly that the leaks have a negative impact on the process of revealing the cards on schedule, not because of the cards themselves but because of new lore stories, development diaries, and other official accoutrements that accompanies the reveals.

I say "indirectly" because he kept the tone optimistic and friendly throughout the piece, but the message was clear: "If you're the type of player who enjoys the communal experience of discovering the set in an intentional way, complete with crisp, non-potato-camera images, we're still going to roll that out for you in the coming weeks," Rasmussen wrote last month. "We have some cool, fun things lined up, including a revamp of classic Eldrazi-focused stories, throwback previews here on DailyMTG revisiting some of our old column line-up, and definitely a few more clever ideas that we're coming up with on the fly." All those things still happened, but the leaks might have dampened the enjoyment of them. Or they might not have. That's really only for you to decide for yourself.

Now that MH3 reveals have caught up to the leaks and everyone's abreast of the new set, we can debate the leaks' impact on the overall excitement level of the set until we're blue in the face. But the damage, if there was any, is done. One thing many are likely wondering is whether this been the worst instance of leaks in Magic, and I'm thrilled/saddened to inform you that no, it's not even close.

Judgement 2002: Magic Online with Digital Oopsies

Players of a certain age will remember this one for its sheer ridiculousness. In short, the entire set of Judgment was leaked on accident thanks to an oversight in Magic Online. It may surprise younger players, however, that Magic Online has been around that long (and it may further shock even younger players to learn that there is another digital Magic platform besides Arena). 

Magic Online, or MTGO (or MODO if you're both old and hipster) went live on June 24, 2002. In the world of paper Magic, the set Judgment was released on May 27 of the same year. The leak of the entire set, however, occured on April 9. You may be asking how a computer program that wouldn't release for another three months could be responsible for a full set leaking before it was ready. And the answer to that question is beta.

While MTGO wouldn't be live for the public until late June, the development team, a company called Leaping Lizard Software, had been hard at work on Magic Online with Digital Objects (don't tell anyone you learned what MODO meant from me) for some time, and part of that work involved extensive beta testing. At the time of release it was intended that every set from Seventh Edition onward would be available on day one, which basically just included Apocalypse, Odyssey, and Torment. All the cards from those sets were beta-tested on MTGO, but to celebrate the release of the platform, it was planned that Judgment would debut simultaneously in paper and digitally. 

That meant Judgment cards had to be digitized and tested as well, as it would be pretty embarrassing if your new digital platform's first set release broke everything. It turns out that if you hand over an unreleased Magic set to a bunch of random beta testers, at least one of them is going to blab about what they're seeing. And that's exactly what happened. Nearly as soon as it was made available for beta testing, images of Judgment cards were published on now defunct MTGNews.

If you've ever wondered why, for the next 15 years, sets on MTGO released a few weeks after their paper counterparts, it's this. This is why. Since Amonkhet on, releases are simultaneous again, but that one Judgment oopsie really struck fear into WotC for awhile. 

Oh, and speaking of Amonkhet, that set saw Dusk // Dawn leaked a good two months before official release, effectively spoiling the reveal of aftermath as a mechanic. But we'll get to Aftermath later.

Time Spiral 2005: Rancored_elf and The Very Litigious Wizards

The set Time Spiral was officially released in October of 2006, but three playtest cards from the set were leaked almost an entire year early. The perpetrator of that leak, which occurred in December of 2005, was a man named Daron Rutter, a.k.a. "rancored_elf". 

Rutter obtained these three playtest cards and posted images of them on MTG Salvation forums, and WotC was not pleased. Like, "we're going to get the lawyers involved" levels of nonplussed. The entire situation was addressed in detail by Mark Rosewater in a "Making Magic" article posted in June of 2006, and he's stirringly candid about the thought process of WotC at the time when it came to this particular leak, and the fallout it caused. 

First of all, because these were playtest cards and the leak occured so early in the design process, there were plenty of changes still to come regarding the particular cards. Daru Sanctifier appeared in Legions, and during the time of the leak it was slated to be among the "Timeshifted" cards, or straight reprints at a special rarity slot in Time Spiral akin now to The List. It never actually became Timeshifted nor appeared in Time Spiral, but its presense in the image spoiled the surprise of Timeshifted cards existing at all. Today it may seem par for the course to see random older cards reprinted via The List, but in 2006 that was a never-before-seen spin on your average in-set reprint.

As for the other two cards, "Foriysian Twinguard" with its "surprise" mechanic became Foriysian Interceptor, and "Flanker's Flanker" is perhaps better known today as Cavalry Master. Both were tweaked in the time between the playtest cards and the final versions.

On the topic of leaks in a general sense, Rosewater said that "hundreds of people's livelihoods rest on Magic being successful, and the law backs us up. Information on unreleased sets is proprietary information, and as such, unreleased sets are protected by copyrights. It is Wizards of the Coast's property. When someone takes the information (or images) and makes them public without our permission, they are breaking the law." 

Rutter was accused of receiving photos of the three test cards from a third party and posting those images on MTG Salvation. This happened in December of '05, remember, and there were still three releases between then and the slated release of Time Spiral. That's a bit of irony considering the theme of that particular set, but not an irony that Rosewater was too keen to relish at the time. "It's important to Wizards to keep the focus on the current set or perhaps on an upcoming set if the release is relatively soon," he wrote. "But the last thing we want after the first release of a block is to have players focusing on the theme of next year's block -- something they wouldn't be able to purchase for ten months."

If I were a more snarky writer, this is where I might point out that we now get teasers for sets many, many months in advance, which in essence is WotC doing exactly what Rosewater is describing here as "the last thing we want." But I'm not snarky, I'm a cool and wholesome guy. Give me a second while I theorycraft a deck for Mabel, Heir to Cragflame.

The biggest issue with the Time Spiral leaks is the exposure of a hugely significant lapse in security at the time, and it wasn't something WotC could ignore. Lawyers representing the company filed suit against and ultimately settled out of court with Rutter. According to their own press release at the time, "also named in the lawsuit are individuals whom the company believes provided Rutter with Wizards of the Coast trade secrets. The names of these individuals are not known and they are identified as 'JOHN DOES 1-10' in the complaint." Wizards also submitted a DMCA claim against MTG Salvation to remove the images and discussion of the leaked playtest cards. 

The moral of the story is that if you find yourself in possession of playtest cards for a set 10 months out, ask Rosewater to sign them at the next Magic Con. Just for the love of God don't post them online.

Conflux 2008: I CON't Believe You've Done This

Back in September of 2008, a person posted on MTG Salvation about a mystery found on a Japanese Magic card database. The person claimed to have been searching for the card Jhessian Infiltrator on Google, and among the results was a link to a text-only list of every Magic card printed to that point. The poster noticed there was something odd when right beside their original search was a card called "Jhessian Balmgiver" along with the set code CON. That was weird, because in September of 2008, there was no set designated CON.

Conflux wouldn't come out until February of the next year.

The poster then did a search in the list for other cards designed CON, and lo and behold, the list contained the names of every card to be printed in Conflux. Just the names, no abilities, types, colors or any other data. As far as leaks go, it's probably not the worst case scenario from WotC's perspective, but someone definitely goofed somewhere along the line.

New Phyrexia 2011: The God Book

You can't write an article about this stuff without talking about the God Book. What is considered the worst leak in Magic's history, the entirety of New Phyrexia was leaked via the "God Book," or comprehensive document detailing everything there is to know about a Magic: The Gathering expansion. God Books were used primarily to provide print publications of the time, like magazines, the information about an upcoming set so they could prepare content before deadlines. They didn't go to just anyone, but rather trusted individuals and outlets.

Unfortunately for Wizards, when it came to the New Phyrexia God Book, that trust was misplaced. It wasn't long after the leaks started appearing on the internet on April 20, 2011 before WotC's internal investigation revealed the source: 2007 French National Champion, Pro Tour San Jaun (2010) finalist, and 2010 Player of the Year runner-up Guillaume Matignon. 

Matignon was provided the God Book in order to write an article about the upcoming set for French magazine Lotus Noir. He shared it with fellow French pro player and best friend Guillaume Wafo-Tapa. Because of his poor decision-making, Matignon was suspended from sanctioned play for three years, while Wafo-Tapa and two others, teammates David Gauthier and Martial Moreau, were handed 18-month bans. Later, it was found that Gauthier was the one who let loose the leaks after getting access to the document from Wafo-Tapa, but since the God Book was entrusted to Matignon, he faced the brunt of the blowback. "I received the New Phyrexia God Book, and decided to share it with my friend Guillaume Wafo-Tapa," said Matignon in a statement on April 28 of that year, only a week after the leaks began. "I wanted his thoughts on this excellent set, to help me to write my article. However, he shouldn't have had access to that document. Not at all. The 'God Book' has been leaked on the internet. I don't know exactly how. But it all comes from my mistake. I am responsible for that leak."

He closed the statement by saying that "for someone who loves the game as much as I do, [it's] horrible. I feel destroyed. I don't have the words to express how much I feel sorry."

As a result of the leaks, WotC canceled the usual slow drip of reveals and instead dumped the whole set unto the world on April 25, 2011. New Phyrexia released on May 13, 2011, so it was only a few weeks ahead of schedule, but it was still a massive bummer for a lot of people. To lighten the mood, at least there was this comment on MTG Salvation shortly after the leaks went wide: "Wow - Mental Misstep...stinks... Or am I missing something? I was really hoping for that degenerate free counterspell, too."

Oath of the Gatewatch 2015: Don't Judge Me

We're all well-versed in the wingding today. That little diamond-shaped mana symbol meant to convey "colorless" requirements, it's been in the game for nearly a decade now. But back in 2015, there were only five mana symbols, and that's just the way it was. We also walked to school uphill both ways in the snow.

But on November 17, 2015, the world at large was first exposed to the colorless mana symbol. It was a big deal, because a mythical sixth mana symbol was the subject of speculation, rumor, and in-jokes for nearly as long as the game existed (read: Barry's Land). The issue, however, is we weren't supposed to know in November. Oath of the Gatewatch, the set in which the symbol would first appear, wouldn't release until January 22 of 2016. That's 66 days. The card in question wasn't officially revealed until December 11, so that's pretty early. What happened?

The colorless mana symbol was seen on Kozilek, the Great Distortion, who evidently missed his cue and stormed the stage a few scenes early. Kozilek, along with an image for Wastes, started spreading around social media, and while some assumed the cards were high-quality fakes, their veracity was quickly confirmed. And if that's where the leaks stopped, WotC would likely have been annoyed, but we'd all move on debating the wingding for a few weeks before official reveals began in earnest. But that's not where the leaks stopped.

More cards began popping up on social media, most notably the Zendikar Expeditions, or high-value reprints of various fan-favorite lands. Some of those appeared with the release of Battle for Zendikar a few months prior, but we didn't know at the time we'd be getting more, and if we were, what other lands would show up with the new border treatment.

These leaks were met with a significant bristling from official WotC outlets, with an article posted on their website (that is now gone to the void, sadly) damning the leaks as a needle versus the party balloon of prearranged and scheduled reveals. It was largely the same position they'd held during most other leaks, but this time, the tone was less "I'm not mad, just disappointed," and more "no, I'm actually mad."

With some sleuthing (a theme that would be prescient, considering Shadows Over Innistrad would drop only a few months later), WotC tracked down the source of the leaks, or more specifically the source who published the leaks online. That investigation led to the banning from sanctioned play of about a dozen people who comprised a private Facebook group, a group who WotC accused of being the source of not only the Oath leaks, but other leaks in the past as well. Among those banned were several organized play judges, and the sweeping punishment wasn't appreciated.

In an open letter titled "Statement Concerning Recent Suspensions, Or 'Why Ham-Fisted Knee-Jerk Overreactions Hurt,'" a Level 3 Judge named James Bennett said "at most two people were involved in posting, first to a Facebook group, and then publicly on other sites such as reddit, images of cards from an upcoming set. Those two people have received lengthy suspensions, which is in line with precedent for previous major leaks."

Bennett was indirectly affected by the ban and "maintainer" of magicjudges.org, a network of sites that provided resources for sanctioned play judging. Bennett, as a result of WotC's bans, shut down the site in protest.

WotC's reasoning behind the bans was the accused Facebook group's flagrant and repeated dissemination of confidential material. "One of the concerns in the community about these suspensions is that many people see and discuss cards and other information prior to official release. Discussing information that has reached the wider community is not the issue, and discussing or accessing threads you see on public internet forums will not result in sanctions. That is not what occurred here," said former Director of Organized Play for WotC, Helene Bergeot, in a statement published in December of 2015. "The people suspended were members of a private group receiving stolen confidential information about upcoming sets before this information was available in any public forum on the internet. This happened over multiple sets and well ahead of preview season for the sets in question. Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group -- and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet -- should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen. If you come across information like this, you should immediately report it to Wizards. Major leaks in the past have been prevented by other members of our community reporting similar situations to Wizards."

Bennett's argument was that while Bergeot said that simply seeing a leak won't result in punishment, that's exactly what happened to some of the judges who were a part of the Facebook group in question but who did not actively participate in discussion or dissemination. "This is relevant to the broader Magic community because the justification for suspending people who, in Wizards' own words (issued through the Interim Judge Manager), were not 'directly engaged' or 'directly distributing' confidential material," wrote Bennett, "is a nebulous duty to possibly report potential leaks to Wizards of the Coast, with the caveat that failing to report might earn suspension, but reporting might equally earn suspension."

This led to a lot of real-life impact on many people in the Magic community and fomented distrust between WotC and the playerbase for many years, the ripples of which we still feel today. Think about that next time someone sits down for a Commander game and brings out Kozilek, the Great Distortion. Don't complain about Eldrazi (you'll be getting plenty of chance to do that in the next few months), just point out that sometimes, lore and life intertwine.

Oh, and speaking of Shadows Over Innistrad...that set had leaks too.

Eternal Masters 2016: The Leak that Wasn't

If you head over to the social media site formerly known as Twitter and search up the handle "@Vendorleak," you'll find a stock photo of a business boy trying to trick you into clicking on links for tree-trimming services. But if you hitch a ride in the Wayback Machine and adjusted the dial to February of 2016, it'd be a different story. 

Back then, the person using the handle was a person who dubbed themselves "MTGDeepthroat," and instead of bisecting palm fronds, the posts were much more scandalous in nature. MTGDeepthroat took to Twitter to accuse three third-party Magic vendors (that you have probably heard of) of being in possession of the entire card list for the upcoming Eternal Masters expansion, which is a weighty claim for a number of reasons. Being a set consisting entirely of reprints, having a list of those cards ahead of time would allow vendors to adjust prices accordingly: Argothian Enchantress is seeing its first reprint in over a decade? Better unload now before the price drops. A big-ticket card like Cavern of Souls not being reprinted? Start jacking up those singles prices, dog. 

The accusations by MTGDeepthroat spurred an investigation by WotC, both for the seriousness of the situation and to absolve itself. If a few large vendors had access to the Eternal Masters card list before the rest of the world, that'd be preferential treatment, and you don't need an economics degree to know that isn't exactly a "fair and free" market practice. But before all this talk of conspiracy, price fixing and insider information dealing, there was Splinter Twin.

Another anonymous internet person, going by u/temp_acct_leak on Reddit, claimed they had insider knowledge of the upcoming ban in Modern of Splinter Twin. When that became true, people started looking at other predictions made by u/temp_acct_leak. One such prediction was that Eternal Masters was going to be a thing, and that some "important-looking people" on the floor of GP Oakland on January 8, 2016 were discussing some of the cards that would be present in the set. This must be true, people thought, but shortly thereafter, u/temp_acct_leak stopped posting. And shortly after that, MTGDeepthroat congealed out of the aether to levy their accusations of insider information trading. People were primed for a conspiracy, and they were going to get what they wanted.

Both users vehemently denied they were the same person. And if you want to do a little digging, it's not terribly difficult to discover who at least one of them really was. MTGDeepthroat took to Twitter to share with the public that "30+ screenshots [of the EMA card list] were sent out to multiple parties last night confirming their guilt. After talking w/ multiple WOTC ppl, we are working on it." A few days later, they claimed that WotC has been "calling vendors all day, working on a solution," before asking for Twitter followers to share any information they might have regarding the leaks.

They even claimed that news outlet VICE was in contact to do a story, which must have made it all the more embarrassing when it turned out that the whole thing was a ruse. As it turned out, it was one particular vendor who, in order to try to harm the reputation of competitors, faked the screenshots that MTGDeepthroat used as damning evidence. So, to summarize: there was a leak, then there wasn't a leak. MTGDeepthroat claimed to be "pursuing legal action against this backstabber." And the story just... ended.

Welp.

Ixalan 2017: The Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy

The set Ixalan was released on September 29, 2017, and official reveals for the set began two weeks before that. This foil sheet, however, appeared well before that, in June, prompting Magic players the world over into giving themselves migraines from squinting at their screens trying to make sense of a card that destroys a land and deals 20 damage.

As a result, WotC released via their website in hi-res images of what was seen on that foil sheet by the end of August. 

The above image was posted to Reddit, generating discussion ranging from accusations of WotC intentionally leaving the sheet where it could be snagged by a fan with a camera, to leaking it themselves, to malicious entities on 4chan behind the whole thing. There was even suspicion of a WotC-designed canary trap intended to root out untrustworthy third-party contractors. 

In reality, as said by WotC VP of Creative/Production Scott Kelly, it was much more banal. Allegedly a temp at a printing facility snuck by security with the uncut sheets and...that's it. The accused thief was seen on the facility's surveillance doing so, and also tried selling them online shortly after the theft. Kelly's public comment on the matter was itself a change of course for the company, which as policy remained largely silent on the subject of leaks as they happened. But the Ixalan leak was a big one, and required some form of address.

2018-2020: Small Leaks, Big Puddles

Another screw-up came in the form of a huge swath of Dominaria being leaked via Wizards of the Coast China. Again, only text was revealed early, though this time the card names were accompanied by more detail of the cards' mechanics. This one was entirely the fault of WotC as a company, and to their credit they admitted as much. If you're curious what the leak looked like, there's a Reddit post on r/EDH that shows the extent of the information leaked.

And speaking of Dominaria, the set immediately afterward, Core Set 2019, saw a few dozen various commons accidentally included in Dominaria booster packs, a good two months before they should have been seen. People were thrilled that the rarity coloration of the set symbol wasn't as finicky as Dominaria's, at least. The gaffe was suspected by many players to have actually been intentional, but again, we know Mark Rosewater really doesn't like leaks. 

Even with Rosewater's constant promises otherwise, people still accuse WotC of orchestrating leaks themselves, like when booster packs of Theros: Beyond Death showed up for sale almost three months early at Walgreens, of all places. That one probably wasn't an underhanded marketing ploy, but rather a Walgreens employee who might not have read closely enough the date on the packaging. In total, a good chunk of the cards were leaked in October of 2019, ahead of the set's slated January 2020 release date.

2021-2022: Fast and Furious

Not long after, another "this card isn't supposed to be in this pack" flavor of leak happened, this time with cards from Kaldheim allegedly showing up in Commander Legends boosters. And hardly six months after that, the card Cloister Gargoyle from Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms was posted online by its artist, inadvertently spoiling the Venture mechanic months before players knew what the hell that even meant.

In 2022, a bunch of Phyrexia: All Will Be One cards popped up in -- you guessed it -- the wrong packs, this time Dominaria Remastered. These little mistakes resulted in players discovering a bunch of information way before they were supposed to, including the Toxic mechanic, the return of Proliferate, and the new foil treatments the set was bringing. This one was big enough that WotC even had to say something.

March of the Machine: Aftermath 2023: That One Time The Pinkertons Were Involved

And now it's time to talk about Aftermath the set, not the mechanic.

This one's probably still fresh in people's memories, but a discussion of historically significant leaks wouldn't be complete without talking about the time Hasbro hired the Pinkertons to confiscate leaked product. 

It happened barely a year ago, in April of 2023. A person uploaded onto YouTube a bunch of videos opening sealed March of the Machine: Aftermath product, a set that wouldn't be released for another six weeks or so. That person claimed shortly thereafter that WotC enlisted Pinkerton agents to pay them a visit and confiscate all the unreleased MoM:A cards. Pinkerton, if you don't know, is a security/risk management outfit in the USA owned by a Swedish conglomerate, but throughout its history Pinkerton has gotten up to some pretty nefarious s**t. Hasbro contracting that particular company for any reason rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but it also gave us a nigh-bottomless well of joke opportunities.

All told, around two dozen boxes of Aftermath were confiscated. As the story goes, the YouTuber purchased 22 boxes of collector boosters from a friend of a friend then uploaded a video on April 20. Two days later, there was a knock on the door, and while there was no violence reported, the YouTuber did say there was a palpable level of intimidation involved, referring to the agents as "these heavy-duty lawmen." Of course, that's a matter of interpretation.

Shortly thereafter, the YouTuber made contact with representatives at WotC and the conversation resulted in the original unboxing videos being removed from YouTube. It's been surmised in the months since that the original breach in chain of possession for these 22 errant boxes was a result of a distributor mistaking March of the Machines for March of the Machines: Aftermath. To WotC's credit, they did release a statement saying that they had attempted "repeatedly" to contact the YouTuber through more traditional (read: non-"heavy-duty lawmen") means, but after being ignored, they sent in the Pinkertons. 

Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth 2023: Trash for Treasure

Perhaps most hilarious of all these leaks was the time last year when foil sheets of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth were found in a landfill. Those were discovered alongside six full pallets of Modern Horizons 2 cards in the dump. Reddit being what it is, it didn't take long for someone to do the math to determine that there was around $250,000 worth of product in that trashpit.

So if you've got a free weekend coming up and a landfill within a reasonable drive, head on over and start digging.

The only people who truly benefit from leaks are plumbers

The topic of leaks in Magic: The Gathering, of course, is a nuanced one.

From an average player's standpoint, leaks can be exciting. It's a free sneak peek at new Magic cards before they were intended to be made public, and the only thing more dopamine-driving than opening that perfect card from a booster pack is seeing an image of it online well before you were supposed to. It's like getting a glimpse behind the curtain, albeit a glimpse that seems almost exclusively filtered through the lens of a 2005 Motorola ROKR E1 cameraphone while going through a tunnel on a speeding train.

But that curtain isn't ironclad. It was going to be pulled back for free anyway, so all leaks really do is supply the playerbase with information ahead of schedule, information that would have been readily available through official channels free of charge. So what's the motive behind the act of leaking upcoming products before their scheduled reveals? That's a question that only they who commit that act can answer, but we can always baselessly speculate. Is it the attention? The feeling of power? Are they the kind of person who had to have their Christmas presents locked up ahead of December 25 because they'd sneak around and open them before Thanksgiving?

And as planned reveals get more intricate, leaks affect more than just the monolithic and profit-driven boogeyman known as Hasbro. Cards included in upcoming sets are distributed ahead of time to various content creators and community members, allowing them to provide that reveal on their channels/social media feeds. Leaks pull the rug out from under those deemed deserving of that gift of revelation. Regardless of your opinion on content creators, either on an individual level or on the culture itself, you can't say that's not a bummer. The one indisputable fact about the current system of revealing upcoming cards is that we all get to see those cards at the same time and can react accordingly. With leaks, that information isn't controlled. There have been many instances of buyouts, speculators snapping up every copy they can find of a certain card because a leak indicated that card will see more attention thanks to synergy or combo potential. 

This is all being written from a perspective devoid of any professional marketing training or experience, so I can't say what effect leaks have on overall product sales, or why things like scheduled reveals make sense from a marketing standpoint. But considering the dollar amounts on the line with every subsequent Magic set, it's logical to assume they do what they do because it's been proven to be most effective in terms of generating profit. Leaks likely eat into that profit, and Mark Rosewater even said as much in 2019. This is not me espousing the outlook that we should feel a certain kind of way because the billion dollar toy company lost a few bucks thanks to someone with luck, Instagram and a novice's ability to take photos of secret cards. But Magic exists because it makes money for those who create it, and if money isn't being made, Magic will no longer be, either. At least in its current form. Profits must continually improve to satisfy shareholders, and leaks might damage shareholders' confidence, leading to those beholden to shareholders to alter their approach. In other words, just like you wouldn't download a car, you wouldn't download a God Book, would you?

As I said, I'm not a marketer, and nor am I a data scientist. But the data is out there about just how leaks affect player interest in the short and long-term, how it affects information access via Wizards of the Coast, or WotC's relationship with the community, and how it impacts the bottom line. Perhaps there's no discernible impact at all, and leaks don't matter. But do we really think that's true?

And just to be clear, you shouldn't feel bad if you looked at a leaked card. In fact, if you're even a little active on Magic-centric social media, it's near-impossible to avoid them when they occur. Saying you should duck leaks is like saying you shouldn't think about The Game. It's just going to happen. But if you happen to be wandering through an alley behind a printing company and you spy a worker tossing out a bunch of uncut sheets of Bloomburrow, maybe just look with your eyes, and not with your camera?

This isn't even all the leaks that have occurred over the years. There are plenty more, like Invasion, War of the Spark, Ikoria and even a prerelease pack of Outlaws of Thunder Junction hitting the internet well before it was supposed to. What's your stance on leaks? Do you seek them out? Avoid them? Sound off below.