Good afternoon my nerds, it’s time to get real about alters for a moment.

The following Liliana alters were spotted at a vendor at Magicfest Prague.

I found some similarly sleazy alters at an entirely different vendor in Liverpool late last year.

Both were removed from sale after being flagged to Channel Fireball, so PSA: if you come across anything ew at an event, tag @CFBEvents on Twitter or grab a judge or other tournament staff member and tell them.

After they were posted in a Facebook discussion group, the comments had me rolling my eyes so far back into my head I could see my own spine. Here is a brief guide to why gratuitously NSFW alters should never, ever be on sale (or played) in a tournament setting.

It’s just boobs. What’s the big deal?

You’re stripping everything away from that character apart from her body. It’s sexualisation. Even if you don’t look at it and immediately feel…a response, they’re drawn that way deliberately. There’s no other reason to draw a character in exactly the same pose or scenario, minus clothes.

And yeah, they’re boobs, big deal, we’ve all seen them, but if you’re making that argument you’ve likely never experienced objectification. It happens all the time. Remember the notorious “draft card” that had people in a Facebook group drafting female Magic players and personalities based on who they’d most like to bang?

And I’ve seen people argue that “well it’s OK to have topless men in society but not topless women so really these alter artists are doing you a favour” which y’know is an entirely separate and legit issue, but let’s not even pretend that’s why they do this.

But it’s art. You’re censoring ART.

See above. It’s not art. You can draw or photograph nudes and do it tastefully. Whacking a pair of boobs on top of a previously clothed character isn’t art, it’s drawing the character the way you want to see them. Which in the case of the above alters, is entirely sexually motivated. There’s nothing “arty” about it. Whether they’re well drawn or not, they serve a voyeuristic purpose.

If you don’t like it, you don’t have to look at it! Or buy it!

True. I could shut the folder, walk away, and never think about it again. And then the next person who opens it might be someone who’s never played Magic outside of their own little community before, or someone who’s attending a large event for the first time, or someone who’s going to assume that this sort of thing is acceptable because a vendor is selling them.

All it does is perpetuate the idea that it doesn’t matter what you do in this game, people can’t see past the fact that you’re a body. Whether you’re a character OR a player. (See: aforementioned draft card.)

But as long as you’re not going to use it in a tournament, why shouldn’t you be able to buy it?

I mean, sure. Do what you like in your own home. If you want to draw nude bodies over the top of planeswalkers or buy them off the internet, I can’t stop you. But we’ve already established that these are deliberately drawn to sexualise the characters. I’m at a loss as to why anyone would think they’d be OK to sell at a MagicFest.

Basically, if you think it’s probably too inappropriate for FNM, it shouldn’t be on sale at a tournament. If you DON’T think it’s inappropriate for FNM, then we have an entirely different set of issues.

Who cares?

I care. So do a whole bunch of other people. I don’t want Magic to have a reputation of being full of creeps, because it’s largely not true. I don’t want women to feel like if they go to an event they’re going to have to put up with harassment or people acting or looking at them like they’re objects, rather than valid members of the community.

Why should we?

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Inevitably someone will probably pop up this and tell me that I’m wrong, that I need to get over myself, that I’m the only one who cares. I’ve smashed my head off enough brick walls to know that it’s a circuitous argument and some people just aren’t going to get it.

But please, for the love of everything we hold dear, if there’s an entire demographic telling you that something is an issue, don’t try and argue. We know what it’s like. Listen to us.

A/N: this post has been edited to clarify that I don’t believe these should be on sale or visible at Magic: the Gathering events. You are, of course, entirely free to use whatever cards and art you wish in your own home and with a consenting play group.