When a highly anticipated set of Magic: The Gathering cards leaked on YouTube last week, it’s hard to imagine anyone would have guessed the incident would end with the involvement of one of the most infamous private security firms in the world. But that’s exactly what happened after YouTuber Oldschoolmtg uploaded an unboxing video featuring a collection of March of the Machine: The Aftermath booster packs.
If you’re not familiar, Aftermath is an upcoming 50-card Magic: The Gathering set Wizards of the Coast will release on May 12th. It’s billed as a supplement to the game’s current March of the Machine expansion, which has been available since April 21st. Predictably, Oldschoolmtg’s unboxing video was all anyone in the Magic: The Gathering community could talk about in recent days. Based on Wizards of the Coast’s reaction, it’s safe to say the video also irked the Hasbro-owned publisher.
Over the weekend, Oldchoolmtg uploaded another video, this time titled “The Aftermath of The Aftermath… Everything is Gone!” In the clip, the YouTuber says Pinkerton agents showed up at his home on Saturday morning and began demanding he hand over the “stolen” product. “I got up and recorded some videos,” Oldschoolmtg states. “Right after I got done with the video, dogs started barking because somebody is at the door. I come out and the wife’s answering the door and it was the Pinkertons.”
If you live in the US, the Pinkertons need no introduction. The company is one of the country’s oldest private security firms, with its original incarnation, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, dating back to 1850. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Pinkertons made a name for themselves with their anti-union operations, a job they continue to do in the 21st century.
Oldschoolmtg speculates the person he bought the unreleased cards from likely didn’t know they sent him an unreleased set. “Somebody screwed up and sent out the wrong cases to the gentlemen that I bought the boxes off of, because when he sold me the stuff he said he was selling me March of the Machine collector’s boxes — not Aftermath.”
After recovering the leaked Magic: The Gathering set, including the empty boxes and wrappers, the Pinkertons put Oldschoolmtg in touch with a Wizards of the Coast representative, who was “very apologetic about making my wife cry first thing in the morning by sending these heavy-duty lawmen.”
A Wizards of the Coast spokesperson confirmed to Polygon and Kotaku that the company sent the private security firm to Oldschoolmtg as “part of their investigation” into the leak. The YouTuber says the contact they spoke to at Wizards of the Coast offered to send them free products as compensation for what had happened. For what it’s worth, his YouTube viewership has also doubled since the original video went up.
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