We are writing to express our disagreement with how one Magic player, Joe Brennan, has been treated by Card Titan, the organizer of the 2025 North American Eternal Weekend in Pittsburgh—the premiere global event for older, “eternal” Magic competitions. Banning a long-time community member two weeks before this major event without any explanation, process, or recourse raises serious concerns for the Magic community. We write to request that Joe be given the explanation and process he deserves, and that all recipients work to produce clearer event rules that are fairly enforced. 

Joe is well known in the Magic community for winning the 2019 North American Vintage Championship, for being a continuous presence at similar events, and for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. He has been banned from many game stores and Magic events for wearing the MAGA hat. The list of events that are off-limits to Joe now includes this year’s North American Eternal Weekend. On September 23rd—well after he paid for the event, paid for accommodation in Pittsburgh, and had taken time off his work as a contractor to attend the event and drive visiting friends from Europe—he was told with no explanation (other than “multiple reports we received . . . regarding your behavior” in 2024) that he would be refused admission to the convention center and would have his entry fee refunded. Joe has received no further explanation from the decisionmakers at Card Titan about why he is being refused entry—notwithstanding repeated outreach from him and the fact that Card Titan has communicated informally with third parties about the decision.

Many of us consider Joe a friend and pillar of the eternal Magic community; some do not. Some of us share some of his political views; some of us do not share any. Some of us think that Joe wearing a MAGA hat to Magic events is in poor taste. We are nevertheless united in the feeling that Joe, like any of us, deserves better.

First, if players are refused entry to an event—especially mere weeks before a marquee event like Eternal Weekend, based on complaints apparently made a year beforehand—we think they are entitled to some basic explanation of why. Individuals should know the basic contours of complaints made against them—especially complaints that have financial and reputational consequences—and be given some opportunity to respond. We should all be able to know the basic rules in advance so we can behave accordingly. Process should be timely. And it is impossible (notwithstanding the constant temptations of the Internet) to rigorously discuss any community issue without knowing the basic facts. 

Perhaps the decision here has nothing to do with the hat—as Card Titan has suggested. If so, Joe deserves to know that so he can respond as needed—including by changing his behavior for future Eternal Weekends. Without such an explanation, Joe and others are left to wonder whether the decision and any underlying complaints are a mere pretext for heated U.S. political disagreement. To our knowledge, for example, Joe has had no similar issues attending dozens of European and Asian Magic events—indeed, he will be attending the equivalent European and Asian Eternal Weekends later this year—and has had no prior issues at U.S. events other than ones related to wearing a MAGA hat.

Second (and to the extent the underlying decision or complaints are motivated by political disagreement), we do not think that wearing a MAGA hat is a reasonable basis for refusing someone entry to a Magic event, at least so long as the event allows all sorts of other political messages—as many Magic events, including Eternal Weekend, historically have. We understand that private businesses have broad discretion in deciding who they admit, and that organizers have the unenviable task of putting together a large event that cannot please everyone. We also understand that many players (including some signatories of this letter) find MAGA hats offensive, and wish others would exercise their own good judgment not to wear one. Perhaps Magic events should disallow all political messages, as many private events in other contexts already do. There are hard cases. But if organizers exercise their discretion to allow virtually all political messages, we do not think they should (or reasonably can) exercise their discretion to single out one common message for different treatment—much less the generic symbol of one of the two major political parties in the United States. We live in a big society, and different messages—including many messages seen at Magic events, such as commentary concerning Israel, capitalism, gender, and religion—are offensive to different people. 

This is not to say that political messages at a Magic event are desirable. For many of us, we would prefer to see less politics at Magic events, not more. In the meantime, we simply hope for clarity, consistency, and—especially in these tense times—more tolerance of disagreement and more open communication across divides.