Player Banned for Forum Post

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-02-01 13:07:00
tagged: TCG, Banned, Ban, Banning, WoW, World of Warcraft, UDE, Upper Deck Entertainment, Matt Markoff

Matt Markoff, a prominent World of Warcraft TCG player, has recently been suspended for a period of three years for statements he made about employees and Upper Deck Entertainment, the makers of the WOW TCG, in the official forums. We've been following this story all day as leads develop, but here's what we know:

On January 29, UDE updated their banned players list. The list includes Markoff whose ban runs from Jan. 29, 2010 to Jan. 30 2013. The cited reason for the suspension is "Conduct Unbecoming: Major." (Read the suspended players list here.)

The suspension comes after the locking of a discussion thread in which European UDE players started a petition for Upper Deck to release information regarding the competitive play schedule for Europe in 2010. (Read that thread here.) In that thread Markoff, who posts under the name "bdmatt" responded to previous comments from Upper Deck representatives to say:

"I cant wait to get dirt on you charsky, that way i can take you down too. Dont say 1 single word to me at any events we may see eachother at, i wont be responsible for what happens. You are a worthless peon in a corrupt corporation. oh and if reasonable worked with you people, i wouldnt have resorted to what im doing. I gave you every *** opportunity to act reasonable and civil, and you basically gave me the middle finger. If you beat your horse long enough he's going to kick you, and im going for your balls. 

matt"

"Charsky" refers to Alex Charsky, a representative from Upper Deck Entertainment in the Organized Play department. Throughout the thread he posted occasional comments and responses to forum users under the nick "Charsky."

The move is not unprecedented in the history of TCG bannings. Multiple Magic players have been banned for comments made publicly following events, though the nature of those bannings have centered around admissions of cheating and rules infractions not threats to company members.

A Twitter feed listed as "Matt Markoff's" and using the same moniker Markoff used in the WoW forums, has been updated sporadically over the past few months with the latest Tweets reading as follows:

January 27, 4:24

"show us your support and help us stop the company from crashing into an iceberg!!!"

January 27, 4:23

"and michael pozsgay, corle, and isgar boycotting writing for the minis side."

January 27, 4:22

"so far we have watson, myself and phillip martin(on feb 1st) boycotting ude as writers for tcg"

January 27, 3:55

"your voice heard to UDE to treat the players better or fuck off!!!"

January 27, 3:54

"The writers strike has started for UDE. If you want to see articles written by your favorite tcg or mini player, support our cause and make"

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