Wizards of the Coast has had to change the art to one of its Magic the Gathering: Stranger Things x Secret Lair cards, after it was noticed that it contains a homophobic slur.
The cards, which were unveiled earlier this week, take characters from Netflix's Stranger Things and turns them into fully functional Magic cards, complete with their own mechanics and art. However, one of the cards had to be quietly changed shortly after it was announced, as players noticed it contained an unfortunate (and presumably unintentional) homophobic slur.
Will the Wise's art shows Will, as played by Noah Schnapp, stood in front of a Homecoming banner. The problem was his head blocked out the E and the C flags, leaving him with a massive slur above his head. The art has now been changed slightly, simply to change that last O into an M.
In an article by Wizards of the Coast outlining the Stranger Things x Secret Lair release, only a cursory mention was made of the art being changed, and no explanation as to how it got through to being revealed was given. However, the lettering was so faint, had a reasonable explanation in meaning to read as "HOMECOMING", was illustrated by an artist whose first language is German, and slipped past multiple art directors and editors within Wizards of the Coast. Assuming any intent on artist Pauline Voß' part at this point would be incredibly uncharitable.
In the last few years, Wizards of the Coast has been carrying out a major push to make Magic the Gathering more diverse, inclusive, and respectful of marginalised identities. In 2018, it reworked the rules text of the game, replacing all instants of "his or her" on a card with they, them and their pronouns. In 2020, it announced it was completely removing seven racist cards from the game, including the notorious Invoke Prejudice and Jihad. It also introduced more queer characters to the game in 2021, with the planeswalker Niko Aris being canonically non-binary, and a number of queer characters in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt (like Varik, Astral Archmage).
Secret Lair is Magic the Gathering's limited-edition, direct-sale range, that sees alternate art (and sometimes unique cards, like this) be available for sale for only a short time. The Stranger Things drop comes as part of the wider October Superdrop, which sees it release alongside things such as anatomical illustrations of famous Magic creatures, pixel-art artefact lands, and collections based on classic horror movie posters and pulp novel book covers. None of the cards are actually printed until the sales window has closed, meaning none of the original versions of Will the Wise will ever see release.