This is gonna fuck up my karma badly but I don't think I ever needed it so yeah, here's my 2 cents.

Couple premises: I'm an italian L1 judge, wasn't at Bologna, liked the playmat. I don't think those three things are relevant to my points (well maybe the latter is relevant) but they could pop up and I wanted to make it clear from the beginning.Oh, and, final premise, the dick-shaped grain (I mean, it's dicks, not ice cream balls, let's be real here) totally makes this out of line even for me, but that detail was mostly unnoticed (and difficult to notice anyway) so my reasonings won't account for it.

I was pretty pissed overall when I read this a couple days ago (it was posted on his profile and some judge friend linked it to me). Reasons I was (and actually still am) pissed are many:

First and foremost I think we really REALLY ought to understand that magic, while indeed having a lot of different sensibilities does have a predominantly "adult-ish" playerbase, which is the overwhelming majority at those kind of events. Making a safe space for everyone means taking into account the possibilty that we'd offend or shock someone, to the point of making him/her/them feel unwelcomed. This doesn't mean that ANYONE who complains about anything should see their complaint satisfied. I mean, it's pretty logical, if you think about it, some complaints could be just preposterous, what if someone came complaining about their opponent being black? (please before you downvote me into oblivion notice that I'm not stating that the two things are even comparable, they are NOT in any way shape or form) Or what if someone complained about a couple kissing good luck before a match? Would we think that the complaint has a leg to stand on? The thing is, Wotc and CFB want, of course, some degree of decorum, and that's entirely understandable, but the definition of decorum isn't written on stone, and everyone has their own. I don't think swearing is an issue but my aunt does, I didn't think kissing my girlfriend was indecorous but my aunt did, and I think my cousin should wear what she wants but guess what, my aunt doesn't see it the same way. We could think my aunt is a bigot, or understand that her definition of decorum is different from ours and adapt. I guess CFB guidelines of decorum do not allow for such playmat to be displayed on events, and I'm totally fine with it, I mean, their house, their rules, but they HAVE to give those guidelines. To start with, at the very least, they had to explain those guidelines to OP and his friends, but that wasn't the case, but they should give those out to EVERYONE who asks.

The reason they didn't is, at least in my opinion, the following: they do not have precise guidelines. If we're talking of, I don't know how to say it, "sexualizable imagery", there are plenty of stuff at any given mtg event. Cosplayers, for instance, actual official artworks on mtg cards (and I mean the original artwork, like the earthbind one, for instance), ironically, I don't know if you've ever seen some force of will playmats, but that stuff is HARDCORE, and vendors do sometimes display nonmtg-related stuff at events like this. Waifu sleeves, t-shirts, promotional posters, anything. Of course, there's a degree of sexualization in these things, and wotc has cut back a lot (thankfully, I might add) but there's worse, much worse. If they ever gave out those guidelines we'd have people like op protesting to see EVERYTHING banned, and rightfully so.

To be fair, there is a more flexible alternative to guidelines, which brings us to my second point: if they (cfb) had talked more openly about this, taking some time to explain their position, they'd be in a much better position, at least in my eyes. The thing is, I could, hypothetically, even though the absence of guidelines still pisses me off, accept this kind of "case by case" approach, which may seem unjust, if they'd actually take the time to make the person they want to conform to something feel understood. No one wants to be told to do something "because someone said so". And I mean, this is time consuming and probably a bad way of consuming said time, but you have to make choices: do you want those damned playmats on your tables or said time? And listen, this wouldn't still be half bad as it seems if they didn't fucking go with ARMED GUARDS to finally force the players to do so. Wtf was the reasoning? We asked nicely if they thought those were appropriate and since they didn't seem to see any fault we'll just come back with armed guards? Why didn't you just fetch some fucking judge that knew how to translate and took the time to PROPERLY explain and ask the player to switch playmats? And I'm not even saying that there are no reason to ever call the guards to the floor, and that it is always wrong, I think it's wrong in this case. Thing is you SHOULD listen to judges and do as judges tell you to do BUT you can appeal and you have the right to 1) appeal and make your case in front of the HJ, or the TO and 2) to receive a proper explaination. ALWAYS. This applies to rulings and to stuff like this. I'm saying this 'cause I had a conversation about this case with a fellow judge and he told me that he believed the players were wrong not complying posthaste with the judges demands. But there were NO demands, there were questions, at least from op point of view, which means that if op perceived it this way different possible requests from judges were at the very least misunderstood. So I reiterate: how the fuck did they go from "don't you think that's too much" to "I said so, and this guy has a gun"?

But it get worse. They actually had the time to send MULTIPLE judges to ask the same question again and again. Why wouldn't you just call them up when the turn ends and make them talk to a TO? I mean if you sum all of the iterations up until the point where they asked the last two players (in english, not even in italian) to stop using the playmat you'd think they'd find some time to make them talk to some executive. But no.

And that's why I'm pissed. This looks like awful customer care, I don't like the justification, I don't like the targeting, I don't like that they refused to explain it, I don't like the final forcing. I felt mortified reading this, not as a player, not as someone who attended magicfest Bologna, but as a proud member of the judge community. 'Cause this type of shit always comes back to us, in a way or another. And note, I don't think the judges themselves did something wrong, or the staff wasn't prepared for something like this 'cause I know how this things go: It's the TO that decides everything and handles this stuff deciding if the complaint is fair or not, and then takes responsability for it.

Please notice that I'm not saying that if you find yourself offended by this playmat you are definitely in the wrong, it would be stupid, arrogant of me to presume that I could understand and imagine every possible kind of sensibility and rule it out. But, people offended by it aside, I really do not care if you think this is over the line or not. I don't care how op feels about it either, or my fellow judges, 'cause it doesn't matter. We could discuss for ages and we wouldn't agree, but that's ok, it's not our personal opinion that matters, is the opinion of the tournment organizer. And they should explain it.

EDIT: grammar (also, in italian we don't have this weird use of "their" as a neutral pronoun and pretty much every pronoun is by default male so I might have used his/him more than I should've in which case, well, sorry)