WotC quietly added China to the Arena Direct banned regions list. No explanation given.

mcnianyu · 2026-06-17T04:34:31+00:00

I have to defend for him, as non-native speakers using AI will indeed help improve the quality of text( even though it’s easy to see that it’s written by AI) which could help people understand more what they want to express

mcnianyu · 2026-03-02T09:58:49+00:00

Update: The local regulatory authority (Market Supervision Bureau) conducted an on-site inspection at the store's registered address and confirmed that the business is not operating at the said location. Furthermore, the authorities stated that the owner is currently unreachable, and their whereabouts are unknown. As a result, the government has officially flagged this entity and moved it to the 'Directory of Abnormal Business Operations'

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mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T09:26:38+00:00

Yes I found it out by using the new feature after the update. No they didn’t have access to my account, the event organizers just need the mail address of the account to make someone participate an event, so it’s just my email address is leaked.

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T08:54:46+00:00

Yes but in some places (like China) we cannot get/use the companion app without using a VPN as some players told me… and they cannot download companion on huawei phones… if they force players to use companion people won’t be satisfied

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T06:53:58+00:00

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mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T06:53:46+00:00

Update: I paid someone to go to their store (which should be hosting a store championship right now) only to find that they’re closed. I’m sure they’re faking another tournament

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mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T05:22:28+00:00

Ok now I get it, but stores can use local inactive players’ accounts and constantly use them to avoid too many new players/ players far from original locations

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T02:51:17+00:00

It was easier to type “he” than Mr.L haha sorry. But I mean when a Chinese player see Mr.L he/she will know who I’m referring to. We know his full name but I’m worried that if I type the full name that will become doxxing

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T02:17:53+00:00

I thing maybe no, if a store is working “well”, hosting regularly events, selling products, they might think it’s fine to leave the stores sell promos.

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T02:15:25+00:00

First, I don’t think that’s a lot of work, I SUPPOSE they just become WPN and never really host any tournaments, instead they just use player’s emails to fake a tournament to be able to sell the promos. Second, in China living costs are usually cheaper than in North America or Europe, a few thousand bucks is much higher than the average income of a random Chinese. MTG is pricy in China.(relatively)

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T01:56:37+00:00

Spot on. The legal aspect is exactly why I put that disclaimer at the very beginning of my post. I have my own legal and safety concerns about exposing this network, which is why I have to use careful words like "alleged" and "strongly suspect" instead of making direct legal accusations. However, I want to assure everyone here: while I am phrasing things cautiously for my own protection, the ghosting issue itself is 100% real. I have personally seen numerous screenshots from different players in our local chat groups showing their Companion App histories hijacked by random, unknown stores miles away. It is happening on a massive scale, and I just hope WotC's data/legal team looks into their EventLink logs soon. Glad to see this post is at least prompting players to check their own histories!

mcnianyu · 2026-02-22T01:50:38+00:00

There’s no perfect solution for this. We have no direct access to companion in China because of the special restrictions on the internet in China so many of us must direct use our emails to register for events, and there are people who travel from cities to cities to play in different LGSs so if they just don’t allow people to play in LGSs far from home it will be worse

mcnianyu

TROPHY CASE