SCG Baltimore Legacy 5K MEGA ROBBERY

[mishima_kazuya]

Not sure if this is the right place, but here it goes.

In round 6, I was playing near the doors to the room of the 5K, and as I'm playing I just hear;
"WAIT! WAIT!WAIT"

Apparently Shawn Gorzowski(sp?) a.k.a. Gorky, was trading with somebody in the convention center lobby. The other trader, just picked up Gorky's binder, sprinted to the door, jumped into a getaway car, and drove off.

Gorky lost an estimated $1K-$10K in cards, like beta duals and possibly beta power.


I am asking any witnesses or anybody to contact the authorities and Gorky to provide help.

Most of us love playing Magic. But this game should not devolve into a terrible state where the first priority of a tournament is to make sure that you do not get robbed.

I do not know Gorky well, but I've have seen him Many times in the Mid-Atlantic Magic scene. He doesn't play much magic, but he trades a lot from what I know. But as fellow players and as a community we should help him out and each other.

[Leftconsin]

The thieves are getting bolder. This is a horrible sign for trading everywhere. I've so far only heard of this kind of grab and run at YuGiOh events. I hope the guy gets arrested and thrown in jail.

[jrsthethird]

Security cameras? I'm sure you contacted the staff at the center for help.

Also, Community is definitely the right forum for this, since it is a blatant attack at an attempt to form one.

[rockout]

Security cameras ftw for sure. Then everyone can take turns shitting on their chests.

[DownSyndromeKarl]

Baltimore is a shitty ass ghetto. SCG should learn a lesson and never go there again.

i know this could have happened anywhere, but seriously, Baltimore is worse than philly and detroit combined

[Zork]

Baltimore is a shitty ass ghetto. SCG should learn a lesson and never go there again.

i know this could have happened anywhere, but seriously, Baltimore is worse than philly and detroit combined

Hey, I resent... yeah.

Baltimore proper is a big shithole. Ironically, the worst parts of town are right around Johns Hopkins, too.

[pippo84]

I have no idea of how Baltimore is, but something similar happened in Italy months ago. Some people stole binders and decks and ran away.

THIS SUCKS! Magic is a game!!

And that's the reason I never bring my binder at tournaments.

Anyways yes, some security should be added.

[PanderAlexander]

That totally sucks, hope the thieves get caught because it's a felony (over $500).

A few years back at a PTQ I had my backpack of cards (with lotus, all beta moxes, mana drains, etc) under my chair and when I was done with my match my backpack was missing from under my seat. Some of my friends started looking around but I immediately ran outside to the parking lot looking car by car (because what thieves are going to stay in the building) until I found some kids digging through my backpack. I banged on their door and when they opened the door I was close to punching them but instead I just grabbed my backpack and told the tournament organizer and he said there was nothing he will do except DQ the guy from the tournament. I was young and naive and never though someone would try to steal my cards, now I'm overly cautious.

[Cthuloo]

I have no idea of how Baltimore is, but something similar happened in Italy months ago. Some people stole binders and decks and ran away.

THIS SUCKS! Magic is a game!!

And that's the reason I never bring my binder at tournaments.

Anyways yes, some security should be added.


I obviously agree with this, It could be a good idea to try to look for someone who's selling a lot of power cards all in once (possibly cheaper than the real price). Since a lot of rare and expensive cards were involved, maybe it could be possible to recognize the thief.

[elof]

WOW.

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I for one is of the opinion that you should take those that did this out to a forest, shot them, and leave them there.

Or if you like, use a rusty knife, it's cheaper.

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My god, magic gets harder and harder to play everyday. Saito cheats, Wescoe checks and that guy that got DQ for no apparent reason in Baltimore and now this? What has the world come to?

[godryk]

No offense, but some people kind of sound like my auntie: These things didn't happen back in my day.

This has been happening for years in major tournaments. Crime does exist, so if the wrong people get to know that binders full of cardboard can be worth several thousands, or comic collections can be worth $150k, this crap may happen...

Your best bet here is to say it loud so everybody knows what cards are. IDK about the US, Spain is smaller, so if someone gets such a binder stolen, dealers and shop owners end up knowing, making sure it will be very hard for the robber to sell all that pimpness.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Hey, I resent... yeah.

Baltimore proper is a big shithole. Ironically, the worst parts of town are right around Johns Hopkins, too.

I don't know why, but a lot of places have hospitals right by the ghetto.
Also, DSK, Philly isn't bad at all. Just stay out of the west end. Now Camden, on the other hand...

[Michael Keller]

I saw the entire thing happen, and here's how it went:

I was walking out into the lobby area (outside of the opening to the convention room), when the guy yelled repeatedly, "Thief! Thief! Thief!" I watched this little fucker run down an escalator at the speed of light with a bag, and then apparently a bunch of people started chasing him where he (from what I heard from the guy chasing him) he got into a car and drove off.

We ended up helping out with the authorities there. At first I ran back into the tournament to let the people behind the judge counter know what happened because they were oblivious to it.

What a scumbag.

[Sharpened]

The area around where the event was held is fine. Stray too far from the inner harbor, however, and the area gets unplesant. That said, it had nothing to do with the quality of the area. There are theives in every location, and it can happen in pretty much any city in the world. It sucks, be vigilant.

[sauce]

This is why you:
A) Do not bring your diamonds to the hood, if you know what I am sayin'
B) KEEP YOUR FUCKIN' VALUABLES IN/UNDER YOUR ARM
C) SCG, Why are you not providing SECURITY STAFF for these events...

[evanmartyr]

Do you have any idea how much competent event security costs? The venues they rent out for the weekend have their own security staff, but they're there for serious things, not theft, and they're usually not right at the location.

So yeah, they could hire a couple big dudes for 9$ an hour, but they wouldn't really be doing anything to prevent most theft. I mean, the best you can do in that sort of situation, barring catching the offender and retrieving your property is just following them, calling the police, and getting their license plate number.

It really sucks that that happened, and I'm really sorry for the guy who had his shit stolen (I had my binder stolen back in high school, and the amount of time and effort that just disappeared in the blink of an eye was just heartbreaking), but realistically, beyond players and their friends being neighborly and taking responsibility for not just their own safety/property, but everyone elses, there's not much you can do about it.

So really, if your cards get stolen, you should do a few things.

Immediately notify the tournament organizer and/or the head judge. Best case scenario, you misplaced your stuff or someone picked it up by accident and turns it back in, and you may buy yourself a bit of lenience if the situation causes you to be late for a match or something. But really, without notifying someone in authority, any inconvenience re: the tournament that arises is on your head, and that blows.

If it was a significant theft, see if you can find someone in the area who knows the popular card shops, a local player who can fill you in, or a dealer. Give them a list of cards they should be on the lookout for coming in one batch, or just let them know that your stuff got stolen. At one tournament some kind got his binder ripped off, and then the next week we were at FNM and someone starting yelling at the front of the store. The thief had tried to sell the cards to the local store owner, who realized what was going on, held onto the binder, and told him to fuck off. The owner got his binder back, and we identified someone who wasn't trustworthy enough to play with.

Call event security. Usually the large magic tournaments happen in convention centers, which means security cameras, security guards who have incentive to help you out, and easy access to law enforcement.

Call the police. Obviously, this isn't going to happen all the time, and you should not bother them with it unless you have some identifying information, the theft was extremely large (500+ dollars), or something important other than cards was stolen. Thieves don't usually just steal magic cards, they snag whatever they can use or flip easily, which means cell phones, wallets, cards, cash, random collectibles you may have, laptops, etc. If you call the police and report the theft of a Vintage deck, they are unlikely to get anywhere or, frankly, care. If you call them and report the theft of a backpack, which had magic cards in it, maybe an ID or two, cell phone charger, whatever, and you can describe the backpack, you can usually get some of your property back, if only because they know what the hell you're talking about.

Get in touch with the DCI, or ask the head judge to. If you can identify the culprit, and if you can provide enough information that they can make a real decision, actions like theft can easily remove the person from eligibility to DCI events in the future. Ban them from being in magic tournaments, they have less reason to come, and less reason to rip us off.

Things you shouldn't do are really just limited to reprisal. Even if you *know* player A stole your shit last month, don't steal their shit. If you can't prove they did it, to the DCI or to law enforcement, then they got away with it. It sucks, but it's usually not worth getting banned or arrested over. Don't jump them in a dark alley after the tournament, or confront them. Verbal confrontation can be a legitimate provocation for self defense, meaning if you get in someone's face and threaten them, swear at them, etc, in a court of law they can easily argue that you made it clear they were in danger of physical harm, and acted to prevent it.

So, just spread the word and work with the authorities (both legal and the DCI) to get some sort of recompense (for yourself), or punishment (for the thief). Let other players and dealers know that the guy's a shithead and they deserve to trade with/play/sell to/buy from a better class of person. Being a pariah is a pretty terrible thing.

Oh, this is just a personal thing I do, but I find it works somewhat well. There are cards you won't trade, right, especially as Legacy players. Fetchlands, duals, your playset of FoWs/StPs/Paths/Brainstorms/Counterbalances/foil Trinket Mages/Aether Vials/Wastelands, etc. If you are not using those cards in a deck, DO NOT BRING THEM TO THE TOURNAMENT. Do not put them in a binder. All my truly valuable playstock is kept at home, in one box, sleeved, ordered, and rarely leaves the house. If you get a trade binder stolen, you lose the things you were willing to part with already. But if you get your playstock stolen, not only are you set back quite a ways in terms of value, but you have to go through the exhausting motions of buying/trading all of it back, and you really had no reason to have it with you in the first place.

I tend to keep a binder of random crap I'm interested in trading away, and a binder of random crap people find useful for other people to have to fill out trades (Brainstorms, Dazes, Basking Rootwallas, random common/uncommon pieces of decks that don't have a high rarity but that you can't always count on dealers to provide you with, at least at decent prices), and a deckbox. The deckbox never leaves my posession, the trading binder gets passed around, and the playsets for trade don't come out of the backpack unless someone mentions they're short a Goblin Matron or whatever.

Oh, and also, if you're putting a backpack under your chair, just hook your foot through a strap. Not enough to anchor it solidly and comically clothesline a speeding thief, but enough so that if your shit moves, you're aware of it, no matter how involved in your game you were. Pretty simple precaution, and it lets you stop worrying too hard about people being shitheads and enjoy what you came for: playing magic!

[Michael Keller]

While all that is good advice for someone to take when it comes to bringing your valuable cards to a large event with you, it doesn't change the fact this person basically walked in to the convention center and blatantly grabbed his stuff and ran out the front door with it. It's not like he nonchalantly slipped a few cards out of the guy's binder; he maliciously grabbed it and just headed for the exit.There's not much you can do in that instance except to chase the culprit down, and in this instance, that is exactly what happened.

It doesn't even matter if he was targeted or not; the people that perpetrate this type of stealing obviously knew where they were going and who they were targeting, because after speaking with the guy whose items were taken he mentioned there was a total of ninety-three dual lands, Moxes, etc. Obviously, one would wonder why you would carry that many Duals on you to begin with.

I also let him to know to check E-bay for those particular items that were stolen. If something pops up on E-bay that looks something like you may have previously owned, contact the seller and inquire where they received the item from. It's possible they (themselves) could be the culprit or were in on it.

People these days, man. Straight-up trash-water.

[evanmartyr]

While all that is good advice for someone to take when it comes to bringing your valuable cards to a large event with you, it doesn't change the fact this person basically walked in to the convention center and blatantly grabbed his stuff and ran out the front door with it. It's not like he nonchalantly slipped a few cards out of the guy's binder; he maliciously grabbed it and just headed for the exit.There's not much you can do in that instance except to chase the culprit down, and in this instance, that is exactly what happened.

Yeah, with this particular incident you're relying on the people around you being samaritans of a sort and just tripping him or blocking his way or something. It was so blatant and out of the blue that there wasn't really anything anyone could have done unless they happened to be in the dude's way, but someone should have gotten the license plate. License plate numbers are like, a silver bullet for combating crime, especially if you impress on the cops the value of what was stolen and do what you can to make tracking the culprit down a bit easier.



People these days, man. Straight-up trash-water. wrd =/


But as fellow players and as a community we should help him out and each other.

Seriously. If you witness a theft, and can intervene and stop it without putting yourself in physical harm, do so. Golden rule and all that, and frankly, going to a tournament and having to constantly watch all your shit while you're playing makes the game less of a hobby and more of a Darwinian arena, and fuck that noise. The economy's already Darwinian enough for me, I play to escape it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

How hard would it be to get the local police in on a sting? This is obviously a serious problem at large events. If the police put a backpack on a table and just tackled and arrested the first person to try to leave the building with it, it would sure go a long way to putting a damper on this bullshit since it just seems to be getting worse and worse.

I heard at least 5 different people talking about getting stuff stolen at GP Columbus. Not even telling me just happened to overhear them telling their friends. I've seen on COPS where the police went to the ghetto and left a bike outside of a 7-11 and just bumrushed the first guy to try to ride away on it. It's obvious some people only come to big events to steal cards, perhaps if we contacted local PD before a tournament they could set up a sting no?

I'd really be nice to catch some of these people. I feel like it's 1% of the people doing 99% of the stealing. Also on a related note Baltimore 4 blocks from the convention center is one of the worst ghettos in America, anyone who says Baltimore is nice is out of the loop. Next time you goto the convention center head east for about 2 minutes and tell me it's not ghetto. There are literally more boarded up windows then the traditional glass variety and all the dumpsters are covered in RIP graffiti.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Convention+Center&sll=39.296883,-76.581475&sspn=0.007639,0.013797&ie=UTF8&split=1&rq=1&ev=zo&radius=0.44&hq=Convention+Center&hnear=&ll=39.296912,-76.581466&spn=0.007572,0.013797&z=16&layer=c&cbll=39.29708,-76.58006&panoid=vInL_oGZS1DTOxRjg6zlww&cbp=12,219.76,,0,5

No, it's not downtown Haiti, it's Baltimore less than a mile from the convention center. This was just a random sampling of whatever I landed on blind in google maps. Believe it on not the part of Baltimore I drove through was actually a lot less pleasant. I stopped for gas and three twelve year old kids tried to roll me before I got 5 feet from my car. There are like 50 blocks of this shit if not more, fuck Baltimore.

[sdematt]

It's a good idea to get to know what your cards look like as well. If you have a piece of Beta Power that's beat to hell, but also double signed, it's probably easily identifiable, but get to know what your cards look like.

I had an incident a year ago where I was playing somewhere with a large group of friends, and some friends of friends. I went to mix up some ice tea and chat a bit, and I came back and played.

Two days later, I go to the local card store and notice they have a whole bunch of new dual land, Mox Diamonds, and fetches. Since I'm a horder of duals, I figured picking up more of them wouldn't be bad. But, after inspecting them for condition, I noticed several key factors that I knew about that told me right away that these were mine, and some where my friends' (theirs were more obvious, like a Tropical Island with the words "WoG, I win!" sharpied onto it)

Immediately I told the store owner that these were mine, and so I looked through my decks and what do you know, most of my stuff had been picked through, but some where still there.

At this point, he has to contact the police and watch MOTL and Ebay. I really hope he gets his stuff back, and can hopefully if he doesn't, he can get an insurance claim.


-Matt

[Jason]

My friend had a box of approximately 700 foil basic lands stolen from him during trading at SCG: Baltimore. It sucks but at least he didn't lose a binder full of power.

[dahcmai]

When I do trades, I usually am doing huge over $1000 ones. i don't mess around. In Columbus, I ended up with over $2000 in cash coming to me. Luckily, I was able to have the guy transfer the money to my Paypal account so I wouldn't have to walk around with that much cash on me, but I wouldn't have minded. I did walk around with some big cards though, like Imperial Recruiters, workshops, beta duals, and moxes. If anyone had been checking it out, they might have noticed the bald guy I kept with me while I did trades. He was there to grab someone if they tried. I recommend that practice heavily. Bring a friend who knows to be watching. Now granted, I'm not a small guy and I think that's half of it. They try for the easy swipes so make it tough or at least worth thinking twice about.

I have never lost a single card and hopefully by being overly careful, I never will.


Good luck to getting those back, but it's rough proving they are yours unless you have something distinctive about them. Any misprints, alt arts, heavily beat up cards, or other distinctive marks? I can always keep a look out in my neck of the woods and I see a lot of stuff on Ebay too.