MAGA hat triggers woke cardplayers into allegedly banning champion from entering tournament

A champion cardplayer was reportedly banned from an upcoming tournament for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at previous events.

Joe Brennan has won at least four Magic: The Gathering tournaments in 2025, but allegedly was prevented from playing in an upcoming tournament in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this week. The fantasy-based card game is over 30 years old and has also been played online since 2002.

‘… can we kick Joe Brennan out of eternal magic?’

The North American “Eternal Weekend” put on by company Card Titan is now entering its 11th competition and recently posted on X about its “core values.”

The company started by saying it wishes to maintain an environment where “all attendees can feel safe.”

“Unfortunately, from time to time conduct of a community member fails to meet our expectations and we have to make tough choices in order to preserve a positive event experience,” the company said.

The company added that any attendees that engage in “conduct detrimental” to the values would have their badges revoked and be asked to leave the premises. This post was believed to be in reference to Brennan, with countless commenters taking his side.

One man named Conor Clarke, who started a petition to have Brennan reinstated, claimed in an open letter that the player was banned simply for having worn the MAGA hat to events in the past.

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Clarke posted on X the letter from a group of Magic: The Gathering players with “differing political views” who wrote to express their disagreement with Card Titan and said the alleged ban “raises serious concerns” for the community.

The letter noted that Brennan has been “banned from many game stores and Magic events for wearing the MAGA hat,” including the Eternal Weekend, despite already having allegedly paid for entry and accommodations. It added that Brennan was told that the ban stemmed from “multiple reports” regarding his “behavior” in 2024.

While Card Titan did not respond to a request from Blaze News to clarify whether Brennan was banned — and the reason for it — progressive complaints about Brennan have circulated online for years.

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Photo by AMY OSBORNE/AFP via Getty Images

In 2023, a Reddit post showed an X thread that complained about Brennan wearing “his MAGA hat to every tournament, knowing it irritates people.”

The post went on to say Brennan “cannot be a good person” and that “MAGA represents” denying women equal rights and the idea that “Black Lives Don’t Matter.”

In 2024, a different Twitter post asked, “With Nazi s*** finally being cancellable can we kick Joe Brennan out of eternal magic?”

An Oct. 3 X post took issue with people sharing Clarke’s open letter online, with the author worried that when detractors shared the letter to criticize it, they were still letting “more s***ty people see it and support it.”

Reporter Lewis Brackpool told Blaze News that in his experience, card and board game communities in general have been “dominated by progressives for a long time.”

“Ironically, nearly all of the leftist fanbase and players of Magic: The Gathering cannot seem to differentiate between fantasy and politics. This is due to not having the brain capacity to comprehend that consistent idol worship of a card game will inevitably lead to fusing the hobby with their identity,” Brackpool remarked.

In reference to Brennan “wearing merchandise that differs from Che Guevara or a hammer and sickle,” Brackpool said, “the progressives cannot ever give it a pass, as it threatens their self-identity and knee-jerks them into an insecure frenzy.”

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