Yeah I realized what I said too late. Hippies was not even close to the right word.

Yeah, modern "300" jokes aside, I would take a Spartan over a Roman Legionnaire any day.

Total bloodbath.

Anyone who has lived through an East Lansing riot knows that you don't want to mess with those Spartans. Roman legionnaires wouldn't stand a chance against ten thousand tanked-up Big Ten students.

Oh, man, the fact that I'm making sportsball jokes on this thread clearly means it's past my bedtime.

Don't feel too bad I got your sportsball joke. Without having to be told it was a sportsball joke.

I assumed it was some sort of Greek protest that turned ugly. I was wondering what the story behind that was.

The Michigan State University mascot is the Spartan.

And the students at MSU are good, fine people who are deeply committed to throwing a quality riot whenever their sportsball teams lose. Or win. Either way!

I loved that, during the Rose Bowl this year, one of the students in the crowd was holding up a sign that said: "Light the Sofas!"

I think I saw that sign. It makes more sense knowing they have a reputation for rioting.

Still best thing from the bowl games was a Baylor fan at the Fiesta bowl with a green and gold Optimus Prime mask, foam bear paws with huge claws, and a cape.

I had a good friend who went to journalism school at MSU who was covering the rioting after basketball team won the national championship in 2000. She was taking pictures of students turning over cars or something like that, when a drunk guy grabbed her camera and climbed up a light pole with it.

Now, she was maybe 5'3" on tiptoe and 100 pounds soaking wet, but I guess it was a new camera and she needed the pictures for an assignment, so apparently she climbed up the light pole after the guy and started punching him in the leg until he gave her the camera back.

Good preparation for covering hurricanes and war zones and things like that.

This person is a champion.

My true hero has always been and will always be Keggy:

My hero is Randall Munroe.
Which thread is this and what are we talking about?

It used to have something to do with Magic or cultural sensitivity. Then sportsball happened.

Guys, let's try to keep on track.

I think this change is good. Was anyone sending wotc hatemail about this? Probably not. But when you see an error and have a chance to get ahead of it, this is a smart move as a company. Imagine that Kiora had the last name Christ instead. Now if this was picked at random, I don't see a problem with it, and I am not offended. But there are plenty of people would be, both because it might be considered sacrilegious and because it might be considered pandering to one religion over others. The correct course here would be to change or remove the name, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. While it is fine to be inspired by cultures around the world, I think it is smart to avoid even the potential for coming off as either insensitive or chauvinist in any way.

Like GobO_Admin says, it's a situation where I think the original name was unlikely to cause much harm, but the change is also essentially harmless, so I see no compelling reason not to err on the side of avoiding offense.

I would just like to say we were on track. We had just jumped rails a couple times.

I'm against it. It's particularly ridiculous in a set that introduces "God" as a subtype, in clear defiance of the Christian belief that there is only one God.

I don't necessarily agree grumman, b/c there are multiple religions that are monotheistic, when the word atua means something very specific in one specific religion, I also think that its such a small change that I don't really care.

(though I did like her full name)

Religions where only one god exist are in the minority though. Not the minority of people believing in them but yeah.