President Biden Pardons Dockside Extortionist

Jon Ruggiero • December 3, 2024

Washington, D.C. - After the tumultuous news that he would be pardoning  the crimes of his son Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden announced today that he was also using his presidential power to pardon Dockside Extortionist.

The heavily-played Goblin Pirate was a staple of Magic: The Gathering's Commander format until it was banned earlier this year. Biden thinks that was too strong a measure.

"Today, I signed a pardon for my favorite goblin, Dockside Extortionist" begins the statement Biden sent from the White House. "From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Commander Rules Committee. Though they no longer exist, I kept my word even as I have watched Dockside being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.

"While it is true that he can create an unreasonable amount of tokens and punish artifact strategies, he is no worse than Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Stony Silence, and those cards are not banned. It's clear Dockside was treated differently."

While being criticized on all sides by his decision to pardon the card, Biden claims that he had to do it due to the terms of the original banning.

"The banning in this case came about only after several players in my Commander group instigated the Rules Committee to attack me and oppose my favorite Commander deck. No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Dockside's banning can reach any other conclusion than he was singled out only because I have an aggressive Krenko, Mob Boss deck - and that is wrong.

"There has been an effort to stop Krenko - who has been introduced to a new group of players thanks to his recent reprinting in Foundations. Krenko has been a viable and fun Commander for years, but only since I've been taking down pod after pod at my weekly Commander games has he become an issue, and Dockside is my favorite card in the deck.

In trying to break Dockside, they've tried to break me - and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough, let my boy extort."

At press time, president-elect Donald Trump played a game of Magic: The Gathering with his lands in front of his creatures while everyone playing with him called him a genius.



Escape room designer, comedy show host, satire writer; Jon Ruggiero never misses an opportunity to do weird things for money. He's written for Cracked, Hard Times and Hard Drive, and hopes you enjoy what he writes here.