TLDR
Chris Cocks is Hasbro’s CEO and a former Wizards of the Coast leader, so his name ends up stapled to basically every “Hasbro is doing a thing” MTG complaint.
A lot of the dislike is not personal, it’s about what he represents: aggressive monetization vibes, product fatigue, layoffs, and corporate communication that sounds like it was written by a spreadsheet.
The $999 Magic 30th Anniversary Edition fiasco became a symbol of “are you serious right now,” and symbols have legs.
Hasbro has also pushed back on claims that it’s “overprinting” or “destroying” Magic, but once trust is dented, every statement gets read through the “sure, Jan” filter.
If this drama makes you want to just play the game again, proxies are one of the few levers players actually control. Use them for casual play and testing, keep them clearly not authentic, and talk to your group.
Chris Cocks MTG discourse is a special kind of internet weather. You can ignore it for weeks, then open a thread and immediately get hit with “CEO bad,” “product bad,” “my wallet hurts,” and one guy yelling about print runs like he’s doing forensic accounting for fun. Chris Cocks is not the only person making Magic decisions, but as Hasbro’s CEO (and a former Wizards leader), he’s the easiest name to put on the dartboard.
Who is Chris Cocks?
Chris Cocks (Christian P. Cocks) is the Chief Executive Officer of Hasbro, Magic: The Gathering’s parent company. Hasbro named him CEO in early 2022, after he had already been running the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment inside Hasbro. Before Wizards, he worked at Microsoft, and his background is more “business and tech leadership” than “local LGS grinder who top 8’d with Jund in 2014.” That gap matters, because communities can smell when a leader speaks fluent corporate and only conversational nerd.
His actual résumé is not the weird part. The weird part is the job. If you’re CEO of the company that owns Magic, you will inherit every grudge Magic players have accumulated since the invention of foils.
Why don’t MTG players like Chris Cocks?
Let’s be fair: “MTG players” is not a single hive mind. Some people don’t care. Some people like Hasbro’s growth push. Some people are mad at Wizards, not Hasbro. Some people are mad at everyone and also at the concept of time.
But if you zoom out, most of the dislike falls into a handful of repeatable buckets. Think of this as a “complaint translator,” so you can tell the difference between a real issue and a ritual chant.
Bucket 1: Pricing and “this product exists to test how far you’ll bend”
The Magic 30th Anniversary Edition is the poster child here. A $999 price tag for four packs of non-tournament-legal commemorative cards was received by many players as an unmistakable signal: “We are trying something.” And players heard the unspoken part: “We are trying you.”
Even if you never planned to buy it, it shaped perception. People read it as predatory, out of touch, or both. And once a community decides a product is symbolic, it becomes evidence in every argument forever.
Bucket 2: Product fatigue and the feeling of being “monetized”
A big portion of modern MTG frustration is not one single decision, it’s the accumulated sensation of being marketed at constantly. More releases, more variants, more premium drops, more crossovers, more reasons to feel like keeping up is a part-time job you did not apply for.
This is where leadership gets blamed even when the details live lower on the org chart. Cocks is the CEO. CEOs get credit for growth and blame for exhaustion. That’s not always precise, but it is how humans work.
Bucket 3: The “overprinting” narrative and investor-facing language
There’s a long-running argument about whether Hasbro is printing too much product, pushing too many SKUs, and leaning on Magic to prop up broader company results. Bank of America analyst notes and media coverage amplified those concerns, and fans took it as confirmation of what they already felt: the release firehose is not for player happiness, it’s for quarterly reporting.
Hasbro and Wizards leadership have publicly pushed back on the claim that Magic is being “destroyed” by overprinting, framing the strategy as segmentation and demand-driven printing. The problem is that once players feel churned, the explanation sounds like polished PR, even if parts of it are true.
So you end up with two realities:
Corporate reality: segmentation, product-line strategy, “meeting demand,” and investor communications.
Player reality: “my LGS has piles of stuff nobody asked for and I’m tired.”
Both can exist at the same time. That’s the fun part. (It is not fun.)
Bucket 4: Layoffs and the “we cut people, not problems” vibe
Hasbro’s rounds of layoffs in 2023 and beyond hit the broader company and reportedly impacted Wizards of the Coast too. Players don’t always know which teams got cut, but they do know the pattern: a company announces restructuring, then fans see beloved creatives and community-facing staff disappear, and it reinforces the idea that the business is prioritizing cost and extraction over craft.
Fair or not, CEOs become the face of those decisions. It doesn’t matter if the internal logic is “we had to,” the external interpretation is “we chose to.”
Bucket 5: Spillover from other Hasbro fandom controversies
Even if you only play Magic, Hasbro’s other tentpole communities still influence the atmosphere. The Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License controversy is a good example. When the CEO publicly calls a major move a “misfire” after backlash, it confirms what a lot of fans already fear: corporate governance is willing to push until it hits resistance, then backpedal.
Magic players watched that and learned a lesson they apply everywhere: “If we don’t yell, they won’t stop.”
Bucket 6: The CEO as lightning rod (also known as “I can’t argue with a corporation, so I’ll argue with a name”)
This is the least satisfying but most true explanation. Magic is huge. Decisions come from many teams. Players experience outcomes, not org charts. So frustration compresses into a single symbol. Chris Cocks is that symbol right now.
In other words: even if he made zero MTG decisions for a month (he didn’t), he would still catch the blame for the vibe.
The part that gets lost: the tradeoffs are real
It’s tempting to frame this as “bad CEO vs good players,” but reality is messier:
Growing Magic’s audience brings more products, more partnerships, more risk, and more mistakes.
Premium products can subsidize cheaper play for some players, but they also create resentment and FOMO for others.
Printing to meet demand sounds great until you realize “demand” includes collectors, speculators, distributors, big-box retail, and the human urge to buy shiny cardboard at 1 a.m.
None of this excuses products that feel exploitative. It just explains why the arguments never end. Magic is both a game and a business, and those two tenants do not always share a lease peacefully.
If you’re sick of the drama, here’s the low-drama player plan
This is the part where you remember you are allowed to enjoy a hobby without signing up for corporate rage as a lifestyle.
1) Control your costs with proxies, not cope
If corporate decisions are making Magic feel expensive, proxies are a practical pressure valve. They let you play the decks you want while opting out of the “paywall as gameplay” experience.
A few guardrails, because we like our fun without felony vibes:
Proxies are for casual play, testing, and accessibility.
Sanctioned events generally require authentic cards (judge-issued proxies are a narrow exception).
Do not try to fool anyone. If your proxy plan depends on deception, it’s not a proxy plan, it’s a bad plan.
2) Use the 15-second Rule 0 script
If this topic comes up at the table and you want to avoid a 40-minute debate on capitalism, here’s the script:
“Before we start, quick check: proxies are okay, right? Mine are for testing and budget. Also, I’m not emotionally available to litigate Hasbro on turn three.”
It’s friendly, it sets expectations, and it gives everyone permission to move on.
3) Support your LGS in ways that don’t punish your wallet
If you want to keep a store alive without buying every premium product, spend where it actually helps:
events, entry fees, snacks
sleeves, dice, deck boxes
singles you genuinely want
store credit loops
You can love your LGS and still refuse to keep up with the release treadmill.
FAQs
Is Chris Cocks the head of Wizards of the Coast?
He previously led Wizards within Hasbro, and he is now Hasbro’s CEO. Wizards has its own leadership, but Hasbro’s CEO influences overall strategy and priorities.
Did Chris Cocks create Magic 30th Anniversary Edition?
No single person “creates” products like that alone, but as CEO he is associated with the era and the strategy choices that fans react to.
Is the “overprinting” thing confirmed?
There are public claims, analyst notes, and company rebuttals. Some recent legal filings include allegations about inventory and investor communications. Allegations are not proven facts, but they do shape perception.