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Monday, November 15, 2004
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Game has magical appeal Magic: The Gathering gathers quite a following in Brainerd Staff Writer When Magic: The Gathering, the world's first collectible card game, made its debut in 1993, it seemed like just another fad.
Eleven years later, the game's staying power is undeniable. A half-dozen world invitational tournaments are held annually, with countless smaller events going on around the world in towns big and small.
"In Brainerd, it's been around more like seven or eight years," said Eric DeRosier, owner of Citadel Games on Washington Street. "Like everything else, it starts on the coasts and then comes here."
Luke Ojala, 17, one of Brainerd's most successful Magic players, has seen the game's popularity increase around the country in his two years of competitive play. He has traveled to tournaments in the Twin Cities, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio.
"It's been growing, definitely," he said. He has witnessed the Twin Cities events grow from about 80 competitors two years ago to about 130 today.
Locally, the game's popularity has never been higher. Two stores, Citadel and The Eclectic Cafe, sell cards and provide gaming space; a third, The Sports Card Connection, will special-order cards upon a customer's request. At Citadel, DeRosier hosts Magic tournaments every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, usually drawing about a dozen gamers per event.
"The running joke is that it's an addiction, and it is," said DeRosier. But there are worse addictions. "I've heard stories of guys giving up drinking and getting hooked on playing Magic. For kids, it's a good social outlet, as opposed to playing video games at home all afternoon."
Fourteen-year-old Andy Cook of Brainerd, who participates in one tournament per week at Citadel, agrees.
"Before I started playing, I was shy," he said. "I've learned to talk to people. I'm not much into sports, so this is my way of meeting people."
Players welcome newcomers: Several Citadel regulars offered to teach this reporter how to play Magic on a recent visit to the shop. Yet players feel like they are in on a cool secret. The 44 registered players at Citadel range in age from 8 to 57. They are mostly younger males, but as the game has gone mainstream, the demographic has expanded to include women and older players.
"(The role-playing game) 'Dungeons and Dragons' has been around since the '70s, so a lot of kids are second- or third-generation gamers," DeRosier said. "It's a common ground they find with their parents, which is good because sometimes it can be difficult to find common ground."
Chess meets poker
Since Magic's invention, numerous collectible card games have sprung up, including those based on popular franchises like "Star Wars," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Lord of the Rings," Marvel and DC comic characters and Japanese anime such as "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and "Pokemon." Still, Magic reigns in popularity.
Apparently, Richard Garfield got it right the first time when he invented Magic, which has elements of chess and poker.
Magic most often is played one-on-one with players drawing from their own deck of 60 cards, with seven or fewer cards in their hand. Each player starts with 20 life points and the first player to reach zero loses. Players take points from their opponent by attacking with "creature" cards, which they earn the right to play on the table once they have assembled a sufficient number of "land" cards.
The game combines strategy, as players choose when and how to play certain cards; mind games, as a player might bluff an opponent into thinking they have better cards; and luck, as players hope they draw the cards they need.
When Ojala competed in the October tournament in Columbus, he noted that the world's best gamers approach Magic much like chess masters deliberate over a chess board.
"They put a lot more thought into it," he said. "Their turns take five or six minutes. I probably play too fast."
Wizards of the Coast, the company that produces Magic cards and governs play, maintains a massive rule book for deck creation so no player has an unfair advantage simply by owning better cards. Thousands of distinct cards exist: Wizards produces new sets regularly, phasing out older sets for the purposes of top-level competition.
Gamers like to say it takes one game to learn Magic and a lifetime to get good at it.
"It's kind of hard to begin with," Cook said. "Once you get the hang of things it's easier. You start with the basics, then you learn more advanced rules. There's so much variation: Different cards, different ways to play. It challenges you."
While a lot of popular entertainment gets pegged, fairly or unfairly, with the stigma that "it'll rot your brain," the opposite seems to be the case with Magic.
Bart Lindberg, 16, Brainerd, believes playing the game has made him smarter.
"It's educational," he said. "You read cards and it stretches your memory."
DeRosier, a Magic gamer himself, agrees.
"You have kids doing multivariable math and they don't even know they are doing it, because they are having fun."
Magic gamers range from those who play casually to a rare strata of players who make a living competing.
Ojala isn't quite in that category, but he has found significant success playing Magic. After qualifying by racking up points at local and state events, Ojala reached the Columbus tournament.
"I didn't do very well," Ojala said. "It was a three-day event, and I was knocked out on Day One."
Like most Citadel regulars, Ojala plays primarily for fun and the thrill of competition. He's been playing for eight years, the last two competitively. The Columbus tournament fell on the same day as college ACT testing; he chose Magic. He takes Magic as seriously as Vijay Singh takes golf.
"I think about the games after I play them," he said. "I go over every move in my head and try to learn from past games so I don't make the same mistakes. I think about situations and decks so I know what opponents can do."
Building collections
If you go
Eclectic Cafe, 717 Laurel St., Brainerd, 825-4880.
Sports Card Connection, 217 S. Seventh St., Brainerd, 828-0475.
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Ojala views the collectible aspect of the game as somewhat of a necessary evil, but he plays that game shrewdly as well: The most he has ever spent on a card is $650 on a Black Lotus, considered to be the most valuable Magic card. With help from that card, he has won rare cards as event prizes and sold them for as much as $300.
For those who want to make money by wheeling and dealing with their card collections, Magic is "the cardboard stock market," DeRosier said. But it doesn't have to be an expensive hobby. The game appeals mostly to common folk, the same types of people who buy baseball cards because they like baseball, not because they are investing in their child's college education.
"It's probably more popular with the middle-class," Cook said. "It's not that expensive to get into."
Citadel sells preconstructed decks from Wizards of the Coast for $12.80 and DeRosier will create a starter deck for customers for $10. The shop hosts officially sanctioned tournaments, where players can earn prizes and points toward their overall player ranking (monitored by Wizards), at 7 p.m. Fridays and 3 p.m. Sundays. The entry fee is $4, with prizes (usually a new card) going to the champion, the best sportsperson (as voted by the players) and the winner of a random drawing.
At 7 p.m. Saturdays, the shop hosts tournaments for prizes but not points; DeRosier suggests new players start with the Saturday events so they don't hurt their ranking as they are learning the game.
Ojala only competes in the Saturday events. Because of the self-balancing nature of Wizards' rankings, a loss in a Friday or Sunday tournament would hurt his ranking, while a win would gain him little. He's in the Magic equivalent of the big leagues now. On Friday, he competed in a qualifying tournament in the Twin Cities where the winner received $500 and an invitation to the next world tournament in Japan.
Ojala would like to have another shot at the world's best, especially after falling short of the $3,000 champion's prize in Columbus. That's not to say it wasn't worth the trip: He learned a lot, he saw a bit of the country and he didn't go home empty-handed.
"I won a T-shirt," he said.
JOHN HANSEN can be reached at john.hansen@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5863.
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