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February 26, 2014 Red Ink Staff Box Editor-in-Chief.............averyjones Sports Editor..............adamschott Opinion Editor.............tanneralm Feature Editor.............tiaramiller News Editor...................reecekothe
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Victor Batrez(15) and Katelyn Clem(16) strategize against their opponents, Austin Howes(15) and Fox Holt(16) in a game of Magic. Kids like Batrez and Clem say Magic gives them something fun to do during school and helps them meet new people. Magic has an estimated 6 million fans world-wide.
Magic The Gathering quickly becoming one of Eaton’s favorite card games tanneralm & lexilapp opinioneditor
staffreporter
It may not have cheerleaders, or require a sports physical, but Magic the Gathering might be considered Eaton’s fastest-growing after-school sport. What do wizards, goblins, giants and gods have in common? They are all featured in Magic: The Gathering (MTG), a card game that is gaining ground in Colorado. Fox Holt, who has been playing for about a year explained that Magic is a card game where people can create their own deck of magical creatures. The game consists of five different magical creatures and four different colors of decks including, red, green, black, and white. Red and black are vampires, white are gods, and green are giants. “Once you have a card deck then you can go out and battle other people against their decks,” Holt said. Andrew Nelson (16) said math teacher Mark Watikins and sophomore, Jared Morris got him started on the game. “The main objective of the game is to kill your opponent,” Nelson said, one of the main ele-
ments that makes it “fun” for him. The thing he doesn’t like, however, is that “you get only a certain amount of life.” Players get just 20 lives at the beginning of a game, and if they lose all 20--well, it’s game over. This dynamically-changing game is popular with over an estimated 6 million people worldwide. Starting in 1993 and continuing even until today, Magic has spawned tournaments, clubs, and even chains of stores based on selling Magic products. Rapidly changing and growing every year, there is no limit to how big this hobby can grow. Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Magic, releases a set of different cards every three months. Boxes upon boxes of these cards are shipped to Target, Walmart, and even stores that sell exclusively cards and other games like Haunted: Gaming Cafe, in Fort Collins and Greeley. These stores sell and buy cards of value from past sets, which can skyrocket in price for many reasons, new mechanics, strategic necessity, and just plain breaking the game sometimes. Cards can easily cost up to hundreds of dollars. It’s not uncom-
mon for cards to be worth more than the case they’re sitting in. A card called the “Black Lotus” often sells for around $2,000. With supply and demand, anything can grow it’s own economy. Magic is a perfect example of this. Based on characters that change dimensions every few sets, Magic is a game that is able to change its theme and mechanisms fairly easily. Katelyn Clem, who began playing the game this year, (16) said, “There’s just so much I love about it! I think what I like best is that I get to meet new people and learn their strategies.” Clem, who is one of the few girls who plays Magic at the school, said she enjoyes battling with the boys after school. She said it was “a thrill” when she won her first game on Friday, Feb. 21. against Morris. Clem said, “My gender is irrelevant. I wish more girls would play, but really I just like meeting new people and seeing how they play and learn new ways to play.” Jumping from horror, to fantasy, and current Greek mythology, this game can appeal to many players.
But the storyline, however, is very underplayed and almost non-existent at this point. Students all over the school are playing this game and although it has its perks it does have some negative aspects to it as well. Holt said, “The thing that I like least about Magic would probably be how people view it. If they don’t play the game they may view the game as different.” Like any other sport, Magic can
be misunderstood, or even judged harshly, by those who don’t know the rules, but Holt said it gives him something fun to do at the end of the day. Overall Magic is a game that many have taken interest in, companies have grown around it and an economy now runs through it, this shows how popular the game has become. With the way it has been set up and the interest shown in it, this game has potential to thrive for years to come.
Howes(15) and Holt(16) put together their decks consisting of Vampires, gods and giants to take on Batrez(15) and Clem(16) for a battle of Magic.