In the previous installment, our reporter decides to learn all there is to know about the card game, Magic, and the people who play it in the school cafeteria. She finds herself in over her head when she sits in on a game. Clueless, she asks some of the players to tell her what they know. We continue with the same conversation.
“Deuces,” Neil Abarquez says, after pausing to think for a second.
I had just asked the question “What do you guys play or do in the cafeteria when you’re not playing Magic.” I was still in Skyline’s cafeteria, chopping it up with Neil, Frank Romero, and Kenny Wright. I was there to ask them what the card game Magic was really all about.
“We play card games,” Frank says. “Just regular playing cards.”
“Poker,” Kenny adds.
“Anything that doesn’t involve cards?” I ask.
“We talk sometimes,” Frank says with a smirk.
“I sit here and listen to them talk about their card games,” Tricia Tognetti muses from an adjacent chair. She’s been eavesdropping in on the fervent conversation that’s been going on for nearly an hour now. “It’s like a foreign language, but it’s so fun to listen to.”
The Three Philosophies and Yu-gi-oh
I can understand where Tricia’s coming from. The guys know where she’s coming from, too. If I’d learned anything so far, from watching a game or two to chatting up some (in my opinion) very informed players, I’d learned that Magic is complex. It’s highly involved, but on many levels, including strategizing, managing money, and that at the Regionals conference these highly involved players could be considered “sweaty, geeky nerds.” While this was good for starters, a more important question was buzzing in my brain: “How did all of you come to start playing Magic in the cafeteria?”
Frank says he had been playing Magic with Brian. “He got me into it at the end of high school, and we just started playing here. And people would walk by and say, ‘Whoa, you play Magic? I’ll bring my deck tomorrow.'”
“That’s basically how everyone came,” Neil says.
“Anyone who’s in our group now just saw us playing one day and said they’d bring their deck tomorrow, and started playing with us,” Frank says. “Every semester it just keeps getting bigger.”
I am told that there are at least 11 regular players in the group, but many more occasional players.
“Did we talk about the three philosophies?” Frank asks Neil.
They proceed to tell me about the three basic types of people who play the game: Timmy, who likes to do everything big, and granted he’s able to do so, is happy, even if he loses the game. There’s Johnny, who likes to win, but in creative ways, like building a rogue deck [a deck composed of cards not normally used together]. And there’s Spike. Spike likes to win at all costs-he’ll play any deck, any combo, for the sake of winning.
“I’m more of a Johnny,” Frank says.
“I was Timmy,” Kenny says. “I like making things big.”
“Neil’s more of a Spike,” Frank tells me.
“Yes, that’s what Brian said to me, too,” Neil says.
I remember that there’s another popular card game out there, that among other things, I had seen people playing in the cafeteria as well. I ask them about it. And the reactions I get, coming from three very devout players of Magic, seem appropriate.
“Yu-gi-oh, in comparison to Magic, is a much simpler game,” Neil says.
“Yu-gi-oh got me into Magic,” Kenny says.
“Yeah, I started out playing Yu-gi-oh, but I eventually saw the light,” Frank says with a smile.
“Magic is a little more sophisticated than Yu-gi-oh,” Kenny adds.
“There are more interactions,” Neil explains. “For Yu-gi-oh, they have a lot of bannings and a lot of restrictions. You can basically expect to see these 20 specific cards show up in every deck.”
Another young man, who goes by the name of Ashley Smith, has pulled up a chair to the table says he plays both Magic and Yu-gi-oh. This peaks my interest.
“Yeah, I’m the black sheep,” he jokes. “[Magic] is definitely a lot more thought-provoking. Yu-gi-oh’s too simple sometimes. Around 2001 when it came out, I came here and met Ryan, and we played a lot. Then there were others that joined up. But Yu-gi-oh, after a while, got pretty boring. I’d come up [to the cafeteria] and be like, ‘OK, what do I do? Did I bring a book to read?'”
“Yu-gi-oh’s really a kid’s game,” Neil says.
“No, Pokemon is a kid’s game,” Ashley replies.
“Yu-gi-oh’s more expensive,” Neil adds.
Ashley concurs.
As prices go, a card that would be considered a half-way decent Yu-gi-oh card can go for around $40, which adds up to $200 a set. In Magic, the most expensive cards usually go for about $20. Out of the comic shop door, 15 Magic cards go for $3 and nine Yu-gi-oh go for $5-$6. To top it off, there is a higher rate of banned cards in Yu-gi-oh than in Magic. This is due to the fact that out of a deck that has about 40 cards, half of them are more often than not, the same. Thus, these common cards can be easily abused (used too frequently), and when that happens, they get banned.
“In Magic, it doesn’t happen as often because they have more experience in what they’re doing,” Neil says. “They’ve been doing it for longer.”
“Yu-gi-oh made a bunch of mistakes and they didn’t correct them,” Frank says.
“They made so many,” Ashley adds. “And so now, they took them all out. Granted, it does make the game more interesting. I’ve played in some of the tournaments.”
“And it sucks when something gets banned because you lose your investment,” Neil says.
At this point in time, I look at my tape recorder. I see that I’m coming quite close to running out of tape, so I have to stop recording. That’s fine; they let me know they have to go to class. If they don’t hustle, they’ll be late. This is fine by me. I need to save some tape for Brian.
All for Brian
Frank had joked earlier that a few of the regular Magic players had decided to go to Regionals. While there, they formed a team of sorts. I asked him if the team had a name. No, he’d said, it didn’t have an official name, but if they had chosen a name, it would most likely be All for Brian. While I cannot say how everyone personally gets along with him, most people who play Magic in the cafeteria have a certain amount of respect for Brian McKay.
As my timing would have it, every chance I had to pop into the cafeteria to look for him, I had always “just missed” Brian. When I finally saw Brian’s lanky, bespectacled frame rifling through a deck of Magic cards, I was practically overjoyed. Needless to say, Brian was not expecting me to come and bombard him with questions, but he was nice enough to let me ramble on.
One of the first things I learn is that Brian is on his way to becoming a “level 2” judge. In plain-speak, at the tournaments, there are judges who watch over matches to see that all rules are adhered to and that everyone plays fair. There are only five levels of judging, level 1 being the most basic, and level 5, which is the Worlds level. In order to be a judge, one needs to know the rules very well. So, how did he get to be a judge?
“I already knew the rules of the game really well, so it wasn’t a lot of extra work to judge,” Brian says matter-of-factly. “Some day, I want to work for Wizards, the company that produces the game. There are lots of ways you can finagle your way into that. The top level pros are offered positions designing cards. They also offer positions to higher level judges, so if I went through the judging process and worked my way up to a level five, I could end up getting my dream job.
Brian really knows his stuff, and I can see why I was being encouraged to talk to him all along. That being said, I finally get to ask Brian my dream question-how a typical game works. He launches right into it.
“Each player will draw an opening hand o
f seven cards,” he begins. “Now, there are basically two kinds of cards: lands and spells. You need lands to play spells. Lands serve as a balance, so as the game goes on you get more lands so you can cast better spells. Spells can do different things. Some of them are creatures. Creatures are made when you’re winning. A person can attack with a creature, and the player can choose to either lose points equal to the creature’s attack or to use one of his other creatures. The bigger creature will win. But there’s a lot more strategy involved.
“That’s just typical stuff. There are spells that can attract the creatures, they can draw you more cards. So each deck is basically a different strategy. Decks can be completely different. Some can try to win really fast. Others try to slow the game down and use lots of control. Some decks try to use combinations of cards.”
That’s a mouthful, but it makes perfect sense now. Well, at least how it basically works. What about combos, I ask?
“Combos are annoying,” he says. “Most people don’t like the combos because it’s so, ‘the game’s over, I win’. In my opinion, I don’t like the combos. They’re not fun to me.”
Kenny happens to be playing Magic at the table next to Brian’s. Having overheard Brian’s last comment, he exclaims, “This isn’t fun! This really isn’t fun!”
“Well, why do you play it?” Brian asks.
“Because I don’t have anything else,” Kenny replies candidly.
“That’s a good excuse,” Brian replies jokingly, but with a hint of sincerity.
Aside from seeing himself as the Spike philosophy, I learn that Brian was just shy of placing in the top eight at Regionals. If you place in the top eight, you get to advance on to states, then Worlds if you’re so lucky. Still, because he finished so well, he got prizes.
“If you win the higher, more profile events, it’s pretty big payouts,” he says. “They had the world championships this year in San Francisco, and the winner got around $250,000. You can make a lot of money and that doesn’t include if you get invitations to these kinds of events. They’ll pay for your flight, your hotel accommodations, and you can get dead last and still get a free trip to San Francisco from anywhere in the world. If you get first place in some of these local events, then you get invited to these other events.”
Another player calls out to Brian and asks him for a price quote on a card. It’s only a buck.
“See?” Brian says with a smile. “They ask me everything.”
While Brian judges frequently at local events, I was surprised to hear that he judged a tournament at the San Francisco World’s tournament. Not only that, but it was a tournament that used only old Chinese and Italian cards.
“It was horrendous,” Brian says. “They gave these cards to the players and they gave us a Chinese judge and an Italian judge so they could translate, but because they had those, they didn’t speak very good English. So, the whole thing was pretty much a disaster, but it was really fun because they were playing with old cards they’d never seen before.”
When at the Worlds level do they play for keeps, I ask?
“They used to play for keeps but they got rid of that because of legal problems,” he replies. “Each player would take one random card out of the deck, and the winner would keep the cards. But some states considered that gambling, which is illegal, so they got rid of that. They don’t play for keeps anymore. But at the tournament, they give you your cards, and you keep whatever you get.”
Tricia happens to be listening in again, and comments that she thinks the game is interesting, but doesn’t know how to play. “We can teach you,” Brian replies, enthusiastically.
“I only never picked it up because I didn’t have $10 to spend on cards,” Tricia admits. “I always spent it on books, which I do still anyway.”
One of the disadvantages of being a student, I ask?
“Yeah, education sucks!” Brian says jokingly.
But Magic does not, I ask?
“But Magic does not.”
Frank, who had happened to walk by during the conversation adds, “You need to make that a quote.”
“Yeah and you need to take it out of context so I seem really nerdy,” Brian says, laughing.
As I get up to leave, I mention that the Magic players should try starting a club. Brian tells me promptly that they actually did try last semester, but it never got off the ground.
“Nobody around here wanted to help out, ’cause we’re all lazy,” he says, while the group playing next to us overhears and agrees. “We just gave up.”
As I prepare to walk away, I ask Brian if he has anything else he’d like to say.
“If anyone’s interested in learning how to play Magic, stop on by,” he says sincerely. “We’re pretty much here all the time”
Well, call my bluff
Another Wednesday rolls around and I realize I haven’t been to the cafeteria to check out the action in a few days. Time to head back up. When I get there, Isaiah Roberson and another player are just about to start a new game, I ask if I can sit in and they willingly oblige. They seem to be enjoying the game, though not as much as they will later when more people show up. I look off to the side and see Neil sitting at a table…doing homework. I am thoroughly shocked.
I ask Isaiah why Neil isn’t playing. Apparently, Neil forfeited his own deck for two weeks so he could focus on his studies. At this point, Isaiah’s opponent mentions that rather than just sitting around and watching the game, I should try to actually play it. Aside from getting a better understanding of the game, I’d be less likely to spread false knowledge of the game. I think about what he says, and it’s very true.
Changing the subject, and being the meddlesome reporter type in general, I ask if there are any girls who play regularly. Frank, Neil, and Kenny had touched on the subject briefly when I spoke with them. Apparently, young ladies who engage in Magic playing are few and far between, even at Skyline.
“Last semester there were about four girls who played Magic, and somehow or another, they’re not here now,” Isaiah explains frankly. “Most likely, they’re either graduated or moved on to better things. It is fun and stuff, but they just left. It doesn’t really bother us too much because cards are cards. You don’t really care who is playing.”
As timing would have it, a female friend of Isaiah’s, Christal Abellana, comes over to the table. She listens to Isaiah’s comments. I ask her if she’s interested in learning how to play Magic.
“I wanna learn,” she says. She goes on to tell me that her downstairs roommates keep saying that they’ll teach her eventually. One day. “If I have time and they’re downstairs and if they’re not playing Magic and they have time to teach me, yes, I will learn to play Magic.” She might even go so far as to one day play in the cafeteria.
“Sure, why not,” she says with a shrug. “I know I tried learning it once, and I was like, ‘Land’, and I put the land down, then I was like, ‘now how do I attack?’ My friends tried telling me but I was like, ‘I don’t understand. It’s so complicated.'”
If anyone’s mirrored my sentiments up to this point, it would be Christal. Despite all the people I’d talked to, all the things I learned, one fact remained very clear: I hadn’t picked up a single card. Sure, I could tell you that Black Lotus was the most expensive Magic card out there, or that you use mana to get a basic game going, I hadn’t really, truly experienced the game-the thing that’s kept all these people in the cafeteria for better or worse. I could tell you lots of things about Magic, but if I had to tell you something about the game itself, I would be doomed. Isaiah’s opponent was so right. I knew what I had to do.
When I saw Frank the following Monday morning in the newsroom, I was adamant about playing a game with him before the afternoon had passed. He raised an eyebrow at me, but nicely agreed to my request. When we finally got the chance, Frank arm
ed me with one of his decks and we went at it. Or actually, he went at it. Had it not been for the help of my fellow staff members, Shannon and Chris (both of which know how to play the game), I would have been toast. Due to a lousy deck draw, the three of us couldn’t match the amount of mana Frank had built up to use against us. And in the end, I made the bad decision of trying to play a Kiki-Jiki card, when I should have used a Plow Under. Had I used that card, I might have had a chance to beat Frank, but I didn’t know any better. Isn’t that what the learning process is really all about, anyway?
In the end, I have found the following to be true: Magic is not a game for weak-willed and easily bored. It requires investments on multiple levels, especially time, if you want to get any good at the game; The Magic players in the cafeteria just all happened to meet there by coincidence, but what a nice result it has had for everyone who is interested in card games at Skyline. As you’re reading this, there’s probably someone sitting there shuffling a deck waiting to play someone; though I’m in no way a Magic player, it was fun to play and I think I finally understand how the game works. It’s taken a few months, lots of tape, two photographers, and lots of notes but I would not chalk it up to time wasted.
