There's Magic in the air

Junior Andreas Voellmer has battled knights, slain dragons and cast spells, all the way to the National Championships, simply by playing cards. He is one of the many Blazers who plays the often seen but not often understood tradable card game (TCG) Magic: the Gathering. Voellmer is also last year's State Champion, and he hopes to repeat his performance today at this year's State Championship.

"That was pretty cool," says Voellmer about the prestige of winning last year's championship. Although he was disappointed with his finish at Nationals, held in Kansas City on June 18, the deck he built on the plane there dominated the tournament. Not bad for someone who has only been playing competitively for two years.

The Magic

Senior Saul Kinter is a member of Blair's Strategic Gaming Club (SGC), which was founded last year. Although its members play such diverse games as chess, bridge and Dungeons and Dragons, the main focus is on Magic. "It was a fad at one point," says Kinter. "In '94-'95, it was the Pokemon of that year."

But Pokemon, along with a legion of TCGs ranging from Star Wars, to WWE Wrestling, to a spoof named Havoc: the Bothering, all owe their existence to the original. "Richard Garfield got a lot of things right on his first guess," says Kinter, referring to Magic's creator. After all, the game has outlasted all the imitators.

Magic, and all TCG, is a fusion between the collecting of baseball cards and the playability of extremely complicated poker. You collect a set of cards to be your deck, shuffle, and play your opponent. There is even an international rating system, like in chess, where a player is given a number that goes up or down based on his or her wins and losses in tournaments.

Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic cards (along with other TCGs including Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh), releases a new set every four months. What's more is that every year, the cards that can be played in tournaments are rotated, with bigger rotations every three years, forcing players to buy the new sets. Furthermore, another popular tournament format requires you to buy random unopened packs and build a deck on the spot using only those cards. It's a clever marketing trick, but, "It keeps the game new and interesting every time you play," says Voellmer.

There's a fair amount of money involved as well. Voellmer has won approximately $2,500. Tournament fees are only around $10 to $20; the real money is in the secondary market (reselling cards). "I calculated that if you invested in Black Lotuses [an out-of-print card worth upwards of $1000] in 1993, you beat just about every stock in the tech boom," says Kinter. There are dealers that make a living selling single cards at stores, on EBay and at major tournaments.

The Gathering

Although there are some professional Magic players – this year's national champion, Josh Wagner, a local player, won $25,000 – most players aren't trying to get rich. "There's the fantasy aspect," says Kinter, "and it's fun with friends." Mostly, however, it's just an exiting and challenging game, like bridge or Risk. "There are elements of luck but it's mostly skill," says Kinter.

According to Sean Vandover, a local competitive player and Magic judge, this mysterious subculture is almost "exclusively male" but otherwise has a following of average kinds of people. "It's always been classified as a geek game, like Dungeons and Dragons," says Vandover, "but you see the whole range of the spectrum playing Magic."

Voellmer agrees. "They are just normal people, not the dregs," he says about Magic players.

Kinter hasn't played since the summer but plans to start again after all his college applications are out. He played last year at lunch, over the summer and at about one tournament a week - but not in major tournaments that required preparation. "I'm not a serious player," says Kinter. "It's how I got my kicks."

The Competition

As of last week, Voellmer hadn't played since school began and still hadn't seen the new set. "You can lose track really quickly," he says.

But with the State Championship looming today, Voellmer knows he will be headhunted, like Tommy Ashton, the State Champion before Voellmer and a local high school student, was last year. "People will certainly want to beat him," says Vandover.

But hope is not lost for Voellmer. "He's definitely the best constructed player I know," says Kinter of Voellmer. Magic is a game of strategy, not chance, and great players win the same tournaments over and over again.