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At Dillingham card club, kids battle with logic and chance

Hannah Colton/KDLG

On Mondays after school, 'Magic: the Gathering' and 'YuGiOh' are the games of choice for a group of Dillingham boys. 

With another nearly-snowless winter underway, many people are passing the time indoors by playing games. For generations, it’s been pinochle, bingo, and poker, but of course, the younger folks have their games of choice as well. KDLG’s Hannah Colton has this story about a Dillingham group where wizards battle monsters on a weekly basis.

Audio transcript:

It’s Monday after school, and Andrew Slagle’s classroom is full of more than the usual handful of students needing math help. There’s eight or ten boys and a few adults, and they’re pairing off to play a game called 'Magic: the Gathering.'

I drift toward one corner, where a dark-haired teenager is shuffling Magic cards like I’ve never seen cards shuffled before.

Credit Hannah Colton/KDLG
Matthew Krause demonstrates his cardist skills.

"My name is Matthew Krouse, and I’m a cardist. It’s doing cardistry like flourishes like this, fans, cuts..."

Mr. Slagle chimes in here with some light trash-talking:

[Andrew Slagle] "He likes to flourish his cards in order to intimidate and distract his opponents. Right Matthew? Okay, just don’t flash the cards to your opponents or else they might see..."

Matthew’s opponent is Christian Olson, a newbie to the world of Magic.

[Christian Olson] "This is like my fourth time ever playing, and I’ve never won. Ever."

They start the game by drawing seven cards each.

[Christian] "Now we gotta roll to see who goes first."

[Matthew] "I go first… and when it gets to your turn, you draw a card."

The cards, many of them donated to card club by the Magic company, are a mix of spells, creatures and lands. As the boys explain to me, they're all divided into five colors: red cards do lots of damage, green makes things go faster, blue is for control, and black, the boys tell me, lets you do “crazy spells.” White is the color of justice and restores life points.   

Credit Hannah Colton/KDLG
Matthew and Christian set up for a game of 'Magic: the Gathering.'

[Christian] "Okay, so now I’m gonna buy a creature. I'm gonna flip this land, and this one too, and BOOM! I put this down. Now I got a creature in the field."

Christian uses his creature to attack Matthew, cutting down his life points. The object of the game is to be the last player standing. There’s no board or game pieces, still, Christian likens it to the old strategy game.

[Christian] "It’s like really crazy chess, but better and cooler."

I wander to another table to find seventh grader Sawyer Sands dealing a winning blow.

[Sawyer Sands] "I just took control of his creature, which was an 8-8 – a very powerful monster – and equipped my card to it which made it even more powerful and I attacked him with it, and beat him."

Credit Hannah Colton/KDLG
Sawyer Sands chooses his cards carefully.

Sawyer is big into Magic. He’s the one who started card club this fall, and plays a lot with his friends and his dad, Tim Sands.

[Tim Sands] "He’s kind of a logical thinker, and there’s a lot of logical thinking involved in the card club stuff… And you know, if he wants to beat me, he’s gonna beat me. He has all the decks and he knows how they work. I mean, I’m a neophyte, I don’t know that much."

  Sawyer downplays his prowess, saying it’s all about having good cards:

[Sawyer] "Well there’s skill in it, no doubt, but it all comes down to chance. Even the best can lose to the worst."

Around the room, some kids stand around, watching their friends play. Jayden Mayer is a freshman and fairly new to card club, and he also plays basketball. He says he's the only one on the team who also goes to card club. 

[Jayden Mayer] "They usually go to town or hang out with their friends, that’s it. I don’t really like going to town and spending my money. I kinda just like being with the people I’m comfortable with, rather than my buddies doing social media and doing stuff that I don’t really like."

[Hannah Colton] "How would you describe your buddies here?"

[Jayden] "At card club? They’re nice, they’re really friendly to talk to, they just like doing what they do."

What they do is complicated, entertaining, and sometimes ruthless. I head back to the first table to check in, and find out Christian has just defeated Matthew in one fell swoop.

[Christian] "I took down 13 health in one turn…"

[Matthew] "I didn’t shuffle right."

[Hannah] "Are you blaming your flourish shuffling?"

[Matthew] "Mmhm. I’m never gonna do that again. I quit it."

[Hannah] "Wait, didn't you say you’d never won before?"

[Christian] "Yeah, and I just won. My victory! Tell the world!"

Matthew is frustrated. He's pretty competitive. But this is Magic; the cards always come up different, and there’s always the next game.