The Magic the Gathering club has met on campus for almost a year and a half to play one of the oldest and most cherished trading card games in North America.
Magic the Gathering is a competitive card game where players duel with collectible cards from a custom deck. The game involves playing monster cards to attack the other players. Once their hit points reach zero, your glorious victory is assured.
The club was formed to help University of Calgary Magic players find an organized way to meet up and enjoy the game.
“You could find the occasional two, three, four students you could meet with and play Magic, but there wasn’t a big gathering for it,” said club president Gabriel Payne. “There are lots of people at the U of C who play, but there wasn’t a consolidated time or place to meet up.”
Magic the Gathering was created in 1993 and currently has 11 million registered players worldwide.
The Students’ Union club has attracted attention from across campus since its start last year.
“We have over 125 people on the mailing list and on a good week we have 40 or more students come to the club meetings,” Payne said. “Magic is not something you have to sell. People, as soon as they find out about us, they’re like, Oh I’m there!”
Club vice-president Alex Lamoureux said the club has members from a number of faculties.
“I’m really happy with the way the club has brought in Magic players from all over the university,” Lamoureux said. “It’s a popular game so we’ve brought in people who used to play, people who want to learn how to play and people who play a lot already.”
For more serious players, the club holds drafting events. You pay a small fee to buy some cards, build a deck on the spot then compete against your friends.
“We do events, we do drafts and we get funding from the SU so it makes it considerably cheaper than [drafting] at the store,” Payne said.
Even with the large membership, the club is always looking for new people to join.
“We’re willing to teach people, so if people are interested in learning how to play they don’t even have to come with a deck and we can show them how,” said Payne. “So if you’re interested in Magic but don’t know a whole lot about it, you can come to us to find out what it’s all about and to get involved.”
The club holds weekly meetings every Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the SU clubs room.