{"id":9791,"date":"2014-10-29T06:13:44","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T13:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=9791"},"modified":"2014-10-27T13:19:59","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T20:19:59","slug":"camosun-students-summon-up-magic-the-gathering-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/10\/29\/camosun-students-summon-up-magic-the-gathering-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun students summon up Magic: The Gathering<\/em> club"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m going to Tragic Slip your Heroes\u2019 Bane with morbid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFine, I\u2019m going to tap four for Fuel for the Cause, counter-target spell, proliferate…\u201d<\/p>\n

This exchange might seem a bit dense and esoteric, but it\u2019s actually a bit of well-planned thrust and parry from the card game Magic: The Gathering.<\/i><\/p>\n

Magic<\/i> is a high-fantasy trading card game. Players compete against each other as mages, \u201cplaneswalkers\u201d who cast spells and summon creatures to defeat their opponents.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A group of Camosun students hitting the decks at a recent Magic: The Gathering club meeting (photo by Jill Westby\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First created in 1993, Magic<\/i> has grown into a broad, international presence of 12 million people. In addition to casual games, there is a competitive scene, extensive collectables, and a strong community of dedicated players.<\/p>\n

And now Magic<\/i> is here at Camosun.<\/p>\n

The Magic<\/i> community has grown to include students at the college, now that Andy Chen, who is also the Camosun College Student Society\u2019s director of students with (dis)Abilities, has founded a Magic: The Gathering<\/i> club at Camosun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been playing Magic <\/i>for close to 20 years and in that time I haven\u2019t seen a Magic<\/i> club on campus. It was something I really wanted to organize this year,\u201d says Chen. \u201cThe idea behind having a Magic<\/i> club was not only to create a social atmosphere where players can collect, trade, and play the game, but also to create a safe space for people to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magic<\/i> lends itself to customization and personalization, with over 12,000 cards to choose from for a deck of 60. The combinations are effectively endless. This variety has kept the game fresh through the years and encouraged players to keep coming back year after year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a very strong research and development team that puts a lot of effort into creating these cards and attracting new generations of players. Some decks are built for speed, so they win in several rounds, but others are developed for a long game,\u201d says Chen. \u201cThere are many kinds of Magic<\/i> players, some that just want to win; then there are those that like to win in style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chen has designed the club not just to be a place to play games, but also to be an inclusive, safe space for students. The initial meetings were held in the library to encourage women to come out and play, and there is a free card box that works like a \u201ctake a penny, leave a penny\u201d tray to help new players build decks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a collection, that\u2019s fine, we can build a deck for you. For a novice player, it might be great just to borrow a deck, or watch someone play a few hands of Magic<\/i> before they start playing themselves,\u201d says Chen. \u201cBreaking isolation is a big aspect of the Magic<\/i> club; this is a safe place on campus to organize, be yourself, and express yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chen\u2019s strategy of inclusion and patience is paying off. These are not angry players playing in dimly lit rooms, cursing at each other over the anonymity of the internet. They are peers meeting face to face and having fun. In the gaming world, that connectedness can be difficult to find.<\/p>\n

One of the club\u2019s members, Camosun student Devon Wintoniak, was initially drawn entirely by the community around the game. Despite having limited gaming and no Magic<\/i> experience, he signed up at the college\u2019s Club Days earlier in the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here for every meeting so far,\u201d says Wintoniak. \u201cI went into it purely for the social side, but beyond that the game itself is engaging. It seems like everybody latches on to a particular thing they like. Some people like playing to win, some like the collecting side, some people like building interesting decks\u00c9 That\u2019s where I\u2019m at: collecting. Everyone just kind of finds their niche.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun\u2019s Magic: The Gathering<\/i> club meets every Friday from 1 to 3 pm in Fisher 200 at the Lansdowne campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m going to Tragic Slip your Heroes\u2019 Bane with morbid.\u201d \u201cFine, I\u2019m going to tap four for Fuel for the Cause, counter-target spell, proliferate…\u201d This exchange might seem a bit dense and esoteric, but it\u2019s actually a bit of well-planned thrust and parry from the card game Magic: The Gathering. Magic is a high-fantasy trading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-october-29-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9793,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791\/revisions\/9793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}