Gathering for magic

Phyrexian Scuta? Urza’s Rage? Howling Mine? No, these aren’t characters from novels nor are they titles of movies. They are cards from Magic: the Gathering, a card game that was first launched in the US in 1993. Last weekend, the Philippine Nationals were held at the Robinsons Galleria where a La Salle college student, Rey Estacio, came out of the two-day tournament in first place.

As with most games, the objective in Magic: the Gathering is simple – bring your opponent’s life total from 20 to zero before he does the same to you. The game is played by two or more players, each with a deck of cards. In turn, each player draws cards from their own decks and depending on what cards they draw, they can play creatures, spells, artifacts and different cards that do various things.

One of the most unique aspects of Magic is that you get to build your own deck of cards by choosing from over 7,000 cards currently available. Some cards are naturally stronger or rarer than others. The single most expensive card is the Black Lotus which goes for about $300 on e-bay. Prices vary depending on rarity, collectability and of course the card’s strength and playability.

Players can buy cards either in ready to play pre-constructed decks or in fifteen card booster packs which contain fifteen random cards you can use to bolster your collection. Most stores also sell "singles" which are single cards priced anywhere from three for P5 for the common cards up to several hundred pesos for the rarest cards available.

After creating their own original decks, Magic players like to give them original names. Some of the better constructed decks gain fame or notoriety and are often imitated. This is especially when particular decks win in large tournaments. For example you will hear words like a "Discard" deck, so-called because the objective is to make your opponent continuously discard cards. The theory behind the deck is that the less cards your opponent has in his hand, the less he can do in the game. "Land" is the basic source for casting spells. A "Land Destruction" deck tries to destroy as many of your opponent’s lands as possible thereby limiting the amount of spells he can cast. Other creative names are "Blue Skies" or "Draw-Go." At the recent Nationals, a local deck name the so-called "Pustiso" deck became popular. The power of the deck revolved around a creature called the "Indentured" Djinn.

After last week’s Philippine Nationals, I had a chance to sit down with Freddie Tan, owner of the Hobby Cafe and Neutral Grounds and local distributor for Magic: the Gathering.

PHILIPPINE STAR: How did all this start? Seems like a really fun business to be in.

Freddie Tan: Actually this business started by accident. My wife had a hobby store and we met because I was always there playing. My business before that was freight forwarding but when Neutral Grounds and Hobby Cafe started, I resigned from the freight forwarders. I still have shares but it’s a lot more fun here. Now, Neutral Grounds, is the local distributor for both Wizards of the Coast and Games Workshop. Games Workshop is the maker of Warhammer, another popular game, and Wizards of the Coast, of course, makes Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. We started with Games Workshop just as a cold call. We bought a few boxes for Warhammer and brought them in. Then a few more. Then people started calling our store asking if we play because they were looking for people to play with. And that’s where it started. Wizards called us last year because of our record with Games Workshop and asked us if we wanted to distribute their products. Since June last year, we have also been selling Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons.

Your players are mostly male?

Although it’s still about 90 percent male, the participants at Magic tournaments come from all walks of life – from students to professionals. Most people in the National tournaments and at the highest levels are older. They’re more experienced. But you see, a wider cross-section in our daily tournaments. I think for the younger generation, most players are casual players. But eventually, I want to have a separate tournament division for the younger set.

Most of my friends are lawyers. And our joke has always been that you need a lawyer to play this game. Because it gives you a set of rules and you try to use those rules to beat your opponent. And sometimes the game does get really complex when you try to figure out what you can and cannot do.

This game can be played at many levels. For casual gamers, the rules can be very relaxed. However, as you go up the ladder, you start to realize that the game is much more complex than you initially thought. There are many subtle rules that affect strategy. You don’t have to know all the exact theories behind the rules unless you want to be a judge or play in the Nationals. Most of the time it is sufficient to know that you can do something without needing to know why you can do that.

After casual play with my friends, what can I do for organized play?

All tournaments we conduct are sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast. We report all results of all tournaments so that Filipino players get international ranking. Since June 2000 when we started handling Magic, we have hosted about 290 tournaments. We have almost one tournament a day. Sometimes it is just a "casual tournament" where the people who are in the store just agree to have a tournament. Everyone contributes sometimes as little as P20 which goes towards the prize – maybe some new card. The store gives a discount to subsidize the prize and the winner takes home one or two booster packs or a card of his choice. On weekends, we have regular tournaments where the prizes are a little bigger and then of course we have regional qualifier tournaments to qualify for the Nationals. But we always report the results to Wizards.

So how do you qualify for the Nationals and what is it?

The Nationals is a two-day invitation only event where the top players from each qualifier plus the top 50-ranked Philippine players are invited. There are qualifier tournaments in Manila, Cebu, Alabang, Fairview, Iloilo and Laguna. Next year we will have more cities. Probably Baguio, Davao and a few others. The winners in the Nationals and anyone who ranked in the top one hundred fifty in Asia go to the Asia Pacific tournament which will be in Malaysia this year from June 22 to 25. The top four in the Nationals are also invited to the US for the World Championships where all players get $1,000 just for appearing and the top prize is $32,000. Even the local cash prizes are subsidized by Wizards of the Coast for Nationals. Our prizes were $500, $250 and $125, respectively, for top finishers. In the US, they are really trying to make Magic a professional sport. There are already people who play professionally. And even internationally, they are professionalizing. Our judge here in the Nationals last week was actually from Singapore.

Anytime someone wants to start a new hobby, the eternal question is always – how much does it cost? Doesn’t it cost a lot to have all these powerful cards in your deck?

Not really. Our current National champion, Rey Estacio is a student. He went on leave from school because he couldnít afford the tuition. So he is going to use his winnings to pay for his tuition at La Salle. I think that’s really great that someone so deserving won the Nationals. He built his deck over time. And obviously he doesn’t have all the funds to start buying cards that cost thousands. My personal deck is full of rare cards but sometimes I lose to decks that cost less than P500 to put together. And I’m thinking "Aaahhh!!! My deck’s so expensive and I’m losing to this guy!!! What’s happening?"

But a Black Lotus is $300 or something?

Yeah but you don’t need a Black Lotus in your deck to win. Rey doesn’t have one. And most tournaments today limit the cards you can use to the more recent cards. That Black Lotus was produced years ago and is out of print that’s why it’s so rare. But the newer cards don’t cost nearly that much. Most tournaments today only use cards that are in print. That makes the cards cost much, much less. You can put a decent deck together for a few hundred pesos.

A lot of this game is about building your deck. You have to do your homework and put together a balanced and consistent deck. You try something it doesn’t work and you keep changing cards until you get the right mix. How much of the game is building your deck vis-a-vis actually playing the game?

Probably 50-50. What’s important is the deck has to suit your personality. Some decks require a lot more patience to play. Some just keep attacking and are really aggressive. The so-called "beatdown" decks are so-called because all you do is try to beat your opponent down. It needs a balance of both. That’s why just because you have the most expensive cards in your deck doesn’t mean you will do well. At the highest level of play, this game becomes a game of probabilities. The guy who designed the game, Richard Garfield, is a mathematician. You have to be able to predict the probability of being able to draw a card so that you can predict the chances of something happening.

Someone wants to learn or wants to start playing. What do they do?

Most of the people who come into the store who want to start the game are brought in by someone who already plays. It is not so often that someone comes in and actually asks us to teach them and wants to learn and just walks in. But it does happen and if anyone wants to just come in and learn and play then they’re always welcome and everyone here at the store will be more than willing to help.

What are you doing in the future?

Eventually we want to have more divisions. Maybe one for the younger people like those in high school. But really our job is to provide support and an environment where people can play. Supply the cards and organize play. The rest of the growth is mostly through word of mouth. We also need to widen the talent pool if we want to be competitive internationally. Right now we have about four or five players in the top one hundred fifty in the Asia Pacific. Eventually of course we want to have a world champion.

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Hobby Cafe is located at the third floor of Robinsons Galleria. You can find more information about Magic: the Gathering at www.wizards.com/magic. For comments, ideas, suggestions or criticisms, e-mail me at omniumg@yahoo.com.