A group of young kids, maybe 8 or 9 years old, crouch around a small area on the floor, stylishly wearing their gray Old Navy hoodies and light-up Skechers. They marvel at the cleverness of their peers, striving to devise the most creative strategies ever dreamt of in childhood. Every once in a while, a loud cheer rises from the huddle, but they soon return to their intense activity.

What are these kids doing? They are playing trading card games.

Pokemon, World of Warcraft and Yu-Gi-Oh; some of us were playing card games like these before we could even tie our shoes. Remembering these games creates a nostalgic yearning for all those hours spent around a table, competing with our friends and showing off our collections. For one newer club at De Soto High School, students are continuing to create such memories with another popular card game; Magic the Gathering.

Magic the Gathering club sponsor Laura Sixta was more than happy to help out a couple students that came up with the idea for the club.

“A group of students came to me wanting to start the club,” Sixta said. “I had played a lot of Magic myself outside of school, so that’s why they asked me to sponsor it.”

Sixta described what Magic the Gathering is. 

“Magic the Gathering is a trading card game that involves strategic building of decks,” Sixta said. “Each card has its own abilities and functions, and the object of the game is to destroy your partner’s life total.”

Senior club member Sophie Straight highlighted the basics of playing the trading card game.

“A lot of people compare it to Pokemon, but it’s not really like Pokemon,” Straight said. “Basically, you play battles. What you do is lay down manna cards and, depending on the amount of manna you have, you can play certain creatures, enchantments and sorceries in order to defeat the other player.”

The club has several things that Straight likes.

“I like playing this game because it’s something that I can do with my friends. This is one thing that me and a lot of them have in common,” Straight said. “I also like that the club isn’t very long because I don’t have a lot of free time. I can hang out for an hour or half-an-hour, as long as I have free time and then head out when I’m done.”

Sixta likes Magic the Gathering for several different reasons.

“I like this game because it makes you think. It’s not based on chance. I get frustrated with a lot of games that are just based on, ‘Did you roll the right number on the die? Did you draw the right card?’ In this case, strategic play goes into building the deck and understanding how the cards work together. It takes a lot of mind power to do it,” Sixta said. “Plus, the art on the cards is really great.”

The atmosphere is what a lot of people like about Magic the Gathering club.

“It’s pretty casual. Everybody just comes in, they talk about trading cards, they bring their own decks, they teach each other. Anybody’s welcome at any time. It’s not like there’s a set group of people. It’s open to whoever likes Magic, wants to play, wants to learn,” Sixta said.

The club is intended to be a fun hang-out time for students, and is a lot less intense than other clubs at De Soto.

“The lack of a hard agenda [makes this club different from others]. It’s literally a kind of open forum to come in and play and interact and make friends. We don’t have a certain set of activities that happen at every single meeting. We just get together and enjoy each other’s company and play games,” Sixta said. “You don’t have to have experience. You don’t have to have a deck. We can teach you.”
The Magic the Gathering club meets from 3 to 4 p.m. after school in Sixta’s room on Thursdays.