“You see this?” asks Joseph, an older man sporting a sternum-length scraggly beard, gesturing at the game on the table before him. He points specifically to a box holding a deck of multi-colored cards. “It says age six and up. We’re way too old for this shit.”
The game Joseph affectionately refers to is Magic: The Gathering, the longest-running collectible trading card game on the market. While the fantasy card game originally began as a way for Dungeons & Dragons players to pass the time between games, this frequently mocked pastime has since spawned a host of imitators, including the Pokemon craze of the late 1990s. Magic, however, has generated an obsession and way of life it can call its own.
“The crazy thing is that kids won’t understand a fraction of this,” continues Joseph. “It’s much more complicated than a six-year-old can comprehend. There are rules that aren’t even in the rule book.”
Joseph, a Magic veteran of 14 years, explains that the current rule book for the game (four pages long, plus an additional section in the back for penning in new rules) can only be described as “a joke.” According to him, it takes a great deal of experience to truly understand a game as complicated and nuanced as Magic.
To find fellow aficionados, people like Joseph have turned to Redcap’s Corner, a game shop nestled next to the Video Library at 40th and Locust which has become a second home for those trying to master the moves and tricks of Magic. At the same time, Redcap’s has also emerged as a West Philly hub for games ranging from Dungeons & Dragons and the card game Yu-Gi-Oh! to a selection of other board, role-playing and live action games.
But even if the thought of the wizard-covered cards brings back bad memories of middle school, the prospect of jargon-spouting company shouldn’t scare you off: the daily congregation appears more Seth Cohen than the LARPing Augie Farks from Role Models: they unabashedly recognize and embrace their guilty pleasure.
Sean Bonsky, one of the four owners of the gaming hub, explains that when the store first opened last February, the owners envisioned a gaming community where people could stop by to play their favorite games and share that love with others. As a result, they have created a tight-knit, yet relaxed, community.
“People can reserve a table ahead of time for $5, but we rarely actually charge for tables,” explains Bonsky, noting that a lot of Redcap’s clientele simply drop in, whether for just a few rounds or to spend the entire evening there. “We’re really just a place where gamer nerds can come here and hang out.” And while it’s not a flashy space — a few plastic folding tables are lined up through the room and an assortment of boxed board games sit, for sale, along the wall — it’s noticeably packed for a Monday night.
For the inexperienced, the first impression is that of walking through a foreign country: the names and phrases on the cards and spoken by the players might as well be in another language. “Turbo fog dock — black, white… splashed for unstable footing,” spouts one of the players as he slaps a card on the table. His opponent nods in recognition, privy to the jargon skipping back and forth between each player.
Bonsky explains that many of the players are regulars, affectionately dubbed “Magic-Heads,” and end up visiting the store at least twice a week, if not more. Some of the even more frequent visitors hang out at Redcap’s on a daily basis.
“Usually the place is packed,” says Bonsky. “There’s pretty much something happening everyday. We get people coming in to play Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh!. And even though we don’t sell any video games, people will drop in just to play their own PSP or Nintendo DS.”
Several months into their project, Bonsky is not at all surprised that Redcap’s has proven to be such a success.
Before Redcap’s, Bonsky would have to trek to the suburbs for a similar gaming experience. After running into others who shared his frustration over the lack of gaming stores or facilities in the Philadelphia area, Bonsky and a few friends decided to create a space of their own.
“We knew that there was a definite demand for it, and that we would be the only business of our type in the community,” Bonsky explained. “It was clear that we had an opportunity here.”
In fact, they were so sure that the store would succeed that they reached into their own pockets to fund the project. After failing to procure a loan to start their dream store, one of the store owners took a big risk in charging the store’s initial purchases and payments to his personal credit card.
The demand they had so confidently hoped for has certainly emerged. In only a few months since its grand opening, Redcap’s Corner has established itself as an integral part of the Philadelphia gaming community.
“Before this store opened,” explains Joseph, “we were playing Magic in a Chinese restaurant across the street from where an old gaming store used to be.”
Today, Bonsky explains that the store will often be full until midnight, and sometimes well into the night. “We’re pretty flexible, so sometimes our hours can get weird,” he explains. “I know I’ve stayed here until three or four before, for the customers. I mean, I might as well hang out and play board games.”
While the occasional drunk student will wander in on a Friday or Saturday night to try — and fail — to learn the game, a lot of the individuals who turn up at Redcap’s are new to the area and are looking to pick up a new hobby or rekindle an old one.
Steve, a Drexel student, was one of those who returned to Magic after a several-year hiatus from the game. “I used to play in seventh grade and then stopped,” he explains. “But a while back my mom found all of my old cards, called me and said that I had to clear them out of her house. Now I literally have an entire linen closet devoted to all of my Magic cards.”
Today, Steve is a fixture among the Redcap’s regulars and others who flood the store daily to face-off, trade tips and judge the decks assembled by other players.
“There’s definitely no way to have natural ability in Magic,” explains Steve. “Unless maybe you’re really into computer science or something.”
In fact, the creator of Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield, received his doctorate degree in combinatorial mathematics from Penn in 1993, shortly before he helped grandfather the trading card game mania that swept through the ‘90s with Magic and subsequent spin-offs like Pokemon.
For those unfamiliar with the game, it goes a little like this: each player represents a wizard (or, for the Magic-literate: a “planeswalker”) who uses the spells, creatures and items in his or her deck of cards to defeat opponents.
At the most basic level, it’s fairly straightforward. However, as Joseph points out, “it seems pretty basic, but there really are so many complicated parts to the game.” Normally, players start with seven cards in their hand (or “library”) and draw one additional card per turn, but the occasional card will allow the player who dealt it to draw more than just one card.
Based on the card played, competitors can then damage their opponent or one of their opponent’s creatures, or they can even play cards that will control or counter their opponent midway through a “spell.” Each move will then either add or deduct “life points” from either player (tracked by the infamous 20-sided die used by Magic players) until one reduces their opponent’s life points to zero.
“The rules of Magic are extremely simple, but the cards themselves are complicated,” explains Joseph. The company that makes them, “Wizards of the Coast”, releases an entirely new set every two or three months — and with over 14,000 individual cards, the game can get extremely complex.
This aspect changes not only the cards and therefore the rules of the game, but it also forces players to update and reanalyze the decks they compete with. As a result, many players keep a number of decks on hand to play with. For instance, Steve keeps one “fun” deck and one “game” deck which he saves for more serious, important games he wants to win.
“Keeping up with it is a headache,” explains Joseph. “Every time a new set comes out you have to rebuild a new deck, test your decks and then you just want to go out and buy more cards, causing the process to start all over again.”
Many people do not realize the cost of the game, with more common cards, dubbed “commons” costing $0.50 and the most rare cards worth up to $1,000. While most players buy their cards from game stores like Redcap’s, many others get them from the Internet, scouring eBay for valuable options to add to their decks. And prices are always in flux — players have to gamble when deciding to buy or sell a more-valuable card, not knowing how the price will change if they hold out a little longer.
At the table, Joseph is not playing but shuffling through his extensive card collection and noting the unique way in which each operates. He glances over at a couple playing a round, pauses momentarily, and then warns one of the players that he has miscounted his remaining number of cards. Disbelieving, the accused player denies the miscount and hesitantly recounts, only to realize that Joseph was right.
“I’ve played the game for 14 years,” shrugs Joseph. “It’s like a banker looking at a stack of money and knowing that it’s short a couple of dollars. I can look at a stack and know about how many are left.”
In fact, Joseph tried to play competitively by attending a Magic: The Gathering Pro-Qualifier in hopes of going pro. While he placed in the top 40 of the group, he didn’t make it into the required top 16 and still just plays recreationally. However, two frequent visitors to Redcap’s Corner have managed to earn professional Magic status.
Penn Graduate student Lucas Siow gained notoriety both within the Redcap’s community and the greater Magic community in general for his unique and highly competitive decks.
In comparison, John Skinner, a Ph.D. student at Penn, has only recently skyrocketed to the top of the Magic pack. Last month, Skinner made it to the semi-finals of the Grand Prix-Tampa Magic: The Gathering event only eight months after seriously taking up Magic, when he bonded over the game with the girl he was dating.
Some, however, have not been as lucky as Skinner when it comes to mixing girls and Magic. One of the players casually mentioned that he and his girlfriend had recently broken up, only to face a bombardment of teasing as the others claimed it was his “obsession with Magic that did him in.”
While most of the players in the shop hunch over the plastic tables with decks of cards stacked immaculately before them, others are engaged in larger, more rowdy multi-player games. Joseph jokes, “It’s like a pick-up game on the blacktop. We’ve got a lot of showmen in here, quite a few characters.” Some, like fur-capped Quentin, who lives in the area and stops by frequently, admit that he “doesn’t like to turn down a challenge.”
While many of the guys prefer the more methodical one-on-one play, the standard style for internationally sanctioned Magic: The Gathering tournaments, the more recent Elder Dragon Highlander version of the game, has recently gained ground — especially in the rowdier of the Redcap’s crowd.
As Joseph describes, “it’s basically a multi-player version of Magic, where people sit around and talk a whole lot of shit. It’s a lot more talking than playing. Lot of arguments get started.”
While some like the complicated twists and alliances that come with the Elder Dragon Highlander, others, including Joseph and Steve, prefer a more traditional take on Magic and continue to play the original.
“I’m bad at politics, so pretty much I’m terrible at EDH,” jokes Steve. “If I beat someone, they might take offense to it, or if I do something ridiculous, they’ll only try to get back at me.”
But Steve admits that had it not been for Redcap’s, he would not have even had the chance to try his hand at the new multi-player form of Magic.
His experience helps prove why this tight-knit group of “Magic Heads” find themselves returning to Redcap’s Corner night after night. It serves as a home away from home for both novices and mages alike at which they can summon monsters, earn mana and send defeated foes to the graveyard as they test their Magic skills.
