EASTON, Pa. — Ryan O'Donnell first picked up the fantasy trading card game Magic: The Gathering in 1995.
Before a scout outing, a friend told O'Donnell to buy some cards because they all would be playing the game — still new, complex and otherworldly to him.
"At the time there was a card and comic book shop on 25th Street in Easton called Dreamscape Comics I went to, so I was like, 'Mom, we gotta go, I gotta, all my friends are gonna be doing this,'" O'Donnell said.
"Obviously, she had no idea what I was talking about, but 'Oh, and by the way, I need $40.'"
- At its 30th anniversary, the Lehigh Valley's Magic: The Gathering scene is going strong, local players and game store owners say
- Some events have seen a downturn in players following the coronavirus pandemic and expansion of online play, while others have seen a strong resurgence of new and returning players
- Players say the game has given them a unique hobby and new friends
Cut to 27 years later.
O'Donnell now owns and operates Mythic Beasts & Brews in Wilson Borough — among several game stores in the Lehigh Valley that not only carry Magic: The Gathering booster packs, full decks and individual cards for sale, but also hold regular events that at times can gather dozens of people to play.
"She had no idea at the time that it would have been my life's work. I've owned a comic book store or game store for 15 years now. She made a good choice letting me letting me spend that $40."Ryan O'Donnell, owner of Mythic Beasts & Brews in Easton
"She had no idea at the time that it would have been my life's work." O'Donnell said now of that introduction to his mother.
"I've owned a comic book store or game store for 15 years now. She made a good choice letting me letting me spend that $40."
'Chess where there are 100,000 different options'
Magic, as it most often is called by players, is both a vast set of collectibles, as well as a competitive card game played by millions across the globe.
Originally released in August 1993, it's celebrating its 30th anniversary.
Magic: The Gathering was created by Wizards of the Coast, the company that later acquired popular tabletop RPG system Dungeons & Dragons, and is currently a subsidiary of the games company Hasbro.
A globe-spanning professional Magic tour operated by Wizards of the Coast features hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes and has recently engaged in many media cross-over promotions with popular franchises such as Doctor Who and Godzilla.
Most recently, the card game made headlines after rapper and singer Post Malone dropped what was reported to be as much as $2 million for a one-of-a-kind card that was released as part of a tie-in promotion with the Lord of the Rings franchise.
The game typically works with each player starting with an equal amount of "life" points, which have to be taken (and defended by) a deck of creature cards you place and use during your turn.
"There are elements of problem solving, math, deductive reasoning and reading body language all tied together with beautiful fantasy art."Ryan O'Donnell, owner of Mythic Beasts & Brews in Easton
Those creature cards are joined in the deck by other non-creature "spell" cards that have instantaneous effects, and "land" cards, which can be used to build up "mana" points that are required to utilize spell and creature cards' special abilities.
Players then alternate turns, using creatures and other spells to attack and defend, often with unique abilities, until a player has no life points left.
"It's like playing chess where there are 100,000 different options for your pieces that all interact differently with each other," O'Donnell said.
"There are elements of problem solving, math, deductive reasoning and reading body language all tied together with beautiful fantasy art," he said.
Way bigger the expected
O'Donnell said he saw the game start as something that Dungeons and Dragons players would have on hand to play quickly between their games at conventions.
But he said it since has grown to something way bigger than the creators could have ever expected.
"For whatever reason, the Lehigh Valley has really been a hotbed of Magic for a long time."Ryan O'Donnell, owner of Mythic Beasts and Brews in Easton
Nowadays, you can find a weekly or monthly gathering for Magic players in most cities in the country, with players seeking competition in the "standard" or "modern" formats, or the newer and more casual "Commander" style of play that allows up to four players.
"The local scene is actually pretty great around here," O'Donnell said, sitting in his card shop and café as players sat at different tables starting or playing different rounds of Commander.
"For whatever reason, the Lehigh Valley has really been a hotbed of Magic for a long time."
A local community formed
O'Donnell said that even at the game's start, a store still in operation in Allentown called "The Encounter" was a big hotspot. After that, it kept growing.
In the early days of Magic, game stores enabled more people to try it out, even if they did not have friends who played.
"With something that's so niche, you really need the stores there to push the game," O'Donnell said. "So obviously, the more stores that popped up, the more it kind of grew itself.
"And the Lehigh Valley right now has been super awesome. There's a lot of great stores."
Now, he said, Mythic Beasts & Brews' Sunday Commander events typically get about 40 people to the store.
Other game stores throughout the Lehigh Valley noted their own weekly events often getting more than a dozen attendees, often bumped up when new sets of cards are released.
"It's been really great knowing that there's this community nearby where I live, filled with people that play the game that I play, enjoy the game that I enjoy. I can go to many different stores in the area and be able to find a game like pretty quickly."Michael Direnzo, a player at a recent Sunday Commander event
Michael Direnzo, a player at a recent Sunday Commander event at the store, said he started playing almost three years ago during the coronavirus pandemic. He said he now regularly attends local events.
"It's been really great knowing that there's this community nearby where I live, filled with people that play the game that I play, enjoy the game that I enjoy," Direnzo said.
"I can go to many different stores in the area and be able to find a game like pretty quickly."
'Interested in playing the game'
Direnzo said that it was a challenge to keep up with other players at first, but more experience has helped him improve and learn more about the game and which cards to include or seek out.
Playing with him was Zachery Trepkau, who said he started playing at local events just three months ago, getting a deck from a friend and buying a few cards to help himself along.
"Everybody's super friendly and welcoming, everybody's been teaching me a lot about the game," Trepkau said. "I started by going only like, once a week, and now I come here like two or three times."
Couple Garean and Isabelle Gunn recently moved from New Brunswick to the Lehigh Valley, and found a community here.
Garean Gunn said he picked up the game again after a long time away, while Isabelle is just learning, inspired by her time playing similar card games online before realizing they took inspiration from Magic.
"This is kind of how we got our first friends living here, is all the people who play board games and Magic here," Isabelle Gunn said. "It's been awesome."
"I've never played against somebody who has been unwilling to be patient with someone who is trying to figure out a rule or trying to do something with their deck."Player Arianna Dean
Arianna Dean, another player at the event, said she has played since early high school with friends, and now often attends Mythic Beasts & Brews with her husband, Tyler.
She said she enjoys the casual atmosphere of the location.
"Usually when I have a new deck, when there's a pre-release, you can find me here for sure," Dean said.
While the game is typically very male-dominated, she said there usually are other women at large events, and that it has not affected her enjoyment of the game.
"I find it doesn't matter if you're a guy or girl, it doesn't matter if you are super knowledgeable or very new, what matters is just are you interested in playing the game," Dean said.
"I've never played against somebody who has been unwilling to be patient with someone who is trying to figure out a rule or trying to do something with their deck."
Hitting the mainstream
The game's parent company has made finding attending local events very easy, working with local game stores to provide a store and event locator on its website.
"I know a lot of our people have really formed many, many new friendships, just from people here" at Mythic Beats & Brews, O'Donnell said.
"I think anytime you can find people that love the same things you do, that's always a good a good recipe for a friendship.Ryan O'Donnell of Mythic Beats & Brews
"I think anytime you can find people that love the same things you do, that's always a good a good recipe for a friendship. So we have definitely fostered a good community for sure," he said.
O'Donnell said the age range he sees now is about "16-50," which he said makes sense, given the game's longevity.
"A few years ago, I went to a tournament in Las Vegas, and there were 5,000 people at this tournament," O'Donnell said. "It was incredible to see that how far it had come."
O'Donnell said appeal for the game ranges from those who love heated competition to those who just love getting together with a few friends, ordering a pizza and playing a game they love all night. Others value the collectability and the art.
"It's appealing to different people for different reasons, and I think that's really helped the game a lot."
Some players at the event who have played since the early days noted that certain aspects of the game have changed over the years.
The game has become easier to get into, with some lower-expense options such as pre-built decks becoming more available, and there is a more welcoming attitude toward newcomers.
Nowadays, large events have people who first started playing in high school over a decade or two ago alongside those who just started playing themselves.
Or those who got their start playing online on the popular digital version of the game, Magic: The Gathering Arena, which was first released in 2019 and has since made its way to mobile devices.
"I think players have gotten friendlier over time as the as the group has gotten larger," said Brett Dean, who had been playing since the 1990s.
"I liked all the various interactions and how the things have changed over the years, I've liked seeing it all."
Connecting worldwide and across generations
Bethlehem roommates Brenden Lericos and Tyler Buck are part of a team of friends who contribute to the Popular YouTube channel Play to Win, and are regular attendees of local Magic events in the Lehigh Valley.
"For a long time, a lot of the communities I interacted with were either more casual and relaxed players, or hyper-competitive, travel to a ton of events players," Lericos said.
"I feel like the Lehigh Valley is somewhere that's continuing to surprise me in that I see both communities pretty strong and interacting well."
Wearing shirts and keeping their cards in sleeves branded for the YouTube channel, they explained that the success of their content (typically getting tens of thousands of views per video) enables them to travel a lot and play Magic elsewhere.
Still, they contribute some of that success to the active players in this area.
"We've been lucky enough to have like a really awesome fan base and have that kind of blow up, and it's really fun to do," Buck said.
Both Buck and Lericos noted how much the game has affected their lives, giving them friends in many places through the game.
“A lot of my social relationships end up being Magic or Magic-adjacent, which is really fun,” Buck said.
"It's not a deliberate choice, either. I don't turn my nose up at people who don't play Magic, just, there tends to be great social relationships that come out of the stores, that come out of the game."
Pandemic, online hit in-person play
William Heimbach, manager at The Portal Comic & Games in Bethlehem, said the location typically gets 16 -20 people for it Thursday Commander nights, and 12-14 for its Tuesday modern format events.
He said ore competitive formats have fallen in attendance since the pandemic, compared with the more social and casual Commander format.
"A lot of the stuff has changed over the years, especially since 2020. It used to be standard was king of the mountain, and then when everything reopened, it was all about commander. More people were taking more casual."William Heimbach, manager at The Portal Comic & Games in Bethlehem
"A lot of the stuff has changed over the years, especially since 2020," Heimbach said. "It used to be standard was king of the mountain, and then when everything reopened, it was all about commander. More people were taking more casual."
Officials at The Encounter, a games and comics store in Allentown, said it typically gets 16 players every Saturday for its primary Commander event, but that's significantly down from pre-pandemic levels.
Managers at Cloud City Comics and Games in Whitehall Township, which also holds regular events, said they get a variety of attendance — four players to more than 20 — depending on the format played, with numbers increasing when a new set releases.
"MTG has been in a bit of a dip since right before the pandemic," a staff member said via the store's Facebook page.
"Prior to 2019, we would regularly get 20-40 players at our weekly events at our Emmaus location, but the online programs [such as Arena] coupled with the pandemic really changed a lot of that.
"Our focus has also shifted toward a more casual player base, so a lot of the more competitive focused players go to other area stores."
'That social aspect that people love'
However, the downturn is not felt universally. After pandemic restrictions weaned and events started up again, many found their way back, joined by people who are just starting.
"I think the vast majority of people prefer to do both. I think almost everyone who plays online also likes to play in paper at their local game store," Buck said as he shuffled his deck.
"I think it's pretty telling that a lot of brick-and-mortar establishments took a much harder hit from the pandemic than game stores, and by and large they seem to have recovered and have their thriving communities back.
"People like it so much that one of the first things they wanted to do once they got vaccinated — it was come back to the game store and play."
Thirty years on, even as the game shifts to different rulesets, increases in complexity as new cards are added, and some find they prefer to play online rather than face-to-face — it does not look like in-person Magic games are going anywhere.
"In my opinion, the best part about the game is just playing with your friends, and when you're playing online, against a faceless opponent, you just don't quite have that."Ryan O'Donnell, owner of Mythic Beasts & Brews in Easton
"In the past year or two, maybe year and a half, it has definitely ramped back up," O'Donnell said. "And people are starting to realize that playing online doesn't quite give you that social aspect that people love about the game.
"In my opinion, the best part about the game is just playing with your friends, and when you're playing online, against a faceless opponent, you just don't quite have that."
