When you think of sports, you might not think of the booming industry that is eSports. When you hear about games like Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), thoughts of teenage boys in their mother’s basement may come to mind, but these games have come a long way in the past 20+ years. D&D in particular has recently regained the popular culture spotlight through the wildly popular Netflix series Stranger Things.
In the 1990s, before this most recent pop culture phenomenon, a grad student working toward his PhD in mathematics wanted to develop a game about programming robots. The company he pitched it to thought it would be too expensive, so he created a card game called Magic the Gathering (MTG) instead. It was based on one of his favorite games, Dungeons & Dragons. It was among the first of its kind and is thought to be the most complex card game ever made. The complexity is not found in the rules but within the card decks themselves.
The game is generally played between two people, each with a deck of 60 – 100 cards depending on the style of play. The players assemble their own customized packs of collectable cards printed with elves, dragons, green forests, craggy mountains, and more. Starter sets as well as smaller “booster packs” are randomized. Rare and highly collectable cards might be found in the purchased starter sets or booster packs, or they can be traded or purchased from other players and collectors. A few of the very rare cards have been known to sell for thousands of dollars, their value coming from their rarity and from the game attribute they might hold. Over the history of the game, over 20,000 unique cards have been released, and so each player has an almost infinite variety from which to personalize his or her own strategy. During tournament play the decks are often limited by various parameters to level the playing field.
Magic the Gathering has been played competitively in an official capacity since 1996. In 2019, when the game had expanded to over 35 million players in 70 countries, parent companies Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro launched their latest program, an eSports arena with millions in prize money available.
Players sign in at game stores and cafes across the country to play MTG with their friends and earn points for themselves and the venue. These can lead to play in local tournaments and national and international contests. For those with no local venues or no friends who play, participants can log into the virtual Magic the Gathering eSports arena and play against others from around the world.
But what happens when you have the friends to play with locally but no place to go?
It started with a dream and a desire to drive … less. Carla Ponce moved to Aiken, South Carolina in 2017 to be closer to her family, but she didn’t leave her favorite games behind in Florida. At the time Aiken didn’t have a suitable place for kids and adults to hang out and play tabletop games. “I was driving an hour home from work to pick up my family, and then another hour back to the game store,” she says. She saw a need in Aiken for a safe place where kids and families could share their love of tabletop gaming, a place that would be open after work hours. “It’s not that I am against alcohol, it’s just that not everyone wants to hang out in a bar in the evening. Aiken needed an alternative”. Thus, Jacl’s came to be.
I first walked into Jacl’s the day it opened this past November. At first glance it looks like most coffee shops, with a service counter, a table, a few couches, and the aroma of coffee in the air. But then you would notice the door that leads past the service counter into the space that sets Jacl’s apart. There you find tables for board and card games, couches for sitting and chatting or studying, book shelves filled with books and games, and at the far end, a TV with various streaming services. There is also a quiet room reserved for those who need to study without distraction. I remarked to Carla how smooth the coffee tastes. “It’s my own blend!” she replied excitedly. Carla worked with a roaster to develop her own secret blend and specific roasting temperature.
Whether you are new to tabletop gaming, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, or role-playing games, or whether you have been playing for decades, this is a place for you. “People have lives and families and work. Not everyone can commit to a night every single week,” Carla says. Here you are welcome to try out a new player event, drop in on the weekly Neverlanders D&D group, or just sign in for casual play with your friends and family.
For more information about Jacl’s, visit the Facebook page at Facebook.com/JaclsCafe. To learn more about Magic the Gathering and the eSports arena, visit Magic.Wizards.com/en.
