ST. FRANCIS, Wis. — A new card game shop in St. Francis hopes to position itself as the new home for Magic: The Gathering with almost hyper-focus on one of the world's most popular trading card games.
“From playing games with me and my friends throughout the years growing up as players that there was like a desperate need for a kind of different magic the gathering shop," Adam Hamdan said.
Hamdan is the co-owner of The Mana Vault. It's almost exclusively dedicated to Magic. The Mana Vault wants to own the Magic market in Milwaukee. The shop focuses on buying, selling, and trading cards and hosting weekly tournaments for beginner, intermediate, and expert-level players. They even host professional tournaments.
"I think my favorite times when I've played the game is when I'm competing for a really big prize, and the feeling of the stress, and the joy, and, you know, kind of the whole difficulty that comes with that. It's really fun," Hamdan said.
However, The Mana Vault isn't just for serious players. The owners host free open play every night for anyone who wants to play with their friends or improve their game.
"People do say that, you know, the best part of Magic is The Gathering. It's totally true," co-owner Jeff Green said.
Players can pick up new cards from booster packs or fine-tune their decks with a huge selection of individual cards.
“In our case, we generally keep cards that are $10 all the way up to $5,000," Green said.
Card prices vary depending on scarcity and what Green called a 'power level dynamic'.
"When they first printed the game, some of those cards in the very first set called Alpha - those are extremely powerful," Green said.
That means that some of the powers and abilities of the cards gave players unfair advantages.
Milwaukee played a relatively large role in the growth of Magic: The Gathering. It was the first place that the game debuted on a large scale.
Magic was introduced to the world in 1993 at Gen Con in Milwaukee. Gen Con is a national gaming convention that attracts tens of thousands of fans every year. It was created by Lake Geneva native Gary Gygax in 1968. Gygax is known for creating Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, Magic was partially inspired by Dungeons and Dragons.
While Gen Con is no longer held in Milwaukee, people are coming from all over the Midwest to see The Mana Vault.
“People are coming from Chicago. They’re coming from Michigan, Minneapolis, all around Wisconsin to play in our events," Green said.
It has only been seven months since this shop opened, and they are already making a name for themselves in the Midwest.
The Mana Vault is hosting multiple events in September and October. The first is a charity tournament for the family of Cian Colony who was one of the top players in the area. He recently passed at the age of 23. You can register here or donate at the gofundme.
There is also a Halloween tournament on Oct. 14 and another Halloween costume tournament on Oct. 28.
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