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Chris Ingraham plays Magic: The Gathering at Sports Cards Plus in Columbia Falls. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
Sommers, Blythe, and Beadles all mentioned the same joke about Magic: “Start your kids o on Magic because they’ll never have the time or money to ever do drugs.”
Blythe said there are 200 to 300 ded- icated Magic players in the valley, but nding them 20 years ago was a chal- lenge. He used to sell Magic cards out of the back of his car just to get people inter- ested, he said.
“There weren’t too many people in the valley who actually played at all,” he said. “That was back when we didn’t have any Internet at all so you couldn’t get in touch with people.”
Tournaments started up in about 1996, and a series of hobby shops cycled through the valley — Northland Hobbies,
Collector’s Best, Home Run, Some- place Else, among others. Blythe and his friends got rededicated to the game in 1999, and he and Beadles started plan- ning for their own shop.
John Sommers shows one of his Magic: The Gathering decks at Sports Cards Plus. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
H
ley’s consistent source of Magic
“We watched a bunch of people who didn’t have too many friends and things become regulars and be able to come together as a community to have a bunch of friends,” Blythe said. “We understand each other as gamers; we play things that others don’t. We provide a di erent life- style. For some, it is their life. This is the social outlet for a lot of these guys.”
At a pre-release party for the Kaladesh expansion pack, the shop was full with 54 gamers. Women aren’t as common as men, but their numbers are growing, with perhaps one to three on Friday Night
Magic league night at Heroic Realms.
So while Blythe might now be running tournaments instead of playing in them, Magic is still a huge part of his life. Keep- ing up on the everyday news is part of his business, but like many dedicated to the
game, it’s not quite a hardship.
“For me, keeping up on Magic is a day-
to-day thing. I read articles when I get home, but I’ve also got kids and a wife, so I have to make time for it,” Blythe said. “Magic is an everyday thing. I don’t want to say we live and breathe it, but I do.”
mpriddy@ atheadbeacon.com
eroic Realms has served as the val-
since 2001, and through that became an irreplaceable social hub.
“That’s the goal of our store,” Beadles said. “When Dave and I started it — we both have kids — and our mission state- ment was we wanted to build a game store where we would feel comfortable leaving our kids.”
The gaming room is a place of ref- uge for gamers, with a similar feel to the camaraderie in Columbia Falls.
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OCTOBER 5, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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