Twenty-five years ago, Richard Garfield introduced the world to Magic: The Gathering, a fantasy based trading card game in which the players cast spells and command an army by playing one or more of the 5 colors.

The game allows for you to become a Planeswalker, a powerful character that is capable of extraordinary abilities that can drastically alter the state of the game. Each player controls a deck filled with creatures, land cards that provide you with mana allowing you to cast things, artifacts, enchantments, instants and sorceries.

This 25 year old card game has been growing in popularity not only world wide, but in Triton as well, with many middle schoolers playing as well as a few select high schoolers. Among these groups, the most standout is arguably Senior Nathaniel Schmuch.

“When I was in 7th grade I used to watch a lot of Warhammer videos. I ended up seeing a thing about a game called Magic: the Gathering once, and I thought it was so cool so I bought cards and found videos to learn how to play” Schmuch stated, when asked about his discovery of the game.

After being asked what kept him interested in the game for as long as it has, Schmuch replied, “The world the game is set in really made me interested in it, and when my friends started to play, it made it a lot of fun.”

Although the game isn’t super popular in the high school, in the middle school the game is taking over. Eighth grader Skyler Patterson said “ I saw my friend playing it and I decided to try it, after that I fell in love with it.”

Students aren’t the only ones who play the game. Honors and AP chemistry teacher Mr. Ian McBee has been playing since the game’s inception in 1993.

“Oh my. That was a long time ago. It was new at the time, I started playing very shortly after it came out…I was hanging around the comic book store and there was this new product that was unlike really anything else at the time so I picked up some,” McBee said of his introduction to Magic.

After being asked what originally sparked his interest in the cardboard sensation,  Brian Person, the Magic: the Gathering expert at Chris’s Comics in Seabrook New Hampshire, replied “It was my friend who got me interested. We were just video game nerds when one day he brought out his Magic collection and I said ‘I’ve heard of that, that’s the satanic ritual stuff right?’”

As time goes on, some fall out of the game, like Officer Lucey, Triton’s Student Resource Officer. “Over time I just fell out of it, like trends go in and out” he stated. “Although all my friends who used to play just dug up their cards again, maybe I’ll get back into it”

“I see the kids who are coming in who are younger and younger now to play in the Friday Night Magics and sometimes I think ‘wait a minute am I supposed to have kids playing that are younger than 13?’” Person said of a noticeable shift in the age of which people start playing the game. “As a school teacher I love this game because it encourages math and reading and logical sequencing.”