Regional and national card game tournaments can be pretty stressful environments. Local card game tournaments at Castle Perilous, on the other hand, are mostly laid-back and easy-going.
Allyne Colver, 26, of Marion, said he has been playing Yu-Gi-Oh for more than five years and competes mostly for enjoyment. Compared to many who compete in the tournament, he is still a beginner, he said.
"This is an informal tournament," Colver said. "I have been to St. Louis where they have regional, and it is a bit hardcore. Players don't just play for fun in St. Louis."
Scott Thorne, Owner of Castle Perilous, said Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic tournaments are held at Castle Perilous every week. Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments are held on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Magic tournaments are held on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.
The cost of the tournament is $5 per person. A computer helps keep track of who plays who and also the pairing for each round. The tournament is structured as a "swiss style tournament," where winners play winners and losers play losers. In the end the winner of the tournament gets two packs of cards and the loser gets one, Thorne said.
As the players compete in the tournament, each player has a deck of no more than 60 cards, and each player starts with around 40,000 points. The overall purpose of the game is to use as many cards with a high attack value to combat an opponent's low defense value and eventually get your opponent to run out of points, Thorne said.
Thorne said one of the perks of the game is the ability to see how good one is at constructing a deck that will be beneficial for them.
"We are a competitive society, and we like winning and, unlike computer games, you could see who your opponent is. You can see their reaction," Thorne said.
Thorne said players who do well in the tournaments get points that will help them get better seating in national tournaments.
Dustin Russell, a junior at Herrin High School, said he started playing card games like Yu-Gi-Oh in junior high school when a lot of kids at his school were playing the game.
Russell said he and a group of other guys that play in the tournament each week are on a team called Team Pocket Mole. They go together to regional tournaments.
Jacob Fletcher, a 22-year-old from Nashville, Ill., said most of the players go online to view the winning decks so they can see what cards are the best and how to help better construct their decks.
Fletcher said as of right now, he has developed a pretty good deck.
"There are only a few cards I am looking for. People try to trade me but I only need a few cards, which usually I just end up breaking down and buying off the Interenet," Fletcher said.
Fletcher said the competitive differences and atmospheres between the local tournaments at Castle Perilous and at Regional Tournaments are very different.
"If you see us here, we are all just laughing and joking," Fletcher said. "Rules at regional are a lot more strict and the rules are enforced way more strictly."
Eugene Clark can be reached at eclark@siude.com or at 536-3311 ext. 275.
