While many people are all-too familiar with the poker playing phenomenon that has bullied its way into the mainstream the past five years, there is another card-oriented gaming sub-culture which has been around for over 10 years, but goes relatively unnoticed. Players don’t wear sunglasses and it isn’t some form of high-stakes gambling. Nor does it have the glitzy marketing sheen of the video gaming world.

Consisting mostly of older teenage boys and young adult men, a collectible card game (CCG) player plays strategic card battle games such as Magic, World of Warcraft, and Universal Fighting System (UFS) because of their fantasy appeal, as well as their ability to act as an outlet for each player’s competitive juices. Many of the card gamers involved take the games they play very seriously, vicariously living and dying through every victorious battle and bitter defeat. This is not only their passion, but also a challenging way to take a break from the rigors of life.

Colby Lum, 20, has played and collected Magic cards since the 3rd grade and says that he is well aware that collectible card gamers are unique in the fact that they devote so much time, energy and money to their game of choice.

“It might be a bit consuming, but I think these kinds of card games are fun for anyone once they get to know them,” Lum says. “Similar to chess, it’s a great way for people to sharpen their minds.”

Picking up the nuances of these types of card games is no easy task. Lum, who is taking engineering classes at both City College of San Francisco and Skyline College, says beginning Magic players take their lumps early on.

Many of the collectible card games are played using the images, numbers, and colors displayed on the cards themselves. Magic, for example, has a text and a color-code system on each card. These represent the strength and strategic ability of each one, along with whether or not the card in question is a spell or a creature, which are the two different types of weaponry utilized in the game.

Lum says there are three different styles of Magic players: counter players, power players, and drawing players. Lum considers himself a counter player, or one whose deck is able to block his opponent’s spell and creature attacks.

A Magic participant begins every card battle with 20 lives. The first player to lose all their lives during the series of played and drawn hands loses the battle. Part of the trick is picking the right cards to fill the player’s deck with, in order to make it as strong as possible against their opponent. Lum says that any magic player should want to have at least 20 to 25 of their cards be energy, or “mana” cards. The mana is the player’s life force, Lum explains, and determines how effective their creature and spell cards perform during battle.

Perhaps those on the outside looking in often misunderstand the focus required for many of these games. Lum remembers what it was like for him in high school when certain kids saw him playing Magic.

“A lot of people my age would call us nerds, but we’re not,” Lum says.

While unpacking boxes full of products for the counters and shelves of his enormous 3,000-square-foot store, Herbert Gin, says that those who play CCGs are much more accepted now than they were in the past. As the owner of Cards and Comics Central in San Francisco for 15 years, Gin comments that the genre used to be considered dorky.

“The newer generation is younger, and into all forms of things like collectible card games, anime and video games - which are all interlinked,” Gin says. “It’s now become part of pop-culture to play CCGs.”

If one were to distinguish hierarchies within the gaming culture, at the top would most certainly be video games. With a choice between playing CCGs or the latest video game console, for example, most gamers would probably opt for the latter.

Chris Lee, 21, a business major and sophomore at SF State is a long-time collectible card gamer who is also an avid video game player. While he and his brother will stay up until the early hours of the morning playing video games, Lee’s enthusiasm for Magic has started to wane in the past few years.

“It costs money to buy all the cards you want,” Lee says. “I’d rather buy a new video game.”

The cut-off point for many collectible card gamers seems to be around 30 years old. This is in contrast with the collectible sports card market, where older collectors either try to get rid of their vintage sports cards for money or continue to buy packs in search of the next Michael Jordan.

Though for those veteran players who have stopped playing CCGs, like Fernando Orozco, 39, the urge to still collect can sometimes be inspired by other factors.

“I’d almost still want to just collect the cards because the imagery on them is so cool,” Orozco says.