Often it can be difficult to find your place in a new school. For Most incoming freshman they can feel lost and alone. Some may have friends and people from their old school. Clubs provide a place for students to gather around a special interest. Jackson Dean of the Strategic Gaming Club strives to do just that. As a big fan of card games such as Magic the Gathering, Dominion, and role playing games such as D&D. He wanted to bring this love of these games to the school. Often giving students a room to get away is just what they need and this is exactly what the club provides. “I started this club because I wanted to gather like minded individuals to play games with, to give them a place to stay.”

I asked Jackson how he got into Magic the Gathering and why he enjoyed playing it so much. Jackson had been playing Magic the Gathering for six years and started playing competitively in the last four years. Jackson has accumulated enough points ot began playing in pro tours, mainly locally. The magic the gathering pro scene works like that, with point systems that one gains from doing tournaments at their local game stores. After someone reaches enough points than they can begin to go to pro tours. When I asked him how he got into strategic games, he told me it was an experience at a summer day camp one day during a rainstorm. “I was a lot younger, they were both insides and they were a lot older, about sixteen, I was just this little kid ot them but they liked me, um so they were like hey kiddo you wanna play this game with me, and I said sure and we just played this game of causal Magic.” Needless to say that was the start of Jackson’s love of these games, one he wanted to share with everyone.

The strategic gaming club meets everyday except Monday in Room ___ during lunch and walking into the room, one can hear shouting and yelling, as well as laughs and jokes. The also meet Tuesday after school for D&D and more games. The kids in there are having fun and simply enjoy being in there.

The clubs favorite games tend to be Dominion a deck building game where players use gold to buy other cards and victory points. In other words players build their own way to play. Other favorites include the Tuesday D&D, Magic the Gathering, and Risk. The competition can be fierce especially in the favorites but they aren’t against working together. The club still has Jackson’s active input but has grown exponentially from its first days of being a small five member club. Jackson hopes that the club will continue to grow long after he has left the school,as it gives him something he left behind.