By Natalie DeFord, A&E Writer
Dualists on campus come together to battle while strengthening friendships.
Junior Andrew Morris founded the new Pacific Lutheran University Yu-Gi-Oh! Club in fall 2013.
Morris defined Yu-Gi-Oh! as a competitive table-top trading card game. The objective is to reduce the opponent’s life points to zero and players can win a match by winning two out of three games.
Basic supplies used in the game include Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and a calculator. Advanced level games require coins, dice and mats.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Club meetings are Thursdays from 8-10 p.m. in the Anderson University Center Commons. Members duel head to head and participate in double duels that include four players.
At the end of each meeting, there is typically a chaos duel. The club coined the term to mean a “free-for-all” in which everyone plays.
“It’s every man for himself,” senior I.V. Reeves, club vice president, said.
Newcomers are welcome at any time. “We can teach them,” Morris said.
Morris said he first became interested in Yu-Gi-Oh! in second grade when some of his classmates brought their cards to show-and-tell. Then he started watching the television show.
“I just kind of started collecting cards over the years, but nothing serious,” Morris said. In his sophomore year of high school, Morris said he found other people with the same interests.
“After school one day, I walked to the McDonald’s across the street and three guys from my class were playing, and I was like, ‘Woah, cool. I have cards too. I’ll bring them tomorrow,’” Morris said. “And we formed a team.”
The team would hang out in the detention room, a quiet open space, and play on a regular basis. They were eventually kicked out for being there without detention but continued to meet at a local Subway.
Morris said finding that clique in high school was a big turning point for him, and he hopes to be able to build that same sense of community here.
Morris won his first tournament the summer after his senior year of high school, and he said his passion for the hobby has continued to grow through college. He continues to play in his free time and still competes in tournaments.
Outside of its regular meetings, the club sometimes travels to tournaments in the area as well.
Club member Angelo Mejia, a first-year, said he likes the club, because it’s fun to play the game. “It’s strategic,” Mejia said.
Like Morris, Mejia has been playing for years and used to just play with his roommate, first-year Brady Daly, until they joined the club together.
Daly said that Yu-Gi-Oh! is not something you can play with just anyone. “When you find other people you get really excited about it,” Daly said.
“I like that Yu-Gi-Oh! brings friends together and everybody can hang out,” Morris said. “The point of the original show was all about friendship.”
For more information about the club, contact Andrew Morris at morrisab@plu.edu or join the “PLU Yugioh Club” page on Facebook.
