[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith a look of intense concentration, Sophomore Ryan Yung scans the fan of glossy Yu-Gi-Oh! cards gripped tightly in his hand, carefully developing his strategy and selecting which card to attack his opponent with next.
Like many, Yung is an avid collector of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the classic card game launched in 1999 and played in different languages around the world. Originally a TV show that ran for almost 10 years, Yu-Gi-Oh! was named the top selling trading card game by Guinness World Records.
Yung’s first exposure to the game came from his brother who would receive cards as presents. He himself received his first trading card from his mother in the second grade, who would reward them with Yu-Gi-Oh! cards for good grades. Yung has been playing and collecting ever since and although the rewards system has been discontinued, his collection continues to grow.
“From time to time, I still buy cards using money from birthdays or Christmas,” Yung said. “When buying cards, it’s more the novelty of opening them up and seeing what you get than the physical cards themselves. I’ve also bought off other friends’ cards who gave up playing and added them to my collection.”
Through the years, Yung’s collection has grown from simple starter deck cards to the current, more complex cards. Although the old cards are not comparable to the evolved ones, they hold much sentimental value to him.
“It’s very nostalgic to flip back sometimes and see the cards from the original starter deck,” Yung said. “However, I usually don’t use the most original cards except for certain cards that are considered staples in every deck because they are just that good.”
Yung and his friends carry around personal decks, their strategically arranged on-the-go packs they duel with in their free time. To keep his deck up to par, Yung usually trades his cards with other dedicated players at school or with family, or buys them online, keeping the more valuable ones to himself. Each deck has around forty cards that are protected from dirt and grass stains with individual card sleeves.
Over a summer, Yung organized his cards into two binders of monster cards, one binder of trap cards and one binder of spell cards, adding up to over 1,200 cards. Each card is alphabetized and carefully kept in card pages, which are similar to sheet protectors but separated into nine parts.
“You’d rather have your protector scratched and not your card,” Yung said. “In mint condition, a ‘Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning’ card is worth about forty bucks. I bought a hundred card pages off Amazon, which wasn’t enough, so I had to unsleeve some of my baseball cards.”
As for the future, Yung doesn’t see himself actively continuing his hobby. He decided leaving his collection at home after high school would be best.
“Once I go to college, I probably won’t play seriously,” Yung said. “Sometimes, I’ll just flip back for old time’s sake.”
TCHS School Newspaper