Table Top Tirade ends semester with marathon event

Written By Robert Berger, Co-News Editor

This weekend, the gaming club at Point Park will wrap up the semester with two final events.

Table Top Tirade will kick the weekend off with their final tournament of “Magic: The Gathering.” Every last Friday of the month this semester, the club held tournaments with a $12 entry fee. This month’s tournament will be played with the Ixalan deck, the latest one released.

“We have draft tournaments at the end of every month,” senior acting major and club president, Lydia Laine-Smith said. “We get the latest booster box and give out five booster packs to everybody who comes and you build your own deck and compete… you get to keep your cards too.”

According to junior cinema production student and club treasurer Elliot Clay, “Magic: The Gathering” tournaments are a favorite among club members.

“These are major, major events, and it goes to show that the reason we have these nights is because there is a real community here that is willing to pay the money to actually come in and compete,” Clay said. “Essentially that is what the goal of the club is, invite people to this giant community.”

The tournament will be held in Lawrence Hall 409 at 6 p.m. Prizes will be awarded to those finishing in the top three spots. Funds raised will go to the club for future activities and to purchase more tabletop games.

The next day, the club will host their final event of the semester, Game Day, a 12-hour event featuring video games, tabletop games, card games and food.

D’aura Ponton, a sophomore cinema production student and club member is especially looking forward to playing video games as it’s a change of pace from the typical tabletop games.

“I’m not going to enter the tournaments, but I really like Mario Kart,” Ponton said. “I’m looking forward to new games that will also be there… like Mario Odyssey.”

Clay is also looking forward to the video games Saturday night, especially the Super Smash Brothers tournament. He feels that it is more centric around the community of the game rather than the fighting game’s objective.

“The entire social network of Super Smash Brothers is fascinating because it revolves around a party game from the late 90s and has evolved into something treated as an actual game with real professional tournaments,” Elliot said. “The fact we have that at Game Day is interesting and shows people will follow these tournaments.”

Along with Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart and Tekken 8 tournaments will also be held. Game related prizes will be awarded to the top two finishers of each game and entry is $1. Students are encouraged to bring gaming consoles and games of their own to play.

The club also plans to play a variety of tabletop games Saturday and will host another tournament of Magic: The Gathering. This one allowing students to bring their own decks to compete with.

“I really like the tournaments because a lot of people get really into them every time,” Laine-Smith said.

Some other tabletop games that will be played Saturday include Risk, Uno, Exploding Kittens, Yu-Gi-Oh and Elder Signs.

Recently, the club held their event, Extra Life, a 24-hour charity event the club hosts for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Similar to Game Day, Extra Life features hours of constant gaming and food.

“We do this every semester and we have a 24-hour gaming marathon,” Lain-Smith said. “We always have a bunch of fun and it helps kids who are also really into video games which is really cool.”

While this is the final event for the semester, the club plans to meet regularly next semester and will host a number of events, including another
Extra Life marathon.