RR True Value owner to host Yu-Gi-Oh tournament

Ken Johnston
Editor

Who would have thought a request from a customer would lead into a vastly successful segment of his business?
Cory Lindal was asked by a customer just before Christmas to bring Yu-Gi-Oh cards as the customer’s son really wanted some. After a call to Upper Deck, Lindal learned that the Yu-Gi-Oh card game had already surpassed the popularity of Pokemon cards at their height.
He ordered them in, not knowing much about them and within a short while the cards were selling faster than he could say Yu-Gi-Oh ten times. “There are at least 20 kids playing it all time in Rainy River,” said Lindal Monday. He currently sells at least 3 boxes of them a week at a little over $6 per pack.
The card game is based on the television cartoon of the same name. The cartoon started in 1996 and the game followed not long after. Lindal learned this in his research phase of the trend which took off so fast that for a number of weeks he had kids waiting for the Purolator truck to show up wit the next order so they could be first in line to buy!
He himself has always been interested in games and decide to start playing himself. The game is a dueling card game with fantasy monsters on the cards. The difference between Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh is that the latter has many more cards. For that reason, Lindal feels it will be around a lot longer than its predecessor.
A minimal size for deck is 40 cards. Lindal says the best results come from decks 40 to 50 in size, however there is no upper limit on the size of a deck.
In addition to selling and learning how to play with the cards, Lindal can often be found playing the game in his store, Rainy River True Value. Sometimes the store is closed and there is a group of kids and Lindal sitting in the front window dueling away. With the rise in popularity, Lindal decided to hold a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament.
Well on his way to getting the local tournament off the ground for this weekend, he also applied for official recognition of tournaments here. Last week he received word from the Upper Deck Tournament Store that he will be an official tournament host. However, that did not occur in time for this Saturday’s tournament. The official status allows him to purchase special tournament packages and also allows participants to register on the world wide web their scores and get ratings. That will show how they compare against other players around the world.
For this weekend, Lindal solicited sponsorships to help with the tournament. He also is charging $10 per registrant. Each one them gets a special booster pack and the rest is for prizes.
To date he has 28 kids registered. “That is much better than I expected for the first tournament,” said Lindal. It is best to have groups of 8 to keep the tournament free of byes. He will be accepting registrations right up to 9 a.m. this Saturday, but he asks that people call ahead with them at True Value (852-4045).
The tournament is open to kids ages 9-16 and players should have a good understanding of the rules. He also asks that they bring calculators for adding up points.
“I wasn’t sure about selling them at first, but I am sure glad I did now!” said Lindal.