Thief gets deck-ed by clever Magic: The Gathering player

Did you see what I did there?  Huh, did you?  That's all I got...

Well anyway, a recidivist robber is cooling his heels in a jail in Fairfax, Virginia after stealing 300 cards from the insanely popular game Magic: The Gathering in the possession of a self-described "nerd".  Said nerd, one Kemper Pogue, proceeded to formulate and execute an elaborate trap toward recovering his cards.  Which, incidentally, were worth $8000.

(Are these Magic fans dedicated to their hobby, or what?)

From the story at The Washington Post:

After filing a police report, Pogue decided to do what a Magic character like Garruk Relentless might do, and hunted down his enemies with dogged ferocity — sans the battle axe.

He started by posting a detailed message on Facebook to alert friends in the Magic community about the theft. Then, he began calling stores in Northern Virginia and Maryland that specialize in selling Magic trading cards.

Unless the thieves were big fans of the game as well, Pogue figured he knew something that the perpetrators didn’t: Despite its rapidly growing ranks, the Magic community is not only fanatical and obsessive, it’s also a tight-knit, nerds-only clubhouse, where information about players and cards circulates quickly via regional shops, tournaments and online forums on Reddit and elsewhere.

“There aren’t many physical things that can be taken that has this much sense of community attached to them,” Pogue said. “Cards have all these memories and conversations with them from people you’ve met all over the country. When Magic players hear that a collection has been stolen, it’s heartbreaking and they rally around each other to get it back.”

The story shares how Pogue and his friends trapped two thieves in the store after working with local law enforcement to crack the case.  It's a wild story and well worth your time to check it out.

I've never played Magic: The Gathering.  But I do know a lot of players who congregate at HyperMind and actively play, trade, all that good stuff.  It is definitely a close-knit community of players around the world and I can't help but cheer stories like this.

And it goes without saying: way to go nerds!!

(Also thanks to friend of this blog Roxanne Martin for spotting this story.)