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New hobby shop hits the downtown scene

Chaos Games LLC brings the Magic

Photos by Shyanne Belzer/MDN Chaos Games LLC is a new part of the downtown Minot scene bringing in a new hobby shop geared towards Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, table top games and more. They offer a wide variety of items from cards to figurines to POP Figures to card sleeves and more.

When Joe Hurt opened Chaos Games LLC, he started it to be a resource to Magic: The Gathering players in Minot. Now after almost two years, it has grown and continues to grow to be a resource for not only many trading card games (TCG), but also for a variety of tabletop games and more.

Chaos Games LLC opened in May 2017. Hurt started it because of his enjoyment of Magic: The Gathering and having time to spare. For him, Magic: The Gathering offered a lot of unique aspects that many games don’t.

“Magic: The Gathering is a really unique card game that combines poker aspects, combines chess aspects and then obviously adds in its own things. It really helps build critical thinking and within your deck you can build your own personality if you so choose. It’s really cool in that regard,” Hurt explained.

Magic: The Gathering is a strategy card game that was started in 1993 by Richard Garfield. Made up of five different color themes that each have different traits. They can be mixed and mingled to the individual person’s preferences, helping to give their deck the personality they want. Each color and card type has its own skills and offers each player a chance to finetune it down to not only the style but the very tricks they employ. Popular ones include getting life back, paying life to cause more damage or stop an opponent, counters with special effects and much more.

Hurt wanted to offer something new and give people of all ages something else to do, possibly getting the chance to broaden their horizons and find a new hobby to get into.

His shop offers players a stop to not only get cards but to trade-in cards for cash, other cards or for other items such as sleeves for cards, containers to store cards and decks, dice, mats and more. Trade-ins is one of the biggest things his shop offers for TCG players.

His shop is also open to all players, new or old. Hurt has a display devoted to new players where they can get different resources from premade starter decks that are geared towards new players, small beginner packs, matts to help them learn where cards go on the table and more.

Now Chaos Games has expanded and offers other TCGs such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer, other board games and Hurt has even begun doing some video game stuff.

“It has really begun to branch out into a whole bunch of different avenues that people want to see in this town,” Hurt explained.

A big part of tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer is the many mini characters that go into setting up the game. He offers various mini characters for players to buy, both painted and unpainted. For the unpainted ones, he has a rainbow of colors for buyers to pick from to paint their chosen characters how they want, something that he says is popular in the tabletop community.

To meet his goal of offering something new for the community to do, Hurt has also begun hosting different events. While they started out as mostly related to Magic: The Gathering, Hurt has been working to offer more.

These events include other TCGs like Pokemon and the Final Fantasy card game. He has groups that come to his shop to play Dungeons and Dragons and while Hurt is still working to offer a Warhammer event, he does already have players utilizing his shop to play.

“I just bought some adjustable tables because they like to stand-up while they play, so the tables stand up higher,” Hurt said.

He’s even hosted a handful of video game tournaments for games such as Super Smash Bros and Hearthstone. His events, he explains, are all over the place in what they offer. This allows him to have something hopefully for everyone.

A new event goal he has is to create a board game based event. He or an employee will sit down and pick a board game to play where people can come and play whether they know the game or not.

“The idea is to give people a chance to experience a new game and have something new to do,” Hurt explained.

Any board game can be played at these events and he invites people to even bring their own to try out and play with others.

Hurt’s newest goal for Chaos Games LLC is to expand the shop. He has a basement that he hopes to renovate into a playing room for all the tables where people can congregate and have a good time. This will also give him more space to expand his displays and bring in more of what the community wants to see.

As a growing gaming source for TCGs and tabletops, Chaos Games LLC will have a booth at iMagicon, taking place in the later part of April. Hurt will be offering a spot for attendees to stop to chat and learn more and will also be offering a variety of events at the convention.

Chaos Games LLC is located downtown near Central Campus High School at 17 2nd Avenue SE. The shop is open 2 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and is open until 10 p.m. on Fridays. Saturdays Chaos Games hours extend to be noon to 10 p.m. and Sundays the shop is open from noon to 6 p.m.

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