Standard Tour of San Antonio: Cards and Crafts,

While the internet is full of ways to find game stores in your area, it does very little to tell you about the real character of those stores: their atmosphere, their product, their staff, or anything else a curious gamer might want to know. To help others out, I've started a week-by-week tour of the stores in my area, playing a Friday Night Magic at each one and sharing the results with you.

This week I went to Cards & Crafts, located at 8104 Tezel Road, right by the Little Caesar's. In a breach of tradition, I'm covering the Friday Night Magic before giving an overview of the store.

Cards & Crafts is geared to play Magic: the Gathering. They have much of their floors space dedicated to a play area. An accessory wall and boosters for recent sets are on display, as well as an almost holy grail of an organized collection of cards from older sets. That last one is almost a holy grail because Cards an Crafts has what I can only describe as Mecca in a Holy Grail, surrounded by a Wailing Wall: individual tokens for sale. While they were (predictably) out of Goats, it's a really big deal.

It's not just Magic though. They've got a room dedicated to their baseball cards and sports memorabilia collection. I can't honestly judge it's quality, but if you're into that kind of thing, you should certainly check it out. The store also carries other CCGs; Legend of the Five Rings, Naruto, the Universal Fighting System, and Spellfire (&#$*ing Spellfire). It has a breadth of collectible cards like Buffy, Smallville--I didn't even know there were Smallville cards. Despite not selling any tabletop minis (that I noticed, anyway), they have a good selection of mini-mats and terrain for mini play.

It's also one of--if not the--most intimate location I've been to. The staff are laid back, knowledgeable, and eager to answer questions. The FNM I attended there was professionally handled (in fact, this is the only store that used "Match Record Cards, which was awesome!), even if the players were a bit young. Most importantly, I had a pretty good time while playing.