Has anyone ever noticed the same students in the same area at the same time every single day of school, and it seems as if they never go to class? They just stay in the same spot, playing with their cards for hours on end. Some students might see them as just a bunch of weirdos.

These students are Mt. SAC students who hang out in the picnic area near the Student Services center every day, Monday through Friday,from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Other than listening to music, talking about video games, and the latest in movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they are playing trading card games such as Pokemon, Force of Will, Magic: The Gathering, but most notably Yu-Gi-Oh.

Dustin Vandehey, 20, 3D animation and CG gaming major, started playing Yu-Gi-Oh just last week, but played Vanguard prior and knows the way of the game. “I’m used to that type of card play, because other games have similar rules behind it,” Vandehey said. “I’ve seen them playing and I was familiar with the rules and my friends just made me deck and started to play.”

It all started out in 1998 as a Manga series about a boy, named Yugi Mutou, who solves an ancient Millennium Puzzle and awakens an alter ego within himself. Yu-Gi-Oh turned into a kids television program that solves conflicts with a deck of cards in 2001. It has since spawned not one but four different television spin-offs, along with the card game, multiple video games, and two films.

Yet Vandehey said people do not need to know watch the show to understand the game. “A lot of the new cards are not so different from the old ones,” Vandehey said. “I don’t think you need to know what the show is to play the game, because a lot of the cards don’t depict the characters. I haven’t watched the show in two years and I can still understand the new card in the new series mean.”

Vandehey enrolled at Mt. SAC in Febuary, 2014. After walking out of the Student Services Center, he glanced over at Bldg. 9C and found his new found comradery.

“A lot of people get kind of like the perception that we’re a closed off group, but you can come up and talk to us. No one really cares.”

Some students outside the group of duelists said they just show up just to play. “Seems like all they do is play that stupid game all day. I’ve never seen one of them in my classes,” Brian Lopez, 25, business major, said.

Vandehey, however, said there are a couple of the guys who play that do not have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. He arrives at school at 7:30 a.m. and plays for a couple hours until he has to go to class.

“It doesn’t bother me. If they think its weird it’s on them. Anything can be considered weird to anyone else,” Vandehey said.

“Say like people who work out all the time and get like super muscley and people can say like ‘Oh that’s weird. What are they doing to their body?’ They can be thinking the same thing to us. ‘Oh man, they’re playing a children’s card game.’ It’s whatever. Be happy. Do what you do and be yourself.”

Anime News Network reported in 2009 that the card game franchise has sold over 25 billion cards worldwide. With more than 22,000 North American retail outlets, from big-box retailers to smaller neighborhood mom and pop shops, selling the game, it’s no wonder that the numbers keep growing.

“I’ve spent probably more money than I care to admit,” Vandehey said. “I’ve spent probably from over like a thousand dollars just on cards since I started playing four years ago.”

Adan Solis, 18, history major, described Yu-Gi-Oh, “Kind of like a game of chess. A battle of whits basically. Strategy and just trying to outsmart each other.”

Outside of school Solis, Vandehey, and others play at each others homes on the weekends, or at a store called Frank and Sons in City of Industry.

“This is definitely a culture for all the guys,” Vandehey said. “I don’t think any of these guys are going to stop anytime soon. They’re going to be playing for a long time. So, yeah probably this is their life.”

While this is not a club that has meetings over card games, both Solis and Vandehey describe themselves as a group that come together with a similar interest in things whether it’s movies, video games, and of course Yu-Gi-Oh.

Arcade Sushi surveyed in 2013 that Yu-Gi-Oh is the second biggest trading card game in the world, in front of Pokemon and behind Magic: The Gathering.