CARMEL VALLEY (NEWS 8) - If you have never heard of Magic: The Gathering, it's a strategic card game played across the world. In Tuesday's Zevely Zone, Jeff was invited to meet Carmel Valley's Dana Fischer.
She is an 8-year-old card shark with the magic touch for beating up on people twice her age and more. Dana has been getting quite a bit of news coverage competing in Magic: The Gathering tournaments around the world.
The card game has been around for more than 20 years and has a competitive tournament circuit that awards millions of dollars in prizes each year.
Dana's father, Adam, played on the professional circuit in 2002 and 2003 and won some prizes. So it's no surprise Dana is a chip off the old block.
What makes this so compelling is Dana is by far the youngest competitor at these events, as there are no age brackets - she competes against, what are for the most part, adults. This is a game where the suggested age is 13+.
For years, Dana has had a goal of becoming the youngest player in the world to qualify for Day 2 at the largest (several thousand person) Magic events, Grand Prix. Fewer than 20% of (for the most part adult) competitors qualify for Day 2, and previously the youngest person to do so was age 10 (and that happened only once).
Recently, Dana made Day 2 at Grand Prix Los Angeles, thus becoming the youngest player in the world to do so by over 2 years (and possibly the only female under the age of 18 to have done so).
Dana has nearly six thousand followers on Twitter. If you'd like to learn more about Magic: The Gathering or Dana follow her on Twitter.