It’s no secret that collectible card games aren’t just for kids and that the hobby is nothing to hide. The popularity of games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon TCG have only grown since the pandemic started and, despite a lack of in-person tournaments, there’s still a high demand for rare and hard to find cards. Star NFL linebacker Cassius Marsh has been enthusiastic about the hobby since he was chasing down Yu-Gi-Oh! cards as a kid and he’s taking his love of cards to the next level in 2021 by fulfilling his dream of owning his own collectible card shop: Cash Cards Unlimited.
Marsh has become a bit of an influencer in the world of Magic since it became public knowledge that he is a fan of the game and he’s definitely passionate about the hobby. He’s looking to carve out a spot in the collectible card shop market by offering an elite shopping and gaming experience that provides store visitors a bit more luxury than they could usually expect from a card shop.
Shortly before the recent opening of his new card shop, Game Rant had a chance to sit down and chat with Marsh about his Magic collection, his favorite format, and what will make his card show stand apart from the completion…
Game Rant: Thanks for chatting with us. Are you in the store right now? Is that it?
Cassius: I am right now. So we are in the, uh, like our front welcoming area. We just had a mural done, as you can see in the background.
Game Rant: That looks awesome.
Cassius: You can get a closer look on the video we just posted on Instagram, but yeah, so this is like the front waiting area. Everybody’s going to be required to like check in just so we know who’s been in the store, you know, email list for customers and stuff like that. And we want to keep everybody safe right now. Yeah, knowing who’s here is important.
Game Rant: Yeah. That makes sense. Especially, because it sounds like you have a lot of high value collectibles. More so than the average card store you would say?
Cassius: I would say so. Yeah, absolutely.
Game Rant: That’s cool. I actually used to work in retail. I worked at a comic and card shop.
Cassius: I’ve spent so much time in card shops growing up. So I have a love for them. I wanted to make sure that I did mine like super dope. So yeah, this place is kind of my vision, you know, the beginning of my vision right now. And so I love it here.
Game Rant: Do you want to talk a little bit about how you got into Magic and card games and collectibles in general? How it all got started for you?
Cassius Marsh: Yeah, man. So I had always been into card games. Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon obviously. I started with Pokemon. When I was a kid, just, you know, like everybody, I was super into it. I mean, my brother used to walk me around neighborhoods and trade with people and battle and I remember my aunt had this lady that was selling packs out of her house and try and go there every chance I could get. And then, uh, you, Yu-Gi-Oh came along and I was on that train for a little while. But when I was 11 years old, I walked into a trading card shop looking for Yu-Gi-Oh and you know, they were like, ‘Oh yeah, we don’t carry that. But we have this game called Magic the Gathering.’
And I was like, “Oh, okay, well what’s that?” And he was like, “Well, there’s two guys over there playing it right now. You can take a look and tell me what you think.” Man. I loved the game. I loved the cards and the art and just like, the competitive nature of the game. I was just like, dude, this is so much more complicated than Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, you know, I just instantly kind of fell in love with it. I bought 11 cards that day. I begged my mom for some money. And she gave me, I’m pretty sure it was $5, but bulk rares were a dollar. Uncommons 50 cents. Commons a quarter. And so I got 11 cards and that was where it started.
Game Rant: And so did you get into Friday Night Magic and the tournament kind of scene or did you mostly play with friends?
Cassius Marsh: I didn’t have the money to be competitive. I was broke, but I just loved the game. And so I had what I had and I played jank for honestly, I probably, I played jank probably until like I had a friend in Seattle my second year in Seattle. He was like, dude, you gotta stop spending your money on these dumb cards. Like, I’m going to show you how to play, like tier Magic. And then once that happened, I just like really, really went deep into the game and I had always loved it, but the fact that I just like figured out how the deck building side of things and like just you know, there was like, “Oh, there’s value behind these cards.” I’m not just, you know, like you want to spend on the ones that are really good because the value retains. And they appreciate, and there’s this whole backend market for, you know, some really dope cards and, you know, amazing art.
So, I just got deeper and deeper and deeper into it. And then I had my card stolen a while back while my girl was at the club, you know, it was like a big story and all that stuff. So that happened. And then everybody kind of found out I was a Magic player and, you know, turned into kind of an influencer and turned it into a business. But I mean, I was just getting paid to do what I love doing. You know what I mean? I think in life that’s what you want to set up for yourself. To get paid for what you love. And I definitely love trading cards and Magic the Gathering in general. So, um, it was cool to have that now, you know, with my own card shop, I get to enjoy not only Magic the Gathering, but all parts of the trading card culture and market, which is just amazing and so cool to see how people are, you know, starting to recognize just how how great the community is and how valuable and dope these cards are, man. It’s funny to see it trending, you know?
Game Rant: Yeah, for sure. It gets more popular every year. It’s crazy. So let’s talk about getting the business off the ground. A number of challenges, you know, first off the pandemic and opening a store with all this going on, in addition to just opening any business is difficult. And then also having your busy schedule as a professional athlete and playing for a team that’s across the country. How are you tackling all of that?
Cassius Marsh: Obviously the market for training cards is going crazy right now, even though the pandemic is going on. So I don’t know that that really had much of an effect on this place. And then, you know, businesses going virtual in general. Um, so we’re focusing on, for now, with things the way that they are, online live breaks and other events which are a ton of fun. And you get to interact with your community and build a fan base that really gets to know you as a person, which I think is awesome. And I want it to have that incorporated in my store because you know, people always ask about playing games, you know? They want to play a game with me, it’s their dream. You know what I mean? It’s humbling and very cool, but this is that place for, you know, any fans.
So it’s just, it’s dope to be able to bring that energy that FNM type energy and, and stuff like that when the pandemic is going on. And I’m very lucky to have my best friend, Nick as a partner. He understands the business world. He worked in his family’s company for some years and he’s been working for me for like the last three years doing like my off the field stuff. And he’s just a hustler, man. He’s my guy. So I’m lucky to have him. And he’s really the brains behind the operation. And so he’ll be the support when I’m gone and, you know, I’ll do the best I can to support during season, but I’m still, you know, I’m a football player. First and foremost. This is a passion project for me, something that I wanted to do to set myself up for when I am done playing. And it’s a beautiful place to be and I’ll look forward to coming back to it every off season.
Game Rant: Once it’s safe to play, you know, in person tournaments and things like that, again, do you plan to host events? What’s your space like there?
Cassius Marsh: Yeah. So we have room here now to host like a one or two parties and we will want it to be a little bit more private with this setup now. So we’ll do FNM like draft and stuff like that. And we’ll have like nights for Commander, but it’ll be like kind of a signup type thing where you have to get your spot so we can keep people safe. So lots, lots planned a whole, a whole plan to, to make sure that we’re, you know, giving back to the community, the Magic community and hosting those type of events because I grew up going to those things all the time and just loving it. And I absolutely want to recreate that and something even better than what I experienced. I want to create that for, for the community here in LA.
Game Rant: Not a lot of great stores around there? Places to play?
Cassius Marsh: There’s some good ones. There’s some good ones, but it’s a, it’s very expensive out here. And, you know the margins on Magic aren’t the greatest. And so, you know, people aren’t, most people out here aren’t investing in their store. You know, if you come to stores out here, they don’t look bad, but it’s not like… It’s not the ideal place to hang out all day. Even like my original shop, like I was super comfortable there. I loved it. But like we were sitting on plastic chairs and plastic tables and you know what I mean? Trading card shops in general, just aren’t typically very high end and I wanted to create something like that. I want it to feel a little bit more special. You know, like shopping at JC Penny versus like shopping at Louis Vuitton.
Leaving Louie V people feel really good. You know what I mean? I mean, I spent a little bit more money, but it was a great experience, you know? They gave me water, they hooked me up with a dope atmosphere, you know? And so. That’s that’s kind of our aim and, you know, we want to be the premier trading card shop in the in the industry in a couple of years. We’re just going to keep taking it day by day and trying to do, do our best man.
Game Rant: That’s really cool. That’s a cool idea to have like an elite experience. Make people feel special for having been there. It’s a cool, cool approach to it. For like your online presence that you were talking about, obviously you, you do some streams and you mentioned the breaks and things like that. Any other content plans?
Cassius Marsh: Yeah. I definitely want to start doing YouTube videos and setting up me doing box breaks, and just, you know, having fun breaking stuff. Myself talking about different sets, set previews, and, you know, I definitely want to get to creating all of those types of contents and cause I feel like I’ve got a great knowledge of Magic the Gathering in general. And uh, I’ve got some, some guys here who are super knowledgeable about sports cards and Pokemon and you know we definitely want to build up a YouTube.
Game Rant: Do you have a favorite set or a favorite format?
Cassius Marsh: Oh, Commander for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’m about 30 decks deep, fully foiled out, max rarity. I try to only build like tier commanders. Yeah, that’s my thing. You know, I actually had a Legacy deck built for awhile. Um, but I just hadn’t played in like two or three years, man. And it just was sitting there and it’s got a bunch of dual lands that I could be putting in EDH decks and like, yeah. So I’m, I’m fully, uh, EDH player. Favorite format would probably be I think for me it would be between Kamigawa and Mirrodin. That was like my favorite time in Magic when I was a kid they’re like very nostalgic for me.
Game Rant: I was going to say, you must have pretty young in the Kamigawa era. Right?
Cassius Marsh: But I just loved it. I just, I mean, I really thought like the art was just so cool and I had a spirit deck that I loved, but it was terrible and super janky, but I just loved it. Yeah, no. And then, you know, I think Onslaught was like, right when I first like, got into it, but I just remember looking at those cards and just loving, you know, everything that came out of there and the OG art and all that stuff. And yeah, I’d say it’d probably be one of those. One of those three sets if I had to pick one, I think it’d be Kamigawa.
Game Rant: Is there an item or a set of items that are in the store that you would say are like, you think like the coolest thing or the most valuable? What’s the coolest item that if someone came to the store, you would want to show them?
Cassius Marsh: Um, Magic-wise?
Game Rant: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if there’s something Pokemon-wise, that would be good as well.
Cassius Marsh: We’ve got some unlimited Charizard nines, Beckett graded. We’ve got an 8.5 Timetwister from Unlimited, which is probably I think it’s my second favorite card behind Misty Rainforest.
Game Rant: Oh cool.
Cassius Marsh: It’s so powerful. It’s one of the power nine cards. It’s very, you know, iconic and stuff like that. So Timetwister is probably like Magic-wise my prized item. It’s actually not even for sale here in the store. It’s just, it’s just up because I’m proud of it. And I didn’t want to keep it in a safe anymore. But, as, you know, the store gets bigger and more people bring us stuff to sell them on consignment. You know, everything in here will be for sale. And we’ve got some really crazy collections coming to us. And we actually, like I said, like the Chase Young collection we’ve had that brought in and other collections and it’s, uh, it’s cool to just have people bring you their stuff and get to go through other people’s collections and you know, experience that with them and just see like all types of crazy cards. You know, I see new stuff every day in here. Um, sports-wise and Pokemon-wise, probably more, a lot more so than, than Magic.
Game Rant: That’s cool. That’s cool. Yeah. I don’t have any items that would impress you probably, but I do have my autographed FNM Steve Argyle Bloodbraid Elf. That’s my favorite card – Bloodbraid Elf.
Cassius Marsh: It’s a great card. It was so good for so long. And like, I mean, they’ve just made so many good cards now that it’s kind of like…It’s had its time for sure. But it’s an iconic card. That card was broken in modern for a really long time.
Game Rant: For sure. Yeah. It was a ton of fun to play. As far as like the competitive side of Magic, um, do you feel like– comparing Magic to football– do you feel the same kind of competitiveness in Magic or is it more like unwind and have a casual, fun kind of thing?
Cassius Marsh: Oh, for me, that’s what Magic is. It’s unwinding and fun. And just a way for me to be it’s like semi-competitive at this point. You know, as long as it’s a good game, I used to be like, really salty. And sometimes I still get salty and I’m like, you know, overly competitive. It’s just like kinda natural for me. But I think that I’ve toned it down a lot because it’s just like not fun to be around and, you know, it just isn’t.
Game Rant: Do you think that’s why you’re drawn to EDH? I know that EDH is competitive and you can be great at it, but in general, it’s kind of like the friendliest of the Magic formats.
Cassius Marsh: I would say so for sure. You know, and I think I really liked the fact that you see a lot more diverse decks, you know, cause it’s the one per slot and, uh, you know, I like to see a lot of different cards and the interactions are super crazy. There’s just some wild stacks that happen, man. I really like it. Yeah, it’s EDH for me, for sure. The comparison to football, I’d say that deck building and like film study would be two things that you could draw comparison. You know, mentally you have to put your deck together, you put all your stuff out there and that’s kind of like, you know, watching film, watching all the games or all of their run snaps and stuff, and trying to key in, on tendencies and like the best way to attack a team or to address a certain player match-up wise. So I I’d say there is some similarity in, in that sense, but I’d say Magic’s just great for intellectual development in general.
Game Rant: Are there any other NFL players who are into the game who you played Magic with or anything like that over the years?
Cassius Marsh: Yeah, I’ve had a couple of guys, uh, most of all it was Doug Baldwin. He has a has a brother-in-law who got him into the game. He liked to play casually. You know what I mean? He wasn’t going to go to nearly to the extent that I was. He didn’t want to spend a ton of money on the game. He’s a frugal guy, which I totally respect. And, you know, time-wise, it’s, it’s a commitment. So when he was a little bit more casual and we played a ton of games at the hotel before games and just to kind of relax and chill and have some fun. Most recently Taven Bryan of the Jaguars. He’s a big gamer and stuff. And I think him and his buddy actually played in college and they were playing some jank magic. And I kind of took him under my wing a little bit and showed them, you know, EDH and how to build like good Commanders and like what cards would be good for that deck, you know?
Game Rant: Do you have a favorite Magic pro or Magic personality?
Cassius Marsh: I haven’t met too many of the pros, you know. I don’t watch like the competitive stuff and the online stuff so much. I tried to stream it for a little bit, but it’s just a, it’s a grind man. And I really don’t get the same excitement from playing online that I do with paper Magic. So I think that that’s just not, not really for me. Um, maybe in the future, I’ll do some stuff like charity events, you know, where I play, but, um, for the most part I prefer paper Magic. But Josh and Jimmy Wong (Game Knights) are probably my two favorites.
Game Rant: Yeah, my brother’s the same way. I play like Magic Arena all the time and he like wants nothing to do with it. He just wants to play paper Magic. He’s dying with the pandemic.
Cassius Marsh: It’s tough, man. You build a collection and it’s like to have the art in your hand and feel for the game… You know, it’s not that online isn’t fun, you know what I mean? It’s still fun. But it’s electronic. Do you know what I mean? I think for me, I’d rather be, if I’m going to be gaming (online), I’d rather be playing like Warcraft or, you know what I mean? Uh, Call of Duty or something. I mean, you know, something where I can interact with people who I know a lot more and you know, there’s no real communication in the online Magic. Which feels a bit anti-social to me and I like the social part of Magic the Gathering.
Game Rant: Yeah. And a big part of card shops and Magic is the community. So it’ll be exciting to see what you guys build there.
Cassius Marsh: Totally man. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, there’s, there’s some really cool dudes out here and I’m excited to, you know, build a place where they can come hang out, you know?And then when this pandemic is over, we can build a great space for people to come and, you know, have FNMs and, uh, you know, do commander nights on whatever night we do and modern. And we want to host Legacy. I really want to host the old school. I think those players aren’t very taken care of. Like, by shops, you know, cause there’s a lot less people playing it. These cards are super expensive and they’re rare, you know what I mean? So if we can find a community to be able to do that for guys, you know, I’ve had a lot of friends who I know are into that and you know, it’s, uh, there’s not, there’s not a whole lot out there for them, so we’ll try and be diverse.
[End.]
Fans of Marsh and collectible card games who aren’t in California can follow along with what his happening at the store by keeping an eye on Marsh’s social media accounts or watching the live breaks on the store’s instagram account.
Cash Cards Unlimited opened to the public on Friday, February 26, 2021.
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