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The Sentry™
Card# MTU-017
While his stats aren’t much bigger than those of the average 7-drop, Sentry’s “Pay ATK” power can drastically hinder an opponent’s attacking options in the late game.
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 No, not that kind of team.
The playtesting, metagame-analyzing, card-sharing, cramped-car-on-its-way-to-a-tournament team.
By now you’ve seen plenty of coverage of the first-ever Vs. System Pro Circuit and how Brian Kibler and his team played Common Enemy, putting four teammates into the Top 8. They needed to make superior metagame choices, play well, and draft well. They showed the power of having teammates with you from the early days of testing all the way through the event itself.
Building a New Team
Each member of a well-oiled team takes on a necessary role in order to give each team member the support he or she needs to make the best possible tournament showing. The most important criterion for a new team is for the players to be in close proximity to each other. While mIRC and email are great for talking strategy and discussing metagame concerns, there’s nothing like face-to-face (and sometimes in-yer-face) arguments and playtesting. In person, you can get things done much more quickly, and with none of the misinterpretations that can happen with other methods of communication. The other great thing about being in the same room as a teammate is you can share cards. Not everyone has four copies of every card, so having access to a pooled collection of cards is always good. Being in close geographical proximity to your teammates also means you’ll likely be attending all the same events.
 Don’t expect your first shot a team to take the world by storm. There are plenty of speedbumps in the teambuilding process you should know about before you settle on a particular team. After a couple of years together, you may be able to break out of the roles I describe below. I’m revealing them to you now so you’re ready for them when they happen. Sometimes it takes a large event to discover the true colors of your new teammates . . .
At the Event
At a tournament, each member of your team will take on a special role to fill out the team dynamic. How the roles get parceled out is up to you . . . and to fate.
The Driver
This role falls to the person who is unlucky enough to have the only four-door car in the group and enough money to be able to fill the gas tank.
The problem is, this is the person who is going to bomb out of the tournament first and the person who wants to leave early. He’s also the only guy on the team with a girlfriend (after all, he does have a car). She’ll be calling at about 8 pm (during round 2) wanting him to come pick her up from work. She says that he can even return to the tournament after the seven-hour drive if he wants to. The Driver can only be made fun of about his woman, never about his play skill. The Driver is likely to leave if anyone calls him a scrub. He can’t leave if you make fun of his girlfriend for calling, as that would mean he’s running off to be with her. It’s a no-win situation. Avoid being this person at all costs.
The Food Guy/Girl
While it would seem obvious that The Driver should also be The Food Guy/Girl, The Driver has already left to pick up his girlfriend when everyone’s stomachs start to growl. The Food Guy/Girl is the person with the worst memory of the group. If you have enough foresight to write down what you want on your submarine sandwich, you might think that the process is now foolproof.
The problem is, The Food Guy/Girl always forgets to have the sandwich engineers make distinguishing marks on the wrappers so you can tell which foot-long roast beef had the mustard and which one had the mayo. And who can tell the difference between Coke and Diet Coke without first taking a swig from another man’s straw? Avoid being this person at all costs.
The Scout
Are you a weaselly little person that no one seems to notice? Then you’re a shoo-in to be The Scout. The Scout can take a seat next to a player on your team’s “hit list” and write down his or her entire deck contents in under a minute. Once you’ve been The Scout, you can’t ever become The Food Guy/Girl, as your supreme lack of presence also means you have a hard time getting automatic doors at the supermarket to open.
The problem is, when your 4–1 team member suddenly gets his or her board wiped out by a Flame Trap you didn’t spot, you get the blame for the loss. Also, Scouts on other teams will be able to spot you and will try to get you in trouble with the judge. It’s kind of like Stratego, where a Spy can kill another Spy. Avoid being this person at all costs.
The Scorekeeper
You’d better be in good shape and have plenty of scratch paper if you want to be The Scorekeeper. This girl runs back and forth between the standings board and the head judge at least eighteen times between each round. She works the floor like it’s the Chicago Commodities Exchange. Every time a new match result at the front tables comes in, she tosses her old formulas in the air and starts working out a brand new, even more complicated math equation. Once she has all the tiebreakers and potential matchups worked out, she’ll try to figure out who each teammate’s next round opponent is ahead of time.
The problem is, when two teammates get paired up against each other in the last round of Swiss, The Scorekeeper has to make the call as to which player should concede to the other. When that player ends up not making the Top 8 on tiebreakers, The Scorekeeper gets the cold shoulder for the entire seven-hour car ride back home. Avoid being this person at all costs.
The Blabbermouth
After your team’s months of careful playtesting and metagame analysis, your entire plan for tournament domination comes to a crashing halt when you arrive at the tournament and everyone already knows every card in your Secret Killer Deck. The Blabbermouth can’t help it. He wants to be everyone’s friend. He is probably the least confident player on the team, so he props up his image by telling others about what a great deck he’s playing. He can’t let his record speak for itself, as he’s going to get the bad matchups and crappy draws and end up 3-3 for the day.
The problem is, sometimes The Blabbermouth cleverly disguises himself as one of the other team members, so it can be very hard to figure out where the leak is coming from. Avoid being this person at all costs.
The one thing that each teammate can be is The Tournament Reporter, who posts on a Vs. System forum regarding how well your team did and how you correctly predicted the metagame shifts. That is the person whom every team member should strive to be. At all costs.
Questions or comments may be sent to mhyra@metagame.com
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