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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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This one’s for the Casual Player. A quirky creature, this species of TCGer tends to hide from the spotlight, yet is the backbone of the gaming community. Simply put: without the casual gamer, there would be no game! The casual community is the largest community but also the most anonymous, so casual gamers don’t enjoy enough of the spotlight compared to the pros, on a national/international level, or the competitive players, on a local level.
Let’s put this into perspective. There are three basic types of players in the world of TCGs: the casual player, the competitive player, and the pro (and yes, I know there are hybrids, and various other forms of gamer, but for the sake of argument, I’m lumping them into the three main player archetypes). There is also the collector, but I’ve rarely encountered a collector who didn’t play, and most of those that play tend to be casual players. Most competitive players are more concerned with getting the cards they need than getting every card, and if a pro player collects, it is for a play set (four of every card) and not for a collection.
 The pros do tend to spend quite a bit of cash on the game, especially if they want a play set, but that’s offset by the $2–4 million spent on the Pro Circuit each year ($1 million in prizes, plus PCQ money, plus all of the $10K prizes and organization costs, not to mention other sundry prizes, promo cards, salaries, advertising, and so on . . .).
Tournament players are on the other end of the spectrum. They often tend to pick the hot decks, and most of them have no aspirations towards the Pro Circuit, so they stick with one or two decks and put the rest of their cards up for trade. They buy and trade for what they really need, so they usually don’t buy much product. Where a pro (or aspiring pro) will likely buy a few boxes at least, a lower-level tournament player is unlikely to buy more than a box or two, instead spending his or her money on individual cards and tournaments. Granted, these are important expenditures—any local game store (LGS) support is well worthwhile—but they don’t help the card companies pay the bills.
Casual players are the truly insane ones. They more often than not will have several decks running simultaneously and are usually keen to test out every faction and most of the net decks. They often have binders and boxes filled with cards. They play in gaming circles and rarely see the inside of an LGS, save for the day that new sets go on sale and the occasional gathering for casual play. They don’t like tournaments, preferring a non-competitive atmosphere and a “play for fun” mentality. Granted, there are casual players who buy a few packs here and there and never build much of a collection, but not being truly active within the gaming community, those aren’t really players. They’re really lurkers or tasters, not true supporters of the game. There is nothing wrong with simply buying a starter and a handful of packs and playing once a month with a couple of friends. Every person who does this is important, as they certainly add up to a heckuva lot of sales. But they do not keep the game going—it is the consistent game supporters who keep games alive.
Most casual gaming groups will chip in and buy boxes in the double-digits. Usually, this will translate into three or four boxes per person, perhaps fewer if it’s a large gaming circle, as they won’t need quite as many boxes per person if they have a substantial card pool between the lot of them. They tend to keep their cards in pools within their circle so that anyone who needs a card can just sift through the pile.
To the casual gamer, whether collecting sets, building decks, or playing within groups, the games are hobbies. Casual gamers will usually stick to one or two games and pour a ton of money into them. These people are the gamers who sustain the game by continuing to support the game and buy product, and by spreading the word to fellow gamers who, in turn, push the game into new groups of casual gamers.
The most important aspect of the casual gamer is his or her drive. Every way you examine it, you will eventually be led back to “fun.” Collecting for fun, playing for fun—casual gamers are the least serious of gamers, having nothing to lose. They build wacky decks, play wacky formats, and are often obsessed with their collections. And they tend not to like tournaments, mainly due to the hyper-competitive aura and the higher level of seriousness surrounding them.
It is the casual gamer who tends to break out of the box—most tournament and pro players tend to stick to one-on-one Constructed and Draft and stick with the proven cards. Casual players have multiplayer! If you haven’t yet played multiplayer—either free-for-all, team, or two-headed mutant—then you’re missing a huge portion of the game. There are all sorts of possibilities that are opened to you in multiplayer formats, and many of the great netdecks just won’t cut it. The entire metagame is thrown out of the window when you have four opponents to worry about instead of one. Politics and diplomacy come into play, and there are dozens of cards that are overlooked in single player that function really well in multiplayer formats (Havok and Overpowered come to mind). As well, multiplayer games tend to last longer, so you can finally build that Dark Phoenix deck you’ve only dreamed of, or build a Raven/Trigon deck!
 One of my favorite multiplayer formats is “King of the Hill,” where the player who takes first blood is the King of the Hill, and everybody teams up against that person until he or she is out of the game. The player who takes the King down becomes the new King of the Hill and has to defend against everybody else. You can also take over as King of the Hill by attacking someone other than the current King, at which point everyone is obligated to attack you as the usurper. This kind of brawl can finish quickly with more aggressive play or slowly with stall and strategy, and it is an immense amount of fun to play.
Part of the reason that open-format games like King of the Hill and odd decks and combinations are welcome in the casual community is that casual players are less concerned about the metagame, rules, and legality of sets, cards, and play than they are about the system. Mechanics take the front seat, with players hunting for new cards to exploit, new combos to come up with—basically looking to have fun rather than being concerned with winning or losing. There are no casual rankings, no prizes—it’s all about the game, and ego tends to take the back burner. House rules are common, proxies are accepted, take-backs are allowed, and new ideas are explored for the rules and the cards. Sometimes it’s nice to build a deck around crazy six-card combos or to use cards of teams that nobody would ever dare use in a tournament. In the end, the game is about fun and not about deck success or win percentage.
I’m not saying that tournament players and pro players never think “fun first,” but if you’re in a tournament, then you’re probably hoping to win. In a casual game, winning tends to take the back seat to playing the game. Casual play is a community-oriented activity—a social activity—and not a competition. And yes, there are casual rules-lawyers, competitive casual players, and there are (unfortunately) jerks everywhere, even in the casual community. It is a simple fact of life that you can’t please everyone, and not everyone is a nice person. But in the casual community, there are fewer of these types of players because there is less on the line.
So here’s a shout-out to the casual community. Without you we would have no game, and the true spirit of gaming stems from the casual community! So let’s all go out and have some fun with the game—the next time you play, try to get a group together for a game of Emperor or King of the Hill. Have some fun, and don’t worry about winning—sometimes the game itself is the important thing.
Note: I’m looking for questions and concerns from the community—if there’s anything you’d like answered or addressed, please send me an email at kergillian@hotmail.com.
Also known by his screen name, Kergillian, Ben Kalman has been involved in the Vs. community since Day One. He started the first major player in the online community, the Vs. Listserv, through Yahoo! Groups, which now boasts well over 700 members! For more on the Yahoo! group, go to groups.yahoo.com/group/Marvel_DC_TCG.
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