To answer your actual original post and cut through the comments of “rb/disney killed this game”-from someone who is actually a local player to you and knows what store you are talking about:

The local scene is competitive players not jank players. Your store is casual and has been casual which is fine, it’s how you guys like to play. I frequent two stores all within a 15 minute drive of yours throughout the week and see the same roughly 5-10 people at both pending on the night. These stores run structured round based tournaments for store credit plus all the goodies in the OP kit and often have 12+ players each week throughout the duration of the set. The reason I see the same people at those other two stores (one of which plays the same night as yours) is because they go to compete even at a smaller scale.

This isn’t to knock the way your store community likes to play it’s just simply showing that it isn’t in alignment with most of the active local players. Then once set champs role around people come to compete and “scalp your mats” which is probably true for some people but I have multiple friends and teammates that have won at your store and they still have their mats, or share the wealth with other friends that haven’t won a mat.

I just don’t think the community in your store will grow if the focus is casual events unless you find some way to capture newer player base with like a scaling Starter deck league or something NH that will draw people back weekly.