[<Pion>]

I agree and don't like overt tanking, but let me put out one thing I thought of (since I feel it happened with my team)…

Now that things have stabilized, there are only a few teams that get promoted (those in championship games IIRC) and only a few that get sent down. However, early on there were a lot of teams being promoted to quickly fill up the higher levels. Though my team was barely over .500 at Diamond level, they were in an easy division and lucked out and made the playoffs where they were quickly eliminated. Because most or all playoff teams got promoted early on, they were moved to Perfect. They haven't stuck up the joint but usually finish 20 or more games out of first. I personally think that if they were in Diamond, they would not dominate (prey on weaker teams), but would probably be a .500 team that sometimes made the playoffs but would need a fair amount of good fortune to make the championship. Anyway, I think Diamond is about as high as they would be if they were working under current rules (championship teams advancing) and possibly still in Gold even. I think it is inevitable (as they are a theme team) that they will someday get pushed out of Perfect leagues as more powerful teams fill up the Perfect league, so I hope to be patient and wait it out and enjoy the stay while I can.

So is that a team that would be best to train up players at other positions knowing that a) it will make them better for the future and b) may not result in the most wins possible?

I can see the need for the devs to quickly fill those higher leagues, but I'm betting there are a lot of teams in Perfect leagues that truly don't belong there had they came up later in the game under different rules for promotion. Eventually (without unfair tanking by teams that do belong in Perfect), the "worthy" teams that should get demoted will and it will all work out in the end. But I think there will always be those that should not be demoted finding new and more subtle ways to tank so they can prey on the weak.