Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogberry99
This, the topic of this thread, is an impressive achievement. It is one that shows the heights that can be reached through smart strategies, hard work and effort, and dedication and time. The fact that most players cannot and/or will never be able to combine these factors into their own success should not diminish at all what the OP was able to accomplish. We should celebrate their achievement for what it is, nothing more and nothing less, and by any metric, it is an impressive achievement.
However, I categorically disagree with the mindset advocated in this and other threads that achievement points are completely insufficient for being competitive. While it is absolutely a limiting factor, it is entirely possible to slowly build a team that is capable of accruing a significant amount of achievements and points, even at the Perfect level.
The trap most teams fall into is incrementalism. Very few players are willing and able to save points for the improvements that will truly make a difference. There are far too many expensive cards that look great for various reasons that do not perform at the highest levels of the game. This trap is a pit that is far more difficult to climb out of without the greater point liquidity that comes from flipping strategies (via either the market, collections, or a combination thereof) or point purchases. The challenge is to eliminate these mistakes and minimize the points required to paper over them.
Basically, my argument is that everyone is currently hyper focused on wealth accumulation, and that while this is incredibly important, there are also paths to success that are built around the efficient point usage and the maximization of a lower-yet-still-sufficient achievement-based income.
"Large Market" teams will always win their fair share. Not everyone in this game is able or willing to generate point revenue like the Yankees. However, I believe that there are still paths to be the Oakland A's in this game. Points and total wealth are not the final arbiters of competitiveness.
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Really the key statement is that you have to think about what your endgame is. And an endgame card for you might not be an endgame card for someone else, depending on your goals. For example, if your goal was to make it to Perfect as quick as possible, that team and that journey will look different from one where the goal is to try to make the Perfect playoffs as often as possible, which will look different from that of a team that's trying to win PL WS titles as much as possible. I'd argue that only that last team concept, where you're trying to regularly compete with true whales, is one where you need some independent sense of PP generation; the others you can probably get by with just using the accumulated PP to make a good baseline team and then just buy a decent piece every few weeks are so. Your floor will always be lower than someone who has a good PP generation strategy, but the ceiling is potentially the same.
For example, last week I was in a division with a team that won a PL title on a 83-79 season. That other BFF team that tracked up to Perfect with me made the playoffs on a 83-81 season and will probably improve from there, and they haven't done much in the way of collections aside from SE Brecheen. I think a team that's existed from launch probably has a bunch of PP, and can make a playoff-competitive team in Perfect without much trouble (assuming PP isn't being wasted on packs). It's not easy but certainly possible to beat a lot of the field on just analytics and good player choices. You're just always susceptible to that player who either has good analytics AND more PP, or to that player who has a boatload more PP that you can't overwhelm.