diamond slide

[TwanLX2000]

In my third go at diamond league, I'm beginning to see the difference between my mission/packs team and those with the resources to pay outright for the best packable cards (I was within two games of the postseason two straight weeks). Things are taking the same progression as PT '22, so I'm good with that and expect a certain amount of dominance back in gold... I'm just curious how long it'll be before the long-term missions catch pace, or if they'll touch the meta near the end.

My collection is primed and ready for the advancement of the Brooks and BAL missions, so I'm hopeful that a handful of these perfect cards will play with some of the big boys. Is there anything y'all are doing to prepare for weeks ahead, knowing that regression might precede an eventual climb?

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by TwanLX2000

In my third go at diamond league, I'm beginning to see the difference between my mission/packs team and those with the resources to pay outright for the best packable cards (I was within two games of the postseason two straight weeks)...

Is there anything y'all are doing to prepare for weeks ahead, knowing that regression might precede an eventual climb?

Of course those that pay are going to have a huge advantage, but it is not insurmountable. I'm also in Diamond league, just won a playoff series this last season.

I don't know how experienced you are, but I'm going write this as if it could all be new to you - it'll be a bit long.

As far as what to do to level the playing field for F2P:

1) Quick tourneys:
I'm sure you play tourneys so this may be re-hash: Having a correct or close to correct team for the bronze and iron quick tourneys and running three tourneys as much as possible is a must. Averaging 15-20 packs a day is reasonable to expect. This should be where all your packs come from - which is why they are so important. Before the first update, packs were a good value due to the inflated silver prices. At this point, and for the rest of the year, you should never spend PP on packs.

2) Weekly tourneys with card rewards:
Try to play in as many of the weekly tourneys as possible that have a card reward - there are 3 a day. I play in about 15 a week. This limits the packs by 33%, but the tourney cards are fantastic. There will be some (open-style) tourneys where you can't field a competitive team, but most tourneys are caps, and you should be able to put up a decent team. The only way you'll ever get the best tourney cards is by giving it a shot - I've won 7 cards so far this year (all gold or silver). I haven't had any luck at all in Perfect Draft, but also be sure you're always in two tourneys there - only card reward tourneys, of course.

3) Keep your non-live pulls
Keep all diamond, gold and silver non-live cards that you pull from packs that are not part of a mission (bronze and irons, too, really). Including doubles. And buy as many of the non-live gold and silver cards off the market for cheap that you can with extra PP.

When the silver missions dropped for BAL, I had 10 of the 12 missions complete already, just needed a couple pitchers to complete the other 2. And I made 65K selling doubles that were in the missions. These were cards that were going for 600PP and now selling for 3-4K PP. The gold missions for BAL are likely coming in a couple weeks; you can buy cards that will be part of those missions for 1/4 the price today. Also, their will likely be a historical All-Star mission group - buy all of those that are not in missions already. Having missions complete before they drop is the way to go.

4) Complete all missions.
Even the ones that look crazy (Future Legends, Negro Leagues). Be patient, there is no rush, but just keep your pulls and you build up to a point where it's reasonable to spend PP to finish the collection. By the end of the year you'll find that most cards that are part of early missions end up in several other missions and it's worth locking them in. Basically, keep everything. Of course, always maximize profit - so if you pulled a Negro League gold right after they dropped and it's going for 25K, you sell it. You can buy it in a few weeks for 12K.

5) Keep your great pulls.
As just noted, if you can make a massive profit and buy it back in a few weeks, or use it to buy another 100, great - otherwise, when you pull a limited edition or a great 100 pitcher, etc, keep it. The only way you ever compete with the big boys is if you have those cards - they're the end goal - don't sell them.

Also applies to tourney cards - if you ever want to field great tourney teams that play consistently well for caps and different levels, you need the best cards. When you win the tourney cards, as tempting as it is to sell them, you should keep them for your tourney teams.

5) Keep your live premium pulls
Keep almost all live silver, gold and diamond pulls until right before the roster update that happens on the first Monday of every month. Yes, it's hard not to quick sell the diamonds and golds in particular, but it pays to hold them. It is a good idea to sell/quick sell any live 100s.

Okay, there is an obvious theme of *keeping* here. But if you're keeping just about everything, where do you make your PP?

First, if you're running your tourneys right (including weekly's, so assuming less packs), you're getting at least 100-150 packs a week to open = to 100K to 150K PP per week. Now, we're keeping almost everything from the packs, but you'll definitely make back a bit of change from all of the extras you do sell (iron/bronze/silver mission doubles, live perfects, etc). You'll also make 8-15K a week from season challenges + login rewards.

Secondly, and this is where you make the P2P-level PP:

6) The roster update. The first Monday of every month. This is the most important time of the month for a F2P player and you should be preparing all month by holding most of your live pulls and buying duplicates. This also takes the most work and their is an element of risk if you invest your PP into the update, which I always do. But this is the most important thing to do if you're F2P but want to play like you're P2P.

You can have 10 of every card. You can actually have more if pull them, but that's all you can buy off the market. Right now I have 10 each of 7 different silvers, 5 different golds, and 3 different diamonds. I have a bunch of other golds and diamonds and silvers of varying amounts, but just using those, the ones that I am most confident (that's why I have 10) will go to the next tier on the update:

That would be 870,000 PP quick sell value that I now have from cards that previously had a quick sell value of 177,000 PP. That's a profit of nearly 700,000 PP. That's like a guy who drops $500 on PP to buy a bunch of cards. Well, now that's you, but you did it for free. Starting within a few weeks of each update you should be spending most extra PP to buy 10 of each card you think is most likely to go up.

Of course, you won't have every card go up like you want or expect. You can have great months and less great months. But if you're doing this to a significant degree, it's always great, making a few hundred thousand PP is normal for a slow month. If it's your first time, and you're starting from scratch in both PP and live cards, the first update may not be huge. But between now and the beginning of next month you can absolutely manage to buy 10 diamonds and make 200K PP. Then you use/save a lot of that for next months update, where you make 500K PP, etc.

If a card fails - let's say, for example, you had 10 Gerrit Cole's before last update, and he went from a 98 to a 99 - didn't go to 100 - hold him until the next update. Don't quick sell all those and cut your losses - he's a great candidate to go up next time. Same with some cards that do go up - if a silver goes gold, but you think it may go diamond next time if they keep playing well, hold until right before the next update and see. Any cards that tank, you can always sell before the update.

Then be smart with all that PP. Don't buy packs - complete collections and buy non-live cards that may be in future missions, save for the next update etc.

If you focus on this aspect, you can definitely be a PP millionaire and play like you're P2P. Between tourneys (500+ packs a month + tourney cards), smart buying with your PP to complete missions ahead of time, keeping your great pulls, and playing the live updates right, it can be like you're spending a few thousand a month on the game.

Apologies for the length; hope it helps.

[Magus978]

Originally Posted by HondoLane

Of course those that pay are going to have a huge advantage, but it is not insurmountable. I'm also in Diamond league, just won a playoff series this last season.

I don't know how experienced you are, but I'm going write this as if it could all be new to you - it'll be a bit long.

As far as what to do to level the playing field for F2P:

1) Quick tourneys:
I'm sure you play tourneys so this may be re-hash: Having a correct or close to correct team for the bronze and iron quick tourneys and running three tourneys as much as possible is a must. Averaging 15-20 packs a day is reasonable to expect. This should be where all your packs come from - which is why they are so important. Before the first update, packs were a good value due to the inflated silver prices. At this point, and for the rest of the year, you should never spend PP on packs.

2) Weekly tourneys with card rewards:
Try to play in as many of the weekly tourneys as possible that have a card reward - there are 3 a day. I play in about 15 a week. This limits the packs by 33%, but the tourney cards are fantastic. There will be some (open-style) tourneys where you can't field a competitive team, but most tourneys are caps, and you should be able to put up a decent team. The only way you'll ever get the best tourney cards is by giving it a shot - I've won 7 cards so far this year (all gold or silver). I haven't had any luck at all in Perfect Draft, but also be sure you're always in two tourneys there - only card reward tourneys, of course.

3) Keep your non-live pulls
Keep all diamond, gold and silver non-live cards that you pull from packs that are not part of a mission (bronze and irons, too, really). Including doubles. And buy as many of the non-live gold and silver cards off the market for cheap that you can with extra PP.

When the silver missions dropped for BAL, I had 10 of the 12 missions complete already, just needed a couple pitchers to complete the other 2. And I made 65K selling doubles that were in the missions. These were cards that were going for 600PP and now selling for 3-4K PP. The gold missions for BAL are likely coming in a couple weeks; you can buy cards that will be part of those missions for 1/4 the price today. Also, their will likely be a historical All-Star mission group - buy all of those that are not in missions already. Having missions complete before they drop is the way to go.

4) Complete all missions.
Even the ones that look crazy (Future Legends, Negro Leagues). Be patient, there is no rush, but just keep your pulls and you build up to a point where it's reasonable to spend PP to finish the collection. By the end of the year you'll find that most cards that are part of early missions end up in several other missions and it's worth locking them in. Basically, keep everything. Of course, always maximize profit - so if you pulled a Negro League gold right after they dropped and it's going for 25K, you sell it. You can buy it in a few weeks for 12K.

5) Keep your great pulls.
As just noted, if you can make a massive profit and buy it back in a few weeks, or use it to buy another 100, great - otherwise, when you pull a limited edition or a great 100 pitcher, etc, keep it. The only way you ever compete with the big boys is if you have those cards - they're the end goal - don't sell them.

Also applies to tourney cards - if you ever want to field great tourney teams that play consistently well for caps and different levels, you need the best cards. When you win the tourney cards, as tempting as it is to sell them, you should keep them for your tourney teams.

5) Keep your live premium pulls
Keep almost all live silver, gold and diamond pulls until right before the roster update that happens on the first Monday of every month. Yes, it's hard not to quick sell the diamonds and golds in particular, but it pays to hold them. It is a good idea to sell/quick sell any live 100s.

Okay, there is an obvious theme of *keeping* here. But if you're keeping just about everything, where do you make your PP?

First, if you're running your tourneys right (including weekly's, so assuming less packs), you're getting at least 100-150 packs a week to open = to 100K to 150K PP per week. Now, we're keeping almost everything from the packs, but you'll definitely make back a bit of change from all of the extras you do sell (iron/bronze/silver mission doubles, live perfects, etc). You'll also make 8-15K a week from season challenges + login rewards.

Secondly, and this is where you make the P2P-level PP:

6) The roster update. The first Monday of every month. This is the most important time of the month for a F2P player and you should be preparing all month by holding most of your live pulls and buying duplicates. This also takes the most work and their is an element of risk if you invest your PP into the update, which I always do. But this is the most important thing to do if you're F2P but want to play like you're P2P.

You can have 10 of every card. You can actually have more if pull them, but that's all you can buy off the market. Right now I have 10 each of 7 different silvers, 5 different golds, and 3 different diamonds. I have a bunch of other golds and diamonds and silvers of varying amounts, but just using those, the ones that I am most confident (that's why I have 10) will go to the next tier on the update:

That would be 870,000 PP quick sell value that I now have from cards that previously had a quick sell value of 177,000 PP. That's a profit of nearly 700,000 PP. That's like a guy who drops $500 on PP to buy a bunch of cards. Well, now that's you, but you did it for free. Starting within a few weeks of each update you should be spending most extra PP to buy 10 of each card you think is most likely to go up.

Of course, you won't have every card go up like you want or expect. You can have great months and less great months. But if you're doing this to a significant degree, it's always great, making a few hundred thousand PP is normal for a slow month. If it's your first time, and you're starting from scratch in both PP and live cards, the first update may not be huge. But between now and the beginning of next month you can absolutely manage to buy 10 diamonds and make 200K PP. Then you use/save a lot of that for next months update, where you make 500K PP, etc.

If a card fails - let's say, for example, you had 10 Gerrit Cole's before last update, and he went from a 98 to a 99 - didn't go to 100 - hold him until the next update. Don't quick sell all those and cut your losses - he's a great candidate to go up next time. Same with some cards that do go up - if a silver goes gold, but you think it may go diamond next time if they keep playing well, hold until right before the next update and see. Any cards that tank, you can always sell before the update.

Then be smart with all that PP. Don't buy packs - complete collections and buy non-live cards that may be in future missions, save for the next update etc.

If you focus on this aspect, you can definitely be a PP millionaire and play like you're P2P. Between tourneys (500+ packs a month + tourney cards), smart buying with your PP to complete missions ahead of time, keeping your great pulls, and playing the live updates right, it can be like you're spending a few thousand a month on the game.

Apologies for the length; hope it helps.

All of this is all well and good, and brilliant on paper...but how do you combat tournament slumps that feel like they're never-ending? When you've put all your effort into putting together a tournament team that should in theory be winning the average of 15-20 packs a day and perhaps more, yet all you ever come up with are 0's?

When does one say enough is enough? When all the adjustments you make and players you bring in with your spare points still do not solve the puzzle and the tournament income is completely dry for days? It becomes insanely hard to accept that all of one's effort and work is constantly wasted on failure.

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by Magus978

All of this is all well and good, and brilliant on paper...but how do you combat tournament slumps that feel like they're never-ending? When you've put all your effort into putting together a tournament team that should in theory be winning the average of 15-20 packs a day and perhaps more, yet all you ever come up with are 0's?

When does one say enough is enough? When all the adjustments you make and players you bring in with your spare points still do not solve the puzzle and the tournament income is completely dry for days? It becomes insanely hard to accept that all of one's effort and work is constantly wasted on failure.

I hear you. I'm in a slump right now. You just have to ride through it.

I started recording my packs/card rewards every day in June and it helps to see that the packs really are coming in overall, despite the slumps.

[TwanLX2000]

Of course those that pay are going to have a huge advantage, but it is not insurmountable. I'm also in Diamond league, just won a playoff series this last season.

I don't know how experienced you are, but I'm going write this as if it could all be new to you - it'll be a bit long.

Yeah, this is less a “woe is me — I’m getting beat by people spending money” post, and more of an acknowledgment that the separation is beginning to occur at this stage of the season. Honestly, this is the point when I began to struggle last year, and rebounded with some good late pulls to become a consistent force at the end of ‘22 (a Wagner pull that funded the remainder of my missions). I’d like to set myself up beyond dumb luck as best as I can.

Knowing that I hit a lull here in ‘22, I’m curious how to combat that in the short term while playing the long game. I know where I made a few mistakes (selling too many silver/gold historicals for quick cash, settling for more daily tournaments over the quicks that had a more consistent return). I’m hoping this will set me up better for the mid-season missions, but who knows? I could sell them and pay high dollar to buy better players now, but I’m certain that will screw me in a few weeks when those cards are surpassed.

Admittedly, I haven’t put the time into prospecting LIVE changes, and I don’t work enough with those cards to see how actual performance relates to the game ratings. I know the LIVE ratings are based more on underlying skill, which is fine… has anyone determined if there are particular metrics effect overall ratings more directly? I’m good with collecting my own data and taking some risk, but I also don’t want to spend a lot of time guessing if the rating changes appear more arbitrary.

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by TwanLX2000

Admittedly, I haven’t put the time into prospecting LIVE changes, and I don’t work enough with those cards to see how actual performance relates to the game ratings. I know the LIVE ratings are based more on underlying skill, which is fine… has anyone determined if there are particular metrics effect overall ratings more directly? I’m good with collecting my own data and taking some risk, but I also don’t want to spend a lot of time guessing if the rating changes appear more arbitrary.

I've found it successful enough just to look at player's current stats compared to their career averages, and to bear in mind how good or bad their last season was. Also, MLB shows you stats for the last 15 and last 30 games which can be very helpful. Homeruns for hitters and strikeouts for pitchers can be a big swing factor. So a pitcher with generally worse numbers, but significantly higher k/9 will likely get a boost rather than drop, or vice versa.

[professor ape]

My biggest issue is that the failed launch and lack of GO has a smaller population of players active in the game. Most people in the tournaments study up and have solid rosters. Without the larger population of casual players in the tournaments, my pack returns are weaker than last year giving me less opportunities to get the cards I need to complete missions and sell duplicates. It is making the game feel like more of a grind than ever. My team is in Diamond but has been just hanging around .500 for the last few weeks.

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by TwanLX2000

Admittedly, I haven’t put the time into prospecting LIVE changes, and I don’t work enough with those cards to see how actual performance relates to the game ratings. I know the LIVE ratings are based more on underlying skill, which is fine… has anyone determined if there are particular metrics effect overall ratings more directly? I’m good with collecting my own data and taking some risk, but I also don’t want to spend a lot of time guessing if the rating changes appear more arbitrary.

As I said, it's the most important thing for a F2P player to do to compete, so I'd definitely recommend trying it out. I mostly go by the MLB leaderboards, particularly WAR. You just have to take the time to go through the players and check their stats vs. their ratings.

I'll save you some time and give you some players that I think are going to go to the next level on the upcoming update - you can check their numbers and decide for yourself:

Silver:
Logan Gilbert 77
Paul Blackburn 71
Willson Contreras 78
Martin Perez 77

Gold:
Xander Bogaerts 88
Joe Musgrove 88
Rafael Devers 81
David Bednar 87

Diamond:
Paul Goldschmidt 98
Corbin Burnes 99
Yordan Alvarez 99 (already very expensive)

Hope it helps.