Can we get some tournaments that whales can't play in?

[stevezog1]

I would love to see some tournaments that are closed to players in perfect and diamond leagues to give the rest of us a chance to get some CS points!!!

Yeah, it's sour grapes.

I'm tired of losing to the same 5-10 teams in the round of 64 or 32 in every tournament I play!

[LeeD]

It's really not a whale thing. I've earned close to 2000 CS in tournament play with my main team, and I'm only running four Variants on that squad, all of which I pulled from packs. Sure, I get beat by the usual suspects here and there, but I hold my own most of the time through roster upgrades and reinvestment in Clubhouse cards.

[stevezog1]

How did you earn the 2000 CS points in the first place? How many tournaments/drafts have you won?

I had a great day in tournaments/drafts for me yesterday. I got to the sweet 16 in a 500CS draft, got 50 for that and probably another 20 CS points in the other 8-10 tournaments/drafts I played but still haven't won anything and I've already been knocked out twice this morning.

What's the secret sauce? I'm in high gold, I have good cards so why is the round of 16 my limit? Why do I play against Jud Wilson in every tournament?

I finished with the 5th best record in my high gold league so I know I'm about to lose at home in the wild card round and not even get promoted. That's happened to me 4 times already in 27.

Perfect Team is like when you bite your lip and can't keep your tongue from playing with it. I guess I just enjoy the mild discomfort

[cwhitman]

Originally Posted by stevezog1

How did you earn the 2000 CS points in the first place? How many tournaments/drafts have you won?

I had a great day in tournaments/drafts for me yesterday. I got to the sweet 16 in a 500CS draft, got 50 for that and probably another 20 CS points in the other 8-10 tournaments/drafts I played but still haven't won anything and I've already been knocked out twice this morning.

What's the secret sauce? I'm in high gold, I have good cards so why is the round of 16 my limit? Why do I play against Jud Wilson in every tournament?

I finished with the 5th best record in my high gold league so I know I'm about to lose at home in the wild card round and not even get promoted. That's happened to me 4 times already in 27.

Perfect Team is like when you bite your lip and can't keep your tongue from playing with it. I guess I just enjoy the mild discomfort

are you building good teams? are you choosing the right players? i don't think you need variants to really do well especially in things like caps with variant limits. you should definitely look at my app (not self promo, just trying to help!) to make sure that you're actually playing the good players and not just players you think are good.

[usa_hank]

Originally Posted by stevezog1

How did you earn the 2000 CS points in the first place? How many tournaments/drafts have you won?

I had a great day in tournaments/drafts for me yesterday. I got to the sweet 16 in a 500CS draft, got 50 for that and probably another 20 CS points in the other 8-10 tournaments/drafts I played but still haven't won anything and I've already been knocked out twice this morning.

What's the secret sauce? I'm in high gold, I have good cards so why is the round of 16 my limit? Why do I play against Jud Wilson in every tournament?

I finished with the 5th best record in my high gold league so I know I'm about to lose at home in the wild card round and not even get promoted. That's happened to me 4 times already in 27.

Perfect Team is like when you bite your lip and can't keep your tongue from playing with it. I guess I just enjoy the mild discomfort

Best advice for tourneys: pick a style and play that for a few days to get your team down pat. When I say style I mean all bronze, all iron, all silver, etc. Review the tourney after a winner is decided, and write down the players that the winning teams are playing. Most winning teams have the same roster for 3/4 of their roster. Build your team similarly.

And look at the players that are being used - why are they being used? Big HR? Defense? After a while, you'll be able to pick out players for your tourney team this way.

[stevezog1]

I think I'm building good teams and choosing the right players and focusing on certain tourneys and drafts. I've only ever been in low or high gold. Staying in high gold again after losing 2-1 with homefield in the wild card round for the 2nd season in a row.

My last two live tournaments I started Skubal, Skenes, Mis, Sale and Ohtani and lost in either the first or second round. I've been going with the slots tourneys and thought I noticed starting pitchers being very important to winning and then my 99 starter lost to an 84 in a Game 7.

Thought I had an advantage in diamond tourneys because I have alot of 99s, Honus and a couple high diamond variants and haven't gotten past round of 32 in two weeks in those.

Thanks for listening... my wife doesn't want to hear it anymore and tells me to play with the kids but screw that lol

[usa_hank]

Originally Posted by stevezog1

I think I'm building good teams and choosing the right players and focusing on certain tourneys and drafts. I've only ever been in low or high gold. Staying in high gold again after losing 2-1 with homefield in the wild card round for the 2nd season in a row.

My last two live tournaments I started Skubal, Skenes, Mis, Sale and Ohtani and lost in either the first or second round. I've been going with the slots tourneys and thought I noticed starting pitchers being very important to winning and then my 99 starter lost to an 84 in a Game 7.

Thought I had an advantage in diamond tourneys because I have alot of 99s, Honus and a couple high diamond variants and haven't gotten past round of 32 in two weeks in those.

Thanks for listening... my wife doesn't want to hear it anymore and tells me to play with the kids but screw that lol

LOL get the kids into playing OOTP as well, best of both worlds!

Yeah I'd go back and look at the roster and starters of the teams winning those tourneys. I know it's not as fun to just copy someone else's team, but honestly that's the best way to do well. (Also that's why I don't play tourneys much anymore and pretty much stick with Perfect Drafts instead). Some people who win a lot of tourneys have already mix/maxed the heck out of their rosters, so you can just piggy-back off their legwork.

I will say Diamond-level tourneys are some of the toughest. There are so many diamond cards and the best cards aren't cheap. For that reason I always stuck with Silver and Bronze tourneys, and just spammed the dailies.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by stevezog1

How did you earn the 2000 CS points in the first place? How many tournaments/drafts have you won?

I had a great day in tournaments/drafts for me yesterday. I got to the sweet 16 in a 500CS draft, got 50 for that and probably another 20 CS points in the other 8-10 tournaments/drafts I played but still haven't won anything and I've already been knocked out twice this morning.

What's the secret sauce? I'm in high gold, I have good cards so why is the round of 16 my limit? Why do I play against Jud Wilson in every tournament?

I finished with the 5th best record in my high gold league so I know I'm about to lose at home in the wild card round and not even get promoted. That's happened to me 4 times already in 27.

Perfect Team is like when you bite your lip and can't keep your tongue from playing with it. I guess I just enjoy the mild discomfort

It's a matter of persistence. We're 16 weeks into PT27. To get 2000 CS out of tournaments, you've had to earn 125 per week, which is 17 per day. That's one decent performance out of three daily tournaments (and throw in the weeklies as well), augmented by the occasional win or second place. A few solid Variants, Clubhouse cards, and incremental roster improvements as the card set progresses will get you there. Yes, there are players with killer rosters (whales), but RNG means that the best roster doesn't always win the series. As long as your own roster is competitive, you've got a shot at it...and there are also plenty of team entries that aren't optimal for one reason or another.

[cwhitman]

there are also plenty of players that aren't whales that do amazing: there is a free to play player who is about to have a ten qual in PTCS. but you have to have to develop ways to obtain the resources.

also like, what even is considered a whale? four figures? three figures? any money? plenty of players also crushing it on small dollar numbers

[daves]

It would be nice to have tournaments for only TTC or PCK teams.

I thought this version would allow this?

[stevezog1]

I appreciate the responses and it's just a game and I like it and I'll keep plugging along and on November 28 I will win a 500 CS tournament lol. But yesterday I lost in 2 separate tournaments to teams that did not have lineups set. Their pitching was set and they had the correct amount of hitters on their roster, but neither team had a lineup. One team was a perfect league team and the other was high diamond. So how does that work exactly?

[Fabtron7]

Originally Posted by stevezog1

I appreciate the responses and it's just a game and I like it and I'll keep plugging along and on November 28 I will win a 500 CS tournament lol. But yesterday I lost in 2 separate tournaments to teams that did not have lineups set. Their pitching was set and they had the correct amount of hitters on their roster, but neither team had a lineup. One team was a perfect league team and the other was high diamond. So how does that work exactly?

Sounds like you're beating yourself to some degree... I would look into your fatigue and depth chart settings before looking for a handicap.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by stevezog1

I appreciate the responses and it's just a game and I like it and I'll keep plugging along and on November 28 I will win a 500 CS tournament lol. But yesterday I lost in 2 separate tournaments to teams that did not have lineups set. Their pitching was set and they had the correct amount of hitters on their roster, but neither team had a lineup. One team was a perfect league team and the other was high diamond. So how does that work exactly?

Most likely explanation for an otherwise-correct team not having lineups set involves the DH spot. If the player chose a roster that listed a DH in a non-DH tournament, then the lineups and depth charts would be cleared because they didn't match the format. However, AI would still assemble a lineup for that team, and it would do a decent job of it.

[rburgh]

OK, they're not easy, but if I said "three tough ways..." you probably would have not bothered to open the thread.

1. Use the publicly available data sites: cwhit's cwhitstats.com and databotai.site. You need to register for the 2nd via discord.

2. After the tourney is over, examine the stats. Go to stats/sortable stats and download the pitching and hitting stats. Look at the guys with the most uses and the most PA's / IP's; the first group is the players most people are using, the 2nd is the ones that were on the teams that advanced the farthest.

3. Choose a level or levels of tourneys that your PP budget can stand. If you're averaging winning 15K or so PP's per week for achievements, you shouldn't be playing the Diamond or open level tourneys, you won't be able to keep up with the ever-changing meta.

Other ways to improve

Enter the quicks as much as you can to get extra packs. Watch laptophound's streams on twitch to find out who the best bronze (and iron) players are and use them to win extra packs. Register your team to collect packs just for watching, you can earn 10-15 packs a day, which can add up to close to 100 packs a week. You can do what I do, have the stream on your computer in the background and muted, and check in every once in a while to see what's going on. You can also watch replays of lap (and the official OOTP streams) if you're unable to follow them closely during the day. You won't get drops for watching replays of lap's streams, but you can get drops from the OOTP channel. There are other streamers too, there's a list somewhere on the forums.

Many of the most successful tourney players are NOT whales, even if they're regular or occasional visitors to PeL. Those guys have families or other factors limiting their ability to spend actual cash on this hobby. But they are good at developing packs through watching streams and playing the quicks. The regular tourneys and PD's are necessary for winning CS's. A couple of my FTP teams are bouncing around in HS/LG/HG leagues, I fuel them with twitch drops, pd's, and low level tourneys.

[cwhitman]

Originally Posted by rburgh

OK, they're not easy, but if I said "three tough ways..." you probably would have not bothered to open the thread.

1. Use the publicly available data sites: cwhit's cwhitstats.com and databotai.site. You need to register for the 2nd via discord.

2. After the tourney is over, examine the stats. Go to stats/sortable stats and download the pitching and hitting stats. Look at the guys with the most uses and the most PA's / IP's; the first group is the players most people are using, the 2nd is the ones that were on the teams that advanced the farthest.

3. Choose a level or levels of tourneys that your PP budget can stand. If you're averaging winning 15K or so PP's per week for achievements, you shouldn't be playing the Diamond or open level tourneys, you won't be able to keep up with the ever-changing meta.

Other ways to improve

Enter the quicks as much as you can to get extra packs. Watch laptophound's streams on twitch to find out who the best bronze (and iron) players are and use them to win extra packs. Register your team to collect packs just for watching, you can earn 10-15 packs a day, which can add up to close to 100 packs a week. You can do what I do, have the stream on your computer in the background and muted, and check in every once in a while to see what's going on. You can also watch replays of lap (and the official OOTP streams) if you're unable to follow them closely during the day. You won't get drops for watching replays of lap's streams, but you can get drops from the OOTP channel. There are other streamers too, there's a list somewhere on the forums.

Many of the most successful tourney players are NOT whales, even if they're regular or occasional visitors to PeL. Those guys have families or other factors limiting their ability to spend actual cash on this hobby. But they are good at developing packs through watching streams and playing the quicks. The regular tourneys and PD's are necessary for winning CS's. A couple of my FTP teams are bouncing around in HS/LG/HG leagues, I fuel them with twitch drops, pd's, and low level tourneys.

100% agreed with all of this: excellent advice. Resource acquisition is a large part of the game, and the best players don’t need to spend money to get a butt load of points, and then they know the best ways to spend them in order to continue producing points.

[atomzero]

I am spending some money this year, but I don't consider myself a "whale," and I spent none last year. I regularly qualify for multiple PTCS tournaments each month, and I qualified for 4 this time...my main advice would be:

1. Play cap or slot tournaments. It seems like the advanced option, but there seem to be so many people who won't do it that these tournaments are quicker to get into. It also opens up a whole new PTCS category to qualify for. The biggest jump in my tournament success came when I started making capped rosters last year. If I didn't play cap, I'd have to wait forever to get into the other Iron tournaments.

2. Play levels that aren't as crowded. I play Iron, Diamond, and Open. Iron seems easy because the cards are cheaper, but that also makes it crowded, and that is actually my hardest level for getting into tournaments. Meanwhile, I just reached Low Diamond for the first time this year, and I do not have an extensive collection of new or expensive cards, but Open is my best category, largely because people are scared of it. There is less competition, and even the unremarkable rosters I cobble together have a fighting chance.

3. Spend wisely. Like CWhit said, Variants are nice, but they are not necessary. They are a luxury that you go for when you have money to burn. It is not at all rare that a variant card I buy and boost gets outclassed by a base new card that comes out the next week. If you are on a budget, the newly released cards can often be your ally, not your enemy.

I guess I'd summarize by saying, don't be afraid to try something that seems more advanced, and do what others are not doing, and avoid the beaten path sometimes. Best of luck.

[cwhitman]

Cap/slot also allow you to show off your building skills more, gives plenty of avenues to getting value without having the best cards if you know where to get the value from.