Tournament Slump

[HermanSmutley]

Does anyone else suffer from slumping tournament teams?
After winning two in a row three days ago there has been nothing but first round thrashings since including a 3-2, 17-1, 17-1, 10-6 drubbing.
The main problem seems to be scoring runs as shutouts seem to be the norm.

[professor ape]

Check to make sure that the game didn’t reset your roster, lineups, and/or strategy. I haven’t had the problem in a while but there have been more than one occasion where I went in and my team was a complete mess.
If that is OK, then don’t panic. What tournaments are you entering? Even a good team in a 32 team format will only get packs in one out of every six tournaments (maybe one out of five if you are really strong). Random luck can easily give you a bad streak.

[HermanSmutley]

I play Bo7 Quick Bronze tournaments ( I think I managed to squeak a 4-3 first round win against you the other day, unfortunately normal service resumed in the second round).

The reset problem happens frequently although not in this slump.

I think I have two main problems:
1. I can’t help tinkering even with a winning team.
2. I play solely on the app where I think strategy options are limited. For the life of me I can’t work out how you make someone a two way player.

Despite my moans above I do enjoy the tournament play.

[professor ape]

Just give it time. I spend a good week after each live update tracking all players in my tournaments to develop my Bronze roster. Generally by then I have a team pretty well locked in to generate 20ish packs per day. I haven’t had an outright win in three days but have had a lot of 2nd place and semi-final finishes which have still gotten me packs at a near normal clip.

[Magus978]

I'm back in a prolonged one myself. The 0 pack days are increasing and I'm getting angrier and angrier at the fact that I have to start wondering when it's time to fully gut it and start over in the hopes of convincing RNGjesus to stop making me its <censored>.

Feel like it's coming soon.

[professor ape]

Don’t ignore stamina with your pitchers. The three “must have” starters all have low stamina. With no days off scheduled in the tournament format, that becomes a real factor. For the same reason I also make sure to use an eight man bullpen. Nothing is worse that getting to the third round and then losing because of a depleted pen.

[HermanSmutley]

I feel your pain. My major gripe is the pack content itself, the joy of finding ten packs in your account is quickly replaced with disappointment when opening the bloody things.

[HermanSmutley]

Originally Posted by Magus978

I'm back in a prolonged one myself. The 0 pack days are increasing and I'm getting angrier and angrier at the fact that I have to start wondering when it's time to fully gut it and start over in the hopes of convincing RNGjesus to stop making me its <censored>.

Feel like it's coming soon.

I feel your pain. My major gripe is the pack content itself, the joy of finding ten packs in your account is quickly replaced with disappointment when opening the bloody things.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by HermanSmutley

I feel your pain. My major gripe is the pack content itself, the joy of finding ten packs in your account is quickly replaced with disappointment when opening the bloody things.

It’s a numbers game. Just keep earning the packs and the good cards will come. It’s how I’ve built my team all year as a F2P. I have all missions completed except for the two most recent POTM ones, am in my thirteenth straight week at Diamond (including my first season in Perfect), and have made the playoffs the last five weeks in Diamond. Just stay with it.

[bailey]

The tournament slump is real. I haven't changed my team in weeks and my pack win rate is down by 40% in bronze. I attribute this to the game being 6 months old with only the diehard players remaining and most of them know what they are doing. Possibly, the last update affected the live cards I am using, but the slump started before then. I think I will never see 30 packs daily average ever again.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by bailey

The tournament slump is real. I haven't changed my team in weeks and my pack win rate is down by 40% in bronze. I attribute this to the game being 6 months old with only the diehard players remaining and most of them know what they are doing. Possibly, the last update affected the live cards I am using, but the slump started before then. I think I will never see 30 packs daily average ever again.

You definitely need to make adjustments after each Live update.

[Magus978]

Originally Posted by bailey

The tournament slump is real. I haven't changed my team in weeks and my pack win rate is down by 40% in bronze. I attribute this to the game being 6 months old with only the diehard players remaining and most of them know what they are doing. Possibly, the last update affected the live cards I am using, but the slump started before then. I think I will never see 30 packs daily average ever again.

My slump has come in gold. I feel I easily have one of the best rosters, and I've adapted my strategy a few weeks ago to include more lefties. It has not provided the goods and I'm wondering if it's time to pack it up and compete someplace else.


I'm not strategically competent, so I honestly do not know what changes to make even when I look at the results of my team's deaths (which I genuinely do not like to do). I even had the more expensive SE cards before and they didn't fix my issues. If anything, guys like Magadan and Murphy made the weekly pack intake worse. Never could get my hands on other gold studs like Turner and Larkin, so maybe those would be the next ones to get.

[RunninYakAngler]

It's always feast or famine for me. Go a day or two or three and win basically nothing, then out of the blue I win 48 packs in a day, then 32 the next day and so on. I think I should re-do my team and then they get hot. Just seems to be completely random at times, which I guess it kind of is since most teams have mostly the same roster.

I've given up on ever hitting an actual good card. A Perfect shows up and I know it's a LIVE. I think I'm 9-1 on the bad side. Same with Diamonds and Golds, just can't ever get a decent card. I'd hate to know how many Golds I've quick sold for 1k, not to mention the 4k Diamonds.

But still somehow I've been in Diamond for several seasons and have been so close to Perfect League. Was up 3-1 in the World Series and blew the next 3 games, game 7 a ninth inning blown save. Although with each passing day I'm falling further and further behind.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by bailey

The tournament slump is real. I haven't changed my team in weeks and my pack win rate is down by 40% in bronze. I attribute this to the game being 6 months old with only the diehard players remaining and most of them know what they are doing.

Quite possibly. A lot of players who came in with the mobile app will have learned the ropes by now as well. Both will result in an overall increase in the quality of tourney teams, and fewer good results.

As to team changes I tend to avoid bronze simply because, with a couple of exceptions, I find it hard to identify what the stand-out cards actually are and when new ones are introduced. It's much easier in silver and gold although, obviously, that is true for everybody else as well.

[kccrtrppua]

I play the bronze tournaments too and my roster stopped performing with the August live update. I only lost one live card to silver and none took a major hit, but none of them could play decently anymore. I’m converting my entire team to historic cards so that this isn’t a problem again but it’s been quite a process to find the best ones.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by kccrtrppua

I play the bronze tournaments too and my roster stopped performing with the August live update. I only lost one live card to silver and none took a major hit, but none of them could play decently anymore. I’m converting my entire team to historic cards so that this isn’t a problem again but it’s been quite a process to find the best ones.

The final Live update will be on Oct 11th. Spend some time after that to tweak your roster as the ratings won’t change beyond that update.

[professor ape]

Today is one of the good days. I set up my initial Bronze tournaments at about 8AM ET. I currently have 18 packs in hand and another tournament which will give me at least three more before it is done (hopefully another ten). My high for a single day is 43 packs. Let’s see if I can make a run for it.

[Magus978]

The bad days have continued since my post. 0 packs from the 26th and 0 packs from the 27th. Expecting another 0 pack day today, and as ever I am clueless on why we aren't getting the job done since I believe I have all the gold staples except the overpriced SE's that were not effective for me.

At this point I feel my only options are scrap the team altogether, or do wholesale changes and further hamper my odds of cashing. It isn't fun at all when everything has dried up and all you see are pages and pages of "eliminated", and I am not having fun at all. Might as well just be one elongated "Magus sucks" text.

Gold success is gone. I can't crack Silver. Bronze is way too much RNG for my taste. Think it might be time to give up the tournament ghost for a little bit.

Yes, this is a whine. If you don't like those, don't counter-whine and just skip the post. kthx

[HermanSmutley]

I seem to pick up a couple of 3/4 places a day and that is as good as it gets.

A couple of things are beginning to bug me:
Pitcher Stamina - Paige can throw a 110 pitch shutout with 29 stamina. Surely he should be blowing out of his arse and serving up buffet balls once he hits 80 pitches if this rating is accurate.
Overall Fielding Rating - Players seem to stick Rose at 3B and there seems to be no consequence whatsoever despite the overall rating of 28.

[diamond3017]

Originally Posted by Hertston

Quite possibly. A lot of players who came in with the mobile app will have learned the ropes by now as well. Both will result in an overall increase in the quality of tourney teams, and fewer good results.

As to team changes I tend to avoid bronze simply because, with a couple of exceptions, I find it hard to identify what the stand-out cards actually are and when new ones are introduced. It's much easier in silver and gold although, obviously, that is true for everybody else as well.

One thing I find pretty daunting about Bronze and below, as well as capped tournaments, is that I have way more eligible cards than I could possibly fit on the reserve roster. So I just have to eyeball hundreds of cards on the "manage cards" screen to see if any jump out at me.

My approach has been to stick to Gold tournaments using exclusively non-live cards, so I can use the same roster in 32-team Gold and 16-team Gold non-live tourneys. Plus, I don't have to worry about live card rating changes.