MUT22 - No Money Spent (Madden Ultimate Team)

[QuikSand]

I’m at 3.44m cash. Have about 1m worth on the sale block.

Bought a few 88s, they weren’t as cheap as I had hoped… some 105k purchase already sold for 130k or so, but I’m still nibbling.

Market showing signs of a step down ahead. I expect to load up with the 90 cards for TE Parham and likely S James once they settle down a bit.

Team still has real gaps but I’m closing in on using nothing at all but Chargers chem guys plus promo cards earned through game play etc. that’s fine for now.

[QuikSand]

Ooh, todays Limited Edition card is 90 S Adrian Phillips. Great fit at need position… FS was the last spot where I’ve been playing a non-Charger purchased card Sean Taylor. I get former Charger Phillips and that’s a huge add for the actual theme team. Yay.

[QuikSand]

Theme team top needs:

RB - 84 Ekeler best right now, silly
WR - 89 Allen then 85 on down
DL - gonna use OLBs at DE until a boost
OL - nobody actually good at all

Work to with the pure theme team, for sure.

[QuikSand]

Cheapest training on Saturday was 23 coins per unit of training. Now 19. Slow burn market dip/crash underway in anticipation of new 91 players that are coming soon. I’m glad I’m mostly in cash right now.

[QuikSand]

Kurt Warner pic.twitter.com/YNNoYhM1ER

— MUTality (@MUTality7) November 1, 2023

91 cards confirmed for this week, starting apparently with the new "All Madden" program. Should hasten along the shift ahead... and should make the cards I want in the 88-89-90 range incrementally more affordable. Typically when a new "meta" card (that the high end players need to have) comes out, there's a swell of the former meta card at the same position becoming available in the market, so prices dip.

[QuikSand]

Other news from the All-Madden program coming today:

-free welcome card is an 88 LT John Madden, with all 32 team chemistry available... much needed for the Chargers theme team and I'm sure many more, great addition for now at least

-top WR Michael Irvin has 92 speed, and at this point in the game that number creeping up by another point is very meaningful... eventually late in eth year there is ratings compression but he will be a must-have card soon I reckon, maybe making other top WR cards like DK Metcalf and Jamar Chase suddenly more available

[QuikSand]

...no real Chargers, though, in the set of 10 actual new cards. So, no honest help to the theme team, other than the market shocks that hopefully open up me getting the 90s I want.

[QuikSand]

...and as expected, the sets to create one of the new 91 rated cards required 5x of ANY 88 or 89 rated card. Earlier this week, when I mused about loading up on them, I found a few of them in the 100-105K range, but I wasn't willing to spend all my coins buying up 88s for 115 or so. They are selling for 140K now, just on the news... once the sets and cards actually drop at 1:30 ET today, I'd guess that will even go up from there.

I likely could have bought about 30x 88 cards for my 3.4m, if I had put the time in. If I could sell all of them off at, say, 145K, that would be about 3.9m. Left a half mil on the table by not being confident in the easy win there.

[QuikSand]

Thought today would be a down market day, good for buying. Not so much. Some sniping/flipping but nothing great. No new Chargers anywhere in sight. Not much to do really.

[QuikSand]

I thought Saturday was (as it commonly is) a market drop and buying opportunity. Was wrong. I spent some idle weekend time messing around, watching the 90-rated player market, and buying low, selling high, as is my usual wont.

Sunday night, I saw several 90 cards dropping below their usual "buy" levels (e.g. 90 Joe Montana selling at 225 instead of the usual bottom around 245K) and I bought several, thinking I'd make money selling them back near 300K. Instead, that was apparently the start of an oddly times market reset for those cards...and I got stuck being more card-rich than I would have wanted.

Now I have 7-8 90-rated cards I didn't intend to keep on my hands, with the market apparently settling in by Monday at that 220-or-so level for them. Ugh. Won't be a massive loss, but I might lose 300K or so in equity by the bad timing.

[QuikSand]

CURRENT ROSTER SUMMARY

Gonna flesh this out for not good reason here:

no markings = Chargers chemistry because player is/was a Charger IRL
(C*) = Chargers chemistry due to some weird in-game promo, etc
(P) = Promo card of some sort, earned by grinding challenges, etc - cannot sell so I use it
(X) = neither Charger nor Promo, just a card I'm using to fill in


QB 90 Geno Smith, 84 Justin Herbert

HB 90 Chris Briggs (X), 84 Austin Ekeler, 86 Arian Foster (P)
FB 89 TE Travis Kelce (P), 75 Zander Horvath
TE 90 Donald Parham JR, 85 Hunter Henry, 79 Gerald Everett

WR 89 Keenan Allen, 90 Randy Moss (P), 88 Marvin Harrison (P)
86 Victor Cruz PR/KR (P), 85 Quentin Johnson

LT 85 John Madden (P)
LG 87 Landon Dickerson (P)
C 90 Kevin Mawae (C*)
RG 88 C Jason Kelce (P)
RT 84 Paris Johnson Jr (P)

P 79 JK Scott
K 83 Younghoe Koo

DE 89 Lawrence Guy, 89 Khalil Mack
DT 90 Jonathan Allen (P), 88 Aaron Donald (P)

LOLB 88 Mantei Te'o, 85 Joey Bosa
ROLB 90 Terry Tate (P),
MLB 88 Junior Seau, 87 Kyzir White

CB 88 Antonio Cromartie, 88 Essang Bassey, 86 Cristian Gonzalez (P)
87 JC Jackson, 85 Kemon Hall
S 90 Derwin James Jr, 88 Sean Taylor (X), 87 Eric Berry (C*)


I just discovered that Jon Runyan, the big time RT just released, squeezed in one year with the Chargers at the end of his career, so that will be an add soon. And there's a S Adrian Phillips going for huge money that I bought and sold a couple of times, but have not settled down with. Those are the only meaningful pieces missing from a maxed-out Chargers theme team, as of right now.

I'm a bit itchy since I have money to spend and if I'm willing to carry a HB and a FS, why not just buy six more guys and beef up other key positions? Not sure where to draw the line here, tbh. I am not loaded enough to build a true "god squad" but have more coins than most NMS types out there. Weird spot.

[QuikSand]

Latest program looks targeted toward theme teams like mine.

3 new Chargers, but online reactions are very negative.

91 MLB Kenneth Murray
88 TE Gerald Everett
88 DT Justin Jones

Ok, not thrilling, but stuff to do at least.

[QuikSand]

Slow weekend but have grabbed the two 88s and the 90 SS Adrian Phillips.

Right now, the only serious card w Chargers chemistry I’m lacking is the 91 MLB Kenneth Murray, which is overpriced at 600k plus and only a click better than my current 88 Te’o. By the nature of that card, it is unlikely to become affordable anytime soon. I can wait.

[QuikSand]

Tomorrow’s release of Harvest includes the first 92 cards. That was a quick jump. Market down as it approaches, training prices bottom out near 14 now. I’ve got nearly 4m in cash to spend, but not much coming for the Chargers.

Seriously, too cards are 90-91-92 and both Justin Herbert and Austin Ekeler sitting at their initial 84s, it sux. Boy is uninterested in this team since I’m running Geno Smith and Marshawn Lynch and Randy Moss… doesn’t “feel” like a Chargers team at all.

[QuikSand]

92 cards are out. Chargers theme team largely ignored. Little to do, for me.

Market down to 13, with the Blitz program coming next week. If it follows firm from recent years, we’ll get a wave of crazy deals, market down to maybe 7-9 for a bit, offering the best buying opportunity until February.

[QuikSand]

A 50 Chargers theme team is getting within reach, and may be more viable with just a couple more key cards.

[QuikSand]

It is completely cliche for MUT theme teamers to constantly complain that their franchise of choice is being ignored, and that ______ or ______ are just "getting all the good cards."

Well, I definitely feel that way with the Chargers, tbh. They have been releasing Legends cards and All-Madden cards since the game came out this year. The complete total of Chargers through those two programs: 87 LB Junior Seau and a couple weeks ago a 91 RT Jon Runyan. If I look at another franchise I feel like they have gotten 4-5-6-7 cards from these programs, generally.

Anyway, today's Legends drop includes a guy who can get Chargers chemistry, but who won't aid in my feelings of alienation. It's 92 TE John Mackey, a Colts legend, whom I think took a year at the end of his career to join Unitas with the Chargers.

But TE is about the least useful place to land a high end card, both short term (we have 90 Parham, 88 Everett, and 85 Henry right now, basically our most solid position depth anywhere)... and long term (where Antonio Gates should be coming at some point, and possibly also Kellen Winslow).

Meanwhile, the team that brought you Ladainian Tomlinson and Austin Ekeler, among others, sits with the worst starting/backup RB situation of any NFL franchise for months and months. No WR2/3 to speak of. Desert on the DL. Awful setup overall, it feels like.

But yeah, sure, a 4th MLB and a 4th TE, great great.

[QuikSand]

92 TE John Mackey selling for 900k. Following the usual pattern, this card will be available in packs purchased through the EA store for about two days. Then, the only way to obtain the card is through the auction block. Sometimes, this means that a hotly pursued card will actually go up in price after the supply has been cut off. That play might make sense for me under different circumstances, but right before the big blitz program doesn’t seem like the right, Time to tie up 1 million coins, in hopes of clearing, 300 K in profit after a couple weeks.

[QuikSand]

I bought Mackey when he dipped down to the low 700s. He’s now slotted at WR1, faster and better than any of our pure WRs.

Blitz starts tomorrow. Market should dip. Buying opportunities, I guess. I’m not spending $ and that’s a big focus of the week, but I’ll be looking to buy low and flip where I can.

Only one new Charger in the blitz, an 88 LOLB. Ought to be dirt cheap tomorrow.

[QuikSand]

So, exiting the Blitz program I didn’t get wealthy. Once again, it became clear that this is a program mostly to give money spenders a little bit of value, à la Black Friday and cyber Monday. That’s not me. It does seem like there were some Bilo opportunities when certain cards were released and sort of flooded the market, I didn’t sense that correctly, and did not capitalize. Do it goes.

While the market has been cheap, I did splash around and buy some cards, possibly selling too quickly… If the market really does spike back up overall in the next day or two, I will have missed some profit opportunities.

But, I now have the complete Chargers theme team, fully in hand. It is not a full roster yet, so I am still supplementing with a variety of promo cards and a couple others.

Very hungry to get an identifiable charger at quarterback and half back for this team, plus ideally one more wide receiver. Then, it will start to feel much more like a Chargers team. It just doesn’t seem feasible that they would continue to deny Austin Ekeler and Justin Herbert legitimate cards this long into the season.

[QuikSand]

The Team Diamonds program is announced for later this week. Where I didn't get much out of the Blitz, this is my cup of tea, for sure.

Short version: TD will be one player per franchise, usually I think they have been notable players from the fairly recent past (rather than current players), and usually built out with at least a partial eye toward the needs of the theme teamers, like me. The cards will be creatable through complex sets, that usually involve a lot of specific cards from that franchise.

So, the Chargers might get a high-rated (people are guessing 92s, which is the practical ceiling right now, I would have guessed 91s) card for someone like... hmm, let's say FS Eric Weddle. The set for him might include one copy each of something like 20 different Chargers cards, from 75-rated punter up to maybe a few 86- or 97-rated cards. Buy you need all 20 of them to complete the set and get the prize.

And then to top it off, they usually create a grand TD champion card that is a few clicks ahead of the MUT universe, that you get as a reward for building all 32 TD sets. Last year when the top cards were 93s, and TDs came out as 92s, they released a 95 John Elway with all 32 team chemistries. People lose their minds over this.

It's a great way to invigorate the market, to be honest. Some people work for days and days to get the top card. I don't mind spending 15 minutes flipping around in the marketplace looking for bargains, but I have never invested the time to do this stuff. I will, however, get familiar with one or two of these sets specifically, and try to make money off them. It has worked as a durable engine for me in past years, I look forward to it.

So, mister Santa, please bring my Chargers theme team...

HB
QB
RG
DE
DT
CB
LG
FB

LFG!

[QuikSand]

...and while there is certain to be one Charger, we can hope that a couple other players in the program for other clubs happen to have drifted through San Diego at one point or another. Thinking guys like FB Lorenzo Neal, DE Dwight Freeney, CB Casey Hayward, WR David Boston, that sort of dude.

[QuikSand]

So, I am prepping for the TD program by:

-assuming that it will be set up more or less the same as in recent years - each set will require an array of specific cards from that franchise (this is central)

-if that's true then I expect demand for all those sundry cards, which have no real value right now, to increase mightily

-so I am buying up all the 75-86 rated Chargers that i can buy at anywhere around "market price" now, and I expect to be well positioned to make money with them in two ways:

1- completing the set for the Chargers franchise Team Diamonds player, who will likely sell for a LOT (meaningfully more than it costs to run down all the component cards)

2- noticing which specific cards, components of the Chargers' set, are in short supply, and profiteering on them (buying that 78 rated bum for 2,500 when a naive seller posts him at a standard price for a 78 card, then listing him for 10K or 15K or whatever...counting on some desperate/impatient buyer working on the set, or all of them, to find only my copy available and buy it at my usurious price)

This may sound tedious to you or most. I enjoy it, and fully expect that I will have the money-making engines humming by the end of this week. Have probably sunk 300K or so already into low and medium tier cards for this purpose. Listed some already and am churning some profits that way to others who are on the same game just not as sharp.

Down from 4.6 to 4.3m in coins by doing this... if I'm right this will all feel like obvious money well spent in very short order.

[QuikSand]

New Harvest cards… zero Chargers, natch

Team Diamonds, looks like 2x
92 QB Philip Rivers
92 CB Ryan McNeil

meh

[QuikSand]

The stuff I’ve seen this far indicates a change in the TD sets, maybe bad news for all my prep work. 23 cards from the division.

Guessing that means a specific set of DEN, KC, LAC and LVR cards get you a fantasy pack from those four teams, maybe? Do not 32 separate sets? Hmmm. Guess we will see tomorrow.

But alas, precious little help for the Chargers theme team. Bad year to try to be a good Dad. Kid doesn’t care, and I’m stuck w a boring-ass roster.

[QuikSand]

…Dolphins, my usual go-to, got 5x of the TDs.

[QuikSand]

Today they are rolling out new cards, called redux, for previously limited edition cards, rated 91 overall. Some of these cards remain very expensive, because they were only available for a two day window a couple weeks ago… And they are hard to get at this point.

For me, since I have a reasonable amount of cars, this is frequently a buying opportunity… Or more appropriately, a renting opportunity. If I can buy a limited edition card for about 400 K, it has a guaranteed sale value of 350 K, so the most I lose it’s 50 K. This could be my short term plan a defensive line, where the game makers just refuse to give me anything of any value… There is a Reggie White, who becomes a redux 83 card, I may buy his limited card as cheap as possible, and use it in my DL rotation..

I can’t say that I am in love with doing this, but it may be the best way to fill in the short term, with quality players.

[QuikSand]

Team Diamonds rolled out this afternoon. Some notes, for whatever reason...

Those of us who "invested" toward this program being mostly like its previous variations just got screwed up and down. The Chargers set is not only not exclusively Chargers cards like in prior years, but now reveals to be no Chargers at all but only division rival cards. What perverse logic is that? Show off how much you love your team by collecting the players you hate the most? Fuck me.

So, anyway, the sets are revealed. And it feels like with the release there was also a big wave of suddenly-available cards for each of the component units, for every set. I know for certain that, frex, the 82 LT R Slater card was generally sitting with maybe 2-6 copies available over the last week or so, since I was searching for cheap ones to poach.. cheap would have been 2-3K, but prices would vary a lot. Now, he (and the many many other 80-86 base cards now in one or more TD sets) are suddenly available in huge volume, with oddly standardized pricing... like 8K to 12K but literally 40-80 copies of each of them. I presume this is centrally driven, not an organic market.

So, I wanted to make some money off this, and felt like maybe the play was to create some artificial shortage for the set-builders out there. I picked one 80-rated card who was in the Philip Rivers set, Denver LB Josey Jewell. There were about 25 copies out there, and I started to buy them all up. 6K, then 7m then 8,9, 10K. I stopped there, plosted a few for sake at 23 and 24K and hoped to see some profits.

Instead, I saw the pool replenish quickly with lots more at 6-9K. Feels like an algorithm.

Anyway, i just listed a bunch of cards that I had on hand that seem to be in these sets, and am a seller, rather than really a buyer. The 92 cards are in a feeding frenzy now and selling for 600K-1M but I'm far away from worrying about that much. Just tryna make a buck here and there in the transitions.

[QuikSand]

So, temperature check now:

BAD:

-The TD program was a miss for my prep work, and I have ended up losing money thus far. I still have some 80-something cards that are part of one or another TD set that I hope to eventually sell at inflated prices, but my strategy was a due because of the ways they perverted the program this year. Alas.

-Also, the new Chargers QB is among the cheapest TD cards - meaning that it's not in much demand at all. Philip Rivers wasn't a huge name, doesn't have any mobility, and didn't play for a ton of teams, so the avenues for appeal are limited. So, his set is not profitable at all. (But alas, all the Chargers I bought are not used in his set, but rather in other AFC West sets, stupidly...at least a couple of those are OL at/near the top of their position)

GOOD:

-The CB Ryan McNeil (Rams TD but Chargers chem) is pretty good, and remains expensive as a result. Good sign for that remaining profitable - I have not yet completed the set (trigger shy on some of these absurd prices) but I'm betting that I will do so multiple times in the weeks ahead.

UGLY:

-It's easy to say that the times I have spent in front of the console shifting over to Franchise mode, because "there's nothiung to do" in MUT is damning. And it is.

But to be honest... the really damning part of that is that I should be playing FOF 9 and I'm not, I'm going back to fucking around with a stupid button mashing game with a 4th grade algorithm.

[QuikSand]

Finished my first two TD sets... sold CB McNeil for 599K (nice) and my QB P Rivers is still on the block for a bit over 200K, ugh. I'm playing the market with the component pieces of the McNeil set, still buying them when they feel cheap, putting high priced copies out there of anything where there aren't many copies. I will likely complete the set more than this once, but I will be buying and selling pieces in this inflated market for a while to come, if things hold out the way they look now.

The 96 cards you get by doing all 32 TD sets are selling for 5M coins, so there's still motivated people out there working to finish the full cycle. That's my perfect buyer... itchy and tired from grinding this pout forever, he sees my 80- or 82-rated guy listed at 29K and the only copy available, and even if he knows he could come back tomorrow and likely have better luck, he goes ahead and buys it for my 29K, after I bought it an hour earlier for 12K.

I topped over 5M coins for a while, have dipped below by buying more components of the McNeal set, but overall feeling okay about cash position. The McNeal is the only Chargers player out there we don't have, other than the two 96 endgame guys.

[QuikSand]

Earlier this week, a new Charger... 93 FS Keenan Alle, yuck. I hate the ot-of-position guys but we have so few good options, I'll likely go get it and use it.

And today/tomorrow they are doing a 94 RB Austin Ekeler as the LTD from Team of the Week. Overdue. Need it badly. It might help spark my interest.

[QuikSand]

Ekeler was settling in around 600K price, and I was looking to buy it cheaply. Someone posted one with a weird price combo -- a minimum bid of 484K and buy-it-now around 620 or so. I put in the minimum bid, and nobody outbid me, so I got him for under 500K. Nice twist.

[QuikSand]

I’ve again maxed out the Chargers theme team, filled in w promo cards. Only ones missing are the capstone TDs, which I’ll never get. 5.8m in coins. Bored.

[QuikSand]

93 QB Justin Herbert actually looks great. Long overdue.

Still pathetic roster at WR, OL.

[QuikSand]

Okay... so lots of movement the last several days, even as I have been mostly on the sidelines. New major Chargers receivers dropped or dropping:

93 WR Mike Williams
91 WR Vincent Jackson

So, with them in place soon, I will click in 50 Chargers for the chemistry bonuses there, mainly+2 speed, still a really big deal at this point.

Theme team is filling in - main serious needs now are basically DT, DT, DE, IOL.

[QuikSand]

it's not evident from my thread here, but there's a dynamic in this year's game that is really undermining to NMS players like me...

they have added a chemistry boost effect for players in each release program... it's a transparent way to push users to go out and buy the newest set to get ALL those cards to get up to 25 or even 50 players from the latest set to max out chemistry among them

right now the major wintertime program Zero Chill is just a dominant theme team, FAR stronger than any franchise-based theme team

it used to be that maxing out the Chiefs or 49ers or another top franchise gave you a competitive team for online play at the high levels... not any more, it's just a frivolous sideshow now, the best teams are all the exact same, 50 Zero Chill players with absurd bonuses stacked atop one another... and (grumble) featuring insane out-of-position players as your best cards overall (CB Randy Moss, LB Gronk, LB Harold Carmichael, fuck this shit)

disappointing

[QuikSand]

...oh, and for yuks, the 91 WR Vincent Jackson, badly needed for our theme team, is in some weird EA limbo. They noted the card was coming, but never revealed any process to get it (e.g. after doing certain challenges, or reaching some benchmark in the program, whatever). So nobody can get the card in any manner.

Super cool, guys. EA still reliably sucks balls.

[QuikSand]

Really weak on motivation here. There's a new 94 Ladainian Tomlinson out. Nothing else of note for a Chargers theme team. I'm logging in every couple of days to just list a bunch of cards for sale, and maybe buy some cheap, but... I'm hardly playing any games with the MUT team, just not motivated to. The boy doesn't care, either.

We have started a Panthers rebuild in the franchise mode and are getting more out of that than MUT now. I'm leaning toward not buying Madden next year, and just excising this hobby more completely.

[QuikSand]

Been away from MUT most of the last couple of months. I see that they have phased in a ton of franchise-flexible cards. At my last count, there are 18 cards rated 98 or 97 that can get Chargers chemistry... and among them there is only one player, in two cards, who ever actually played for the Chargers (Derwin James cards at both SS and WR). What the hell kind of a "franchise theme team" is that? It's pathetic how badly they miss with the core concepts of their own product.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Been away from MUT most of the last couple of months. I see that they have phased in a ton of franchise-flexible cards. At my last count, there are 18 cards rated 98 or 97 that can get Chargers chemistry... and among them there is only one player, in two cards, who ever actually played for the Chargers (Derwin James cards at both SS and WR). What the hell kind of a "franchise theme team" is that? It's pathetic how badly they miss with the core concepts of their own product.

I dabbled with it for a few days once it hit gamepass, just to see if I could figure out how it worked, compared/contrast with The Show, etc.

Yeeeeah.

It's got ... issues. Not to say that The Show doesn't also, but it didn't take me long to figure out that I vastly prefer the latter overall.

[QuikSand]

So... I never went back to MUT. Gave up mid-season last year.

Bought the NCAA game, played a little bit of its "ultimate team" but felt the same grind and never put time into it. Played a few careers of the dynasty mode, it's fine but is just a grind to get good/great then boring. Took small colleges, then hand-made tiny colleges to greatness. Hooray for Iona University on their great gridiron triumphs. Yawn.

Purchased Madden 25 on a half-price sale and thus far have only played the career mode. It's fine, I kinda like having a thing to do there, but I have no temptation at all to get back into the day-by-day ultimate team grind. I slightly miss having that little thing to do on my phone during down times, but have shifted that energy elsewhere and it's fine.

[Chas in Cinti]

We need a nice Quik-Dynasty, it's been a minute... Pick a game, any game...