MUT22 - No Money Spent (Madden Ultimate Team)

[QuikSand]

…Well, that did not work for him. The market quickly supplied three or four more copies well under his 150 thousand price, I even bought the cheapest among them for 78,000, and I have relisted it for 100 K.

[QuikSand]

While all the stuff that’s going on here represent coin making opportunities, and I have spent almost all my time writing in this thread about the same… There is, still, the team itself. So, I think the opportunity that presents itself right now, is for me to buy a reasonably priced copy of the Josh Cribbs power up card, spend what it takes to get it powered up to become useful for me, and start using him as my slot receiver and kick and punt returner. I can then probably switch my 85 rated Devin Hester card over to become middle linebacker Junior Seau, give him browns chemistry, and make a substantial improvement to that particular roster slot.

I think I can invest 60 or 80,000 coins to do all this, and it should be fine. It is always a little bit challenging to have limited means, as a no money spent player, and decide what to do in this market place where every asset is basically a declining asset. The problem is, that always points in the direction of waiting and waiting and waiting… And then you end up at the end of the year and you never got the car that would have been enjoyable to actually play games with. I was probably a little too cautious over the course of the full year of playing Madden 21, really my only full year Of playing this game… So I want to strike a pose smarter balance this season, and spend a little money to have things stay interesting in game.

[QuikSand]

Yes, there is obvious massive profiteering happening among the components for the Andre Rison set. Much more so than for the Cleveland set for Josh Cribbs.

There is a 77 rated tackle for Atlanta, an hour ago there were multiple copies on the market selling for three or 4000 coins, basically about right. For some reason the supply got cut short, somebody decided to post his copy for 25,000 coins, and at least in the moment the new market is at 20,000 or so… There are 10 or 12 copies now available but nobody is under cutting the market to sell for 15 or 12 or 10 K.

So basically while I like football and roster building, it is this kind of quirky stuff… Watching how small scale wide-open full information markets can work… This is the stuff that has me deeply interested in this little exercise. I like building my team, I like NFL football, I like how this is a mix of current and former players… But I love watching free markets work in real time. And, the market for a universe of completely identical cards, where every buyer and seller has Absolute and perfect information about the product, these markets are rapidly approaching the purely competitive market place that economics instructors ( like me, once) teach their classes as a matter of peer theory.

[QuikSand]

To elaborate slightly, in this game… As I have already discussed in this thread… There are occasional circumstances where the reward for completing a set is worth more than the cost of the components of the set itself. My son and I have picked up the phrasing of one of the Madden content creators, and we call that “printing quote as in, it is printing money.

How should a free market correct for this? Well, we can look at contests run by McDonald’s or Pepsi or whomever, where you have to collect a variety of letters or monopoly properties or things like that… In order to win prizes. In those cases, there is always a particularly difficult to obtain single item within each set… Essentially it is that one rare component that truly carries the value for that entire set. If the McDonald’s monopoly contest requires you to assemble four pieces together to win $1 million cash… But only one of those four pieces is rare, the rest are all common… And the proper way to assign the value of those four pieces is basically 1 million, zero, zero, zero. It is not true that each of the four pieces is worth a quarter million dollars. People who have collected three out of four of that set our Lourdes into thinking they have made progress, but in nearly all cases, they have accomplished virtually nothing in doing so.

[QuikSand]

So, right now, there is weirdness in the Rison set. There are multiple cards rated high 70s, that would ordinarily sell for something like 3 to 5000 coins. And, fairly randomly, a few of them have been selected in the moment for a much higher price… 15,000, 20,000, 40,000. Is this sustainable? I don’t think so. But this is a complicated group dynamic… What is the white right way for these cards to respond in a true free market place, where there is no particular scarcity among these components?

For the moment, let’s assume that the cost of the more expensive components in the rise and set are basically fixed. Not necessarily true, but it simplifies this discussion. Then we have some thing like 15 low value cards, of which a person needs all of them to complete the set. Each individual card should probably sell for 2000 3000 or 4000 coins. But the aggregated value, based on the worth of the cards returned by completing the set, makes the 15 cards collectively worth something more like 100,000 or more… Rather than just 15×3 or 4000. So, we end up with these oddities. Momentarily, a particular card becomes scarce, or simply unavailable, and it is an opportunity for profiteering. But, it should be unsustainable… There’s nothing specific to this 77 rated tackle that makes him worth 20,000, and another 77 card currently in reasonable supply. So, I have the patience, and the intellectual curiosity, to sit and wait and watch. Some people do not, particularly on the patients front, and they will see that the cheapest price that player is 18,000 cards and buy him for that price.

I suspect I will end up perched on the periphery of the rise and set for sometime ahead, it has all the makings of a market that should stay hot for a while… Wide receiver is a very important and high profile position in the game, Rison is a very good wide receiver among the best in the game right now, Rison has the ability to connect to five or six different franchise theme teams, that makes both his 90 rated for card and his 77 rated power up card truly valuable for sometime. People are going to want these cards, they are going to want to complete the set, and there will be continued demand for all these component parts… I’m not sure that I can make a bunch of money in the next few hours finding the specific cards for cheap and selling them for high prices, but over the course of days and days the tables might easily turn… Some of the cards that I have bought recently for two and three and 4000… Those might eventually turn into the relatively scarce cards and be selling for eight or 18,000.

[QuikSand]

So the bubble on the 77 Jake Matthews Falcons tackle card is starting to calm down… Prices have declined from 20,000 to about 14,000 in the last half hour, presumably on their way towards something that makes more sense. I’m not gonna try and buy on what I judge to be a downswing, but I will make a mental note that this is a card that could be a potential pinch point for the sat in the future. If the card completely settles back down to three or 4000, I will probably buy multiple copies anticipating that this could happen again, and I want to be ready to sell several copies for 15 or 20 if I get a chance.

[QuikSand]

So, spent about 80-90K on the card and training, and now have a 90-rated Ozzie Newsome as my TE1. He makes a difference in a few of my base plays, it's a good and energizing addition.

I bought a copy of WR Cribbs' power up card, but immediately posted it for sale to turn a profit. But I do expect to add him soon as well, and likely spend what it takes him to get up into the mid to high 80s, a meaningful improvement on my WR2 slot at the very least.

[QuikSand]

I think completing this Andre Rison set is probably profitable, right now, even with the handful of silly priced low cards. The Power Up continues to fetch 100K or more, and the 90-rated feature card is bringing in 250K or more. If you can clear 320 or even 350 from the combo... I think you can assemble the full set for less than that, even if you hold your nose and pay 15 for this and 35 for that along the way.

[QuikSand]

The components of the Rison set are going batshit. I wish I had bought many more earlier today. Random cards just suddenly jumping from 4K to 10 and 20k. It’s nutso. I’m trying to keep up…

[QuikSand]

Quick updates:

-have WR/KR Cribbs installed as my WR2, powered up to 88 I think. He’s shifty in limited play today. I will soon invest in boosting his return abilities.

-I finally finished the Andre Rison set, have the 90 card and 2x copies of the power up for sale now… if that sells I may get back to around 500k I’d guess.

-I’m familiar enough now with the Atl players needed for that set, and expect to be camping there as a routing sort-and-snipe for some time… “hey, that’s one of those guys who might blow up in price” (buy for 3500, re-list later for 12000)

-I’m starting to fool around with the 49ers Team Diamond set for Charles Haley, he’s very good and both the 49ers and Cowboys are popular theme teams

[QuikSand]

Fun little find, and a big one for my Browns theme team... the Lions got LT Lomas Brown as their Team Diamond, so he's a high caliber player there. I did not recall that he flitted around the league a bit, late career, and apparently logged 1999 with the Browns.

So... that could/should be my next Team Diamond to investigate and at least get the Power Up card. Sounds like the PU is going for 40K or so, at the moment. Another 75K or so to push it to 88, and we'd have a left tackle who is... well, who's as good as the one I have now, but who has a little orange helmet in that space and I want that dammit.

Not an urgent priority, but on the want list now.

[QuikSand]

Mentally, I am starting to contemplate what I'd be doing if I converted my CLE team to a "pure" Browns theme team... only guys with CLE chemistry allowed on the field.

We'd suffer at DT badly, and would have to cover with guys like DE Ogbah and maybe others.

We'd be awful at FS unless I switch out a SS to pay there.

CB would be thin, with Haden good and then a shaky-for-now Ward as CB2, then a pretty big drop to CB3.

And then there's QB. Yeah. Assuming I cannot afford the UberMarino or even his Power-Up card, then I'd be stuck with Baker and that would be a major limiting factor.

Not yet, nope, not going to do it. But I do have the itch to be rid of these fill-in players. It will build.

[QuikSand]

Q: So, how do you churn out coins in this game, during a few minutes of spare time?

Okay, I will bring up the Madden Companion app on my phone/iPad when I have a few minutes in the waiting room, or whatever. If I have 3 minutes to spend, here's the drill:

-Do a quick sort in the auction house on something I understand pretty well

current example: Falcons rated 70-79... the guys who make up the ATL Andre Rison set that I am hammering

-Sort either by lowest price, or by newest items posted to the auction house

if I'm just fishing for good values for training, frex, lowest price gets right to the point... but latest posted is the preferred way to "snipe" an item that shouldn't have been made available that cheaply, because it won't last long

-Buy items at attractive prices, and either (a) re-post them for sale at aggressive prices for a quick flip, or (b) sit on them awaiting a change in the market eventually to do the same


That's basically it.

So... of late I have been trying to buy 85-rated cards to convert to training. I have noticed that the Legends set seems, especially over the weekend, to generate most of the deals. The key is to create a filter that yields no more than 100 players... and I managed to do so by selecting: Legends, All Offense (or All Defense), rated 84-85.

When I run that filter and sort by "newest" I see the new additions right at the top. I switch back and forth between O and D, and over the course of maybe a minute, I'm fairly likely to find an 85-rated card drop at my targets price of 25K or less. When I see it, buy it immediately. If all I do is use it for training, that price is acceptable.

Once I have the card, I look quickly to see what I might be able to re-sell it for. If that looks pretty good (say, 33k) then I will just put it up for auction. Buy at 25K, sell for (after 10% tax) 30K, that's a clean 5K in profit. This sounds absurd, but it is reliably available right around the training price, with a bit of patience. I suppose it's a bit like "farming" in a D&D style role playing game, where you kill the ogre, reload the section of the game, kill the ogre, rinse, repeat.

Anyway... give me a few minutes in the app, and I can likely swing a handful of deals like this. Just a few minutes ago: Bought a cheap component in the Andre Rison set twice for 3200 and 3300, set them aside for some time when they are selling for 6000 or 8000. Then found an 85 card for 22750, and immediately put it up for sale at 31,249 (a dollar less than the cheapest one out there). Then, I also grabbed a couple cheap gold cards not in the Rison set but who were "too cheap" and worth grabbing just for use in other sets I know I can make... right now I'll pay 1200 for a 70-74 rated card, and 2400 for a 75-79 rated card no matter what it is, there are other sets using these where those numbers are reliable profitable.

[QuikSand]

Got my 272K asking price for 90 Andre Rison overnight, I’m back to 486K in cash.

[QuikSand]

In this week's Team of the Week there's an 84-rated Kareen Hunt - meaning his power-up card, with that 84 absorbed, will now go to 85. With our team chems in effect, he'll play like an 86. Good enough for RB2 and a guy to use on RPO plays, which I'm trying a lot of lately.

There's also a new Myles Garrett card coming out - the net effect for high-end gamers is that his Power Up card will have another level added to its maximum, making him a must-have 94(?) for power Madden gamers, I think. I can't even afford his top card as it stands, so no effect on me short term.

[QuikSand]

Q: So, how do you know what to do with these weirdly expensive players?

A: You don't.

Honestly, I'm gambling here... but after watching the Rison set drive several specific cards to silly high prices (and knowing that Rison is likely to remain an in-demand set for some time) I am taking a gamble that any of the cards that I have seep "spike" at least one or two times are going to be prone to doing so again.

So, that 72 LOLB Brandon Copeland card that over the weekend was going for 10-15K... yeah, it has settled down to something like 5K right now, but I am seeing that as a trough in a system, rather than a permanent return to sanity, I'm buying the dip. For cards like that, I just plan to have a copy sitting around for sale at 12,999 most days, just in case supply gets short and I end up with the only one out there. It happens.

I'm trying to max these opportunities out... the 78 Foyesade Oluokon card has been going for 20 or even 30K (I have a sale from yesterday for 28,999 in my outgoing transactions). Right now I could buy one for 14,000... and I'm not doing that, there's too much downside there, I think.

The 78 Kyle Pitts that was going for 40K over the weekend? 8K right now. I am sitting on 3x copies, in hopes that it goes nutso again. I do expect that to happen, and I hope to be there selling at 36,999.

Sometimes I guess wrong, and get stuck with a massively declining asset, it happens.

[QuikSand]

Looks like the Team of the Week just dropped... market flooded with those guys, they are super cheap suddenly. Getting 80-rated Myles Garret cards for 8500 and less, this is pure profit to turn them into Team Builders sets... 3x8500 + 3x2000 = 31,500 and sell the resulting card for over 44K. Going to grind TF out of this.

[QuikSand]

I'm in a weird spot with this flood of TOTW cards... last week I went overboard and spent all my cash on 87 Lamar cards at 45-50K, and then pushed them out the door for 60, only to watch that exact card appreciate in value to where they were going for 75 over this past weekend.

Today I bought a ton of 80-rated cards for 8500 or less, and a handful of 87s, fully expecting them to appreciate as well. But now I'm broke and bored.

[AlexPhilip]

Very nice saints team. I have a feeling you might get some more of the dome patrol. Saints could be a real nice choice further down the road. Im looking forward to a nice lattimore card, i like how he plays usually

[QuikSand]

Right now, I have a peculiar situation… Without really planning to, I now have all the pieces to assemble the full set to get the maxed out Ozzie Newsome card. The card itself would be a massive difference maker for my team, I think, because a 92 rated player would probably be faster than anyone trying to cover him, with a few exceptions.

However, it’s also a market opportunity… There are at any given point in time just one or two or three copies of that 91 Newsom card available in the market… So, not only can I possibly sell it for a high price, but I might be able to manipulate this market for weeks ahead. One of the component cards to assemble Ozzie is an 84 rated Cooper Kupp, and that card is also in relatively scarce supply… I currently have my four copies on the market for 35,000 coins, which is a silly and absurd price on purpose. But it does seem to me that even one active user like me, can create some artificial scarcity here… If it costs 35K for each of those Cooper Kupp cards, then the price to assemble Newsom goes up, fewer people will be willing to do it, and when I can extract from my copy or maybe be 350 K, rather than 275K. It’s not out of the question that I end up assembling this site, and selling Ozzy, multiple times over in the weeks ahead.

[QuikSand]

Busy week IRL, have been grabbing idle minutes here and there on the app, mostly just re-listing some of my players for sale (I finally have worked through most of those 84 Team Builders I bought early this week, sticking with my 42K+ price for each though it took days)... and still churning gold Falcons who are part of the Rison set. May be left standing on a few guys where I bought at 9K hoping to spin them for 18K, and now the card is selling for 5K... but I'll sit on them in hopes of seeing the wave come back around, as it often does. Probably 100-150K tied up this way between ATL and SF set players.

Cash on hand is around 450K, so I'll be ready in case something exciting drops...

[QuikSand]

Sounds like a "Gridiron Guardians" program drops tomorrow, with a new slate of guys... top tier are at 90 rating. 86 Jarvis Landry in the mix, that will help both the CLE and MIA teams.

[QuikSand]

Q: What's the deal with these Power Up cards again, for guys you already have?

Since I haven't explained this very well to this point... and in the event anyone is reading, here's what the new Jarvis Landry card means for me, right now.

At the moment, Landry is my WR5 for the CLE theme team. I used the cheap Power Up card that started at something like 68 or 70, and then used incremental amounts of training to improveit up to something like 78 or 79. The next step for the Power Up card's improvement path required a copy of the 80-rated elite card for the same player. I bought that card, used it to power up my Power Up card to 81 overall, and that's where he is now - maxed out.

Tomorrow when they release the new 86 Landry card, it will probably create two new levels of powering up available through training... so maybe I will be able to pay something like 250 training to move my guy from 81 to 83, and then another 370 to train him up from 83 to 85. From there, I'd need a copy of the 86 rated card to move him to an 87 overall.

So, it's good for me - especially since he happens to fit with both my theme teams at the moment. A bit costly, but this should ice the decision to trade-back Devin Hester and replace him with Junior Seau (one of the special cards, a season champion, where I got a choice of two players and may reverse that decision up to 3x). Both my CLE and MIA teams are more needy at MLB than they are at WR now, in part because of Landry showing up here and likely becoming my slot receiver.

[Chas in Cinti]

Seau played for the Dolphins IRL... so shouldn't he not be a "special" player for that team? Allowing you a different non-MIA guy?

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Chas in Cinti

Seau played for the Dolphins IRL... so shouldn't he not be a "special" player for that team? Allowing you a different non-MIA guy?

Apparently, EA deploys a variety of these special players as a way to have a lot of "side missions" going for those of us who might otherwise lose interest. I'm sure if I looked closely, I'd find that if I could just get from 84 to 100 interceptions, I'd get another card to help advance SS Kam Chancellor... or something like that.

This year, the "Season 1 Champion" was Hester or Seau, and can take team chemistry for any franchise. It's a way to help you feel like you have some build-around players, I guess. It's fine, I guess... but it feels kinda hollow if you're a true believer.

So, here, the fact that Seau actually did play for Miami IRL is not relevant, in the way that, say, RB Thurman Thomas did is (since he's just a regular Team Diamond card with a Power Up). The Dolphins theme team is just overloaded with RB now, it's silly at this stage -- Ricky Williams, Thurman Thomas, Ronnie Brown, and Reggie Bush all probably among the top ten in the game.

[QuikSand]

The market seems to have dipped overall today… the simplest measure is “training price” in gold/training. Right now there are 89 players that yield 3,150 in training… available for around 80k in gold, or a training price of about 26. Below 30 was impossible a few days ago, even last night.

I completed the Charles Haley set, and sold the 90 card, so I have over 600,000 gold heading into the weekend.

[QuikSand]

I do not have any details, but usually when the market dips like this… Especially when it coincides with a release of a new program, that ordinarily means that some new item is available in the in game store, and it is more generous than what we are used to. Sometimes, that presents an arbitrage opportunity… Especially if you can buy a pack of cards using the training currency. You go and buy training as cheaply as possible, and then use the training to buy those packs of cards, hoping to get more back in value than what you put into by the original cards/training. No details here, and I am unlikely to be able to take advantage… But that might be what’s going on right now.

[QuikSand]

LT Joe Thomas is one of the two new Legends cards dropping today, big for the Browns theme team.

I’m north of 800K in cash, I’m ready for a meaningful addition.

[QuikSand]

Okay, assuming Joe Thomas comes out looking like last week’s Legends cards, these are the cards coming out today, and the “training value” price for each of them. Noting it here, in part because release day tends to get weird.

84 rating … 490 training … 12,500 gold is fair price
85 … 710 … 17,500
86 … 1030 … 25,500
87 … 1500 … 37,500
89 … 3150 … 80,000
(And the boss, a set of multiples of the above)
91 … 7000 … 175,000

I’d like to land a 91 card today for him, likely through building the set. But I’ll be liking for value wherever it pops up. In my experience the packs people open in pursuit of the big cards tend to skew the market on Saturdays, sometime in contrasting directions… e.g. the 85 card is way too expensive but the 87 is way too cheap. It tends to sort itself out, creating arbitrage opportunities again.

[QuikSand]

…ooh just saw a tweet with an image of the top cards for today. 92, not 91, adjusting accordingly but that will likely make Thomas the god squad LT for a while (meaning high demand).

[QuikSand]

I bought the first copy of the 88 JT card for 90,100… trying to flip it for 179,999.

[QuikSand]

…sold at 173,999 (had to adjust to undercut the undercutters) … nice quick hit

[QuikSand]

My Browns theme team is coming together pretty nicely. I’m still relying on a handful of fill-in cards to keep the quality high enough to play well, but that’s abating.

Goals ahead:

-improve LT and sell off the non-CLE placeholder there
-upgrade RT Conklin (88 card running 100K or so)
-get OLB Jamie Collins, use him at ROLB slot

[QuikSand]

At roughly 650k in cash… with a few hundred more in various stages of assembly and selling. Could cross 1m this week.

[QuikSand]

Okay, a snapshot of the LT Joe Thomas cards, now that the market has settled down a good deal. I splashed around and made a bit more money on these, but the big hit was right at the start, correctly banking on the initial enthusiasm to get the set done... that hit (buying high and selling super high) on the 88 cleared me a lot of cash.

Prices (approximate based on recent sales) now:

85 22,000
86 35,000
87 46,000
88 80,000
90 155,000

So, the complete group of these needed to build the set for the 92 "boss" card totals roughly 338K. The 92 card is selling for right around that price now...maybe even a little cheaper (early this morning in the 290s, right now in the 330s). So...building this set is not sufficiently profitable to make it worthwhile, without really working to get the components at a discount.

I got my 90 card at about 130K yesterday, and I plan to just sit on it and start him at LT for the indefinite future - like, probably, until February. I just don't have the means to push for the indefinite boost from moving from 90 to 92 at the cost of 150-200K in coins. I can do a lot with that much cash. LT is settled, in my mind, for now.

[QuikSand]

I'm also going to keep an eye on the TOTW Week 2 set for TE Ozzie Newsome, partially because I'm already in the habit of watching those players (built the set once already) but partially because it's overpriced right now.

Components needed (and current prices):
3x 87 Lamar Jackson @75,000 (!)
4x 84 Cooper Kupp @22,000
5x 80 Derrick Henry @12,000
- - - - -
Simple purchase cost = ~373K

Return from the set:
1x 91 Ozzie Newsome @260,000
1x 79 PU Ozzie @5,000

So... completing this set by purchasing the components doesn't make sense right now. Rather than see this as a lost cause, I am instead going to focus on the weird market for the underling cards. I don't know why Lamar is going to highly priced - maybe it's in anticipation of him getting a new, better card sometime fairly soon. That would add up - you'd need his 87 card to fully power him up to and through the new top card, so this might just be investors.

Regardless, I know there's a smaller set assembling a number of lower tier cards (like 70s rated) to get one random-level TOTW card from a given week. Because these component cards are sort of overpriced, that set might be "printing" now. I have a solid stash of gold cards ready to do, if so. Need console access to pull up that set, but it's likely something like 10-16 lower cards to get one random one... if they cost 2K each, then you'd need to get at least an 84 to make it worthwhile, I suspect.

Regardless, right now I have 4x Derrick Henry cards for sale at 14,999 (purchased under 10K each) just because supply is thin at the moment. I have sold off all my Kupp cards but will look to replenish there when the opportunity presents. And Lamar... just a wait and see, I can't find any reason to buy at 75K when training value for an 87 card is down close to 40K right now. The card is not that special, I must be missing something.

[QuikSand]

I keep buying the 88 Jack Conklin card, intending to use it to power up my Browns RT position. But then, I always say, “well, it will be a while before I get onto the consul, so I will just post the card for sale at a profit until then.” And then he sells at a profit of 10-15K over my buy price. Good problem to have.

[QuikSand]

Q: What cards/players is the Browns theme team hoping for?

QB is urgent. Give me a pretty decent quarterback, and I can be ready to flip the switch and make my Browns theme theme a pure theme. That is really by far the number one thing holding the team back. Overtime, the candidates would be any of the classic browns pocket passers…Otto Graham, Brian Sipe, Bernie Kosar. And, there are a couple candidates to be viable scramblers in Tyrod Taylor, and most especially RG3. If I could just get one of these guys at 88 or 89, I’d flip the switch.

CB is a problem, too… Haden is ok, Ward will get a boost, but we’ll need a new face, for certain. Hanford Dixon, Frank Minnifield are the Dawg Pound candidates, and Jason McCourty is the sort of guy who could get a “Veterans” card given his multiple franchises.

S is not great, only one legit starter in Johnson at 86, but the Kam Chancellor card plays for any franchise, and he’ll keep improving. Jordan Poyer and Jabril Peppers can get into the 80s, one of them likely gets a better card before too long. All these guys are natural SS, but could fill in at FS where we’ve got nothing.

DT is really weak. Malik Jackson could get a decent card, but our best hope is probably Michael Dean Perry, a big legend card last year. For now my best play is DE Ogbah out of position, not good.

ROLB is a cover-with-someone for now, I’d get Jamie Collins if pressed for now. Clay Matthews seems like the guy to plug in, though he’d more likely be slotted at MLB, which would be a need also. D’Qwell Jackson also seems obvious there.

[QuikSand]

So I worked myself into a little bit of a rabbit hole with Cooper Kupp. There were not very many copies on the market, so I thought that I could create some artificial scarcity by buying the cheap ones at 1819 and 20 K. The whole goal was to put my copies on sale for 24 and 25K, and clear on Michael’s Apple*So I worked myself into a little bit of a rabbit hole with Cooper Kupp. There were not very many copies on the market, so I thought that I could create some artificial scarcity by buying the cheap ones at 1819 and 20 K. The whole goal was to put my copies on sale for 24 and 25K, and clear a mild profit from each one. Alas, I think I have sold a total of one copy at my price, and the supply continues to be replenished at 1819 and 20 K… I bought four, then a couple more, than a couple more… Now I think I have 12 or 14 copies costing me probably a quarter million coins.

[QuikSand]

Sounds like Trevon Diggs gets the top TOTW card for week 4. Cordarelle Patterson seems likely (and useful as a return nan?), maybe Taylor Heinecke? Tyreek should get a low level card and a +1 level fir his power up card. Maybe Mahomes and David Montgomery too.

[QuikSand]

Strange state of affairs for my account right now:

38K in cash

Current cards on the auction block to sell:
90 RB Faulk seeking 150K (after tax)
89 cards x4 seeking about 105K each
88 cards x4 seeking about 90K each
84 Kupp x4 seeking 20K each
Various ATL set cards seeking a total of about 120K

So... if everything were to sell immediately, I'd be sitting on roughly 1.2M in gold. More likely, some of these will sell and others won't and it will be gradual.

I am hoping that the relative abundance of 88 and 89 rated guys at (seemingly) attractive prices was just a mild downswing, rather than a market realignment. For the last week or so I have felt vary comfy buying 89 cards at 80K or less... with expectations that I will be able to sell them at 110K or better. If the party is just over there, and these cards are all just worth 80K now, then I will end up having to sell a lot at a modest loss here. Fingers crossed.

[QuikSand]

Prices are definitely down for some reason…ugh

[QuikSand]

So, I still don’t have a clear picture of what has happened over the last few days… But there is clearly a downward shift in prices overall. I have been watching 89 cards for the last week or two, and had settled into an understanding of their market… 80 K was a comfortable by price, knowing that I would likely be able to sell the card for substantially over 100 K. Now, I think I need to realign that thinking… 70 K is now the comfortable by price,, with hopes that I can sell the card at 85-90k.

[QuikSand]

A bingo for my theme teams in the Veterans release today, one that I felt might be coming. A 91 CB Jason McCourty, who will (in this particular program) be usable with any of the franchises where he has played- including both CLE and MIA. Nice, though he’s out of my price range for a while, likely. Going for more than 200K. But a big double addition.

[Poli]

This is rather fascinating. I tend to play this a lot until my first trip takes me out of town...I miss out on Team of the Week, or some of the weekly challenges and I end up losing interest.

Thank you for sharing this!

[QuikSand]

[QuikSand]

Back up over 500K… prices crept up a click, and I settled for lower sell prices than I had hoped. So it goes.

I have bought the big Ozzie Newsome card and on my theme team he is very very powerful. Plan was to sell him, but now I reckon I’ll just keep him as the focus of our offense. Also have the 88 Jamie Collins out there at ROLB. So, the vein of true Browns continues to creep forward.

[QuikSand]

Looks like a legit market crash today, though I don’t see anyone explaining why. 89 cards that had been selling 85-100k yesterday and this morning are suddenly sitting around at 75 and even less… and I’m on the wrong side, thin in cash and heavy in cards.

[QuikSand]

The market now seems to have pretty much stabilized… It appears that it is now possible to buy training for about 20 gold. That is the easiest way to understand the market, what is the cheapest available training? Two weeks ago, the answer to that was somewhere around 35 gold… It clicked down kind of gradually to around 30 or maybe 27… Yesterday there was a substantial drop in the afternoon, and now that number seems to be about 20.

I have not gone out to forge through the YouTube contact creators, and others, who follow this stuff more closely than I do… Most likely what has happened is EA made some changes in Pack odds. Meaning, there are packages of cards that you can buy on the EA store in game, and when you open them up they have various percent chances to be cards of various levels. Generally speaking, when EA goes in and makes the pack odds more generous on something relatively high profile, that fundamentally realize the relationship between quality cards (training) and the cheapest way to get them. So, this sounds a little bit subtle, but markets are supposed to work this way… If your chance of getting a 90 rated card got bumped up from 5% to 8% when you buy a certain pack… That should cascade through the entire market place and realign what it costs, in fact, to obtain a 90 rated card.

Anyway, I am in the somewhat on the enviable situation of having most of my relatively free resources tied up in cards, rather than in liquid cash or gold. So, there are a bunch of 89 rated cards that I now possess, that I purchased for 80, 75, or 70 K in gold… My hope has been to sell them for 100 K or so, and clear a profit on each. Now, if the market has basically settled at 70 K being the good buy price, maybe all I can get will be 75-80K, less 10% in taxes. It’s not awful, just disappointing.

300K in cash now, and about 900k in asking prices on the block.

[QuikSand]

Right now I am checking out the prices of the component cards for the Andre Rison set, yet again. I still have quite a lot of them in my inventory, it looks like only a couple cards are still priced at absurdly high levels for their overall rating. It may be cheaper to assemble the side, and to just go out and buy the power up card, and the 90 rated top card. I am assessing my options.

If I were to add Rison, I think that probably would allow me to switch my team captain from Lance Alworth to another player, probably Jack Youngblood, to add some depth along my defensive line. That remains perilously thin with actual Browns.