MUT22 - No Money Spent (Madden Ultimate Team)

[QuikSand]

The 96 Ricky opened in the mid 400s, I was trying to buy lower, it’s already slid up to 550…ugh

[QuikSand]

I may have been insufficiently greedy… sold in tiers upward, now my last batch at 259,999 look like they may go at that price. $$$$$

[QuikSand]

New all time high of 6.5M in cash, plus 2x 96 Ricky cards. This paid off really well.

[QuikSand]

Market abruptly off a cliff to about 6 this morning… I’m treating it as if it’s very temporary and buying cards for training, just in case. Gonna need to juice up my new Ricky, at the very least, right?

[QuikSand]

Will try to ignore the 90 Ricky cards currently selling near 400k. Wow.

[QuikSand]

So, my instincts were correct for the most part… I was right at the car was coming, I was right about the direction of the prices on each of the components. I made lots of small chunks of coins by buying up and selling the component parts of the Ricky Williams set, frequently clearing 10 K on a card that’s worth 2K. I was also right that the 90 card would go up in price while there was immediate demand today, and I made a handsome profit doing so. What I underestimated was the magnitude of the change there, in particular. I was buying cards as high as 110, thinking that my eventual sale price might be something like 150. As prices kept going up I kept selling off a few more and more, 160, 190, 220… I just was not imaginative enough to see the card going into the high 300s. So, I made plenty of money buying at 110 and selling at 220, somebody else made lots of money buying at my 220 and selling at 375. So it goes.

[QuikSand]

Looks like I figured this more or less correctly… the market abruptly dropped from ~10 to ~6 … I missed that moment but did a lot of buying while I could buy 91 cards at around 6.5 per. So that’s a nice cache of training if/when I need it.

Picked up some Ravens cards too. :whistles and looks away:

Now the prices have drifted up to 8… so this doesn’t feel like a fundamental change arising from something like a big pack odds change.

[QuikSand]

So, among the special 96 cards that were available to people who had special presents under their tree on the 25th… There was a goofball Derrick Henry as a quarterback card. I have mentioned my general disdain for these out of position weird cards, but the potential is there for this card to be very fun to play with… If he is a genuinely fast and frighteningly powerful runner who can at least throw credibly well, that could be pretty entertaining.

Now, while I was spending most of my energy on Ricky Williams… The market for this card was going berserk. By night time on the 25th, it was selling for around 1.2 million coins.

EA then made an announcement that they were going to make available these special Christmas present cards as limited time only, available in packs, for 48 hours each. Derek Henry’s card is currently available, and will be through Wednesday morning. I don’t know what the play is here, I remain pretty confident that this card will be popular and interesting, and in demand after its availability is over… But with the extra wave of cards becoming available through this LTD availability, will that add supply, and reduce prices? I have bought three copies of the card today, at around 500 K apiece. My instinct is to spend almost all of my money buying this card, to get eight or nine copies, in hopes that in a week or two they are back to 900 K or so. But my confidence is not especially high that this will be true. So, I expect I will keep these three Derrick Henry cards, carry one extra Ricky Williams card, and buy one extra Marlon Humphrey card, in hopes that they all appreciate in value in the short to medium term… And then I can sell them at a 50% markup in two weeks or so.

We’ll see. Confidence not high here.

[QuikSand]

Even if this bet pays off overall, I missed the market “bottom” for sure… Henry at just under 400K right now, wow.

[QuikSand]

So, what the hell… Since I have 96 Derrick Henry sitting on my roster at quarterback, and I have been grousing about feeling unfulfilled at quarterback… Why not connect the obvious dots here? I now have a roster with a powered up Derrick Henry, a maxed out Ricky Williams, and my best possible office of line, surrounded by a still maxed out dolphins chemistry roster. This is going to be interesting for a while. This running game is very hard to stop… I just run RPO plays and pick between two devastating ball carriers. Henry is barely adequate as a passer but who cares?

[QuikSand]

Apparently, EA messed up yesterday and failed to get these 96 players into the packs that people were opening, trying to get the special players. Short version is, this kind of thing happens apparently, and usually there is a so-called make right to compensate those who were harmed by the mistake. That may mean a wave of free 96 cards being handed out to people who acted in good faith… And that could depress the price of these two cards long-term. I think I’m sitting on four copies of Henry, and two copies of the safety… It’s possible I just end up substantially upside down on those theoretical investments.

(Please forgive audio typos)

[QuikSand]

Current status - of the LTD 99 cards I’ve mentioned:
5x Derrick Henry QB
3x Isaiah Simmons
3x Ricky Williams
1x Marlon Humphrey

Just below 3m in cash/coins

[QuikSand]

The 96 cards that were available Mon-Tue this week as “limited” crashed to basically minimum pricing: they quick sell for 250,000 coins, so posting at around 278Kvis a break even offering for the seller. I bought several, and now only two days later there are signs they will generate at least some profit… selling into the 330-350 range today.

The 96 Ricky Williams and Marlon Humphrey are still available under 300k as they’re in packs through today and there’s little else to do in game right now.

Overall market is way up… cheapest training is around 11, I’m surprised. Maybe I ought to sell off the 10-15 91 cards I had been sitting on for training… seems like this has to be a high water mark.

[QuikSand]

Just nothing to write about. Market is up a bit, as we're in "staleflation" when there's no new content so people who want to do something (especially those who just got the game for Xmas) just go and buy cards out there for sale... demand remains high, while there's little new content.

Rumor is a new wave of players coming this week... maybe another Team Builders or something similar, a one-per-team program designed to help the theme teams out there who are lacking here or there. I'd welcome that.

Playoff cards will be coming fairly soon, and that will mean extra cards for the teams in the NFL playoffs this year...for my Browns, Dolphins, and even maybe Ravens.... not so much. Ugh.

[QuikSand]

Right now I am playing a Miami-based roster, but with only the required 50 Dolphins to max out those players with chemistry bonuses, and then other MPA guys sprinkled in elsewhere. QB Derrick Henry is absurd, SS Simmons is pretty nutso as well. It will do until one of my theme teams gains a new in-scheme high end QB and then I will switch back to a pure theme team from either CLE or MIA.

[QuikSand]

Looks like the market dropped today from 10+ to around 9. Beats me. Who the fuck cares? I’m bored.

Campus Heroes coming Friday, so a batch on basically random “good player” cards. What might alter my mood? RG3? Bernie Kosar? Daunte Culpepper? Keith Jackson? I dunno…

[QuikSand]

Market down to around 8.5... I still don't know why, I'm assuming it's related to the swell of 96 cards (non-tradeable) handed out as "make-rights" for a server glitch several days ago. Everyone affected got a free pick of QB Derrick Henry or SS Simmons - two of the glitchiest cards in the game. So their price is now depressed, perhaps permanently, bad for my "investments" of maybe 10 of them, combined.

Campus Heroes out later this morning (only 94s, so not advancing the envelope at all, just fill-ins I guess), so far zero cards I have seen that fit any of my teams and so my yawnfest continues. I have a vent on the QB Henry card I could let loose here, if I gather the motivation to type it up.

Whatevs.

[QuikSand]

So, among the 10+2 boss Campus Heroes from today we yet again get one guy who made his name elsewhere but grabbed a snack in Cleveland while washed up, OLB Brad Van Pelt. Looks fine, I’ll grind some challenges to get him, but I’m not going to get excited about him. Meh.

Miami totally strikes out, just like with the whole Bo Knows program. Kiddo’s Chargers also get zip.

[QuikSand]

The market is down pretty substantially today, 91 rated cards that quick sale for 7000 training… I am finding them reliably for 45K or less. That’s back down to a training price of 6 1/2 or thereabouts… Which we have not seen for weeks. I’m going to buy several, just in case this is temporary, but I’m hoping this is a general realignment.

[QuikSand]

Online trackers show the market down around 6… so there must have been some pack odds change to make this happen. Last year I don’t think things got a lot lower than this level, so… maybe here it is?

Servers down during my bout of insomnia natch.

[QuikSand]

So, I am now motivated by lack of something interesting to do, taking another look at all the component parts of the Andre Rison set, one of the team diamonds series that was pretty hot several weeks ago. My theory is that many of these plays are showing up again in higher level form… EA is cheap enough to have limited the number of players in the game, reducing costs and buying their rights.

If I’m right, Rison is a big enough name, that if he shows up again as a 9697 or 98 level player, he will be in big demand… He also played for multiple teams, and that adds to his value for those of us doing theme teams. Many such people will be looking for his 90 card to do a full power up, and that should drive up the cost not only of those cards, but also the component parts of its set. What was once a very lively market for these various gold cards has very much cold, and I am just scooping them up for 2000 coins and under… In hopes that the market will one day go bonkers again, and I can pick up these dusty old cards and sell them for 5000, 10,000, 20,000, whatever the ridiculous market might bear.

(Please forgive audio typos)

[QuikSand]

Today, a new wave of "Team of the Week" cards pent up as they held back this program for a few weeks. This wave might give me something to do, at least, as there are multiple impacts on my theme teams:

Dolphins:

-a 92 Duke Johnson card, in the receiving back archetype, likely better than the Reggie Bush I have been running as my complement to Big Ricky, nice

-a 92 Jakeem Grant WR card, which has blazing speed but tiny size, but likely to step in as our lead PR/KR and in the rotation for jet sweeps, etc

Browns:

-a 97 Limited Edition (expensive) Odell Beckham JR card (harkening back to his heyday with the NYG), suddenly probably the best receiver in the game and WAY better than anything on the Browns theme team, wow

-a low-rated 85 card for Miles Garrett, which means he will have an additional +1 on his power-up card for now (though I'm hoping he also gets a Team of the Year or season awards card soon to max out)



Pretty big impacts, after a few weeks of feeling fairly neglected.

[QuikSand]

Announced for tomorrow:

Baker Mayfield pic.twitter.com/erywAnwB5F

— MUTality (@MUTality7) January 12, 2022

[QuikSand]

and also...

Joel Bitonio pic.twitter.com/40f5yWvEGW

— MUTality (@MUTality7) January 13, 2022

[QuikSand]

It appears that the market has settled, and the new training price is around 4 1/2 coins. That’s great, even though I was pretty heavily invested in cards purchased at a training price of around six… This is still on balance pretty good news.

I am not paying as close attention as I was earlier this year… Function of many things… But I presume that there were some new packs available in the E a store that were more generous in turning out quality cards at relatively low prices. Generally speaking, it’s just a matter of time until the change in park odds results in an overall realignment in the market… That seems very likely to be what has happened here.

Anyway…10 days ago a boring 92 rated card (10,000 training) was selling for about 90-100K. Then they bumped down to the 60-ish range. Now 40K if you’re lucky. Just recalibrate, this feels permanent.

[QuikSand]

Well, a lot going on in Madden world, not a lot for me I'm still sorta bored.
I have grabbed the two new 92 Dolphins cards, and have put some time into playing with them - Jakeem Grant is indeed a nifty return guy, super-agile. Duke Johnson is an improvement on the Reggie Bush card as my 3rd down back, but to be honest Ricky Williams is still probably better than Duke in that capacity, despite not being as shifty - he's just that good overall.

Still playing Dolphins-50 with non-theme players sprinkled in, and out-of-position Derrick Henry at QB.

It's dumb, Henry plays more or less like a powerful but mobile QB... he's basically the same card as, say, Jalen Hurts. Instead of making these OOP cards physical freaks who are lacking in position-specific skills, they have made them into titanic stars who carry over most of their base athletic skills and then magically have plenty-good-enough pure skills for their fake positions. We get it, real life Derrick Henry occasionally tosses a 9 yard TD pass to a wide open guy on a trick play. And I would be just fine with an OOP card letting him be a RB behind center, who can pass the ball at a just-barely-adequate level... got it, fine. Sort of like running a full time wildcat offense, fine. But making him a precise, solid passer -- like as effective as most NFL starters at routine 15-yard-out timing patterns against man coverage? Dumb.

Same goes for DK Metcalf at CB -- don't give him great "cover skills" just make him a tall strong athlete who could line up at the position and sometimes outjump the other guy. Not a lock down cover man, too. Bo Jackson at MLB, Calvin Johnson at FS, on and on. It's a stupid perversion of football, and I hate that using guys like this is essentially the way to make your team the best it can be.

Browns got a 95 Baker, and I just bought it... I will likely buy the new 97 Joel Bitonio and power him up to be my first 98 rated player. OBJ is super expensive, over 1.5M and I just couldn't bite the bullet for more than half my cash, so I guess i sit him out -- I will be able to power up my current OBJ to something like 94-95 and he will be a new WR1 for Baker. Irony abounds, running back to run the Browns team so I can feast on the Baker-to-Odell connection when both sides of that have since fallen apart in real life.

Alas.

[Travis]

Agreed, the OOP stuff would be way more fun/interesting if they came with a downside to really make you have to play the game differently vs, as you say, just having an all around star at the spot. Glad to see you got some solid additions for the Browns team, even if it means a pretty ironic way to light things up.

[QuikSand]

Thanks... I'm guessing this weekend will be a return to a pure Browns team for me.

[QuikSand]

Browns team re-engaged. The 97 OBJ just got away from me… opened around 1.5M, stopped to maybe 1.3, but now up around 1.8 as there’s no more supply (two day limited edition card). So, mine is powered up to 95, as far as I can go without the boss card.

Same story, smaller numbers with the 97 Bitonio. It dropped to around 360 and I waited in hope of it falling further. Now at 500 and I feel like a fool, burned by the 10-12 96-rated cards I’m still sitting on. Ugh.

[QuikSand]

Well, I'm fairly bored with playing football games in Madden, and agitated every time I open my "binder" and see all these fucking 96 Ricky Williams and 96 Derrick Henry cards bought "as investments" only to see them never budget really at all. ugh.

Anyway, my latest f-around scheme has been back to old reliable. I have been seeing lots of good players from early sets get revivals when a new, high-rated version of the player gets released. Presumably, EA is just so cheap that rather than pay two all-time players for their rights, they will just pay for Johnny Unitas and use him in two different promos this season. Makes sense.

Anyway - long story short: I'm betting on a new, great, card coming for Andre Rison

Now, I have detailed here my fascination with him from earlier this year - he was part of the Team Diamonds promo set, one great player from years past from each franchise, and a 25-card set required to complete in order to get the 90-rated card and his lower-rated Power-Up card. Pleas each one gave you a token, and a full set o those tokens got you the coveted 95 Dan Marino every-team card.

I coveted, and got, the Atlanta player 90 WR Andre Rison, in part because he played for the Browns and looked like the best WR out there for my Browns theme team. I remained enchanted as I realized he played for 5-6 teams,making him not only a good player but a really useful card for theme teams.

Fast forward to now. Let's say they come out with a 97 or 98 Rison card sometime ahead. He's a good enough card that he's one many people might want to play, but that he'd also be a must-have for theme team players like me who are running any/some of the various teams he played for.

Many like me will already have the Power Up and the 90 card, and just need training to power that guy up to near-max, and then a copy of the top card to max him out.

But many will have to start from scratch. Meaning they are going to need his 90 card, and there are two ways to get that:

-buy it in the auction house
-create it by completing the still-active Team Diamonds set

So, in anticipation of this happening, I have been doing two obvious things:

-buying multiple copies of all the component cards for the Rison set

-creating copies of the 90 card to have on hand (thins out the binder and has me nimble)

So, that is me spending money. However, there's another wrinkle that's not too obvious:

-When I am buying low-end cards, i fairly often buy the entire group for sale... that 75 rated card that has a fair value of, say, 1,000 coins... I'm buying not only the 850 and the 900 but then the 1,100 and the 1350 too. And no there are no copies left so...

-I am posting one or more of my copies for sale at inflated prices. That 75 card, I am posting him at 6,999 - basically a silly price, but I'm doing so understanding the psychology here. Why would you want him badly? He's a 75, useless. But of you want him badly, it's because you want to do this set... you see that the 90 Rison is still going for a healthy price of maybe 70,000 coins (well over training price). Presumably you have 23 of the 25 pieces needed for the set... and a price of 7,000 rather than 1,500 is annoying but unlikely to be enough to say "well I'll just wait a couple more days" so you just suck it up and buy it.

Anyway, my buy/sell log is just jammed of late with these stories... bought 6 copies of the same card averaging maybe 1,000...then basically paid for the whole lot by selling one at a 6,000 marked-up price. I am accumulating a lot of this fodder just off the small profits of buying low and selling absurdly high, on a small scale but many times over.

I am surely the main contributor to the price of the 90 Rison drifting upward to 60-70-80K or so. The real hope is that if/when a big Rison card does come, it will trigger a rush for a while on these 90s, and I will be ready - the 10x or so that I have in hand can sell at 120 or 150K or whatever the market will bear at its zenith. And these remaining component pieces will go up as well, when someone who has lots of little pieces around wants to cash in on the 120K sale price for the 90 card, maybe he will pay my absurd 15,000 price for the 75-rated card that I bought in January for 850.


Anyway, it's something to do. Beats, you know, playing challenges and stuff. Actually football games, yawn.

[QuikSand]

The pent-up Team of the Week dropped (delayed) Tuesday night, and as usual some of them overran the market and drove down prices. I now own about 35 of the 92-rated cards from that wave... purchased at around 41K each, by my guess. My expectation is that like last week, these will drift back into a balance, and likely will sell for more like 55-65K within a few days. Just looking for a quick hit... turn 1.4m into 1.8m or something like that.

[QuikSand]

Market has dropped, it seems permanently (?), to nuder 5 coins/training. My big plunge into the 92 TOTW cards won't turn big profits, but likely...tiny ones?

Latest wave of cards has been good to the Dolphins, where I could get back to a pure theme team before long. New cards for them include 5 guys from the Team Diamonds 2 set - all 95 rated players build-able through collecting 20 various rated cards from the same franchise. MIA lucky to have three other teams' stars also visit the Dolphins roster:

TE Keith Jackson (have been aching for this card)
DE Mario Williams
OLB Joey Porter
and their own, FB Larry Csonka

Jackson is a total bingo, hugely needed. Williams should be a big boost, and Porter is already my ROLB1 pass rusher on that team, he'll just get a LOT better. All good turns, though the FB is a low-impact position, sadly.

Add in the 94 RT Liam Eichenberg and I have a full click or two of improvement on the pure-Dolphins roster there.

Had been expecting to go back to play MIA once they released a Tua card...maybe that won't wait.

[QuikSand]

On the Browns theme team, the TD2 promo is a major miss - only CLE eligible player is LT Joe Thomas, giving him a decent bump but also signaling that he won't get a maxed-out Ultimate Legend card later this season, dang. He'll be plenty good with this bump, but the roster could have used some other guys for sure.

On the field, it's rather depressing (keeping in mind the actual Browns irl) since among my highest profile new acquisitions, Odell is balling out and Baker is just ass. Ugh.

[QuikSand]

lots of updates, just need time to write up...

[QuikSand]

A fair but has happened since my last substantive update. Super quick rundown here.

Profit-seeking ventures, both resolved and in progress:

Investing in 96-rated Xmas "gift" cards - got sabotaged by EA running each of them as a Limited Edition after their announced one-time giveaway, then further sunk by "make rights" for some game glitch giving tone of people one of these for free -- result: medium losses

Ivesting in Andre Rison futures - still unresolved, but they just turned another 90-rated WR from the same set into a "Legend" card (Charlie Joiner) and it accomplished what I want here - Joiner's 90 card rocketed from 45K for 125K in a day and people are going nuts to do the set for that card... it's profitable at both levels (selling high on the 90, and gouging people buying the component pieces)...as long as Rison eventually gets a similar treatment, I am sitting on 20+ copies of the 90 card and lots of components... status: in progress

Buying cheap training before a market spike - on rumors that the Team of the Year release would spur demand for cards and drive prices up generally, I spent down around 2.5m coins to nearly zero, mostly buying 94-rated cards for under 100K coins (price or around 5.0/training). Market as predicted went up, though not hugely - sold a lot of those cards off around 130-140K, for a tidy profit, and sold several of the cards for training to refurbish both MIA and CLE rosters. Result: solid gain

So... at the moment, I'm back around 2m in cash, but rosters are FAR stronger than they were last time I did a serious rundown. My Browns roster is nearly maxed out (I still regret not buying semi-low on the big OBJ card) ... but I have drifted back to the Dolphins and have stripped them back to being a pure theme team again.

[QuikSand]

The "PhinsUp" All-Dolphins team has gained some real ground:

Who I'm using now
...and who's out there who might improve the team

QB still running around with 90 Mariota, he's mobile and plenty good
...the 95 Marino is really the only other legit Dolphin QB around

RB 97 Ricky Williams, with 93 Duke Johnson sprinkled in as receiving back
...receiving backs 96 Kenyon Drake and 96 Thurman Thomas

WR 97 Jaylen Waddle, 96 DeVante Parker, and 95 Brandon Marshall
...we're maxed out here, likely for a while

TE 98 Mike Gesicki, 96 Keith Jackson (and I use FB Csonka as TE3)
...maxed out and likely this is it, very solid

OL really improved due to two fake team chem cards... current OL starters are:
97 Boselli - 94 Saffold - 90 Pouncey - 90 Hunt - 95 Eichenberg
...not superb, but plenty good, would take a big card to improve

DT 93 Christian Wilkins and 94 Ndamokong Suh start inside
DE 95 Jason Taylor and 95 Jack Youngblood start outside
OLB 93 Jalen Phillips and 96 Joey Porter
...several guys out there who may be helpful: 97 Robert Quinn, 96 Mario Williams atop the list

MLB Junior Seau 97, mostly use formations without anyone else
...there's a monster all-team-chem 98 Luke Kuechly, but that's far away

CB 98 Bobby McCain (?) and 95 Byron Jones start, 92 Jason McCourty in slot, 85 Xavien Howard depth and sits around awaiting a big card, surely coming

S 93 Kam Chancellor, 93 Eric Rowe, 97 Minkah Fitzpatrick, 94 Jordan Whitehead

...all told, a solid group. Not spotless, but we're now past the "omg we have nobody to play there." Will keep tinkering with pass rusher options, in search of the right combo - have lots of guys with flexibility between OLB/DE.


Still really eager for some program to wheel out and honor a big wave of younger players who are doing well but stuck on runt cards...for Miami that would be S Jevon Holland, QB Tua Tagovailoa. Give me an effective Tua card and I will likely sink in with this roster for some time ahead.

I'm around 3m in coins/cash. Keep fiddling around with 94-rated cards at roughly training price... just buying under 100K and posting them around 120-130, and usually getting a sale before too long, it's a grind but a pleasant one.

...and still awaiting a big Andre Rison card.

[QuikSand]

Given the stuff in the real life news these days… Maybe I’m doing it wrong. I’m stocking my dolphins and browns theme teams with good players, trying to win games. Maybe I’m doing it wrong? Maybe the higher up brass wants me to lose games, instead?

[QuikSand]

Big market plunge today … from nearly 6 to around 4.3 now. Guessing it’s related to the promo Tom Brady cards out today, maybe juiced pack odds along with them? Anyway, hunting now for 93 cards (13,000 training) selling for 55K or Les LFG

[QuikSand]

The market has crept back up north of five coins per training… I am trying to interpret this as a High Point, and I am selling off a variety of 90 something rated cards I have accumulated over the last couple of weeks. At the moment I am around 4.7 million coins, plus a healthy store of resources related to the Andre Rison card.

[QuikSand]

OK, I am sitting on 5.6 million in cash, but my interest in actually playing this game has waned a great deal. Most days I login, check a few boxes, get my daily bonuses, and log out.

[QuikSand]

What cards do I really WANT?

Dolphins: really, hardly anything. There are a couple cards that might be slight improvements over what I’m running with right now… 96 RB Thurman Thomas, 95DE Mario Williams… But they were just step in for guys who are at most one click below them. There are positions I would like to improve on the dolphins theme team… Safety, center, right guard, defensive tackle. But the cards to do that, simply don’t exist right now. At quarterback, I continue to play with 90 rated Marcus Mariota… The only upgrade available right now is the 95 Dan Marino. They’re apparently was some sort of promotional thing that I missed to get a 92 to a Tagovailoa, but the card from that was not auction of all, so I don’t apparently have any way to buy one.

Browns: a bit more. The big 97 wide receiver OBJ is the obvious thing I covered for that team, he’s still running for more than 1 million coins. There are three or four other players who would be material upgrades for that team, including a DE Malik Jackson, whom I suspect I could play at defensive tackle. I think there are one or two other players where I could make a purchase, and upgrade a position by a couple points. But, at the moment I am not very motivated to play with the Browns.

The big promotion this week will focus on the two teams in this year’s Super Bowl, maybe I get a Larry Ogunjobi card out of it to help the Browns, I can’t think of anything else that would be useful. So, in a holding pattern until something else lands that seems particularly interesting.

I probably already have enough coins on hand to buy all the cards that will help my theme teams for the rest of this year… So in effect I am probably just done with this game. I may keep muddling along, my son and I have been fiddling with a separate team built from daily purchases and packs and lower level challenges, but that is a testament to my boredom with theme team building, as a not very competitive online player.

(please forgive audio typos)

[QuikSand]

Okay, so the maxed-out LTD 97 Thurman Thomas just showed up for sale pretty cheap, so I bought him. I'll deck him out and give him a spin as the Dolphins main receiving back, and see if that adds some flair to our offense. Cool, something to do.

[QuikSand]

Or, I spoke too soon. As usual, if I buy a card cheap and have time before I can get to the console, I tend to toss it on the auction block at an optimistic price. Anyway my $320K Thurman already told for $430k. So, never mind I guess.

[QuikSand]

Market finally back down to 4.5 today, may do some buying. Recent card drops have mostly missed my theme team, but I still feel like doing something.

Post SB there will be a huge 99 card for the MVP where lots of people will get it as a reward for prior set-building (or something)… so an infusion of cash might send the market back up?

[QuikSand]

So, the reality is not all that great. These low prices are mostly a reflection of the oversupply of Super Bowl related players from the last week or two. There are lots of lots of these guys, so the price on those particular cards is coming down… Yes, they can be purchased and quick sold for training, so it makes the cost of training low, but it does not reflect an overall adjustment in the real marketplace.

Among the Super Bowl cards, the only one that is directly relevant to my theme teams is in 95DE Malik Jackson, whom I believe I can use as a defensive tackle on my Browns team, too good effect.

But when I went out looking for the 95 Dan Marino, the 95 Larry Csonka, and the 95 Joe Thomas… All of those cards are still at more or less the same price as where they were a week ago… Substantially higher than this depressed training value of 120,000 coins for a 95 card.

[QuikSand]

Have 95 Marino out there, decked out with some add-on skills to improve his throwing power. He's solid.

Without the cost of the Mariota add-ons, that freed me up to use the powerful "Human Joystick" on two different players -- receiving back Thurman Thomas, and underneath receiver Jaylen Waddle. This is now a committed passing team, and it feels a bit fun to fiddle around with now.

[QuikSand]

The week ahead looks like it will be busy, a major rebound after the last 2-3 weeks:

-Superbowl MVP 99 card for those who spent $ to earn it weeks ago
-NFL honors cards, likely 97 cards for about 8 high end guys
-New "Team Builders" set, I'm guessing 92-rated, selected to help theme teams
-New program "Gridiron Guardians II" random new good cards, sets
-Launch new Saturday program of Ultimate Legends (topping out at 97?)

Sounds like every day will be a big deal. Also a new "Season 3" starts soon, either this week or next.

I'm basically in stagnant mode, but have $5m in cards. Hit my Dolphins with a nice juicy card for CB Xavien Howard (no-brainer, likely in the GG2 set) and hit me with a big time safety there too, plskthx.

Oh, and shoot me Andre Rison as an ultimate legend sometime soon, so I can cash in this investment. I'm so sure it's coming, one way or another, he just has to come... I'm fully baking in that he'll have a good card coming, to feel like it's a smash hit I want it to be a move-the-market card where lots of people rush to get it. (He was really good, and played for lots of franchises, so there's an angle suggesting this could happen)

[QuikSand]

So, a pretty busy real life week for me, have not really gotten into the stuff very much…

Interesting situation as of today, or really yesterday, with the overall market… It appears there is a massive glut of 95 rated players from the Super Bowl sad, and the market has plunged on those cards in particular. They are selling at an unbelievably low price of about 3.4 coins per training… Well below any level we have seen this whole year. The funny thing is, that apparently sets the market for training, but the rest of the unexciting cards have not followed suit… So buying 95 rated cards from any other set, or just about any other card other than this particular channel of 95s… You are paying a training price of more than four possibly close to five. That is unusual, in my limited experience.

I don’t really have any direct use for any of these 95 Super Bowl cards, but I suppose I will buy a couple just in case this ends up being an absolute floor for training prices. It seems like relatively low risk to do so.

[QuikSand]

Oh, they did include Tua among the recent set of Team Builder III 93-rated cards. By my look, if fully decked out, he’ll be a somewhat better passer than my 90 Mariota, and basically borderline “good enough” on a pass heavy Dolphins theme team. I’ll likely get him suited up to replace the boring Marino, just to add the more contemporary flair.

[QuikSand]

The oddly low prices on the certain 95 cards is over, market has bumped them up from 90K to 110k or so. Nothing to see here.