Originally Posted by
julien12
My opinion (based on several seasons of trying to run a near zero token, second team): it is possible but requires luck to get a good draw and discipline to never let your team get too strong. In order to use YA players as next seasons starters, without additional spend, your team can never get much stronger than 80%. Most YA players are in the high 50s to low 60s in quality. For a modest spend you can get that into the 70s and 80s but the question here is what is possible without spend. So if your league/CL/Cup group only ranges up to the 80s or 90s then you can be competitive with a team in the 80s - that will next season start in the 60s. As long as all of your players are <22yo they will gain pretty efficiently from just trainings and frequent games. Regular game play is most important which means you cannot have many functional backups. In this scenario your team will start in the low 60s and end in the low 80s and as long as the teams you are grouped with are in the same range then it comes down to formation and tactics. It takes a bit of discipline to not buy a player - even a cheap auction player - that will vault you up in quality but then ruin your draw the next season (unless you sell at end of season).
I find it easier to run a low-cost team (versus a no-cost team). With a few tokens I can make second and third week auction purchases at a very low cost for really decent players (80s to 90s in quality). As they are usually older they don’t train as well but I plan to sell them on the last day of the season anyway so I don’t need to them to ‘grow’. Also, getting on a good association team has been an epiphany. Getting 50T for Gold1 (or 100T for Platinum - hopefully next season) is huge. So here I am spending tokens that I don’t have to pay cash for. As for cash, I find the monthly card to be a very good value. I’ve tried seasons with it and without it and find I end up with a lot more options - and have more fun - with the additional daily tokens. Between the 94T per season of the monthly card, the 50T for being in a Gold1 association and daily farming for greens (estimating 12+ greens per day in the bank plus one additional video per player to improve their condition between games) I find I can train my players regularly and keep my whole team in the 80s to 90s range (by end of season) three out of every four seasons. That does not guarantee me winning the league, CL or Cup but it does keep me very competitive most seasons.