Need Confirmation!

[ponzu]

I've noticed that the entire squad's rating is used now

No one confirmed or disputed this? And was this re: Cup, CL, League, or all three?

I am LV6... scratch that, big LV7 now!... and just started figuring things out midway through the last season. Reading the forum helps, but you oldtimers have no idea how confusing the info here can be. There are three problems that I see:

- people writing in shorthand that only their peers understand
- people writing in very bad English
- old information (dated 2013 and 2014) being stickied and published as guides and how-tos with no way to judge whether it's still current as the game gets updated.

But I digress. In the first 5 seasons I would buy the highest rated player I could get my hands on whenever I made enough cash, and then sell the lowest rated player in the same position (or the one I could get the most money back for). I did this throughout the season and typically finished with 5* through 3* players.

Last season, I found the forum and read about selling players as they get to X4 and X9 quality and also about selling off the high rated players at the end of season and not buying new high rated players until the draw -- in order to get better draws. A real eye opener was seeing screenshots of some top tier teams here in the forum that are full of 1* benchwarmers.

Still, I don't think I have read or seen enough. I had no idea about only the top 14 (or top 11) being used. I bought some 3* and low 4* players towards the end and sold off many of my 5* players, and still got into a Level 10 cup being a Level 7 team. My average Q is about 47+, but my first team is 49+.

Now I am guessing we are hours away from the league draw and I am watching with envy these Q54 players in the transfer market not daring to grab them for fear of ending up in a tougher league (I finished #4 last year after winning three seasons; the guy who won the league was a level 15 sandbagger playing with us level 6s).

My question is: is there a universal or at least universally understood strategy for buying and selling at the end and beginning of season for the purpose of getting the best draw in C, CL and League? Maybe there is a guide I should read.

My second question is: am I correct in waiting until the League draw to start bidding on the Q53-54 players (highest available in my transfer market)?

Thanks!

[legendqueen]

No one confirmed or disputed this? And was this re: Cup, CL, League, or all three?

I am LV6... scratch that, big LV7 now!... and just started figuring things out midway through the last season. Reading the forum helps, but you oldtimers have no idea how confusing the info here can be. There are three problems that I see:
..

Thanks!

I didnt know level 7 was so hard like this, for me things are going easily as i'm level 6.

League and Champion league's draws are generated only based on the level of your team, regardless the quality of your players.

About your question, if you want easy cup draw, at the end of the season, sell all your squad, except for 6-9 players with 6-7 stars rating. Buy 3 star players to fill in until you get enough 14 players, you can also get 1 star players by signing contracts from the club's young academy.
The range 6 - 9 is decided by whether you have enough token to fight for new players / buying scouts or not.
At the start of new season, take a look at your upcoming Cup opponent, if he's strong, rush some token into the market to buy new players/scouts. If he's not, take your time, wait few days until the market is cool off then buy, that way you can save some tokens.

[Joseph Sjarifudin]

14 is the magic number, but I think it's 11 for the league.
This was my team at the end of last season so take a * off of each player to see how they lined up yesterday. I'll tell you tomorrow if it's an average of the 14 players for the league, or 11.
I got caught out last season as, although I got a great Cup draw my 2* team was in a 5* league

Seem for League not top 11 player but overall team quality, my top 11 player avg 71.0 (6*) while my team quality at 64.1 (4*)


League table, no 6* team, 1 team 3* + 3 team 5* and rest 4*

[Bunzo]

@ Ponzu
What is a "Sandbagger " ?

[Ahlony Wong]

hate the "cheat" drawing...for those sell players in the last day to lower the team quality for meeting the lower LV team... this system should be change to the whole season overall quality of the top 14 (or 11 players whatever ) instead... or just random for +- 1 LV ...

[legendqueen]

hate the "cheat" drawing...for those sell players in the last day to lower the team quality for meeting the lower LV team... this system should be change to the whole season overall quality of the top 14 (or 11 players whatever ) instead... or just random for +- 1 LV ...

Haha, i used to hate this way too, i love my squad so much that i dont want to sell any of them at the end of the season.
But it's the best way to win Cup, or you can only bet on your luck, because the element of surprise is too BIG in cup matches, a team with 5Q higher, counter formation, manager presence would still lose.
On the other hand, if you have too many "valuable" players in your squad (young, 6-7 stars, have SAs), you cant follow this strategy, no one wants to sell those players!
But i suggest, we shouldn't build a team with 100% fast trainer, should only use them on important positions: AMR/AML/MC/DL/DC, other positions we should use regular players bought from market, use them for 1 season, then sell them. They are so called "the expendables"

[ponzu]

@ Ponzu
What is a "Sandbagger " ?

A sandbagger in general is someone who engages in sandbagging, i.e., deliberately underperforming in order to lull the opposition into false sense of security and strike at the right moment. A sandbagger in TE, in my mind, is someone who is L15 and playing in a L6 league. Like the guy who won my last league. Most of his first team were fully developed 5-6* with multiple positions and special abilities. He must have tanked several seasons to train them. I don't have a record of his team to figure out how he got into a L6 league. Perhaps he had a bunch of 1* players. This goes against the explanation that was given above, so I have to ask/think again how he did it. His average Q was not much higher than the rest of the league, but if each player has a special ability, that's worth about 3* by my calculation that is not part of the official rating. So perhaps the leagues are formed by average quality and not level after all?

The trick with selling off players at the end for a better cup draw does not seem very attractive to me. I would rather play and think like a real manager and build my team steadily by buying and developing the best players and being loyal to the best performing players even if their rank does not reflect their production. Around L5 and early in L6 I thought the rank was everything, so I sold off my start performers from previous seasons just because players with 4 more stars became available as my level increased. A lot of these acquisitions did not pan out. I have since read that newly acquired players often don't do well for a while. I don't know if that's the "official" community wisdom or just one manager's opinion.

Anyway, I won the cup the very first season I joined (where I was given a random team in the middle of a season and a cup draw). I won three rounds and the cup and thought "wow, that was easy". So at least I got that out of my system. I have won one CL and three leagues since -- before I came to the forums. The forums made everything harder because now I overthink everything. But I don't think I could have gone on without the forums. I was sinking in my L6 league fast and ended up clawing my way into the 4th spot in the last two rounds -- thanks to what I learned about the formations and tactics.

[ponzu]

I didnt know level 7 was so hard like this, for me things are going easily as i'm level 6.

League and Champion league's draws are generated only based on the level of your team, regardless the quality of your players.

About your question, if you want easy cup draw, at the end of the season, sell all your squad, except for 6-9 players with 6-7 stars rating. Buy 3 star players to fill in until you get enough 14 players, you can also get 1 star players by signing contracts from the club's young academy.
The range 6 - 9 is decided by whether you have enough token to fight for new players / buying scouts or not.
At the start of new season, take a look at your upcoming Cup opponent, if he's strong, rush some token into the market to buy new players/scouts. If he's not, take your time, wait few days until the market is cool off then buy, that way you can save some tokens.

I don't know if L7 will be hard as it just started. Everything was easy through L5. L6 was a nightmare as I was losing to teams with lower Q. When I got spanked 0:7 by a team that on paper was my equal, I went to the forums for the first time. That's where I found out that formations matter and that some formations can counter other formations. I played the last game of the season against the same guy (he had clinched the league with 1 loss by then) and beat him 3:1 on his pitch. And I did not even give my guys a bonus as the win or loss did not affect my standings, I had clinched the 4th. I credit my rise from 8th to 4th to the wisdom of the forums. But what makes it so hard is that the information is so spread out, and some of it seems speculative. Also, getting partial information could we worse than not having any information, as was the case with me sitting back for two days (after the Cup started, but before the league) and not buying any high quality players. I will find the guide where the author says not to buy high Q players for the first 3 days as this will affect your league draw. You seem to disagree?

So let me get this straight:

Cup draw depends on the average Q of your top 14 players.

CL and League draw depend on your manager's Level?

I am L7 and ended up in a L10 cup because I did not figure out how to play the "selloff" game in time, and probably won't bother next season. I am in a L7 league and L7 CL and everyone seems to be L7. But I distinctly remember playing against higher level managers in late rounds of CL in previous seasons, and I know for a fact that the guy who won my last league (and beat me 7:0 in the process) was L15. I wrote about him in the last post. I made him my friend when the league was all but over and I can see he is not L16. With that said, he and I started the same month last year. I made top four in every season and got promoted to the next level. Plenty of people I friended in L1-L2 are now 1 or 2 levels behind me (I assume because they did not make top 4 -- or how does the game decide whether to promote the manager to the next L). So it is not clear me how a guys who started the same month as me managed to play 9 more seasons.

Perhaps he started early in 2015, got to L9 and then started a new L1 team while retaining his manager level, his skills and probably his tokens? If that's possible (and applies here), then the league and CL draw is not based on the manager's level, but the team level? How would that be calculated and where is it shown? Perhaps I need to look around the browser version rather than always being stuck in the app.

[t11_fan]

Some guys already use this strategy in the cup, it is long term strategy. The best way to decrease avQ is to keep few (at least 4) 0T academy players in team (as reserves). Instead of improving them by adding SP to skills, you should train special ability or new position for that player to spend SP. That is better than saving skill points because you could auto add them by accident. More promotions you get, more influence would they take to the stars average.
2 seasons ago I've faced such opponent in the cup (1 level above me), his 1st team had 7* players and 1* players (according to my level). He lost the cup finals against team which had 9* players and 1* players, but whose avQ was equal as mine.
It is unfair strategy, but the cup is unfair competition by default, so...

[Ahlony Wong]

Haha, i used to hate this way too, i love my squad so much that i dont want to sell any of them at the end of the season.
But it's the best way to win Cup, or you can only bet on your luck, because the element of surprise is too BIG in cup matches, a team with 5Q higher, counter formation, manager presence would still lose.
On the other hand, if you have too many "valuable" players in your squad (young, 6-7 stars, have SAs), you cant follow this strategy, no one wants to sell those players!
But i suggest, we shouldn't build a team with 100% fast trainer, should only use them on important positions: AMR/AML/MC/DL/DC, other positions we should use regular players bought from market, use them for 1 season, then sell them. They are so called "the expendables"

5Q higher? then you never taste what is the CUP with high level....
LV7 against LV11...Q62.1 all 7 star is my first team in LV7 (last season)...against LV11...Q78~ fair enough? in LV7...even if i use 1800+ token for person train for only 1 player... my highest Q can get right away is Q74~ fair enough for this cheating concept? this have to be changed! draw for the top 14 players for whole season quality, or go it for just random in +-2 LV is ok, but never in last day quality! (in the real world, can any team do this cheat drawing?? NO! )