Tactics For Coward?

[CounterFC]

I am not expert but Cup Manipulation isn't fair play for lower level Managers.

[gizzmo]

I am not expert but Cup Manipulation isn't fair play for lower level Managers.

The point of cup draw "manipulation" is not to face lower level managers: I played only 1 in 24 cups. It's to play semi-active or almost dead teams. As mentioned above, I prefer by miles to play a sleeping team 2 levels above me than an active one from the same. For instance, I'm level 21. In my cup this season, the last 16 was made of 14 teams from 21, 1 from 22 and one from 23. Did not see any 20 or below in ca. 80 teams carefully examined.

[Al Svanberg]

I am not expert but Cup Manipulation isn't fair play for lower level Managers.

Look, I think there is one more dimension to this.

To put it like this -- and Top Eleven is hardly unique in this sense -- in an online game, if you need to do something to have any shot at succeeding, can that be immoral?

As an example, lets say 99% of all TE players dumped all players but say 8 last day of the season, and had six 1 star players, it would be completely impossible to win the Cup if you didn't "manipulate" the draw. Right? At every stage, you would face someone that is 2-3 levels above me at least. By what standards would it be "immoral" to as a new player do the same thing? Its a simple question to answer, that wouldn't be immoral. Someone might think otherwise, but by the standards we have in our society, its not even close to being immoral.

To apply this on TE, lets first acknowledge that far from 99% of the players do this. How big of a portion of all managers are active to start with? 25%? 50%? 10%? How many of all active managers do this? 25%? 50%? 10%? So there are no easy answers.

But what is right thing to do?

-If everyone did this, it would be 100% fair and even playing field. Right? But everyone cannot do this, not that many know how the system works etc.

-If nobody did this, it would be 100% fair. But that is not the case either. Its so common that if you do not do it, you will be eliminated by someone 2-4 levels above you. Is that fair for the loosing manager? So should he do the same thing?

-Can you do it only a little? IE not keep your 14 best players, but maybe only your top 12? Top 13?

What I did last season was so sell off a few depth players late in the season -- 100% instead of -- early this season. I kept my top 12 players, and had a few free academy players on my roster that evened things out. This year in the Cup, I have exclusively played managers at least 1 lvl higher than me, and many 2 levels higher than me. I think that has been fairly "fair" IMO. I suspect that if I had kept my best 3 subs, I would have started to play managers 3 levels above me and that is just too much. And at least 2-3 of those guys would have manipulated the system and come in with 160-190% teams (which is really easy for a lvl 7 manager against a lvl 4 manager, they just need a 100% team to be 160% against me). And I think its just ridiculous to claim that it "still is possible" to beat someone 50-60% better than you. Sure its possible, once every 10th or 15th time you play them.

So I don't really agree with someone coming in full throttle attacking someone not keep all best players late in the season. Its pretty grey what to do from my POV.

Just my humble opinion!