Der Ryan is surely right there with the suggestion of avoiding tankers and +1 level draws.

And also, the chance of being drawn with manipulators will increase when quality goes higher (skilful manipulators tend to keep several key positions with strong players), so keeping our team quality lower would generally help in getting an easier draw, but then season-starting best-14 @60% does not always get a ‘better’ draw than @80%.

There are way, way more poor tankers than skilful manipulators, in terms of game knowledge and skills, so better go lower % whenever suitable.