What is your team building philosophy?
My team is built as a #TeamNoMoneySpent. So most of my cards are NAT and whatever I managed to worked the AH.
On offense.. I don't invest as much. I still use OOP Singletary and OOP Okoye at Guard. I got the TOTY NAT Bell (which is trash) and I completed the Easter Promo for the 4 NAT players. The animations on offense are so redic that I didn't bother going after the big name WRs.. In my experience they all will play the same (they will drop, they will lose tip passes to INTs, they will fumble).
My OLine has all SP abilities atleast 91+ for PBK, RBK, and IMP. I have 1 player with the Identifier chem. (my Guards dont have the 91+ in each stats, but I run cheest stretch and toss plays).
At TE I have Easter VD, TOTY Engram, and I use MH Lane Johnson as another extra blocker.
WRs.... my WR is my Speedy route running guy, WR2 is my best Run blocking WR, WR3 is Combine Ross.
HB I use combo backs (TOTY Bell for power and catching out the backfield) and OOP Vick for tosses.
Pre M17: I would just get the best players I could and those "hidden gem" players that played better than their stats suggested
Now that stats mean shit, I just pick up Niners
Quote from arion875 >> To me this is all moot though. If you like the idea then go ahead, enjoy it. Just don't think it's simulation football though.
Agreed... it's all fantasy football!
So you played an OP team. Got help by EA and then played a lower ovr team and it was harder...
Ideally I would be fielding a Packer-themed squad, but it isn't possible this year (while still being competitive). I didn't care too much about chems until the 5th tier came about, so that has been the basis of building my team.
Offense
Go Deep and toughness chem (pass a lot).
Speed for WR,TE, RB.
Defense
Physical Front and Toughness
91 zone threshold
Secure Tackle
Plays ball in air - Agressive
Big Hitter
Quote from rolsen3 >> I try to get the best players that are a scheme fit for me.
True that!! Or I use Rolsen’s scheme.
i build my squad with the best eagles squad i can then fill in the holes. only downside is maxing out chems can be hard
On offense I try to control the clock and run the ball, so I'll get the best linemen out there along with a couple solid run blocking TEs. I have one big body receiver, one route runner/possession guy, and a burner to take the top off the defense. On defense if you don't have the big hitter trait you simply are not allowed on the team at this stage of the game.
Interesting question.
My first reaction is my priorities are QB and CB.
I'm a chem freak, so I start building for chems immediately.
As the year goes by I often will change chems to better accomodate a player I want and want at his best.
I have always based my teams around Saints players. Especially this year when they put the team training chem in the game. Anybody that is a part of the Saints team in MUT gets a big enough boost to make even the worst cards usable.
I run the best players at their position. Chemistry matters but it's not the end all be all.
I prefer the best players at each position to make up for my lack of skill. I always try to max my chems as well. Right now I have T5 PF, T5 Toughness and T5 Go Deep.
I've had Mosley pretty much all year at MLB1 even when he was not the best MLB in my binder. The point of the game is to enjoy it, and an average team that knows the strengths and weaknesses of their lineup will beat a great team that doesn't have a scheme
On defense I want linebackers that play like cornerbacks and cornerbacks that play like linebackers
Quote from Ducati0307 >> Quote from arion875 >> Quote from IIBruceLeeRoyII >>
I try to grab players from teams I like, but that never works out to the extent I'd hoped. For a while it's fine, but by the end I have no choice but to expand.
In Madden you can make up for lots of things but there is always a sort of minimum speed for each position to be effective based on your scheme. There are a few positions where in my scheme speed doesn't matter - LLB, DT, RE or LE, LT, TE3, but everyone else has to be at a certain speed for their position for my scheme. For example if you have a really slow FB your HB is just going to run by them, if your CB can't keep up with the top WRs they are going to struggle, etc.
On offense I build around my QB and HB. I prefer a tall accurate hopefully strong armed pocket passer, and a punishing HB. I need one deep threat WR, and route running on my WR2. I need an Oline that can move, if you dont have at least 70ish speed you dont make my oline. I Build the rest from there.
On defense I start with fast hard hitting safeties who can catch. I then get outside LBs who can stop the run first of all. I then also get fast hard hitting CBs who can catch. I get one MLB who can do it all. I get beefy cheap RE, LE and DT, high STR and BKS players who eat blocks (I run 3-4). Madden always has an outside run problem, between all those things, I don't typically have any problems with runs of any type. I typically user RLB, or one of the Ends, so I make sure I have someone I want to user within that group. My defensive strategy is 'you aren't going to run on me, so throw it', and then constantly changing coverage to keep them taking risks.
I've been following the NFL since the mid-1970's which is why I'm a lifelong Steelers fan despite growing up in New Jersey. They were the best team of that era and were just so dominant that I fell in love with the Black and Gold. I do remember seeing the vast majority of MUT Legends play. Only a handful pre-dated me... NTL, Ray Nitschke, Larry Wilson come to mind. But that doesn't mean I don't like seeing these players in MUT. While I agree that some of the Legends might not be able to play in the NFL today because they were too small or too slow... if they had come along later... they would have had the benefit of advanced nutrition and training techniques so maybe they would have been bigger and faster? A counterpoint is that MANY current players would not have made it in the "old" NFL because they simply lack the toughness to play under those rules. Look at QBs Jay Cutler, Alex Smith, and RG3... or WRs like Markus Wheaton and Breshad Perriman. How would they have faired against the devastating hits from Nitschke or NTL which are now outlawed. Certainly older Legends like Earl Campbell, Ronnie Lott, Too Tall Jones, Mel Blount, Rod Woodson would have been great players even in today's game.
So I just played two games against two completely different kinds of teams.
First game dude had every top player you could imagine, 99 LT, Night Train, Rod, Blount, Sean Taylor, Barr, 98 LT, Julio, etc... and he stunk up the joint lol but that team was stacked top to bottom.
Next game dude had a Saints/LSU team, obviously Brees, Michael Thomas, Deion Jones, Pat Pete, Jamal Adams, Honey B, Crawley, Cam Jordan, Odell, Landry, Fournett, Kamara and he was a much more difficult match up, you can tell he knew how to think the game through.
The second game made me want to think about how I built my team, especially next year, seems more fun having a team built around my favorite NFL team and college team versus trying to acquire the top guy at every position.
Obviously stick skill played into both games but it makes me wonder if you really need the best of the best at every spot or you could get by really scheming and building a team of your guys.