Wed Dec 09, 2020 12:05 am
Any success is success, small sample or large sample, and clearly neither case is pure luck.
But playing against the same vets with a huge player pool is much more challenging than playing against people who don't know the obvious values in this huge player set (relative values are still there in ATG9--but (most) are not as extreme). I try not to play in leagues against mostly newer players--I enjoy learning from and competing with the experiencedrepeat offenders. In a 20XX set, it is a limited pool of players and parks, so there are more limited strategies to employ for winning rosters--the pieces simply aren't there for everyone. Drafting becomes much more important. Unlike the ages old posts from Coffeeholic and others back in the old days meant to help new players, there is no one winning "secret formula" in ATG. Not one that lasts at least.
In ATG, except at the highest caps, the draft has become less important. There are so many ways to craft a team that the focus becomes on how to extract more value from your cards by tailoring to the park and playing environment, league makeup, and situational play. And knowing precisely how to extract slight advantages from the game engine.
For instance, seeing people use hit and run on $5M players with 35 hits each side of the card tells me either they don't know the rules, or are just having fun, experimenting, etc. Those kinds of deltas--the opportunity costs of action/inaction--can make a difference between a winning season or a losing season.
Anyway, I think the community is great so I am no doubt biased toward playing against those same tired old folks!