Whoops, forgot Plantain was a guard. He was playing as an OT on his first team, and hardly plays at all now. He's at 30 in strength, at 29 in blocking (with equipment on), but his speed and agility are both low. I'll work on those.

Pablo Garcia (OT) is mostly a pass-blocker. I put a lot of points in that tree at first, instead of just building up his actual ratings (dumb, I know).

Thanks, JtS. He looks good. If you wouldn't mind putting some points into strength/blocking for the next couple of levels, that would be excellent.

Also, one of the better player building tactics is to use all of your equipment on the one skill that is most important for your player. The reasoning is that once a skill gets up to 48 it costs 2 SPs to go up 1 lvl (as opposed to the 1:1 ratio before), but equipment points don't count in this math. For example, a player using lvl 1 and lvl 8 equipment all on strength, can get 1:1 SP/ability point until 56 rather than 48. This benefit becomes more pronounced at latter levels when it costs 3 or 4 SPs to move an ability up one point.

Since I've realized this, I've been selling back my equipment that favors non-major skills and repurchasing equipment for the major skill. I do this when I level up, so that I can make up for the points lost in the non-major ability from selling the equipment by using the 5 SPs gained at each level.

QUOTE:
Pablo Garcia (OT) is mostly a pass-blocker. I put a lot of points in that tree at first, instead of just building up his actual ratings (dumb, I know).

I did this, too, with my first player. Fortunately, it causes less problems as he goes up levels, as the rest of his states have time to fill out.

Inca, for your guard, it may be worth getting strength and blocking up to about 40 before moving on to speed and agility (though by all means train those). My thought being that it's probably worth making sure that he is good against strong DTs in pass protection and up the middle run blocking first, and then round him out with the mobility skills.

So... Anybody in their respective play-offs?

Neon Leon and the Appalachian Lycans are in at the 7th spot, but face a team that only lost once all season.

Crush McNasty is on the 5th seeded Husavik Whalers. Otherwise, my other good players all are on a diverse assortment of Washington General-type teams.

Yeah, Bob Blomstrand's Vikings, after a 1-3 start to the season stormed up to a 5th place finish. We've beaten the team who finished 4th, so potentially can win again there. But the next game seems certain to be against unbeaten, Patriots-esque, Farkistan Squirrels.

Casey Harries's Washington Wildcats also made the play-offs, but after only 2 matches for them,Casey doesn't seem too fussed either way.

So I'm 687 on the waiting list. Matej, are you far ahead of me?

No. Last I checked I was about 660. I'm sure I've dropped a bit since then.

It's possible you moved up, though. When my account hit 30 days yesterday, I jumped up a bit and since then have stopped moving down. If we're only 20 spots apart, then we're probably in the same boat, but if you are 50 or more, it may be worth sticking around until they release the new teams.

Giganticus Jones is a LB, he is about level 9 now. Built up on the MLB tree, but his team want him to be an OLB.

Considered buying the special equipment till I found out it cost flex points. His team are in the play-offs and he is contracted for another year, but may be able to argue his way out.

dglh,

If you wanted to bring him over to our eventual team, the MLB build would work well, as we currently only have one player moving to that sort of build. He is signed up to near the end of season 4, though perhaps you could get your owner to at least make the contract terminate at the end of season 3, if not release you earlier when we get a team.

If we get a new team, then we won't be able to do much in the way of making trades, but if we get a sold/abdicated team with existing players, then we might be able to trade (though it would cause a big chemistry hit).

We should know more about whether we're getting a team in about a week or so.

The guy who runs my team is pretty sound though - I am pretty sure he would let me go if everything got set up. I am second line at best for these guys anyway.

Great. It may be worth mentioning to him now that you're considering this, that way, it won't come as a surprise and he could begin to think about replacing you. Though I guess this is tricky, as we don't really know when we'd get a team and you don't want him to replace you before you're ready to leave.

Well, my guys are through to the next round of the playoffs.

A 32 yard field goal with four seconds to go took us home, 12-10. Crazy.

Congrats! That's kind of exciting in a weird, virtual way. My team's first playoff game is tomorrow, but the matchup isn't looking so good.

I broke down and created a punter, because they are necessary and stupidly expensive for how bad they all are.

QB Joe Philadelphia (lvl 5--Gyuri)
Chad Munchington (lvl 4--JtS)

HB J.T. Stretch (lvl 11--Gyuri)
Tanvir Sene (lvl 9--Alex)

FB Zeke Montana (lvl 11--JtS)

WR Carmichael Harold (lvl 10--Gyuri)
Lucas Fire (lvl 9 -- JtS)

TE Joe Stoyevsky (lvl 1--Gyuri)

OT Bob Bob Jones (lvl 8--Matej)
Johnny Roach (lvl 11--Gyuri)
Pablo Garcia (lvl 9--Inca)
Al Jackson (lvl 7--Alex)
Steve D'Abril (lvl 8--JtS)

G Jimmy Joyce (lvl 6--Gyuri)
Plantain James (lvl 8--Inca)

C Casey Harries (lvl 1 - Etienne)

DEFENSE

DE Crush McNasty (lvl 10--Gyuri)
Edwin Van der Sac (Lvl 1 - Matej)
DT Kenny Hotz (lvl 6--Alex)
Tommy Twitter (lvl 1--Gyuri)

LB Jedidiah Cleveland (lvl 8--Gyuri)
Bob Blomstrand (lvl 8 - Etienne)
Jerome Henderson (lvl 10--Alex)
Knut Rheinhardt (lvl 4--JtS)

CB Neon Leon (lvl 10--Matej)
D.F. Wallace (lvl 6--Gyuri)
Taco Pakahara (lvl 8--Inca)

FS Lee O'Tolstoy (lvl 3--Gyuri)

SS Spenny Rice (lvl 4--Alex)

K Frigyes Karinthy (lvl 8--Matej)
K Ginger Yellow (lvl 8--GY)

P Frankie S. Fitzgerald (lvl 1--Gyuri)