Quick Intro
Thought I'd share some tips I have as I've spent every Madden since I got into MUT with Madden 17 as NMS. I don't believe in the whole NMS vs Whales conversation because the truth is, we need each other to make the economy work. I love playing the game and am blessed to be in a position in life where I can spend more time than most doing so while balancing family and work life in parallel. I am writing this as advice to show what is possible with grinding and to me, this advice can benefit both sides.
Credentials
First, here's my team up to this point so you can determine whether or not I'm worth listening to - Sevein131 M23 Lineup
You can see that I don't have every top or meta player but I'm able to keep up with anyone in game with my 87 OVR 87O and 88D team.
Solos
First, you are going to want to take advantage of every solo, especially to hit milestone rewards. This year, with the field pass, it is actually worthwhile to grind all solos even beyond the star rewards because you can get stats needed for objectives along the way. These aren't the most engrossing or even fun, but they are usually pretty quick as the MUT team has gotten better at giving us solos that can be done in 1-2 plays mostly with some exceptions along the way but for the most part they seem to be trying to be more respectful of our time. Do everything you can for solos because you want all the BND players you can get for free. These players haven't been the top at their positions but they have been very viable for sure.
Objectives
The name of the game this year is objectives for field pass progress. No longer do we get XP just for completing solos, we now need to be cognizant of what objectives and stats we need to achieve for that next xp reward. Check the field pass every day and see what you need to focus on. Try to come up with a plan of attack to knock out multiple objectives while you grind. I.E. I'll do a solo battle to make progress on the wins needed but while doing so I may focus on getting sacks, tackles as well as a certain number of yards for rushing and passing each game so I hit the rewards faster and make playing the more efficient.
H2H
Several want to stay offline as much as possible and that is ok, but this year they are funneling us more and more towards online than ever before. Hearing about the exploits and cheese can be demoralizing and I get it but you are going to want to learn to compete online from time to time. You probably want to get your team to around 84+ OVR to stay competitive at this point in the year before you head online though. The best advice I can give is get over the fear of failure and don't get into your head so much, not every player is a Madden God or YouTube guru. With the way matchmaking works as ELO based, you will start to get some opponents more your skill level and you should be able to eke out some wins here and there. Just play to have fun and don't have too much pressure on yourself. Winning 10 games a week in Mut Champs should be your goal and is very much achievable. Since I'm all about efficiency with these games, I avoid playing sweaty. My goal is to get in and out with a W, if my opponent is blitzing every play and wanting to trade points and go to the wire, I'm probably quitting out ASAP because I would rather get 10 quick W's within a day or two than play a whole week of sweat fests just to end up with an extra win or two but take 2-3 times as long. You can usually tell if you are outmatched fairly quickly and move on to the next game to follow this method of valuing your time over grinding out a W with an E-Book warrior.
Building your team
NMS is all about budget, there are a couple of budgets I set for myself and follow through the year and you'll want to do something similar so you feel like you are always making progress without depleting your coin stack.
- Per player budget, i.e. no player is worth more than 300K on my squad, meaning I will not buy a player if they cost more than this to be on my team. I would rather spread the coins around than have one OP player.
- Coin floor, i.e. I am now at 1.4 Million coins and I will never go below 1 Million to ensure I am always in a position to take advantage of any size auction house snipe or new promo opportunity.
If you can set budgets similar to the above for yourself and stay patient and diligent about adhering to them, you will see your coin stack continue to grow while upgrading your team. My budgets didn't start out this high either, when the game dropped and I had 0 coins my budget was spending 0 on any players and only using what I pulled from free packs or the BND player rewards. As my coin stack grew, the budget increased iteratively until it is what it is now. Example, maybe a week ago before I was at a million coins, I was still committed to not buying any players and my thoughts were that no player was worth over 100K to be on my squad. Adapt and change based on your needs and what value you have over a coin stack vs putting it all out on the field in the form of players who help your team.
Sniping
My advice, don't get too hung up on sniping in the sense of trying to get a player for a ridiculously low amount of coins, like getting an LTD for 100K coins that QS for 350K. These are few and far between and the majority of people who get these kind of snipes are just in the right place at the right time searching for something completely different when they see them and are rewarded for their luck.
What you should focus on in terms of sniping is identifying what are most people too lazy to do and how can you profit off of that laziness? And before anyone says anything, I am not judging, I also get lazy from time to time and just want to play the game instead of doing math and trying to take advantage of sets but it is what it is and those who are patient should be rewarded.
As an example, I have completed 6 of the 8 Team Affinity sets while ensuring I either broke even, meaning my coin stack stayed exactly the same as it was before I built the set, or making coins. My thought process on doing these sets entailed the following:
- At some point in the game, we will need to do all 8 of these sets either way if we want the 99 Team Affinity champion later in the year
- I thought it may be better to do most of them now while the 87s have value to be BND on my team as usable players because then I won't have any gaps and my squad is solid just from these players alone, even in key backup positions
- Each 87 you get back is worth 1K training, so even as you replace them, you will get rewarded with a good chunk of training and all of the training I've used on my team has come from these type of players as I don't like spending coins on training
- I honed in on the sets that would be most profitable, i.e. the master selling for the most coins to cover the cost of the 4 87s needed for each set
When identifying what sets you want to, you need to first check the price of the master and ensure it is selling consistently. As an example, currently Trey Smith, RG for the Chiefs, is selling for the most with an average price of 450K coins. After you know the master price and value you would get back you can determine the max you want to spend on the set, in this case, we know after we sell for 450K coins, we are getting back around 405K, I say around because when you complete the set you can set your price higher or lower depending on how fast you need it to sell. So know that and the fact we need 4 87s to do the set in the first place, we now have our price per player item that becomes our max limit of what we can spend which is around 100K coins per 87. You would then need to check the prices of each 87 required, in this case the Unsung Hero for the Broncos, Chargers, Chiefs and Raiders and if any are below 100K, they are probably an instant buy, a great example is Patrick Surtain whose 87 is grossly underpriced around 90K quite frequently. Other pieces may be much higher around 120K and that is where we have a decision to make, do we save time and buy the 87 anyway which cuts into our profit, or do we instead try to buy 5 84 Team builders for around 20K each to stay at our 100K limit and if you are truly patient and cheap like I am, you can go one more level down which is to buy the low elites need to build the 84 Team builders which then become an 87 player to put in the set. If you were to go this route, you would need to obtain 20 81-82s for 8K each and 60 80-81s for 4K each to build enough Team Builders to complete 4 87 Unsung Hero sets. This is why I started the conversation with looking for opportunities where others may be lazy and feel it is not worth the effort. Someone's lack of patience and desire to get back into gameplay is an opportunity for someone else to make a lot of coin through Auction House patience.
You can apply the above to most sets and be aware that the most profitable sets change frequently. You have to look for these opportunities and determine what is worth doing.
New Promos
When new promos are announced but no players have been detailed yet, we usually see panic selling the week and up to the night before players are announced and this is a great time to get some good deals on players you have had your eye on or to stock up on training or invest on potential set pieces needed for the new promo. All of these have risks though as players could continue to drop after you buy them so you need to learn the market and make educated gambles that can differ slightly from promo to promo. But do know, once the promo actually drops, players that were panic sold sometimes go back up if there isn't a desired replacement for them in the promo. Same with training costs, if we have rerolls that the player base enjoys, we will see training and therefore all cards, start to rise in cost so you have to decide when and where to strike but it is a safe bet that when you see prices starting to drop in the days leading up to a promo is probably the best time to buy and prepare.
Each promo drop you should also have a goal in mind. For me, my goal has been to build any masters that will get me several cards back as BND that I can use on my team at break even cost or with some profit. This way I am constantly adding to my stack and improving my team. Sure, I can't keep the master if I stick to this plan but then we go back to my budget point above where I don't want players on my team either way if they cost me more than 300K at this point in the game. Better to build quickly and be on e of the firsts to sell master players as these usually drop very quickly in price over the course of the promo, sometimes even a 100-150K drop in the same day of a new promo. This is another reason you want a good coin stack, you can quickly get what you want to build and sell master set players at the highest they'll ever be because the only go down as time goes on, especially this year where we do not have powerups to boost any card value. The only way we will see cards increase is if sets require a specific card similar to Team Diamonds in the past.
Rerolls
As NMS, you are going to want to come to terms that you probably will not be participating in training rolls often. This is because it is too risky. The last thing you want to do is spend hard earned coins on training just to lose it all chasing a card you have less than 1% chance of pulling no matter how many rolls you do. It's just not viable long term. But what you can do, and something I did yesterday, is play with house money. What I mean by this is if you have training from BND players or reward players you no longer, need and you do not need it to change abilities or anything on your team at this point, feel free to roll that as soon as a promo drops, this is because it is low risk since it didn't cost you anything in terms of your coin stack and anything you get back is profit, even if you get the worst of the worst pulls. You need to do the math on what you pull and see if it is worth more to sell each item individually, do sets and sell or quick sell for training and try again but you want to determine quickly as prices are usually highest when the promo drops or after the promo ends depending on supply and demand. Using this method of not investing in training and just using what I get from free players, I was able to roll 4K training risk free yesterday for the Ultimate Kickoff promo, I did get extremely luck and pull both the LTD and 90 OVR master with that, but even if I hadn't I would have had a small profit as stated, anything pulled is profit when training costs you 0.
Conclusion
Hopefully all of this helps everyone to see how you can stay competitive as NMS if you have the time to grind. As mentioned at the start, I do see the appeal of spending money instead to do what you want and not have to worry about too much time and am grateful for everyone who does spend money on the game. It helps to keep the market going and supplied, as mentioned, NMS or Whales, doesn't matter, we all need each other to ensure the market doesn't go into chaos, plus, in this game, everyone is spending something, either time or money.
Feel free to share your own tips below if there is anything I've missed but I wanted to cover what I personally have been doing up to this point from Madden 17 and beyond.
