Oh, hey there, MUT.GG. JCSteel back with a team update, advice, and third-person writing. I posted this on MUTHead as well, but didn't want to neglect this up-and-coming community.
Team building in MUT 22 is a bit different from previous years, as we no longer have Scheme Chemistry or Physical Chemistry. But we still have Team Chemistry, which boosts physical ratings (Speed, Strength, Acceleration, Agility, Jumping, but, weirdly, not Change Of Direction).
STRATEGY CARDS
And we now have Strategy Cards (four main slots, two for offense & two for defense), in Common, Uncommon, and Rare versions, which allow you to boost ratings for certain personnel groupings on offense and defense. Getting these cards, which are all NAT, involves doing your daily mission (giving you one random card, usually a Common) or buying a random one for 5,000 coins in the store. You can exchange them up at a rate of 8 Common per Uncommon and 5 Uncommon per Rare. You can exchange 2 Rare cards for a fantasy pack with 10 selections of rare Strategy Cards for offense or defense.
The best of the Rare Strategy Cards are the ones that boost Speed for your skill positions -- wide receivers and defensive backs. Specifically, you're looking for the Rare Deep Route Specialist cards for offense, which boost Deep Route Running, Release, and Catching, along with two BOLD ratings. You're looking for the ones that boost Speed and one other attribute. You can stack these cards, but they have to be different on one attribute. For example, I'm running two Rare Deep Route Specialist cards, one that boosts Speed and Spectacular Catch in its BOLD boosts, and one that boosts Speed and Jumping. That allows me to get a total from these two cards of +2 Deep Route Running, +2 Speed, +1 Release, +1 Catching, +1 Jumping, and +1 Spectacular Catch to all of my wide receivers. On defense, I'm running two Rare In The Zone cards. These boost the Zone Coverage, Play Recognition, and Awareness for your defensive backs (both cornerbacks and safeties). For the BOLD boosts, I have one that increases Man Coverage and Speed, and another that gives pluses to Tackling and Speed. Accordingly, my two Rare In The Zone cards combine to give all of my defensive backs +2 Zone Coverage, +2 Speed, +1 Play Recognition, +1 Awareness, +1 Tackling, and +1 Man Coverage. In my opinion, these are the best 4 cards to use because you get +2 Speed to all of your wide receivers and defensive backs.
CHOOSING A THEME TEAM
Why a theme team? Speed, baby. You need Speed in this game to take the top off of the defense, to stop your opponent from doing that, and to maneuver your way down the field. Now, you only need to get to 50/50 to get the full theme team boosts, and when you take into account the uniforms, stadium, X3 Team Diamond chemistry, and X3 Team Captain chemistry, you end up with enough lineup slots to cover for your theme team's weaknesses. That said, to build a competitive theme team, you should select one of the "competitive theme teams" like the Raiders or Jets, or pick your favorite team. If you want to be able to win head-to-head games in Weekend League and at the higher levels of Seasons, you'll either want to select a theme team with good options at the skill positions or invest a lot of coins in fast non-theme team players for those spots.
I chose the latter, going with the Steelers. Now, the Steelers aren't a bad theme team -- they have top-end options at WR (Antonio Brown and Plaxico Burress are both 97 Speed), SS (Troy Polamalu also at 97 Speed), OL (LG Alan Faneca and C Maurkice Pouncey), QB (Vick), HB (95 Speed LeGarrette Blount), LB (Joey Porter, Kevin Greene, and Devin Bush), and DL (DT Al Woods and RE Cameron Heyward). However, the squad is seriously lacking at CB and TE, two positions where you'd really like to have those physical theme team boosts. Accordingly, I invested a lot of capital in those areas, bringing in CB Jaycee Horn (96 Speed without theme team boosts), CB Charles Woodson, and TE Rob Gronkowski. I also rounded out my offensive line nicely, used the "free" high-end players to shore up my sub-LB safeties (Kam Chancellor and John Lynch both see play for me there), and folded in an awesome pass-rusher (Lawrence Taylor), another 1-AP Run Stuff guy (Warren Sapp), a versatile deep safety (Jabrill Peppers), and a Swiss Army Knife edge guy (Ted Hendricks). Overall, here's my current 93 OVR 50/50 Steelers squad:
MATCHING YOUR TEAM TO YOUR PLAY STYLE
This is the last and most crucial part of team building -- you need to pick a team and select the "non-theme team" players in a way that matches how you want to set up your team to play. For me, as an example, I like to use under center sets to run and set up the pass (LA Rams playbook). I still bomb out of them, but I need good run blocking and versatility. That's why I decided to use TE Rob Gronkowski over someone super fast like Kyle Pitts or today's Evan Engram. I need my TE to block. On defense, I run mostly Nickel 2-4-5 and a lot of match concepts and zone-to-man stuff (Baltimore Ravens playbook), which means my CBs and deep safeties need to have 90+ ratings in both Man Coverage and Zone Coverage. I also need my defensive backs to tackle. That's why I don't have guys like Jamal Adams (<90 Man Coverage) or Deion Sanders (low Tackling, Press, physicality) out there, instead running Jabrill Peppers and Charles Woodson. I would like to improve a couple of areas, particularly my CB3 (currently Cam Sutton, who has done well, but needs better Zone Coverage and Speed), but overall it's an excellent squad.
I'm not going to go in-depth on my Ability usage, but I'll say that I use Hot Route Master and Pass Lead Elite on Dan Marino (his release and more-than-serviceable 80 Speed have helped me since I grabbed him for under 700K a bit ago), Bulldozer on LeGarrette Blount, Short In Elite on Plaxico Burress (really helps him hold onto quick slants, digs, and drags), Route Technician on Antonio Brown (my man coverage destroyer), and Post Up on both of my guards. This cocktail allows me to run the ball effectively, pass out of different sets, and put together any route combinations I want on the fly. On defense, I'm running two Inside Stuff defensive tackles (1 AP for this Ability is clutch), five Acrobat defensive backs, and two Mid-Zone KO guys at sub-LB.
As I've gotten my feet underneath me on next gen XBox, I'm starting to play a lot better. I went 9-4 in my last Weekend League and I've rolled through House Rules with 30 wins to about 8-10 losses. So it's coming together.
I hope this helps some of you with your team building in MUT. If you have any specific questions, reply here and I'll try to answer them. And remember: it's a game. Enjoy it.
