Anatomy of a Market Meltdown

Twitch what you thinkin on the 89 CS still.. still holding due to the dip but have been leaking out already. LMK.

phatalerror said:

You don’t expect that the 92 OVR Team Diamonds will be relevant as starters for the next month?

No bc promo cards get promo chem and +1 all stats.  They'll be relevant if they are on your theme team or no better promo card exists

phatalerror said:

They say a picture says a thousand words. This one says, "Pain."

The Beginning

During the past ten days, I was able to reach a high of ten million coins, and it made perfect sense to purchase Team Builders at less-than-market rates. I spent 4 million on 78's, 80's, 81's, 83's, 85's, and 87's to build Team Builders. I was stoked to find that I would have a good part of today off work, and could finally be involved in a Team Diamonds release out the gate. 

Good Morning Sucker

After many minutes of blah-blah-blah and the disappointing realization that we weren't getting Ultimate Champions this time around, we were finally told on the Good Morning Madden Podcast what we needed to build the Team Diamonds: Team Builders, 83's, and 86's. I began to realize that I didn't have many clear paths to the 86 OVR items. I was able to buy a few, but the prices went north of where I was comfortable, and I adjusted my expectations on how many Team Diamonds I would build. I converted about two hundred Core items into Team Builders. I recorded a quick inventory into a spreadsheet, determined modest target prices based on anticipated demand, and rubbed my palms together, ready to play MUT Menus.

The Bell Rings

If there were ever a race where it felt like no one heard the starting horn, this was it. There was no market movement whatsoever. To my knowledge, I was one of the first to list a Fred Biletnikoff, and then I went on to list a Mel Blount and a John Henderson. It took forever, but Biletnikoff finally sold for 1649900 coins, and I got the sense that someone clicked buy thinking it was a 93, as much cheaper ones were still sitting idle on the market. I bought back Biletnikoff for 457k, intending to boost him with the Division Tokens. Mel Blount eventually sold as well. Supply trickled in, but users were not eager to buy. And within minutes, with supply flooding in and earlier listings being relisted hundreds of thousands of coins less than before, the rout was on.

The Twist

I elaborated on this in an earlier post, but in short, I inferred from the title of the Team Diamonds Token Replay Exchange Set that it was intended to convert the Team Diamonds Division Tokens from one sort to another. With the expectation that I could come away with a BND Biletnikoff and about 2 million coins, I swapped the two non-AFC West Division Tokens, and purchased the outstanding items I needed for a fourth Team Diamonds player (and a fourth token). I'm taking a loss on the Champion with the expectation of recovering the coins on the LTD. But when I tried to complete the set, I ended up with another Team Diamonds Champion. At this point, I have no path to an LTD without sinking more coins into Team Diamonds. It was clear that the only way to recover from this was to hold inventory and ride out this wave. I wanted to sell off my remaining Team Builders items, but many of them had inventories exceeding 100, and I realized that committing to any one now was going to be fraught with disappointment.

The Fallout

Henderson has sold, and I'm still holding onto three Team Diamonds champions, along with a few high value items that I continue to list on the high end of current prices, although these would still go out for a loss. I also have 14 unopened 87 OVR Team Builders packs, as well as a few other Team Builders packs. Leading up to today, I had spent a few hours here and there buying up items, and I'll end up losing one million coins on the exercise. Not what I was going for. I don't know whether prices will rebound, but it seems like there should definitely have been more of a market for these items. They're a nuisance to build. I'll probably come back to them now and then when inventory and current market conditions justify it, but the swings today were nauseating.

Great, detailed post, despite the heartbreak and ongoing drama surrounding EA's inability to create favorable market conditions.  I didn't realize (until M25 cycle) that folks actually track their overall account value.  I respect and appreciate where you are coming from, but it'll be a cold day in hell before i turn my Madden "entertainment" into another bad job.  I love how seriously folks take this stuff, but i tend to go overboard with anything and everything i touch, so it can be a slippery slope for me.

I try to draw the line at keeping spreadsheets to track my inventory.  I also need to reign in all the bad spending that got me good to start the year.  I was really close to plunking down some more cash on these Team Diamonds, but i think yer post basically boils down to yet another in a long series of blatant, low-effort, high volume, never-ending stream of cash grabs from our EA overlords.  Bleh.

I spent a couple/few hundred thousand coins acquiring set pieces for my theme team specific 92 OVR Champion player, but once i realized there's no possible path to a 93, i gave up hope and decided to slow play this stuff.  I'm in a bit of a bind, having dual x2 49ers theme team players, both at REDGE, while also needing Micah Parsons (for the foreseeable future) to maintain that +1 Crystals speed boost.  Seems i'll need to start hiding pass rushers on the Specialist tab.

Anyone happen to know which level we're able to acquire the Epic (purple) strategy item pack from this season's Field Pass?  I might be running out of time, apparently took too many nights off this cycle.

Hope you're able to bounce back and offset that ~1M coin loss.

twitchtaxpro said:

No bc promo cards get promo chem and +1 all stats.  They'll be relevant if they are on your theme team or no better promo card exists

I'm with you on this... how or why would we choose to use an additional x3 team chems, when we're expecting the usual flavor of the month (+1 All Stats) for Harvest or uhhh Autumn Classics, whatever next cycle is called.  Blitz is short, almost always pure cash-grab type promo (although all promos have essentially morphed into that, with M26).  Bleh.

For now, i'll continue working towards my 92 OVR theme team player, but not in a rush to spend ~2M coins on a mediocre edge rusher.

peatrick said:

I'm with you on this... how or why would we choose to use an additional x3 team chems, when we're expecting the usual flavor of the month (+1 All Stats) for Harvest or uhhh Autumn Classics, whatever next cycle is called.  Blitz is short, almost always pure cash-grab type promo (although all promos have essentially morphed into that, with M26).  Bleh.

For now, i'll continue working towards my 92 OVR theme team player, but not in a rush to spend ~2M coins on a mediocre edge rusher.

If you build the set and sell his limited you could get the 92 for free I think.  Depends if more show up on the market.  Takes about 3m to build 4 champs

twitchtaxpro said:

If you build the set and sell his limited you could get the 92 for free I think.  Depends if more show up on the market.  Takes about 3m to build 4 champs

I am so confused here -- we can actually build the 93s?  Assuming we get four of those uhhh tokens or whatever to exchange?  Appreciate the huge assist, helping to hold my hand through this.  I got frustrated last evening and gave up pretty quickly before finishing my first 92 OVR Tead Diamond set.

I'd love to have a freebie, even BND Justin Smith.  I can justify the coins if there's a clear goal, just wasn't certain how to get there.  Thanks again for the nudge, will redouble my efforts this evening once i'm in front of the console.  I don't find playing MUT Menus as being particularly enjoyable, the sluggish performance (even on my PS5 Pro) has been downright miserable.  However, it can be a necessary evil, otherwise i'm tempted to keep pumping money into this bad, broken game.

EDIT: @Slammer4244 provided a clear explanation here, thanks for constantly educating me, fellas!  Much obliged.

this is the first time im overwhelmed in what ive read.

i havent even bothered learning about the token exchange yet.

sheesh, i flopped on diamonds prep, and just focused on flipping team diamonds that were 500k last night

im gonna read all this, and hit the AH when i get home.

I am still SO BAD at this game, i haven't won a superbowl yet and dropped down to rookie.

top 100 in mut 23 to getting rocked in veteran, new cards wont help until i learn sitational plays

twitchtaxpro said:

If you build the set and sell his limited you could get the 92 for free I think.  Depends if more show up on the market.  Takes about 3m to build 4 champs

This is the number I came up with. At current market rates, and with some patience and the right snipes, you break even on coins and come out with a BND. But it's an absolute grind to assemble even one champion right now, much less four.

At those numbers, you're currently better off making the champions and converting the tokens to champions, and walking away with about one million coins, which you can put toward your LTD.

The even better play is to steer clear of this mess for now, apart from sniping and reselling completed items posted at a loss by frustrated or near-broke users tapping out.

SkinsPS5 said:

this is the first time im overwhelmed in what ive read.

i havent even bothered learning about the token exchange yet.

sheesh, i flopped on diamonds prep, and just focused on flipping team diamonds that were 500k last night

im gonna read all this, and hit the AH when i get home.

I am still SO BAD at this game, i haven't won a superbowl yet and dropped down to rookie.

top 100 in mut 23 to getting rocked in veteran, new cards wont help until i learn sitational plays

This game collapsed last year when it comes to the head-to-head experience. In MUT 24, there just weren't as many glitches that could be exploited with impunity unless you could anticipate correctly and execute the counters very precisely. (RPO was a problem, but it was a manageable problem with knowledge and practice.) The Win-[X]-Games-in-a-Row requirement's spread to all modes effectively drove all users wishing to compete toward learning exploits, as learning the exploits was a whole lot easier than trying to mesh football knowledge with the way football is represented in Madden.

Be warned: Team Diamonds won't be more profitable than flipping Team Diamonds components to feed the users too silly to know that assembling these items is doing things the hard way.

I had a very similar, disappointing experience as the OP.  Had sunk 4M coins into prebuilding.  But instead of 86's being the bottleneck I had a work meeting that put me into the game at least 30 mins after launch and by that time the prices were already plummeting fast.  By the time my first TD was built the 92's were 800k and by the time the second was built they were 600k.  I had to spend a significant amount of effort just to recover back my investment.

One of the saddest TD experiences I've had, and this is one of my fav promos because I actually enjoy grinding out all the sets over days for the master set, despite the profitability potential.  EA found a way to ruin one more thing I've loved about MUT and their greed now infiltrates every aspect of this game.

phatalerror said:

This is the number I came up with. At current market rates, and with some patience and the right snipes, you break even on coins and come out with a BND. But it's an absolute grind to assemble even one champion right now, much less four.

At those numbers, you're currently better off making the champions and converting the tokens to champions, and walking away with about one million coins, which you can put toward your LTD.

The even better play is to steer clear of this mess for now, apart from sniping and reselling completed items posted at a loss by frustrated or near-broke users tapping out.

Agreed bro, I'm happy I just have my coins sitting waiting to collect back. Prob would have lost an arm lmao. That last sentence " The even better play is to steer clear of this mess for now, apart from sniping and reselling completed items posted at a loss by frustrated or near-broke users tapping out." is prob the most diabolical thing to say right now. Comical Gold.

phatalerror said:

This game collapsed last year when it comes to the head-to-head experience. In MUT 24, there just weren't as many glitches that could be exploited with impunity unless you could anticipate correctly and execute the counters very precisely. (RPO was a problem, but it was a manageable problem with knowledge and practice.) The Win-[X]-Games-in-a-Row requirement's spread to all modes effectively drove all users wishing to compete toward learning exploits, as learning the exploits was a whole lot easier than trying to mesh football knowledge with the way football is represented in Madden.

Be warned: Team Diamonds won't be more profitable than flipping Team Diamonds components to feed the users too silly to know that assembling these items is doing things the hard way.

bro, i hate games where i have to use one or two plays to win but it appears thats how i have to play at least for now.

its cool that unless there is a big gap in overall, you can beat anyone but defensive AI doing whatever on the field is killing me.

i appreciate all these Diamond tips, i had got to 6 mil, but after builders prep, the 1st crystal set, and investing on most feared since its about to disappear from the store

im at 2mil.  Insane

thanks chatgpt

DadLifeMike said:

Agreed bro, I'm happy I just have my coins sitting waiting to collect back. Prob would have lost an arm lmao. That last sentence " The even better play is to steer clear of this mess for now, apart from sniping and reselling completed items posted at a loss by frustrated or near-broke users tapping out." is prob the most diabolical thing to say right now. Comical Gold.

Yeah, I don't do schadenfreude, but these are all willing participants in the market. Imagine how the market would work (or wouldn't work) if you could know the motivations behind a specific listing.

I realized later in MUT 24 that the money wasn't in building the Team Diamonds champions, but in gating them to other users by hoarding key cards, which at the time included a number of Core fullbacks, quarterbacks and punters from Gridiron Guardians, and a smattering of random players. It was hard to get a lot of the non-champion elites from Ultimate Kickoff, Campus Heroes, and Gridiron Guardians because the sets had expired. Along the way, the 78's and 80's got inexpensive enough during a brief window that you could build random items from the 80-81 and 82-83 OVR Elite Sets, and then you often pulled items that were worth ten or twenty times what that item's OVR tier typically went for.