Is it just me, or can no one else even get close to winning a tournament?

[TheGreatBambi]

In OOTP Go! I would run into a win every now and then, especially on capped tournaments and perfect drafts, but in 23 I haven’t been able to place in the top 4, maybe even the top 8, in ANY tournament. And I’ve probably participated in over 200 since the game launched. I feel like a randomizer could do a better job than me, which makes me wonder if things have changed with the settings? What should I do to place more often? I’m doing the same stuff I used to!

[bailey]

Originally Posted by TheGreatBambi

In OOTP Go! I would run into a win every now and then, especially on capped tournaments and perfect drafts, but in 23 I haven’t been able to place in the top 4, maybe even the top 8, in ANY tournament. And I’ve probably participated in over 200 since the game launched. I feel like a randomizer could do a better job than me, which makes me wonder if things have changed with the settings? What should I do to place more often? I’m doing the same stuff I used to!

Watch Warbottbd on Twitch and follow their recommendations. I run into wins every day especially in iron. Thank you, warbottbd.

[Torgonius]

Are you collecting data on the standard tournies at all?

PDs are just random crap shoots that are good for killing time. I never expect to win a game with them.

If you evaluate data from standard tournies, you can improve your team a bit by looking at what's really working for other people. You don't need to straight copy the winner, but if you see Buddy Biancalana is on almost every winning team, probably a good idea to get him on yours.

Also, make sure your team strategy fits the era/ruleset of the tournament, and that you're using players that are good fits for that strategy.

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by TheGreatBambi

In OOTP Go! I would run into a win every now and then, especially on capped tournaments and perfect drafts, but in 23 I haven’t been able to place in the top 4, maybe even the top 8, in ANY tournament. And I’ve probably participated in over 200 since the game launched. I feel like a randomizer could do a better job than me, which makes me wonder if things have changed with the settings? What should I do to place more often? I’m doing the same stuff I used to!

Are you talking about weekly tourneys? Daily tourneys? Quick tourneys?

If you have a decent set-up (doesn't even need to be close to ideal, honestly) and just constantly run three quick tourneys Iron/bronze (32 team), you'll win 15 packs a day. 20-30 if you're team is basically maxed. Not winning anything in 200 tourneys in Quick tourneys would be BRUTAL, if that's the case.

If you've had this kind of luck in weekly or daily tourneys, that's still pretty bad, but your rosters are going to matter a lot (as far as how much this is bad luck) and particularly in 128 team tourneys, you can have bad spells.

I do very well in the weekly tourneys - and I've had a stretch of 15 days (42 tourneys) and 13 days (36 tourneys) where I didn't have a single place. I went two months without winning a single card in Perfect Draft, and I then I won 7 cards last month in PD. So there really is a large randomness to it; but one that tends to equal out in the end to where it should be.

[TheGreatBambi]

Yeah like daily early late bronze, iron, silver, don’t play much quick tournaments

Perfect draft enter like 2 a day, no way I’m so bad at picking players that I don’t finish in the top 4 ONCE, I think the mods need to look at who’s winning all the PDs and why

[TheGreatBambi]

I’ll start researching for the standard drafts

[bailey]

Originally Posted by TheGreatBambi

...
Perfect draft enter like 2 a day, no way I’m so bad at picking players that I don’t finish in the top 4 ONCE, I think the mods need to look at who’s winning all the PDs and why

Seriously?

[dishnet34]

Originally Posted by TheGreatBambi

Yeah like daily early late bronze, iron, silver, don’t play much quick tournaments

Perfect draft enter like 2 a day, no way I’m so bad at picking players that I don’t finish in the top 4 ONCE, I think the mods need to look at who’s winning all the PDs and why

Just because you don't win a Perfect Draft doesn't mean an investigation needs to be launched into who's winning PDs. That's just bad luck; heck, I think I can count the PDs I've won since its inception on one hand.

Plus, looking at the weekly PD standings every week, it feels like there's different folks taking the top 10 spots every single time. So implying that there's the same people winning PDs is 100% ludicrous. In fact, I invite you to take a look at all the Weekly and Daily Perfect Draft standings from this cycle, and you'll see an investigation is not necessary. https://challenge.ootpdevelopments.c...t23_standings/

[TheGreatBambi]

Fair enough

[Ty Cobb]

won a couple. Haven't been as active as I would like to be lately (my own **** fault), but it's possible to win. I lose an awful lot too, which leads me to believe that one of two things is true:

1—I'm not as smart as I think I am (unlikely); or
2—There's a lot of other smart people out there (very likely)

I'm going with #2. It's irritating, but strangely comforting.

I do particularly love the PD's because of the exposure to cards that are fleeting dreams to many of us FTP players.

[TheGreatBambi]

What happens every time I’m about to get past the quarter finals (i’m not kidding, I’ve lost 3-0 leads at least 5 times)

[Torgonius]

I can't get past round 2 of a PD tournament without an act of a god. Mostly because those gods hate me, but also because I apparently suck at them.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

As of last week, I'm ranked sixth all-time for PD weekly tournaments - my team is "The OC (Don't Call it That)." I've gotten cards and/or points many times - I'd guess around 10. I've also played 62 tournaments, and finished first a grand total of zero times.

I feel like I've definitely gotten better over time. I now expect to win about 55-60% of the time in the first couple rounds, and after that it's basically 50-50 the rest of the way. That still means that I lose 40-45% of the time immediately, and a typical week for me is something like 3-4 tournaments, one 9th-16th place finish, one loss in the third round and a couple flameouts in the first two rounds. So some of this is just being patient.

I'm not going to share any of my specific drafting strategies because I got there through a LOT of trial and error. Also, who knows if I'm doing it right - I've never won a single weekly PD! I can tell you that in the later rounds I see some people who seem to use a similar strategy as me, but I also have been beaten late in tournaments by people who are doing something very different.

What I did to get better was to look at, say, the four semi-finalists in a tournament I crashed out of early. Who did they pick with their 100(s)? Who are their diamond players? It seems like everyone has a similar strategy for hiding their iron picks, but are there any players who get some value out of their bronze picks? If so, how are they doing it?

I'll give this one tip: now that I have enough players to enter the quick tournaments at every level, I play a lot of Bronze, Silver, Gold, Low Diamond and Diamond. This is useful because you start to learn who the really good players are at each level. Now when I'm offered those guys, I tend to adjust my strategy and pick them. Having that level of familiarity with the pool of players is essential, IMO - especially at the Gold and Silver levels, since those guys will be most of your core roster.

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

Having that level of familiarity with the pool of players is essential, IMO

This is solid advice for being a good PD player - I look at the actual ratings of a card once every 4-5 rounds and I finish most drafts in 5 minutes - that's because at this point I have total familiarity with the options.

I think the most important thing to understand is that no matter how well you strategize or draft, most of it is just an odds game. I have kept a consistent drafting strategy; I didn't change it even when it wasn't working because it's logically the best strategy, and works for Cap tourneys - My first 70 days of playing PD I didn't win a single card. In my last 30 days, I also haven't won a single card. However, in the 30 days in the middle of those droughts (August and early Sept) I won 8 (EIGHT!) cards from PD, including 4 diamonds.

With this in mind, the most important drafting strategy tips are as follows:
1) Play in 2 PDs everyday (now that they've upped the amount of daily PDs, this is easy - used to be you could do about 10 a week). It's mostly a pure numbers game so this is actually by far the most important strategy to winning PD cards.
2) As far as drafting, prioritize filling out a proper lineup over quality of cards starting with round 10. This is easily the second most important piece of actual drafting strategy.
-When you draft a team that's missing a piece (backup C or not enough RP or whatever position you failed fill) you can pack it up - that's a loser.

If you are able to play in 2 PDs every day, with a team that has no literal holes or missing pieces, some wins and cards will follow.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, but I've had more 1k and 3k point finishes than I can recall. Probably a dozen. Those long droughts had a lot of these 3rd and 4th round exits.

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

a typical week for me is something like 3-4 tournaments

I've been hesitant to share this bit of advice similar to Eckstein's hesitation to share his strategy... since anyone reading this will likely follow the advice, and make it a little more crowded in the daily tourneys... but why not - this may help some players more than anything else, and I hope it does:

Following up on the advice above (play in 2 tourneys everyday) - If you want to win cards in PD, probably the most important thing you can do is to play in the daily tournaments, and NOT the weekly tournaments.

Where as a player in the weekly tourneys is playing in 3-4 tournaments a week, a typical week for me is playing in 13-14 tournaments. Considering that the prize pool for cards is doubled in the weekly tourneys (compared to daily), playing 3-4 weekly tourneys is equivalent to playing 6-8 daily tourneys.

This is really just a flaw in the PD tourney model: there are not enough weekly tourneys to play one everyday - there are, however, enough daily tourneys to always play two everyday. Until the OOTP Team doubles the amount of weekly PD tourneys and fixes this, the math is simple and makes it a no brainer: 13-14 chances per week at winning a card, or 6-8 chances per week?

If you want to win cards in PD, play the daily's

[bailey]

The biggest attraction of Perfect Draft for me is the chance for PTCS entry. I'm trying 2 dailies on my alt and 1 weekly on my main. There is less frustration with the weeklies because you play in far fewer and if you win one the reward is far more satisfying. I think next month, I will try weeklies on both.

[HondoLane]

Originally Posted by bailey

The biggest attraction of Perfect Draft for me is the chance for PTCS entry. I'm trying 2 dailies on my alt and 1 weekly on my main. There is less frustration with the weeklies because you play in far fewer and if you win one the reward is far more satisfying. I think next month, I will try weeklies on both.

Yeah, I made PTCS last month in PD Daily. That was a nice bonus.

If you're trying to qualify, it's definitely best to only do one of the two modes to concentrate your points

[TheGreatBambi]

Guys I won

25k one though

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally Posted by bailey

The biggest attraction of Perfect Draft for me is the chance for PTCS entry. I'm trying 2 dailies on my alt and 1 weekly on my main. There is less frustration with the weeklies because you play in far fewer and if you win one the reward is far more satisfying. I think next month, I will try weeklies on both.

Haha, I have qualified three times and gone out in the first round all three times, so it's not something I really think about anymore.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally Posted by HondoLane

Yeah, I made PTCS last month in PD Daily. That was a nice bonus.

If you're trying to qualify, it's definitely best to only do one of the two modes to concentrate your points

Agreed - I also think you're right as a matter of pure points the dailies are probably better. I just am trying not to let managing my tournaments completely take over my life so I stick to the weekly ones which means only doing a draft and setting up teams once every couple days.