Stacking either end

[Nails]

And you also have to consider it's not easy to get 4-6 regular playing midfield rookies that'll be top averages.

Last year's 2nd best mid rookie didn't even debut until like rd12.

It's easier to get 2 quality defender and fwd rookies and 2 mid rookies

As opposed to needing like 5 top quality mid rookies lining up every week.

[tbagrocks]

I thought front/back end depth was good ???  Oh wait that's XVs

Nah you are wrong here Nails, subs are rampent, forward players to be subbed more than midfield players?

Mid rook will score most easily

[Ziplock]

There's one part where your team falls down imo.

You don't need to get those awesome rooks for your backline

Stacked mids and you can add Tambling in (good 85 this season)

Which meets your stacked defender line of Suckling for 83 anyway.

Stacked mids + good mid price available fwds and defs  > stacked def and fwds.

as I said, dreamteam is about value... I deliberately went with a guns and rookies strategy in both those teams basically to avoid making the model unnecessarily complex. We'll ignore the fact completely that tambling is good for 85, at this point its way to early to tell on that, and it's a very generous best case scenario. Secondly, tambling instead of suckling would give you an extra 200k to play with... meaning you'd need to be pairing him with some other midpricer around the 300k range somewhere (or upgrade leuen)

By that logic there's no reason why picking midpriced mids is invalid... you're looking for value, ball, embley, moloney present as much value as tambling- none of those are going to be premiums, but they're all going to increase their averages significantly enough to basically 'cheat' the magic number system. Or spend extra money on someone like fyfe who could increase his average enough to become premium.

And you also have to consider it's not easy to get 4-6 regular playing midfield rookies that'll be top averages.

Last year's 2nd best mid rookie didn't even debut until like rd12.

It's easier to get 2 quality defender and fwd rookies and 2 mid rookies

As opposed to needing like 5 top quality mid rookies lining up every week.

Completely inconsequential. The only good forward or back rookie didn't debut at the start of the season last year either.

Rookies are hit and miss whatever position it may be. In the stacked mids team 8 rookies were being fielded, in the unstacked mids team 7 rookies were being fielded (which makes sense if you consider the price differences between the premium mids and premium backs/forwards). Decreased number of rookies makes it even more viable- you decrease the chance of subbing, and you need to find less rookies to play.

Your point about finding decent rookies in the midfield isn't really necessary- firstly, most of the best forward/ back rookies will be dpp with mids anyway (think heppell, treloar, zorko, devon smith, mzungu, isaac smith etc. etc.). So you could always have these blokes on your mid bench, or play them in your mids if you really needed to, a flexibility you dont really have with pure mid rookies, almost defeats the purpose of the strategy.

My point is though, we're yet to see many forward or back rookies with really solid scoring potential, other than perhaps goodes, and pretty much none with really good JS. But there's a fair few reasonably scoring mids, and plenty of mids with decent JS.

[Nails]

Why does every year a stacked midfield when it? 'cause your other teams are shower ;)

And def/fwd are inconsistent too unlike premo mids.

I've tried both methods, stacked def and fwd is a failure and a lot easier to screw up than stacked mids.

It's a lot harder to upgrade to premo mids. Defs/Fwds are known for having terrible games where they go missing, mids not so much. Therefore def/fwd drop more and easier to pick up.

Also upgrading to a 550K mid is harder than a 350-400K fwd/def.

You have to wait longer to upgrade in a stacked fwd/def team.

Assuming your rookies earn cash at the same rate, it's going to take rookies to rise to the required price than in a stacked mids team as you don't need to bring in such expensive players for upgrades.

[Ziplock]

because so much of dreamteam depends on luck, and the majority of people stack the mids?

inconsistency exists in all lines- in order for defenders and forward to balance out their off games, they have huge games as well that can  make them hard to pick up.

Premium mids: boyd scored 84 in round 4 and 94 in round 6 which would have dropped his price a fair chunk, as well as an 82 and 94 in rounds 17 and 18.

Watson scored under 100 in round 3, 9, 15 which would have dropped his price as wekk

cotchin went under 100 in round 2, 6,7,10,12 including a score in the 60s

pendles in round 3, 9, 10, 19, 21


you get the point- those like 80, 90 point games are 20-30 points below their average... the equivalent of someone like goddard scoring 60-70 points (4), or duffield scoring 50-60 (4) points.

inconsistencies are still there.

duffield was pretty bad example though, since he had got vested once and had some ridiculously bad games, like 40 point ones... although, then again, for someone like pendles/ cotchin, that's a 70 point game :P

Heppell would have been a better demonstration (2 games under his average by 20 points or more)

you forget though, trades need two to tango- your midfield rookies will rise more in cash fast than your defence/ forward rookies, since you need to trade out one midfield rookie and upgrade another, and you need to do the same with defenders (although you could trade out one midfield rookie), your midfield rookies are gaining cash significantly faster to trade out. Your rookies arent going to earn cash at the same rate- hence the benefit of having a laden rookie midfield

[owenbond007]

zips is all over! You need to field so many rookies and more often than not the best scores come from the mids, hence put em on the park.

Last 2 seasons was not the norm with the introduction of new teams, and a huge amount of dpps that had scoring potential.

Stacking a mid with 6 premiums especially if they are all uber will  slow the growth of your team and dramatically weaken your other lines.

atm i see a lot of over estimating of rookie/cheap backs scores/averages.

[Nails]

Cotchin isn't even relevant ::)

He started at like 93 average... so under 100 was par for the course in round 2 and 6. And a 20 point drop below average in a defender/fwd average is a bigger deal than for a mid/fwd

As it's a greater percentage of total points

I.e. a 90 for a 110 average hurts less than 70 for a 90 average player. Therefore bigger drops for def/mids.

[Ziplock]

it'll be a bigger drop in terms of percentage price, but not in terms of cash.

that being said, a 60 point game from murphy/ pendles etc. is like 50-55 points below their average, or around half their average, which is like a 45 point game from someone like goddard.

you do make a valid point that mid premiums take longer to upgrade to, but I think with 2 trades a week, and the mid rookies raking in the cash, that it won't make much of, if any, of a difference.

[Nails]

But I think that's the key though Zip

Yes mid rookies might make cash a tad faster, but not 150K faster.

You need 150K more to upgrade to a mid prem than a def/fwd prem roughly

And yes, mid rookies might score more too

But therefore 60 def rook > 90 def premo in SHORTER time

= beneficial long term over

80 mid rook > 110 mid premo which takes 1-2 weeks longer to acquire

[Memphistopheles]

There's one part where your team falls down imo.

You don't need to get those awesome rooks for your backline

Stacked mids and you can add Tambling in (good 85 this season)

Which meets your stacked defender line of Suckling for 83 anyway.

Stacked mids + good mid price available fwds and defs  > stacked def and fwds.

Lets get this straight first Nails - Tambling is a super spud and will spud it up

Now that we've got that out of the way.

This season the mid rookies are by far the best rookies. However, the mid rookies, or those who actually play in the midfield (most mid rookies spend time in defence/attack in their first few season - i.e. Conca) will score better than the defender/forward rookies.

So starting with more mid rookies and spending the cash elsewhere is a good ideo IMO.

I don't think there are quite enough mid rookies to only have Swan and Ablett but I certainly think those going for a 5-6 premo mid strategy are doing it wrong.

This year there are also some decent defence rookies but hardly any forward rookies that have stood up so far. So I would be loading up on def and mid rookies and spending the extra cash in your forward line.

Personally i have 4 absolute guns (Swan, Ablett, Boyd, Cotchin) a mid-pricer (Ball) and then 5 rookies. I will probably Ball to a rookie if it looks like there are enough good options and upgrade another forward rookie to a mid-pricer/fallen premium.

[antonc]

I agree Memph
I currently have the 4 gun midfield and stacked backs and forwards.

Structure from fanplanner:
4/1/2/1 - 4/0/5/1 - 1/1/1/1 - 5/1/2/0 = 14/3/10/3 (in the format of premium/mid/cheap/rookie for each position)

Think I stick with it as I agree with zip that both stacked and non stacked midfield teams should score similar, but the one with the rookie midfield has better potential to go up in price (+ with the right trades scoring potential!)

[Sweetness]

I agree Memph
I currently have the 4 gun midfield and stacked backs and forwards.

Structure from fanplanner:
4/1/2/1 - 4/0/5/1 - 1/1/1/1 - 5/1/2/0 = 14/3/10/3 (in the format of premium/mid/cheap/rookie for each position)

Think I stick with it as I agree with zip that both stacked and non stacked midfield teams should score similar, but the one with the rookie midfield has better potential to go up in price (+ with the right trades scoring potential!)

Well said.