Success in this game has three components.

The biggest piece of the puzzle is roster building. Putting together the right lineup of players to take your team all the way. You can have the best gameplan in the world but if you've a shoddy roster you're still going to lose. This is somewhere between 65-75% of your success right here.

The second element in a winning team is knowing what to do with your players once you have them. Spent all your money on a top-flight tight end and never throw him the ball? Bad pitches costing you 2 yards per carry? Punting on a 4th and 1 from the opposing 40? That's on you. The gameplan and roster for your team take you to 95% of your overall success.

The smallest is luck. That one penalty or injury that ruins your playoff run, that high volatility player who happens to have the right result at training camp. Luck is a small part of your success, but more often than not you can't claim it was responsible for the results you had. If you're losing every season, it ain't luck that's to blame.

So let's talk roster building, more specifically: trading. The following is a series of lessons you should learn about trading before even reading the next offer to come from FlavourBeans.

1. The only thing worse than not trading at all is trading badly. If you don't know what value your player has in the current meta, don't predict accurately what a future draft pick might be worth, don't know why you're making the trade or don't have a plan you're following to help your team win the bowl don't trade. Seriously. Until you understand all of the above, stay the **** away from trading.

2. Teams that win the bowl have traded to get there. The secret to a powerhouse team is taking a player or pick and turning into 150% of its value.

3. The more successful the owner you're trading with, the more likely they know something you don't. Every successful owner in the league knows who the soft targets are for landing a great deal. If you think that might be you, think twice before trading with leading dynasties. Also consider that they're trading with good reason. If you want to derail a dynasty, make them rely on their crappy low-end draft picks for a few seasons and watch them come tumbling back down to earth.

4. Get a second opinion, or better still, open it up to the league. If you think the deal you have in front of you is great open it up to the whole league. Post it in Discord, stick a time limit on it. You may end up getting more than you expected. If you're not sure a deal is good ask another owner. They won't do you wrong - nobody in this league will give you deliberately bad advice - but get them to kick the tires for you.

5. Why are you trading inside your own division? Selling a player to a team you play twice a season helps them out. You're going to want to beat them, right? So why are you helping them? Unless, of course, you think you're getting a much better deal. You know how to spot that, right?

6. Draft picks are for the foolish, desperate and gamblers. If that kid you just drafted busts at training camp his value is destroyed. Forever. This is not an exaggeration. Selling a demonstrably great player for draft picks is the very definition of a handful of magic beans. Sure, some of them might sprout, but what if they don't? An age 2 player is a known quantity. A draft pick is a gamble.

7. A top 5 pick in round 1 is worth two first round picks. Once we're out of the top 5 in any draft we're out of the "almost guaranteed good player" zone. If you're sat on an early pick don't give it away for nothing.

8. Assume future draft picks are lower than current. You just gave your trading partner an edge, and they gave you two draft picks for a couple of seasons' time. Nice. They're picking 3rd this season, that'll be a tidy boost to the team when you're looking to rebuild... except of course that they won't be #3 picks, they'll be #23 - because you just made them stronger.

9. Who do you think is going to buy that shithouse player? You've got a player you'll cut if nobody buys them, right? Yeah, nobody is going to buy that guy. He's not good enough to play on your crappy team, why do you think someone else is going to look at him and say "OH **** YEAH, TAKE MY MONEY!" You can't sell bad players.

10. Why in the **** are you buying a backup? You're spending capital on a player who's not good enough to start. Way to go, champ. Draft a chancy rookie, or sign a mutant from free agency. They cost you nothing.

11. Nobody is going to turn up in your inbox with the best trade ever. Those bigtime trades are instigated by bigtime teams, and they're likely to be taking you to the cleaners.

12. The best teams are trading to victory. They'll beat you every time unless you are too. If you do moderately well in drafting and in training camp your team will be good enough to take 2nd or 3rd in your division regularly. If those picks work out really well, you'll have a short period where you do better still, but of course you'll then get worse picks, and you'll decline again. To break that cycle you need to go beyond the hand you've been dealt.

13. When's your bowl run going to be? You don't know? Okay, let's make it simpler. Is it this season? No? Next? Okay, then the players you have who are age 7-8 are useless to you. Sell them.

14. When to buy an age 7-8 player (and when not to). This should be super obvious, but I'll spell it out. If you think your bowl run is going to be this or next season and a couple of fully experienced but short term players will get you there, go get em. Think about the core age of your starting team. If it's under 5, you're building, if it's 6-7 you're at the start of peak, if it's 8 or more your time is now.

15. What does your trading target need? Look at their roster. If you're trying to get them excited about a player who isn't as good as their current starter, it isn't going to work. If you don't do the reseach, you won't get the results.

16. What makes a player valuable? Attributes, stats, age, training direction. The end. The stats that matter are speed, acceleration, strength and arm strength. They never change (until the last couple of seasons in a player's career, when they almost always drop). Intelligence and discipline are also fixed values and they are important, but nobody is paying for a 100 intelligence, 50 strength lineman (unless they really don't know what they're doing). Stats and their importance vary from player to player. It's worth know which ones are important. Again, nobody is going to buy a 100 run block, 50 strength offensive lineman (unless they really don't know what they're doing), but they might well buy a 100 strength, 50 run blocking one. Age is a big deal. After all if you're buying a player to be part of your bowl push, it'd be great if they hadn't retired by the time that push happens. Lastly, training direction. The direction of training is set at a player's first training camp. It will never change direction, not ever. If their future rating is improving, congratulations you have value! If it's declining, worse still, if it's busting, you're sat on a turkey. Nobody wants to buy a turkey (unless they know what they're doing, or really don't know what they're doing - work out who you're talking to).

16a. What makes a bad player? Read the above and reverse it.

17. Everything is for sale. Every player has a price. If someone comes to you offering the moon on a stick for your favourite player why are you turning them down? If you knock them back they'll take that same offer somewhere else, maybe less, and still get what they want. They'll be better off, you won't be. Obviously, you can't be forced to trade but if someone is offering you a fortune what's in the best interest of your franchise?

18. The best deals start privately, not in public. "If I'd known you were going to sell that player..." It's your fault you didn't make a move. If you're not pursuing talent, nobody will drop it in your lap. Quit griping and do the work. Go find the best deal, because your opponents already are.


I think that just about covers it. Here's the TL;DR:
Making trades gets you wins. Unless you don't understand what you're doing, in which case don't trade with anyone until you do know what you're doing (hint: ^^). The fastest way to end a good team's reign of terror is to never trade with them. Always get back more than you're paying. Nothing is unavailable.