Part 1 was basically just for newbies and this second part is also somewhat geared for newbies, but also will transition into something useful for even you experienced MyTeam players…if you haven’t put a lot of thought into MyTeam “meta” strategy.

If you’re the type who is going to be whale to 2K’s casino, and throw down some serious dough on packs, all you really need to do is abuse your credit card and dignity, and rip packs. Easy.

But if you’re a No Money Spent, whether because you’re poor or stubborn (or both), you need to have a strategy in order to put yourself in the position to field a competitive team and not feel intimidated when you match up with a God Squad.

If you’re this type, Part 2 of my Guide to MyTeam is for you…

Guide to NBA 2K19 MyTeam

Part 1: Basics

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO MYTEAM ECONOMICS

I’m not going to go in-depth into MyTeam economics here. One could go on for ages about it. But I will go over some basic principles here.

Throughout the year, 2K will regularly drop better and better cards. New players that are better, and better versions of players already in the game. What once was great, will soon be shit. Such is the way of MyTeam.

To get the latest and greatest, you traditionally have needed one of two currencies: VC, for buying packs to hopefully draw great cards, or MT, to just straight-up buy the new cards on the Auction House (AH). VC is gotten by spending real, IRL money. MT is gotten by selling stuff on the AH for MT, and also from playing MyTeam and gaining more in MT via in-game bonuses and bounties than you spend on Contracts.

(VC can also be earned through gameplay in other modes: MyCareer, MyLeague, MyGM, and also Play Now (?). I’m not going to get into other modes, though.)

Making MT by “flipping” cards in the AH is a whole ‘nother topic I’ll dive deep into, later. What I’m going to deal with in this Part 2 is making MT by “grinding” gameplay, and also gaining Rewards through gameplay. Oh, and Tokens, which is sort of a new thing in 2K19.

Be Careful About Buying/Holding Expensive Cards

If you’re a MyTeam vet, you’ve seen the economic cycles before. The best cards in the game right now, in super-early cycle, are super expensive. And they will plummet in price in the coming weeks.

This is the case throughout the cycle, because the latest and greatest becomes outdated and crappy as time goes on, and better cards get added.

If you want to plan for the future, you need to be careful about not eating that depreciation. Which means that you either do not buy the most expensive cards, or you are very careful about getting a good deal for them, and more importantly, sell them before their value drops too far.

Sometimes this is a gradual process of a series of small and medium drops. But there are usually events that will create sudden drops in value. Typically the release of new packs, especially Theme Packs. These Packs contain cards that will replace cards as latest and greatest…and they will also incentivize people to undercut each other on the AH to sell off holdings to generate MT to spend on Packs. Which leads to a crash in the value of cards, specific and in general.

Overview of Grinding for MT and Tokens

In every game you play in MyTeam, you will get in-game MT bonuses for every positive statistical thing you do: sink a shot, make an assist, get a steal, grab a rebound, etc. These all add up and stack with FG% and potential 3P% and FT% bonuses, and get multiplied by the Difficulty Setting Multiplier to result in the MT reward you get for the game. For a typical game, on very roughly, and generally, will earn something like 500-1,000 MT.

Challenge games will have MT bounties you earn for completing them. “Bounties” because you can only earn them once. Weekly Challenges have an increasing scale and don’t add up to very much, relative to time spent. Moments Challenges typically will be more worthwhile and can even pay out quite nice sums, say 5,000 MT or more sometimes.

(I’m not quite 2/3rds of the way through Domination and in prior years, All-Star Domination games paid big MT, and All-Time paid substantial amounts for each game. I am not positive what the rewards are this year, so will avoid the topic for now and come back to detail when I know for sure.)

Tokens were in the game before, but only as single tokens earned each week for completing the Weekly Challenges, which earned you a nice-looking Player Card that you would end up disappointed in a few weeks later, if not immediately.

Now Tokens are kind of an alternate currency that one trades directly back to the game in exchange for Rewards Player Cards. From Emeralds up to Pink Diamonds. Maybe higher, later. And probably for early purchase of Theme Packs, as teased by the Dev Blog.

As has always been the case, you can earn Rewards Cards directly from clearing gameplay ladders. E.g. complete Current Dom and get Amethyst Mark Eaton. Complete each Current Dom game with 3 stars and get a Gold player.

So grinding gameplay is about grinding for MT, Tokens, and Reward Cards. The Reward Cards can be used…and they can also be sold on the AH, to gain MT. Tokens are a way to get stuff without spending MT. So it still all sort of ties back into MT as a precious resource. And this guide is basically about what to prioritize, early on, in order to gain MT without spending $.

UNLOCK THE AUCTION HOUSE, SOONER THAN LATER

5 Pre-Requisites to Unlock the Auction House

The first thing everyone should do is to unlock the Auction House. Not necessarily absolutely first, in the sense that you can mix in playing more than the one Domination game that’s required, in order to earn better/more cards so that you have an easier time with the other goals.

But you generally want to unlock the AH sooner than later. This year, this is especially the case because you have to win two online games and the level of squads you’ll face will only get better and better and you’re unlikely to be able to keep pace without access to the AH (unless you drop $$$).

But in general you want to unlock earlier than later because the sooner you do, the sooner you can sell off cards you win from your Domination grind, which very generally should depreciate in value as time goes on and they become increasingly common.

And whether you just dabble in it, or you go hardcore into the meta economic “game” of the MyTeam AH, the AH is a key platform for earning MT. More MT than you can earn through gameplay, in less time, even if done casually.

To unlock the AH, you need to accomplish the five goals listed in the screencap above. You don’t have to accomplish them sequentially and so I’m going to list them in what I think is an approximate order of difficulty, easy to hard.

Challenges: Complete a Weekly Challenge

Tutorial and Week 1 Challenges

This is super easy. It’s on Rookie Difficulty and I think it’s no more than 2 short quarters. See the graphic above and note that this requirement is not cleared by doing the “Tutorial: The Sweep” Challenge, but the “2. Process Playoffs” Challenge, which is actually the #1 Week 1 Challenge. But you still want to do the Tutorial Challenge, and maybe before doing the Weekly, since it gives you an Emerald Player Card.

Domination: Earn 3 stars against a single team

This is easy if you’re familiar with the game and you can do it easily with nothing more than the cards you got in your Starter Packs. Soon, I’ll have another guide discussing tactics for maximizing MT bonuses to earn 3 stars in Domination games.

Triple Threat: Win a game

This means to win an offline/single-player game of Triple Threat. Which should not be difficult.

Unlimited: Win a game

This is an online PvP game. If you’re new to the game, or even just to the mode, this could be hard. Maybe extremely hard, especially if you’re starting off now in general release and you get matched up with someone who had the head start of playing in pre-release.

All I will say in this post is that online play is much less cheesy this year. It’s possible to contain higher-end slashers with lower-end defenders. And the gameplay thus favors skill/execution of plays, freelances, and P&R. Which means if you just started and you’re new to the game and don’t play it well, then…this will be very tough.

If you are totally fresh to NBA 2K in general, or even are new to 5 v 5 gameplay because you’re a refugee from MyCareer/MyPark, then you may want to drop unlocking AH down a notch and play a bunch of Domination/Challenges first, to get used to the game. If you can’t beat early games of Domination and/or the starter Challenges very easily, you will probably get wrecked in Unlimited unless you’re lucky enough to get matched up to another beginner.

Otherwise, if you’re more or less ready, just keep playing until you get matched up with someone you can beat and/or not someone with a squad much better than yours.

Triple Threat Online: Win a game

I’m listing this as more difficult than Unlimited because I think that Triple Threat 3 v 3 gameplay is more gimmicky. More cheesy. There are people who, only a couple days in, began to zero in on cheesy tactics that work especially well in the Triple Threat mode. So I think this is the toughest Unlock AH goal to complete. Same general advice applies to what I said about Unlimited, though.

MOVE ON TO GRINDING OFFLINE/SINGLEPLAYER GAMEPLAY

Whether before, after, or concurrent to unlocking the AH, you need to decide which offline mode to grind, or at least focus on. There are basically four categories: Domination, Triple Play, Weekly/Moments Challenges, and Schedule Challenges.

Complete Available Weekly & Moments Challenges First, if AH Unlocked

First Moments Challenge

Generally, I would say you should focus on grinding Domination and I’ll get into this more, below. But I’ll also note that, if you’ve already unlocked the AH, and don’t have the 50K MT bonus from the Anniversary Edition, and are playing as a No Money Spent player, then you should hit up the Weekly and Moments Challenges first. These will pay you a pretty good amount of MT, which will allow you to build a solid lineup by buying Emerald and Sapphire cards on the AH.

The first Moments Challenge that’s available is at Rookie Difficulty and has shorter 4 min quarters and, for that, 2,000 MT is a very nice payoff.

Otherwise, I Advise Focusing on Grinding Domination

Some players will advise grinding Triple Threat, but I think the number who would do so will have dwindled now that 2K modified the game rules to award less Tokens on Board 7 of Triple Threat.

I advise grinding Domination first because:

You earn Reward Packs with each game you clear. With every trio of these Reward Packs (3 Star = 3 Packs), you will earn that team’s Logo, Court, and a Gold Player Card, as well as Consumables cards. All of these can be sold for MT on the AH if you think that’s smart. But if not, you are building up your Collector Count and when you get to 100 you earn Sapphire Daniel “Boobie” Gibson, which everyone is losing their shit over as one of the most useful early cycle Reward cards we’ve gotten.

You will earn 5 Tokens with every Division bracket that you clear. Tokens can be redeemed for useful-for-now Reward Player Cards in the Rewards/Token Market.

You will earn Amethyst Mark Eaton when you clear all of Current Domination.

And when you clear all of Current Domination, if you haven’t sold any of the Logos/Courts you won, you can lock them in for considerable amounts of Tokens.

You will be practicing/improving your skills. If you’re new to the game, then you’re getting basic experience. If you’re new to 5 vs. 5 gameplay, you’re getting experience with that. And even if you’re a MyTeam veteran, you are getting used to the new controls, new moves, new freelances/Series/Plays, etc.

What About Other Offline/Singleplayer Modes?

Aside from Dom and Challenges, there’s also offline Triple Threat and Schedule Challenges.

I haven’t gotten deep into Triple Threat, but I believe the main point of it is to get Tokens and I don’t care much about Tokens right now. (See below.) If there are any other rewards, I think they’re pretty paltry and also may be a function of luck to get at all. I’d rather focus first on the sure bet rewards of Dom. And I would rather hone my 5 vs. 5 gameplay.

Schedule Challenges are also 5 vs. 5. And have sure bet rewards. The reason I’d do Dom before Schedules is that Schedules is mainly rewarding with MT that isn’t really considerable until one has gotten toward the end of the bracket. Toward the end, they’re pretty nice…

Last Four Games of a Schedule

You can see in the screenshot above, in the 12th through 14th games, you’re earning 3,300 MT. Not great, but not bad. Somewhere in between Weeklies and Moments. And the 15th game rewards you with a pack with a guaranteed Historic card from the Franchise.

The problem is that it’s going to take a good while to finish the ladder. And, when you get your Reward Pack, there’s no telling how good or bad of a card you’re going to draw.

And , decisively, there is also a cost to Schedule Challenges. You need to meet lineup requirements along the way: include an increasing number of players from that franchise in your lineup. At the end, you need 8.

I think in terms of return:time and for low cost, Domination is what you hit first.

THE DILEMMA OF HOLDING CARDS VS. SELLING THEM

I.E. GRINDING COLLECTOR LEVELS

Rewards for collecting cards, in terms of the total count of cards one has, is back with 2K19. I haven’t checked, but I think the tiers are more widely spaced apart than they were in prior years and the threshold for the super worthwhile stuff is higher. But still worthwhile to keep in mind when deciding which levels you can attain fairly soon, and whether or not to sell cards to raise MT and delay meeting these levels.

Collector Level Thresholds and Rewards

Rookie (20 Cards): 3 Tokens

First Team (100 Cards): Sapphire Daniel “Boobie” Gibson

Veteran (250 Cards): 10 Tokens

Captain (500 Cards): 10,000 MT

That’s less than half the tiers but I’m not listing more because this is an early priorities guide. And also a guide aimed more toward people who are going No Money Spent. You’re not getting to 500, or even 250 Cards anytime soon, unless you spend $$$.

I advise you generally resist selling cards before you attain Rookie (20) and First Team (100) levels. Get those first 3 Tokens quickly and, if you want, immediately buy one Emerald Reward Player. Then build up to 100 to First Team and get Boobie Gibson. You’ll get to 100 Cards around 2/3rds of the way through Domination.

So try to burn through those first 20 or so Dom games as quickly as you can and then feel free to sell.

THE DILEMMA OF SELLING CARDS VS. LOCKING SETS FOR TOKENS

The bigger dilemma, and thornier one, is whether or not to try to complete sets and lock them for Tokens (and Reward Player Cards), or to not lock sets so that you can sell the cards whenever you feel best to do so, whether that be immediate or at some point in the future.

What this comes down to, in essence, is if you want to focus on immediate online competitiveness, or if you want to set yourself up for long-term flexibility and to build a foundation to afford stuff much later in the cycle.

Pro-MT Argument

I’m the latter sort. I care less about going 12-0 in Unlimited in September or October than I do about being able to afford some premium cards in March, and later.

I also think that, as attractive as it seems to have a bunch of Amethyst, and even Diamond, cards right now, unless one can generate tons of MT by AH flipping throughout the cycle, or one is willing to spend $$$ throughout the cycle, then I think people will regret locking in a bunch of sets to get tokens that they spent on the Rewards cards that are available now.

I think they will regret locking in sets that are worth very, very considerable MT right now, but which cannot be sold for MT once locked. Many people say that they’re sniping everything for low MT prices, but locking sets still has high opportunity cost. They could sell those snipes for big MT now, and then buy them back later on when the prices are much lower, and get Tokens then.

2K has also said that there will be a Token market in which we can buy stuff like Theme Packs before their general release. Probably will be stupid expensive, but maybe preferable to the Rewards cards at a later point in the game. Or maybe 2K will add new cards into the Rewards market that will cause some buyer’s remorse in those who redeemed for what’s available now.

Pro-Token Argument

There is an argument for focusing on Tokens and currently-available Rewards cards. The first, obviously, is building the best possible team right now .

But, beyond that, there is also the fact that Tokens are not a finite resource. Through Triple Threat and Unlimited Gameplay, you can be rewarded with Tokens throughout the Cycle. Especially with Triple Threat, if you can win games at a good clip, it’s basically a renewable resource. So you can replace any Tokens you “waste” in the early cycle.

And then there’s the argument that there will never end up being a better use for the tokens than what’s available now. I.e. there will not be additions of better Rewards cards. That the highest cards we see now will be the highest available all the way through. So you might as well get them now, while they’re godly cards. Getting them later will become increasingly pointless.

And, sure, it sounds like you will be able to redeem Tokens for Theme Packs. But maybe you’ll be limited to some small allotment like 5 packs, and maybe those packs will cost some ungodly pile of Tokens. And maybe there will never be other good stuff available for Tokens (such as Diamond Contracts/Shoes).

CONCLUSION

Unless you spend money throughout the cycle, or know how and are willing to grind the AH for MT, then MyTeam is about striking your own balance of early versus delayed gratification.

I’m in the delayed gratification camp. And while there is a lot we still don’t know that MT is the ultimate king of currencies. Perhaps not now at this super-early stage of the cycle, but eventually and then for the rest of the cycle, we will be able to buy the best cards on the AH with MT. And badges, shoes, etc.

So I’d rather bet on the prudence of maintaining MT flexibility. And, to that end, jumping on any opportunities to capitalize off of high MT profits that will diminish over time.

So I advise prioritizing unlocking the AH and grinding Domination. Sell off everything you draw in Domination and either hoard the MT, or put it to work through AH flipping.

MORE TO COME

In future installments, I’ll be covering a range of other introductory topics. Next up will be a Guide to Beating Domination…