That's How I Meta Your Mother

[Gustav 6,469]

It's hard to believe that I'm one season away from creating my third player. I joined the league as a freshman in college, and my first two careers have taken me almost all the way to graduation. A lot has changed in that time--starting out, I was just told to keep passing and scoring separate by 10-ish points, and that's what I did eventually as a pass-first defender. I asked for a lot of build advice as a new guy, and got a lot of suggestions (most of which I followed), but the general consensus among everyone who was kind enough to tell me anything was that I should build my player however I want to build my player--which I think is the way it should be, and it's what I'll tell anyone who asks me the same things. 

 

But things changed soon enough. Matt Thompson had a lot of people going for a larger gap initially, with some copying him and using a gap of 15 and some going further and doing 20 or more. It was around the time I started to see the whole "you should have a big PA-SC gap" idea pushed more frequently that the SHL was blown wide open by their own meta experience. Through test sims, one team figured out that they would benefit from everyone maxing out scoring while keeping passing as low as possible...and off they went, winning all over the place and leading to the SHL shutting down for months while leadership transitioned their league to an entirely new sim engine. Though we knew about this in the VHL, it wasn't actively pursued at the time (and, in fact, the GMs at the time made a verbal agreement not to push it on their own teams). 

 

Cut to S80, when the top was similarly blown off of our own league. There had been meta-ish teams throughout the 70s, all with decent results (S70 Moscow is the earliest example I can think of, followed quickly after by Chicago, Warsaw, and Malmo, to name a few, by the middle of the VHL decade), but the general perception around the league and the GM community was that those teams just happened to be that way--nobody was publicly bragging or complaining about the way they were set up. Perceptions changed in S80, in particular when Vancouver gained their own reputation as "the meta team". They were very likely not the first to attempt to copy the SHL's strategy, but until that point nobody had succeeded in doing so as completely as the Wolves. "Vancouver is following the meta" was soon spread around the league, by people both for and against it, and at that point all bets were off. Teams that were trying to do the same thing could now state that they were trying to do the same thing, and 40-99 instantly became the recommended build as GMs changed their advice and experienced players scrambled to reroll to pure meta in the offseason. Today, Vancouver is still on top of the league, certainly thanks in part to the structure of the team, and many other teams are on the same meta train themselves. It's plausible at the moment that Toronto may no longer be the proud owner of the first and only threepeat in league history (I tried to work in "first and only of its kind" but wasn't quite sure how to phrase it; apologies to all of our boomers).

 

I do not blame anybody for doing what is objectively best for their team and their player. I understand why building your player to 40-99 or attempting to make your team go full meta is appealing (though I also consider it a bit selfish and believe that it's effectively killed the "build however you want as long as you're not completely unusable" way of doing things for everyone else). But a question that pops into my head about that is...what if I don't want to do that? 

 

I've always been ideologically opposed to making my team as meta as possible (something that will become irrelevant whenever the blues get around to announcing the new GM), so I think it's fair that the same logic should carry over to my player. Even though I've followed a fairly standard build with Taro, there was still a bit of "how do I want to build?" thrown in there as I was doing it, and figuring out exactly what I wanted to do was fun. I don't want to completely determine my player's build ahead of time, and even though doing so might keep me off of certain teams and ensure that I won't make the Hall of Fame, at the moment I'm inclined to drop a few weeks' worth into PA if I build a skater. I am going to build as I'd like to, and I won't be controlled by the new status quo. I'll build a useful player, I'll earn as usual, and if you don't like that, well, that's your loss (or maybe I'll just make a goaler).

 

Yes, we're also working on a solution to the whole meta thing behind the scenes. And I don't think it will affect my entire career at all. Ideally, the meta is addressed while I'm still a prospect (that would be really nice, wouldn't it?), but it does take work and it takes a lot of it. We can't snap our fingers and make the way the league thinks about things go back to S66, as much as I'd like that (in many ways). I do hope that what's done works and presents a fair solution to all, because I don't want "build how you'd like, within reason" to be a downside. But that said...build how you'd like, within reason! There will be changes sometime soon, and you might as well enjoy your time building rather than trying to fit into the spreadsheet war.

[Daniel Janser 2,216]

Hi Gustav, 

 

When I joined the league two seasons ago, I started allocating my TPE nilly-willy with the type of player I had in mind for my build (Two-way winger) and even allocated points to leadership. Then I discovered your build guide and took this as a guideline to develop my player (which fitted with what I had in mind for him)... Thanks for that guide btw... I also am of the opinion that it is your player and you build it like you see fit... Just don't expect that every team will jump at drafting you if you have a more... 'colourful' build... but hey getting the all-time penalty record in the VHLM can be a career goal as well  . 

 

I have an RPG background, I always was sceptical about so called 'power-gamers' who developed their character in a way to make them most effective, even if it went against the grain of their class (a mage pushing strength for example). A little bit of the same here in VHL... IMO if you build a center, you cannot forego passing, I mean in RL a center has two key tasks in a hockey team: Win draws and set up the wingers... how can you achieve that in the top flight, if your player has the passing skills of a college player?

 

I know STHS apparently does not see it my way and that you still got a basket full of apples even if you are investing zero points in passing. I accept it, but I think it needs to be addressed...

 

[Beketov 9,101]

6 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

It's plausible at the moment that Toronto may no longer be the proud owner of the first and only threepeat in league history

But presumptive when they haven’t even gotten to two yet but alright.

 

6 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

Matt Thompson had a lot of people going for a larger gap initially, with some copying him and using a gap of 15 and some going further and doing 20 or more.

Also I find this funny because I was basically doing the same thing with Thompson and people were acting like I invented the wheel. Thompson was mostly just a combination of John Locke and Franchise Cornerstone.