Warrior General Games

As many of you know, my team The Twilight Zone was an attempt at defensive excellence through having as many Superstars on the field as possible. Due to the glaring problems with a Zone defense and the build deficits necessary to stop the current metagame (lack of speed, conditioning) I will be resetting the team and attempting to craft a new defensive team. I have decided to try and craft a new superstar studded defense (man system this time) designed to run a pretty specific system with each player built to play their role to perfection, but am unsure which formations or plays to base the team around. So far I have come up with the following preliminary build concepts, with the main focus being around attempting to stop the run AND pass via Zero Edge Blitz and 3-3-5 Over Will Mike Blitz 1:

The LBers

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4464_1461639330.png

A Blitzing LB capable of firing off first step and TV consistently, with the ability to get into the backfield as fast as possible, with the tackling skills to force some QB fumbles and slow down power backs. Enough Conditioning to maintain speed and make difficult tackles and enough BRB to snag the RB on outside running plays. The main blitzer in 3-3-5 OWMB and ZEB. Early bloomer may have left him with too low of tackling, blitz awareness, and pursuit caps, so may reconsider sacrificing quickness in a non-Early bloomer build


http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4474_1461639668.png

Acts as the second edge blitzer in ZEB and the middle blitzer in OWMB. Enough BRB and Pursuit to snag the RB on inside runs and the Pursuit and blitz awareness to blow up counters. Enough speed to chase runs to the opposite side with closing speed. No real pass coverage skills so he is a liability in passing situations when he isn't blitzing, but is an awesome LB against run teams with great speed/tackling/conditioning/pursuit

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4463_1461640181.png

Coverage LB in OWMB and ZEB, to slow down those S* TE's. Great man awareness also allows him to recognize the run and decent speed/pursuit/tackling to get to the ballcarrier. Coverage skills could be better but he has a lot to do.


The CB's

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4469_1461640472.png

The most important member of the Defense, IMO. The full time CB1, must be the sole outside run defender when attempting to play ZEB or OWMB against the run, so high enough BRB to consistently get around the CB and the tackling skills to bring down the back are a MUST, as well as enough pursuit to avoid the counters. Unsure where to go on the SA's, considering closing speed, death grip, and showboat.



http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4468_1461640723.png

Much of the same, you might wonder why the other build existed. This guy sacrifices tackling and run stuff ability to move from ok to excellent pass coverage. Full time CB2 in ZEB, even if he cant make the tackle he should divert the back or stall long enough for a gang tackle. Wont consistently break a block like the CB1 , but the two should work nicely in trips formations to prevent the weak toss, since at least one will break the block. He should have enough time to get past the CB in the I form weak counters as well, or if we run ZEB against Big I which has been proven effective against the Sweep and Counter Left.

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4472_1461641017.png

The most controversial build probably. He trades all run stop ability for complete elite, best in the game coverage ability. Since he will ONLY play CB3, he will be played not at all in 2WR formations to avoid running play mishaps. However, in 3 or 4WR formations he matches up excellently against those elite WR3, where the best WR tend to play anyway. He isn't as much of a liability against the run with the other two corners breaking blocks consistently. Will make teams think twice before passing out of trips. Might over-encourge teams to spam 2WR plays to take advantage of the other CB's lack of coverage, so could potentially switch him into the other slots to throw people off guard. In OWMB in particular he has the CB1 to cover his ass on run plays which is nice.

The Linemen

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4559_1461641378.png

2 of these ends, integral to being the first line of defense in stopping the inside and outside run in ZEB and OWMB. Have not only the break block ability, but the speed to get to the HB and the skills to make the tackle. Enough speed/PRT to produce a pass rush even without a blitzing LB. Even a couple gold showboat TFL and sacks could swing a game.

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4466_1461641586.png

Can only afford 1, but a DT with insane BRB is necessary to prevent teams from using OWMB as inside run bait. Gets a nice pass rush as well, and the speed to knock the QB down before pitches occasionally.

The Safeties

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4470_1461641902.png
http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4471_1461642175.png

Switching between OWMB and ZEB requires safeties that can play man and zone. 90+ Pursuit and sprinting allows him to chase those speed backs down and get behind the line as quickly as possible. Low tackling hopefully made up by death grip, high conditioning, and momentum. Hopefully the coverage and blitzing on the rest of the D are enough to let the safeties focus on playing the run since their coverage skills are lacking


In addition, the other DT in ZEB would be a run stopper and the other LB would be a MLB with limited pass coverage skills. Would these builds stand a chance against stopping these insane RB's even in ZEB and OWMB? What plays would you spam to beat this? Is there a better formation/play that could be built around to stop the run and pass? Should I get rid of blitzing LBers altogether? Not enough tackling? Share your ideas and help me craft an unstoppable defensive juggernaut

The coverage LB has some issues.
You can get away with just 80 speed on that guy, and use the extra points to push consistency up to 53, drop power tackling, and tackling grip to 50 and pump footwork as high as it will go with the extra points.

Your S* DE doesn't have any blitz awareness, are you sure they'll react to the Hb in time, or will they end up chasing the QB too long to realize he's handed the ball off, needs more consistency and snap reaction as well.
S* DE
http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/239_NEW_1461279688.png

You can get away with less speed at the safety position (around 80), in exchange for more quickness, footwork, or deflecting

I'd focus on a Cover 1/Cover 0 defense and leave the SS zone defense at 0, and put those points into footwork or deflecting as well.

Still scary either way though, even a top offense would have trouble getting around these guys.

Nice defense.

Being a defense guy myself, I'm interested in this concept...it's something I almost considered doing.

How do you plan to do your offense? Detroit Leo's BSB team is the first I've seen built like this and he had to run a skeleton crew on offense, however it has worked well so far.

I apologize for getting a little off topic here.. I'm also curious as to how your offense is going to be structured too. There's been nothing in this game to this point to lead me to believe in heavy investment on the defensive side. I can only think of two examples of extreme defensive superstar rosters, one being yours. It's kind of a shame that it didn't work out better, and I wouldn't blame builds (you had great quality players) it just seems like the game is designed around offense. It will be cool to see you taking the man route this time. I think it'll be a lot more successful in the long term. Who knows, maybe you and BSB will lead the path to a new meta with this. Wish you the best of luck.

And just so I can actually say I tried to contribute to something on the topic, a few thoughts on the LBers. I agree with Milehigh, that I'd personally boost footwork up a bit. If that were my build, I'd look to take points out of cov tech, pursuit, or maaaybe a little tackle tech to improve that. Middle linebacker looks nice, I'd prefer to use at least one of the cap boosts on conditioning though. I'm guessing all the snap reaction is for OWMB spam. As for the blitzing LB, no I absolutely would not get rid of him. Anecdotal evidence here, but Bear Jew on LLUA is probably the 2nd most important player on our team. For two seasons, we spent most of our SP building to stop the run (you being in our division and having to play three times a season.) Our pass defense wasn't really being developed, but having a stud blitzer made us look elite. You could do a non S* as just a speed blitzer, but I'd rather pay more and get the benefit of a great tackler to boot. That plus the top end speed helped us even against 100% run teams, such as yours. The only change I'd prefer on your build is maybe taking a point out of agility and putting it into awareness. Get that snap reaction and blitz awareness up, and he'll be busting up all those counters/pitches before the crazy RBs have a chance to turn the corner.

I'm hoping your idea here works out, for the sake of demonstrating success with completely different rosters than we've seen before.

BSB will really be putting some skills to the test on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Studding out the defense is not the only thing that is a bit more unique on BSB. Some skills will be lower than many suggest while others will be higher. We have some solid balanced builds as well. As for our offense... It is a serious skeleton crew due to completely selling out for defense just to do it and be "different". So far I have been pretty impressed with how the offense has performed with the skeleton crew skill positions 1 HB, 3 WR and 2 TE. If we add future S* players to the team they will most likely be offensive simply due to the availability of offensive S* players with many more being built and likely the quality of builds will be better offensively for what we are doing. I will say that I would not mind having a 2nd S* DE or possibly a 3rd S* CB. Otherwise though I am really enjoying watching our defense play right now and look forward to seeing where our builds will take us as we progress.

Additionally, the reason for the skeleton crew offense is also partially due to the traits that I used across the board. I could have scraped some more cap space if I had wanted to but chose not to sacrifice too much on builds.

Detroit, have you ever felt like the lack of investment on the offensive side of the ball has hurt you, or will in the future? Mysterio has a few (HB and 2 guards) on his team, and for the most part, he's been able to put up top offensive numbers in the tier.

I'm not sure if having a couple extra stars on the defense (say free safety and d-end) is worth having a lack of stars on the offense, especially if you can get his current offensive output with just a few. But I haven't been able to follow your team much, and you're currently "the guy" on this matter!

Originally posted by GoGetta
Detroit, have you ever felt like the lack of investment on the offensive side of the ball has hurt you, or will in the future? Mysterio has a few (HB and 2 guards) on his team, and for the most part, he's been able to put up top offensive numbers in the tier.

I'm not sure if having a couple extra stars on the defense (say free safety and d-end) is worth having a lack of stars on the offense, especially if you can get his current offensive output with just a few. But I haven't been able to follow your team much, and you're currently "the guy" on this matter!

If I was building the perfect team it would look different than BSB for sure. BSB is simply focused on defense because it is something different and exciting. On offense it would be a major boost if we had a S* HB and a S* WR and or a S* G. You could also make an argument for a S* TE. I have been pretty surprised with how well our offense has done in the early go and was expecting the offense to start much slower. Defense has obviously been lights out and has given our offense plenty of time on the field so far though which has allowed our offense to still remain one of the top 5 or whatever balanced offenses. All of our extra OLineman helped with early conditioning there and shows up for STs as well. I may cut some salary by picking up some rookie OLineman this offseason if a proper S* build at a position that is suitable to the team were to pop. We could still add to our defense or offense depending on what becomes available as we progress through tiers. I am sure that our offense will not be as explosive though as others but that is alright. The perfect team for today's META would probably have a mix with some combination of S* HB, S* WR, S* G and/or OT, possibly S* TE, 1-2 S* DEs, 2 S* LBs, 1-2 S* CBs and a S* SS.

I could write a dissertation on all these builds, but generally you're low on Def Consistency across the board. Some positions are ok, but all of them? You clearly don't think much of Confidence.

On the S* Cover CB, you're really going to need higher Consistency on him for 3rd down passing even with those Coverage skills. Plus his Tackling is too low at 24/22. I'd put your Cap Boosters in Consistency to 57 (still low for what you want him to do I think) and up his Tackling some (not crazy, some). If he misses a tackle on WR3 on a TE Drive, it's a TD. I don't think you need to spend the SP on Interceptions (to 80) if you're going with a S* LB Blitzer that is gunning for Sacks/QB Fumbles. Seems like overkill for something that inherently random. I spammed TE Drive a 1,000 times a season. It doesn't have a high pick rate and your Blitzing LB will get picked up by the OLine more than you think. I don't think you're going to see a noticeable increase in picks with one CB at 80 intercept than if he had 60-70. If you didn't have a S* Blitzer, I'd say sure but you do. You'll save 12-20k SP by lowering his Int 15 points, upping Tackling Tech/Grip and using his Cap Boosters on DC, saving a bit on Cover Tech/Deflection. You don't need the pick, you just need the stop.

All builds are going to have some deficiency somewhere. When you have a S* defender it is really beneficial to have them do 2-3 things well rather than do 1-2 things excellent IMO. Take a current META type build and decide what secondary and tertiary roles you can add to it. The more he can do while still being solid in a certain area the better. S* defenders are worth their weight in gold IMO. With that said though... Proper play calling is still really important. Out of position is still out of position against any offense. S* defenders can make being out of position hurt a bit less than it would normally though.

I know this doesnt contribute much but i agree with Xars. I think the lack of confidence in your build will hurt the longer the game goes, especially versus a punishing power offence.

Im going to be trying out a 10 confidence team to see if that changes things and yeah some skills will be lacking but i want to see how a high confidence build team goes.

Again not much contribution i just think you need more confidence in your builds

Thanks for the input all. 50 minimum defensive consistency is an excellent point, not sure how effective it is but I've always skimpes on it and it is pretty cheap so why not.

The offense will once again be all run and feature a single S* HB. Unsure on where I want to go with his build however. Offensive line will not be any S*, but will have 95+ tech and 50+ power.

Adjusted the builds a bit
http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4472_1461680313.png for the CB3

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4559_1461680596.png for the 2 DEs



http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4466_1461680882.png for the DT

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4464_1461681380.png for the BLB

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4463_1461681626.png for the CLB

Will do minor adjustments to the others to up consistency to the 50-60 range

For the HB I was leaning towards some sort of combo back build

http://www.glb2scout.com/vpimages/135_4468_1461684980.png

should have enough variability to resist potential powerback nerfs. If worse comes to worst I can bring up a PuP to the appropriate tier to replace him.

Originally posted by Xars
I could write a dissertation on all these builds, but generally you're low on Def Consistency across the board. Some positions are ok, but all of them? You clearly don't think much of Confidence.

I hate that skill. So easy to sacrifice in initial build planning to boost a ton of other stuff, but then you suck at stopping 3rd down conversions. It's a bitch of a dynamic.