MLB The Show 22 - Mini Seasons a Major Victory

Diamond Dynasty at its core is an online-focused mode. While the content overall has flourished, offline gameplay has long lagged behind the innovations and improvements to the online sphere. So coming into this year, the introduction of Mini Seasons in Diamond Dynasty has been a fantastic addition.

For years, you really didn’t have any interesting ways to use your team offline. You basically only had Extra Innings, 9-inning games against other users’ teams helmed by the CPU, or 9-inning games against regular CPU MLB teams. Neither of these modes really had a purpose.  They were tied into Inning Programs, but there was no real reason to grind these modes unless you wanted a change of pace. Conquest, the RTS-like territorial control mini-game where you play 3-inning games against MLB teams, provided some level of variety but ultimately was a repetitive mode that grew stale by the All-Star break.

Despite Diamond Dynasty being about online play, there’s a healthy number of players who prefer playing offline. The relative lack of interesting ways for these players to enjoy the game led to many calling on SDS to freshen up the offline offerings. Even for someone like me who mostly prefers playing online, I still enjoy the offline experience, and a lot of the new content released throughout the year come with offline grinds anyway. But there was just never anything worth sinking our teeth into.

Until now.

Diamond Dynasty Mini Seasons

During the final Feature Premiere before Early Access launch, SDS revealed the brand-new mode dubbed Mini Seasons. A fully offline mode with pretty good rewards, Mini Seasons looked to be an answer for offline players asking for more consistent ways to play the game. On paper, the mode appeared to be a nice change from grinding Conquest, even if it failed to deliver a revolutionary experience. But after playing through an entire season, I can firmly say that Mini Seasons is a profoundly fun addition that SDS can build on over time.

Mini Seasons is an 8-team league played exclusively offline against the CPU, leaving you with 7 CPU opponents to battle. A 28-game regular season feeds into a two-round, best-of-five playoff format leading to the Season Championship. The 7 CPU teams have static names and locations, such as the Cairo Cats and New Orleans Pinheads, all outfitted with unique jerseys and branding. Rosters are filled with rival DD teams just like Extra Innings in the past.

This alone makes for a competitive environment, especially early on in the game’s cycle. I consider myself to be a fairly skilled MLB The Show player, but I ended up losing two games on All-Star difficulty while making my first cut through the mode. From what I can tell, the teams that are generated for your league are set whenever you start a new season, and they remain as such until you either complete the season or restart it. Days after finishing that first season, I loaded up the mode again and already there’s a team with a full-collection God Squad waiting for me should I choose to play it out again. So you can bet that, over time as more and more cards are released into the marketplace, you’ll be facing new and fresh competition with each season.

But this isn’t just a new style of play to try out. Mini Seasons comes loaded with rewards for playing and winning, and also features repeatable rewards that should keep plenty of players coming back. For starters, the very first season features a player-card reward in the form of 89 overall Evan Longoria:

A very usable card that fits right into most teams. I’ve acquired several options I can start at 3B already, but I will be using this Longoria as well. Akin to the USA Conquest map that typically yields an upper-80’s Diamond reward of its own, Mini Seasons delivers in its inaugural showing with a comparable reward. One key difference between Mini Seasons and Conquest USA is Mini Seasons having rotating rewards. This is perhaps the biggest reason why Mini Seasons is such an impactful addition.

With new cards rotating every single month, it’s another avenue for SDS to add more cards to the game while also giving players something tangible to grind toward. The XP and Stubs you can earn are solid enough on their own, but getting a new player each month for a handful of CPU games is more than a fair deal. And let’s not gloss over the Stubs and XP either.

Not including the one-time rewards you can earn that look to refresh every month as well, each Mini Seasons Championship run will net you 13,000 Stubs and 13,000 XP. That’s in addition to the XP you’ll earn from gameplay as well. Suffice to say, Mini Seasons rewards you handsomely for your time and entices enough to keep you coming back. You’ll also earn the “Championship Bundle” which features 15 The Show Packs and 1 Ballin’ Is A Habit Pack and you’ll also get a Prospect Choice Pack for simply reaching the playoffs.

Mini Seasons Versus Conquest USA

With an all-new way to grind Diamond Dynasty offline, players now have a choice in how they approach said grinding. As mentioned previously, the USA Conquest Map has long been the only real option for offline grinding. After completing the map for the first time and collecting all the one-time rewards, players could go back and grind the map repeatedly for 10-pack bundles — not the most rewarding endeavor, if we’re being honest. Prospect packs are also repeatable and sellable, so if you’re willing to grind the map over and over, you can make some fairly easy stubs from that alone. So which offline grind is more efficient?

I think the answer is easily Mini Seasons. Even with SDS cutting Conquest simulation times in half, it still takes a while to get across the entire map. I would estimate that the entire map run took me around eight or so hours this year. That is much quicker than years past, but still a slog as I personally don’t enjoy Conquest all that much. I’ve been dreaming of an offline mode with 3-inning games where I could use my DD team or whatever cards I want and just play the game.

That is exactly what Mini Seasons is.

No fluff. No gimmicks. Just a handful of games with whatever team you choose to roll with and a bunch of rewards to boot. The time investment can also be much less than Conquest if you speed run your way through. With a 28-game regular season and top-four finish required, you can usually win 15 games and quit the rest. That gets you into the Mini Seasons playoffs. Once there, you need only win six more games in order to win the championship and subsequent rewards. Win every game and that’s a total of 21 games played in order to earn all the rewards. Any USA map run will require at least 30 games.

I knocked out the USA map and my first Mini Season, and I don’t think I’ll go repeat Conquest. If they add something new or rotate rewards, I’ll consider it. Mini Seasons is on track to refresh rewards once a month. SDS could always change the reward structure, but until then, Mini Seasons is the way to go. Assuming reward payouts are similar moving forward, Mini Seasons won’t be an obligation. It’ll be an absolute joy to play.

Bottom Line

Mini Seasons is a fresh, new experience for Diamond Dynasty players with a great chunk of rewards for your time. Whether you’re looking to progress through the Featured Program or grind PxP for particular cards, Mini Seasons provides everything. With rewards this good, even online-only players should find themselves wandering into offline play to take advantage of the rewards.

Have you tried Mini Seasons yet? Do you find the grind more enjoyable than Conquest or do they feel about the same?