NBA 2K20 MyTeam: Week 1

And we’re back!

So the first thing I did in MyTeam this year (after opening my Dirk-centric Starter Pack) is unlock the auction house. Luckily it wasn’t as complex as it was last year, as you just have to collect 30 cards. But still, it’s kind of silly.

Once that chore was complete, I looked over my fancy new agenda —

— to get some direction as to what I should be focusing on next.

There’s lots (theoretically, but more on that later) to do, so it can be overwhelming at first. Actually, if you want a refresher, here’s the developer blog from this year to see everything that’s new. This year looks to have (again, theoretically) some great sounding stuff! Or, if you’re just totally new to MyTeam altogether, another great resource is the series of videos that are in the Community Hub, which can be accessed via the bottom left tab on the home screen.

Personally speaking, after I knocked out the Moments and Weekly Challenges to get a feel for my players, I officially started my year by using my pre-order MT (from the Legend Edition) to buy and quickly resell ruby Klay Thompson. Like, a bunch of times.

Everyone loves cranking 3s with Klay so he’s a hot commodity, but I actually am not a fan of Klay or his shot release. Nor am I fan of any Warriors players — being a Rockets fan myself — so there’s that. But I could usually find Klay for 15-16K MT, and then resell him for 22-23K. That’s a nice profit margin when you do it a zillion times over the course of 72 hours. Then I used that MT to buy amethyst Melo, who has been the focus of my offense thus far in 2K20.

Next, to further my MT accumulation, I got into sniping and reselling D-Wade Spotlight cards. But that market quickly proved to be unstable. I think the reason is because the majority of people who acquire these cards are getting frustrated with the Spotlight Challenges, and then they re-sell them out of anger for an unreasonably low price because they just want to wash their hands of this nonsense and move on.

Essentially to get the ultimate diamond Alonzo Mourning reward, you have to spend money to complete the whole Spotlight Collection because specific cards are required to advance. And people are already trying to bloat the value of some of those cards, like the emerald Udonis Haslem for example, so no matter hard you grind, you’re eventually going to have to overspend MT for underpowered cards that probably won’t hold their value for long, or you’ll hit a paywall and have to spend real money on opening packs.

Then if you do get the cards, the actual challenges are Tough with a capital T. I was actually able to score 28 points with Udonis (after evolving his card to a ruby), but can’t for the life of me score 10 baskets with emerald Jason Williams. Not 20 points, but 10 baskets, so getting fouled doesn’t count. And after getting about three buckets, the defense (spearheaded by Chauncey Billups) zeroed in on me and shut White Chocolate down. I’ve also heard that a subsequent challenge is to get 10 rebounds with D-Wade, in a shortened game.

I don’t need that kind of frustration in my life, so that’s when I threw in the towel and moved onto Domination, my favorite mode. Usually…

There’s something weird thing going on where it’s not always counting the MT you earn correctly, so on my second Domination game (against the Thunder), I earned more than enough MT (625 is required) to get the three stars and unlock an evolution player, but it shorted me some MT and only claimed that I earned two stars. Not cool.

So I’ve given up on that until it’s fixed. Theeeeeen I moved onto Triple Threat…

Ha ha, yeah right. C’mon 2K, get your stuff together, please.

I was able to play some Triple Threat online though, and that worked pretty well. The online gameplay even seemed better than I remember from last year, so that’s a great sign and will hopefully hold up. It got me so excited, actually, that I decided to play some regular online 5-on-5 for the first time in ages…

Ouch. That optimism didn’t last long. I guess at least they’re trying, because as far as I can tell I didn’t lose any contracts in this game, but still, I was up by 15 points in the third quarter so I feel like I should get a win here.

Oh well, I guess I’ll switch over to MyLeague for a few days until they clean this mess up.

Here’s my main lineup as of now. I’ll take this opportunity to call out a couple of cards I’ve had success with so far this year:

1. Sapphire Jimmy Butler is a two-way beast that has hit some huge shots for me. And as far as small forwards are concerned, he’s pretty cheap on the auction house. I did sell him though, because I was able to replace him with…
2. Mikal Bridges, who is a 3-and-D machine that I got for free after beating the Suns in Domination. He’s an evolution card that starts as an emerald and can be evolved to a sapphire, and I really like his shot release. Plus he’s got great size, and can play shooting guard or small forward. That flexibility is important with the new positional restrictions. I truly can’t recommend him enough.
3. Then there’s sapphire Shaq, who is a beast of a different kind. He actually has three Hall of Fame badges (Brick Wall, Backdown Punisher and Moving Truck), which I don’t think I’ve ever seen so early in a MyTeam cycle. The badges really do make a difference as this sapphire definitely plays above his pay grade. Also, keep your eyes peeled because there are other cards that already have HOF badges as well, like sapphire Scott Skiles (Dimer) in the token reward market. Amazing!

Last but not least, there’s D-Wade. Not the pre-order sapphire Dwayne, but actually the emerald that’s part of Wade’s spotlight challenge.

First of all, he’s free just for winning a game. Secondly, the concept of working to evolve players adds a whole new layer to the game, which is exciting and I hope will become a mainstay feature in the series. And third, as someone who has never really enjoyed using Wade in the past, this year he’s godly for me on the court. And I think it has everything to do with the gameplay changes this year, as they maximize the value of a player like Wade (or Victor Oladipo), which is great.

Okay, so just as I was finishing this article up, a patch dropped.

Triple Threat offline did come back it seems. However, I know a lot of people aren’t getting certain rewards, like jerseys for winning Domination games, or even just cards for hitting collection rewards, but I don’t know if those kind of issues can even be resolved in a patch. I’ll echo most everyone I’ve come across online and say that little bugs are unfortunately to be expected in huge games like this, and I think most people could be forgiving of such small issues, but not being able to get the items that you’ve earned, or even play online games without fear of random disconnects is kind of a big deal.

This is all especially sad because these issues are overshadowing what looks like it could be the best-playing game in the history of 2K.

But what about you guys? Have you gotten a chance to play MyTeam and make any progress? Are you having any similar (or new/different) issues? If so, detail them below and hopefully 2K can get this stuff resolved so we can move on to what will hopefully be (fingers crossed) a great year!