Adding to what knockout said which summed it up pretty well, I'd also say for me at least it is where I put breakaway possibilities for example as well as sometimes "intangibles" if you like - which I know is silly in a game run on a computer which doesn't have mental stats etc. like FM but still, sometimes just a general feeling about the depth or uniqueness of a team gets a point or two - hard to explain.
As knockout explained there's also usually riders like Beltran, Amezawa, Izagirre etcc. where they fit into both a main stat (or two) and hybrid, so you have to decide how to weight those scores so you don't effictively double-score them and end up with the team having an inflated overall outcome due to having been scored like they have a clone of their leader who can do 45 MO RDs and 20 hybrid RDs For me it doesn't include MO-ITT stage races at all, but it would be hill stage races to a certain extent.
The plan for this year wasn't necessarily to survive the division, or even make preparations for next year, but simply to win races. Two seasons of steady, but boring, Top 10s mean that I'm ready to finally get an opportunity at a little bit of glory.
There was definitely some thought about acquiring a third leader. A cobbler would've been nice, as there's plenty of opportunities for hanging on to the coattails of superior riders at a low price, as we found out from Maes's outings in HC over the past two years. Actually, not picking him back up for a final season might've been a mistake... Unfortunately, with the fight for Tobias Halland Johannessen going on for so long (and costing me the opportunity of competing for Leknessund and Vermeesch) I had to hold resources in reserve until it was far too late.
The good news is that our future is secure. We have future leaders for the hills (Kron), the sprints (Kanter/Zariff), the TT (Norsgaard), and the mountains (THJ). Even if we drop down to the CT I'll be able to hold on to one of Wellens or Skujins and probably look to trade the other for another youngster. I love the confidence that you all share in our promotion prospects should be survive, although I'm not sure my managerial skills will live up to the hype.
I would've published my leaders' planning if I'd known it was being assessed, but I'm not sure if I've helped or hampered my prospects. Wellens is going to be spending most of his time (19 RDs) at the PTHC level and a signficant amount more at C1 (11 RDs) as most of our band selection was aimed at exploiting Skujins; the only HC ride he will have the entire year is International Osterreich Rundfahrt, where he was runner up to Pluchkin last year. This avoids TT-heavy races, and means that he won't need as many domestiques to work for him not being the favourite in higher categories, or being so dominant in lower ones that the lack of domestiques shouldn't hurt too much. Not sure if this one will work out though.
The preference for Skujins has been semi-mountains over TTs, although both are avoided where possible. He is attending Balkans International (sorry knockout), Scandinavia, and Wallonie at the PTHC level; and only Milano-Torino, South Africa, and Lisbon at C1. Scandinavia's prologue is short and a climb, so hopefully we don't lose too much time. South Africa's TTT will definitely see losses, but given it doesn't generally see top-tier puncheurs attending, and there are plenty of time gaps in the five other stages, we should be able to win some of it back. We're hoping for a Meyer repeat in Lisbon, but we'll see what happens.
Overall, definitely pleased to see that we haven't been put as favourites to drop (even if we will be fighting at the lower end of the table by the looks of it). I agree with most of the points put forth, and will be praying to every god & goddess I know that neither Skujins nor Wellens have an off year.
Yeah, it seems all of you rate my team more than I do
The mountain ranking seems about right. Alarcon won't be anywhere near a 83 MO rider. I expect average performances and a middle position there.
The hills are also kinda okay, but I would have Aker above me, not below me. For the simple fact that Kwiatkowski is so much better than Beltran.
I think I am way too high on the sprints ranking. I only have Saber and he's just alright. Minions and Kraftwerk shouldn't have the same ranking when they both boast two sprinters and each have one that is as good or better than Saber. I also agree with Fab that he should be much higher here as Reinhardt, at least based on last season's performance, should give them a better ranking. He was better than most 80/81 sprinters.
Cobblers? I don't have them so no point talking about it
16th in TTs. I don't expect to score anything from that terrain this season, but I would rank any team that has 77+ TTer higher than my team.
Hybrids 4th?! Now this one is the most ridiculous of them all
I understand Beltran is ranked maybe more as a hybrid than a puncheur. I can understand that and he is good, but who else do I have?? Saber proved on numerous occasions last year that he is terrible on the cobbles and you can't really count him as hybrid, at least not much. After that there are no notable riders on my team that can be classed as hybrids. Maybe Vysna, but will he really make much of an impact scoring?
You basically repeated the same mistake as last year when you gave me 10 (knockout), 8 (Croatia), 8 (jandal) for hybrid scores. Only Abhi was smart and gave me a 3, although perhaps in reality performance wise it should be a 5. But at least last year you could make the excuse that Beltran is coming off a historic season, Saber hasn't proved terrible yet and Nepomnyachsniy was actually a decent hybrid rider. I don't understand how you can say this year that I'm good at hybrid races? Jandal's 5 seems about right.
As for the final prediction, I would definitely take a finish anywhere between 15 and 20 It's also interesting to compare this with my own predictions. I think it's actually fairly similar, especially at the top and bottom. The main differences are my own team which I rank lower, along with lower ranks for Carlsberg and Red Bull. On the other hand I have Eurosport x GCN, Los Pollos and Lierse higher than most of you guys.
Thanks once again for this great in depth preview. The best thread on Daily every year!!!
Yeah have to say I too thought they were tripping with the hybrids
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
lief - Sending Skujins to Balkans is not really a mistake but it is a race that seems to clearly favor mo/hi hybrids over pure puncheurs like Skujins. Skujins participated twice and finished 16th and 23rd which is not what you'd hope for when using so many race days. I would have seen e.g. Southland in C1 as a much safer and probably better choice. Hope he does well!
red - To my defense: I downgraded the hills rating in return for putting the high hybrid rating. i could have made it 7-8 on the hills, 6-7 in hybrids and it would have been a bit more in line with your thoughts and maybe that would have been more accurate. And i do count Saber as a hybrid rider. He might be terrible on the tough cobbles but i think he could do very well in the Rheden / Franceville type of race (expected mass sprint after some cobbles along the route) which he didnt race last year iirc. This is like a prime case for a low CB, higher hybrid grade. I agree on the sprint rating being a bit too high.
TMM - Seems like we have plenty of differences between our most likely relegation teams. Carrefour might not be safe from relegation entirely but i think they are closer to a midtable team
Well Croatia agrees with me Although he also has T3A deep in the mid-field so...
You were definitely correct that your rankings predictions were going to be varied! Eurosport, Indosat, Sauber & Jura in all 4 relegations wasn't my expectation and not entirely sure that matches your various comments on the details team sections. But you are all clearly agreed the bottom half of the table could be all over the place, and like most seasons this seems to be were the best fighting will be.
Compared to the Promotion spots which seem a lot more settled in your eyes (mostly, Assa & Lierse getting a fair bit of shuffling around).
Sorry about the flags. My list of MG code->forum codes i use to do these stat tables does not include all the newer countries added to the DB in recent years and I couldnt find a newer list of all used codes to update my file.
Roturn will confirm i was keen on getting the coding right in the DB itself with all the new and expanded nations i was bringing to the world of the MG.
Fortunately i do neatly confirm and explain all my riders origins in my HQ which also hosts all their Flag IDs And there might be some more next season
@TMM - Is definitely interesting as always where we agree and differ in the rankings - for example when knockout mentioned earlier in the thread he had seven teams above the rest I was interested to hear that as I also did seven teams above the rest and then had to decide on order from there - turns out it was the same seven And yeah four relegations being the same is a surprise seeing as how we are all genuine in our belief that it's very open - but also maybe it speaks to a bit of groupthink in our group since we all share similar tastes sometimes (even though the rankings themselves are kept top secret including blacked-out cells in our file )
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
knockout wrote:
And i do count Saber as a hybrid rider. He might be terrible on the tough cobbles but i think he could do very well in the Rheden / Franceville type of race (expected mass sprint after some cobbles along the route) which he didnt race last year iirc. This is like a prime case for a low CB, higher hybrid grade. I agree on the sprint rating being a bit too high.
He'll get a chance at one of those. But he did already fail at easier classics like Kuurne, Le Samyn and Wyscig last year. His cobbled career is on the line this season
Kinda funny that there are two somewhat accurate predictions, and two completely wrong ones, gives us many perspectives !!
The Brandle - Keizer point I think is quite silly as I barely managed to find enough RDs to send them to all the TT races, In the end both of them will only attend 4 races together, which is why I went for two TT hybrid leaders (and so that Red Bull gimme that sweet cash for having a top 2 Austrian scorer). I'll have fantastic scoring opportunities in really the majority of calendar due to how much of it has TTs in them. That's also why I didn't pick the bands that KO chastised me for as I'd simply be spread too thin and some of those would just end up being filler most-likely 0 pointers, which is what I wanted to avoid as much as possible this year. Same reason is why I have both Betancourt and Dyrnes, even if I do end up not scoring, at least I gave myself a chance, which wasn't exactly the case last year with some races.
Either way, thank you for all the work, and jandal, I think being a Kiwi and Shitepool supporter is a curse in itself
Amazing preview guys, love how thorough it is especially with all the varying viewpoints. Definitely one of the better initiatives in the MG!
As for my team and its preview, if the main concern with my team is MVS' scoring, I feel solid. Usually I've been able to plan my leaders well, with my backup scoring often letting me down (like Coppel doing well in my 2 previous PCT years, etc). That said, I am quite nervous about the game engine itself accounting for MVS' acceleration in terms of defining him as the lead sprinter. Specifically planning him with a good leadout, that wouldn't potentially confuse PCM as to who the leader should be, was tough but hopefully I've done it.
That said, happy to not be a relegation favorite my first year up. My last 3 PCT seasons I've been picked to go down, and went down in 2 of them. If I go down this time though, at least there's quite a good base of riders to build off of, allowing me to jump back up at least.
Again though, amazing preview, and absolutely no hard feelings for those who said they think I will go down... I totally understand it given the insane depth of leaders in the division. This just increases my excitement for the season
Awesome to read, thank you all for the effort you made for yet another year
It’s going to be super exciting to follow the relegation battle this year! There’s easily 9-10 teams that on their day could go down or vice versa, and all teams threatened by relegation tend to have very different makeups and team building strategies as well. Planning is obviously important, but PCM AI shenanigans are surely going to play a major part so I think a lot will come down to luck with so many battling teams. A couple of off days/races for a single rider could be detrimental to a team.
I don’t want to waffle in about my team too much, but am hopeful that we won’t go down. In all the years I’ve been in the MG I’ve improved my position every season, so last season was the first season I’ve finished worse off (what an understatement). I change my team around a lot and take massive gambles every transfers, and had a lot of issues last year which meant my season was over before it had started. It would have been easy to build a promotion-batting team, but after being in PT for a few seasons I don’t really care for success and just want to have some excitement following the MG again as last year was borderline torture So building my little team of focus nation riders and gambling on a rider like Dunbar keeps things interesting.
Paying the GDP of a small nation was never the intention for Dunbar, but I do think he is massively undervalued (performance wise!). There’s actually a fair few races that suit him to a t and he’s almost guaranteed u25 in most of them (I doubt he’s going to run into Padun or Bernal in Britain for example unless their managers have severely messed up). He did very well unmaxed last season, so here’s hoping my planning is good enough to get the best from him. Howard and Warchol should score well if the sprinter curse stays away from him. Jensen is the only rider I’m not 100% confident planning-wise, but will hopefully do fine.
Haven't commented yet so here goes. Thank you for the piece of art once again! A lovely read provided by some experts and professionals. Also nice to read jandal's opinion on things.
All four of you predict my team between 14-18 and I'd gladly take that. If iI can avoid relegation and keep building my team while making it more regional, I will be a happy man. In general the big question is indeed Manninen. If he is able to score 75% of last season's points, my team has taken a big step towards staying in PCT. He has not started too badly, so I hope he can keep up that high level. Onto the 'talking points' and personal reactions now.
@Abhishek: Thanks for the nice words about my TTT setup, although I am not very convinced about it myself. I hope they can do the job by keeping Zmorka as close to the competition with better TTT's, but I'm afraid the time differences will still be big. I definitely overpaid on Maksimov, as I could very probably have gotten him for 50k.
@knockout: The only person able to say my talents are shitty is me. You are right about my idea of wheelsurfing with Manninen as much as possible though, and Quispe will be in every race he is indeed. We'll see if those are the right tactics
@Croatia: Manninen will indeed be attending as many stacked (/PTHC) races as possible hoping he won't get a train. Maksimov will be going to other PTHC/HC stage races mostly, where there are 1/2 sprint stages. Sadly I did not make it to the Tour of America. Stelly send you some love
@jandal: Yeah, Spilak's secondaries might hurt him, but that's why I did indeed send him to such Hill/TT races as well. No seven day stage races though (and California is C2 now iirc ). My talents are not exactly a Vermeersch or Pidcock, but I'm happy with them so thanks for noticing and not calling them shitty like the manager that shall not be named anymore.
For me it doesn't include MO-ITT stage races at all, but it would be hill stage races to a certain extent.
Now this one is the most ridiculous of them all 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
And yeah four relegations being the same is a surprise seeing as how we are all genuine in our belief that it's very open - but also maybe it speaks to a bit of groupthink in our group since we all share similar tastes sometimes (even though the rankings themselves are kept top secret including blacked-out cells in our file 
). My talents are not exactly a Vermeersch or Pidcock, but I'm happy with them so thanks for noticing and not calling them shitty like the manager that shall not be named anymore.
