'Mystery Chips' - a BAD idea!

 

I mentioned yesterday that I really dislike the idea of 'Mystery Chips'. I may have been prejudiced somewhat by the truly godawful one they visited upon us in FPL this year, but.... I really think they're a bad idea in general.

Here's why:

1)  Fantasy games like this are essentially about planning. So, it is absolutely counter-productive, destructive of the purpose of the game, to introduce elements which prevent players from planning ahead. Introduce new chip ideas occasionally, if you must (I'd really much rather not, though, thank you!) - but at least tell us what they are, before the start of the competition.

2)  This idea of concealing the nature of the new chip for a while necessarily entails that it will have a shortened period of availability, only being launched part-way through the competition. And this causes intolerable congestion, possibly confounding the rest of one's chip strategy. This was ultimately my biggest gripe against FPL's novelty 'Assistant Manager' Chip last season. That only became active in Gameweek 24, so there wasn't that much time left in which to play it; and most Fantasy managers would have kept their 2nd Wildcard and their Free Hit and both the bonus chips for use in that latter part of the season as well. (In fact, the FPL case was even worse, because the new chip had a bloated three-week duration. And, moreover, an expected Double Gameweek for Liverpool was yet to have its date confirmed, and since this was likely to be a prime opportunity to use the Triple Captain chip on Mo Salah [which did indeed pay off handsomely!], nobody could play the new extended chip until they knew for sure which gameweek they had to keep free for that possible TC play.) In effect, many people found they had barely a third of the season in which to try to use up six or seven weeks of chip options. There's a similar problem here in Fantasy Club World Cup: most players will have kept all their chips (except perhaps the Wildcard, which can be worth punting on early, in the group stage), and now have to juggle using a chip in every round.

3) All chips - well, 'bonus' chips, anyway - are unnecessary gimmicks, superfluous to the basic gameplay. They merely introduce the thrill of additional uncertainty - appealing to the gambling addicts out there, but frustrating the majority of serious Fantasy managers who are only seeking a test of their judgement of teams and players. Shifting the stakes of selection decisions with chips like these creates an uneven playing field in individual Gameweeks/MatchDays: you can't really compare your score against other people's when some are playing highly valuable bonus chips and some are not. And having such rare and one-off additions to the game increases the chances that a few players will get absurdly lucky with the chips, and obtain a massive but scarcely deserved advantage from them. Double-points for the captain selection is fine, because that happens every week, and freak instances of luck, good or bad, should generally balance out over the season as a whole. Allowing people to get even more from their captain just once in the year..... is simply betting on a die-roll.

Having said all that, I don't in fact hate the new chip they've introduced in this Fantasy Club World Cup game: the 'Qualifcation Bonus' for players who make it through to the next round. If you're being smart, you should be choosing your squad based on who you think is most likely to qualify for the next round (and the one after that!), and this is - to an extent, anyway - reasonably predictable.

What I don't like about this chip is that, together with the others in the game, it makes the latter stages of the tournament overcrowded with chip options. They should have introduced the 'Qualification Bonus' to replace one of the other two bonus chips.

And 'keeping it a secret' until half-way through - WTF is the point of that?? It's just childish.