Bridging The Gap: From Bums To Legends

Gone are the days of an effective offensive or defensive scheme that remains in-house for more than one tournament. Gone are the days of being able to pick random plays and still beat your opponent because your stick work is far superior. And gone are the days of finding something that is over effective and perfecting it to win tournaments. Ever since the switch has been made from old-gen to next-gen… I noticed a shift in not only how the madden games are made, but how the tournament scene is setup.

In the old days, everyone went to the store on august 14th every year, purchased madden…and hit the lab. Whatever you found was yours…and no-one could tell you otherwise. When the tournaments came about, whoever had the hottest stuff won…no questions asked. No crying, no banning…nothing. If you won, you won. It wasn’t your job to cater to rest of your competitors and the community for not finding and perfecting the same thing you did. By the next tournament it was up to the rest of the competitors to step their game up in order to stop what you had. Obviously this didn’t apply to plays such as flea-flicker, wr direct snap, and other blatant glitches that didn’t involve scheme and resulted in automatic touchdowns. Now, we live in a time where the Madden community craves parody where there are no advantages, where there are no “gimmicks” or glitches, the most overused word in Madden by far. An evolution has taken place right before our eyes, good or bad — it’s happening.

Most of the elite Madden players have noticed this, and had there gripes…but maybe there are some who haven’t. EA has spent there time drastically toning down the user ability when controlling an offensive or defensive player. On the old gen systems, players had the ability to out think their opponent in one on one situation’s in the open field. It did not matter what player you had, whether it was Brian Finneran, or Michael Bennet. Your stick work could get you out many tough situations. This is no-longer the case. Now your chance of breaking somebody’s ankles almost solely depends on the players rating. Now many people reading this may be asking themselves, “Why is this bad thing?” For many reasons it’s not, but for those who take madden more serious than just a hobby, it has drastically changed the way the game is played. With that being said, that is only the beginning of the transition in the community in order to bring casual gamers closer to the elites. And by elite Madden players I mean the players who put in the time to find the schemes and strategies to win big tournaments on a consistent basis.

Now with ever present rise in technology…the internet being my main subject here, no longer does secrecy or mystery exist within the Madden world. The second someone runs something effective, it is thrown in the mosh pit amongst all other madden gossip or knowledge and soon the origin is forgotten. And people who never play Madden can look and see what the top players have found and use it for themselves. Thus making the time and energy put in by these players to find these effective schemes seem pointless. Why spend so much time being original, when the next day you might be changing your offense to what someone else is running that you just saw posted online or on a forum. This furthering my point is to why now, more than ever…it is harder to separate yourself from the pack. With the loss of stick skill in the game, scheme and personnel is almost everything. When your scheme and personnel is on display for the world on a consistent basis it becomes much more difficult to have the upper hand on your opponent.

Let’s be honest, the big businesses run the world…and it’s the big businesses that doesn’t want the same people winning every tournament. They’re the people who are dumbing the game down in order to create a more equal playing field amongst the Madden community.  I completely understand the logic in this…the more people that have a chance of winning, the more people will play, which basically means more money towards the big business. Now once again, I am not against this movement…I am one person who only wants to see the madden community grow, and to be honest I can help but admit this strategy is working. With all that being said, I feel that this year we have gone too far. Whatever we find that appears to be over-effective we put the ban stamp on it and move on. Banning is not the answer in my mind. Certain things within the games yes…but to bring up the word “Ban” every time a player abuses something to have success in one tournament is lazy. We as a community are not giving ourselves the chance to use the great minds we have to scheme and stop certain things anymore. Since its quick, since it’s easy, ban it.

Tournament directors I have the utmost respect for, these guys are the reason we have a community, and these guys are the reason we play this game. Without them, there are no competitions, no winners and no glory; most importantly for some…no money. But the bottom line is that these guys are trying to make a profit as well, and in order to get big turn outs at their tournaments they want everyone to feel as if they have an equal chance. The less advantages the top players have, the better in there eyes. The best case scenario is all the top players go to a tournament but a random madden player wins. The top names draw a crowd, but their skills don’t scare them away.

By this time you get where I’m going with this, it’s never been harder to be a dominant player…ever. For those who do win this year, and for the years to come…you will be highly touted, but if you cannot remain consistent, you will tossed into a group of Madden ballers who have became part of an era of one hit wonders. Good luck to everyone out there who is striving to be the best this year, I’m right there with you. Seeya in Anaheim.

-Prodigy