Player Cups are one of the best features in Manager League, giving managers an opportunity to play against friends, earn some extra income, get additional training gains, early season morale boosts and trophies for those achievement hunters. However, many new players don't quite understand how these work, so here is a simple breakdown:
There are two main kinds of cups - Credit Cups and Free Cups.
When a Credit Cup is created, anyone who joins, including the creator, must contribute 2 credits as well as a join fee. The Owner of this cup may or may not have set a Quality limit on who may join but once the cup is created, settings cannot be changed, nor players kicked, unless it was a password protected cup and an illegal player gained entry.
When a Free Cup is created, the creator pays the entire credit fee and a join fee for its creation. This means anyone else who joins only have to pay a join fee. The Owner of this cup may or may not have set a Quality limit on who may join and once the cup is created, players can be kicked.
The credit cost for creating Free Cups are as follows:
8 players - 8 credits
16 players - 16 credits
32 players - 32 credits
64 players - 64 credits
128 players - 128 credits
As you can see, the more players are involved in a cup, the more expensive it is to create. The larger cups are typically credit cups and often a group of managers will get together and organise the setting up of a cup to take turns paying for it to reduce the overall cost over a period of time.
Prizes for ALL cups are as follows:
Winner: 1 credit per 8 participating teams + 50.000 $ per participating team.
Runner up: 25.000 $ per participating team. If the Cups are full, the prizes are as follows:
8 players - 1st Prize = 400.000 $ + 1 credit
Runner Up = 200.000 $
16 players - 1st Prize = 800.000 $ + 2 credits
Runner Up = 400.000 $
32 players - 1st Prize = 1.600.000 $ + 4 credits
Runner Up = 800.000 $
64 players - 1st Prize = 3.200.000 $ + 8 credits
Runner Up = 1.600.000 $
128 players - 1st Prize = 6.400.000 $ + 16 credits
Runner Up = 3.200.000 $
256 players - 1st Prize = 12.800.000 $ + 32 credits
(Balas) Runner Up = 6.400.000 $
For many new players, it is the issue of Free Cups which cause confusion.
You have just joined an 8 player Free Cup, it did not have a Quality limit set, you paid your join fee and later get an email similar to this:
I have kicked you out of the cup xXx xXx xXx as this was a private cup and you were not invited.
Your money has been refunded.
Why was I allowed to join if it was private?
It wasn't private, it is just a translation problem. If Spinner decides to change the wording of this, it would make things a lot easier, but it was like this when I first started playing and I too wondered why I kept getting kicked from private cups when they were public.
What other reasons are there for being kicked?
Well, some managers get together to reduce the cost of cups, as explained briefly earlier, so if two managers want to take part in two 8 player cups, the creation cost would be 16 credits. By running one cup each instead, they only pay 8 credits each for two cups. Many managers who play cups for player gains want to ensure they get as many games as possible for their credits worth, so they may not set a Q limit and instead put a Q limit in the title or description of the cup. This is to ensure the teams who join are weaker, around the same level of their trainees. They are not interested in doing this for financial gain or pointless player cup trophies. With this example, both managers will typically get 6 games from the two cups for 8 credits each as the fixture draws of these cups seems to suggest some kind of seeding where the top teams avoid each other until the final. Though this is not always the case, it is a very rare occurrence where I meet a co-organiser of a cup before the final.
How do I stop being kicked?
Read the Player Cup title and description. Usually a cup will be called something like 'Q70 Free Cup' but if you join it because it is free and are Q75 then you will most likely get kicked. The Cup may have a title but then on the description page it will have information, such as 'This cup is for Q75 teams. Soft Tackles only!', so if you are Q80 and ignore this, you will most likely get kicked. Common sense is lacking in a lot of people and the majority of free loaders will join any and every cup in the hope they don't get kicked because they are too lazy to find one to their own quality.
But its not fair, it says Q75 and yet the winner is always a Q90 team, why?
Well, if you have read above, you will see how it works and generally why it works. Occasionally you will find a bigger cup and some managers may well be out trying to get some sort of financial gain but generally, player cups are used to train players and no one wants to spend 8 or 16 credits only to play one game.
If you still feel this is unfair then the alternatives are:
Join a credit cup where you pay 2 credits and can't get kicked
or
Create your own free cup where you can control who joins and who leaves, but remember, a free cup is free for the joiner, but not for the creator.
What do you mean, early season morale boosts?
At the start of the season morale resets, so all teams start with the same number. A cup win can result in a +1 morale gain, so 4 cup wins can result in a +4 morale gain. This means that before the first league match kicks off, you can have a +4 morale advantage which (I believe) is the reason you see a lot of weaker teams do well in the first half of the season before fading away when morale has pretty much levelled out. As the season progresses and morale is starting to peak (Getting harder and harder to raise), you will not always get a morale boost from winning a cup and will have to rely on other methods to raise it. Be warned though that there can be times when losing a cup can result in a -1 morale loss. I am not entirely sure what factors contribute to this as I have only seen it occur a few times.
