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What should you do when you first boot up Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 26? We have some ideas.
Rip Some Packs
I know: It isn't "gameplay." I know: It might be gambling. I know: You will probably not get the players that you want.
But, well, yeah: The first thing you should do in Diamond Dynasty is rip some packs. It's what enables everything else.
Whether you're digging into your preorder packs from the Digital Deluxe edition or the Twitch drops you've gotten from watching various Sony San Diego streams or even opening packs you've earned by doing things elsewhere within DD, the packs are the path to a team better than the Bronze and Silver squad you are granted by default. And while you can play and win with that squad, there is no great nobility in doing so, nor is there any good reason to stockpile packs for a day in the future: The odds will remain the odds, and you are only marginally more likely to pull a player released in April or August with more packs that were saved from March than with just what you'll have on hand then.
(Ripping your packs without guaranteed items first is also a better idea for team-building purposes than grabbing Chipper Jones or Juan Soto from the various preorder packs and hoping you pull players that fit around them. Remember that; it will be handy all year.)
In fact, the reasoning is sound for now being the best time to deplete a pack inventory or even to spend real money on Stubs that could be turned into packs. Prices of players go down as supply increases over time, so pulling Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge tonight or tomorrow or next week very possibly is pulling them at the peak of their value — meaning that you could pull one, rampage through their Parallel XP levels if you wanted, and sell them to create a war chest of Stubs that could build out an entire team or make significant progress on the Live Series Collection, then buy them later in the year when their prices might still be high but have dropped by tens of thousands of Stubs.
It's far more likely that you'll just net some Golds that are still your best players at their positions for now and maybe a lower-OVR Diamond or two — my best pull thus far is Dodgers catcher Will Smith; I am, at least, set behind the plate for a while — than that you will hit the jackpot, and it's probably not a great idea to drop hundreds (or thousands) of actual dollars on Stubs to rip packs when those Stubs are easy enough to earn with time and also probably better spent surgically acquiring players from the marketplace.
But the packs are your tool to get better, and ripping them is fun. It's okay to have fun.
Take on the World
The best way to get better players quickly in Diamond Dynasty right now is by burning through the World Baseball Classic Mini Seasons mode, where playing through seven (or fewer!) games of three innings each — on Rookie, if you want — can get you four Diamonds in about two hours.
You will have to play and win at least some of the games — maybe you can quit out of one and take the forfeit loss and still make it out of pool play to the quarterfinals with three other blowouts, but I wouldn't necessarily risk that — and you almost assuredly will need to beat at least one of the loaded Dominican Republic, Japan, and United States squads somewhere on the road to the championship. But you can and should replace one of those teams in your run if you're playing for rewards and not immersion, and as there are no difficulty-based goals in this Mini Season, there's no great reason not to just play on Rookie — you might get lucky, like me, and replace the U.S. only to have the DR and Japan fail to make the quarters.
There might be some shame in picking Rookie, especially if you're half-playing and end up blowing a save to the top of Mexico's order. (Who would do that? No one I know.) But if building a team that can bulldoze the CPU and be competitive online is part of the goal early on, it's okay to club some virtual seals to do so. They're virtual, after all.
Get Eventful
The best thing to dabble in for rewards if you're playing online will be the first Event of the year, a WBC-themed Moonshot one that pits decent batters against dismal hurlers and is essentially the training wheels of online play in Diamond Dynasty.
It's very much a good idea to not take things too seriously in a mode geared around every hitter being able to launch a round-tripper on any given pitch, as playing Moonshot Events while seeking the endorphins of victory is a fool's errand. The Tokyo Dome makes run prevention especially hard, as the ball seems to really leap off the bat in its environment.
But if you want some quick, easy rewards from the Multiplayer or Events programs, jump in and do damage while also yielding some, and the stats accumulated will make some valuable progress on those bars.
Find Comfort Through Discomfort (Or Settings)
One thing I have found to be true about every MLB The Show I play is that I need to get comfortable — and that it will always, always take time.
That's even more true this year than most, with a host of new settings meant to help you be a better player. Do you want to pitch only from the stretch with those accelerated windups? There's a setting for that. Do you want to shift the depth of focus when at bat to better pick up the ball off the pitcher's hand? There's a setting for that. Do you really want the thrill of micromanaging a virtual baseball game badly enough to need to warm up individual pitchers instead of having the game automatically do that for you? You may be strange, but there is, in fact, a setting for that.
Toggling all of these off and on while also picking the right batting and pitching cameras is a bit tedious, and also requires delving into menus rather than, y'know, playing the game. But it's the homework best done in advance of the test that makes everything that will follow far easier — or at least more comfortable — by virtue of the time spent on preparation. And doing it in offline game modes before venturing into online play is smart, too.
Find Your Fun
Lastly: It is really, truly okay to ignore every word above this section. I mean it.
You are playing this game. I can't play it for you, and I do not pretend to know how you will best enjoy it when I do not know you. Maybe you really want to play it as an economics simulator, and scouring the marketplace for flips to make Stubs is the first thing on your list. Cool! Maybe you love Showdowns, and really live for grounding into double plays with perfect-perfect swings that send rockets to short. You ... can do that! Maybe you want to make the best Marlins or Rockies or Guardians or Astros team you can, and don't care about anything else. Solid idea, I'd say.
The point is this: There is enough content, challenge, and diversity in Diamond Dynasty that I am confident anyone who does not just flatly hate baseball, baseball video games, or MLB The Show in particular can find fun in it somewhere. That's incumbent on you to do, but it's also very possible for you to do.
I wish you the best in doing so.
