Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3 Breakdown: Best Free 99 OVR Cards, Strategies to Unlock Quickly

With Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3 arriving in MLB The Show 24’s Diamond Dynasty on Friday, a new wave of 30 new 99 OVR cards has reset the power curve in the game and bolstered each MLB team with a new superstar. Players who want to be competitive at the highest levels of Diamond Dynasty will want to quickly and efficiently advance through the program this weekend and position themselves to have a roster stocked with some of the greatest cards in the game.

Here’s why — and how — to do that.

Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3 Structure

There is no reinvention of the wheel here: Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3 is still a program consisting of six distinct sub-programs with their reward paths for each of the six MLB divisions. And each path will still require substantial time investment to complete.

But the structure of Chapter 3 allows for the quickest progress yet for one of these TA drops, and players who completed or made inroads on the previous chapters might be able to get through full reward paths in a day or two.

That will be lucrative in multiple senses, as each TAS1C2 reward path awards 8,500 Stubs, 4,000 Season 1 XP, nine The Show packs, two Ballin’ is a Habit packs, one choice pack of either The Show Classics 1 or Pipeline 2 packs previously released, one Millionaire pack, a Season 1 Vault pack, five packs each containing a choice of one of the five 99 OVR TAS1C3 Bosses in each division, and a slew of stadium sound cosmetics.

Over the six paths, that tally is 51,000 Stubs, 24,000 Season 1 XP, 54 Show packs, 12 Ballin’ is a Habit packs, six Show Classics/Pipeline choice packs, six Millionaire packs, and six Vault packs – a haul and a half even before the 30 99 OVR cards.

How to Grind Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3

The tasks that generate Team Affinity XP have also been expanded considerably from Chapter 2. Now there are fairly simple and Extreme Moments, a standard and an Extreme Showdown, mode-specific missions, and more streamlined all-division missions for Parallel XP instead of team-specific ones.

That expanded range of ways to progress and the ability to get Bosses from Team Affinity chapters past and stock a roster with them will both make it much easier for Diamond Dynasty players to swiftly compile tens of thousands of the 200,000 XP to complete each reward path than it was for Chapters 1 and 2.

But the most important thing to do for each TAS1C3 reward path is quickly obtain the 60,000 XP needed to get to the first 99 OVR Boss Choice pack — because each Boss has a specific stat mission awarding 10,000 XP that will accelerate XP accrual considerably.

For players up to a challenge, the Extreme Showdown and Moments are the best way to do so. The former requires playing through Showdown matchups against some of the best pitchers in Chapter 3 on All-Star or harder difficulties and culminates in a duel with the especially formidable Kerry Wood, but players will only need to score three runs off Wood over 30 outs if they complete each Showdown on the way up the mountain, and their teams will be stocked with the 99 OVR hitters from this release as they ascend.

The latter Moments are as follows for each division:

• AL East: Hit two home runs in a game with Brad Miller on Hall of Fame

• AL Central: Pitch a complete game shutout with 12 strikeouts with Lucas Giolito on All-Star

• AL West: Tally 10 total bases in a game with Jeff Bagwell on Hall of Fame

• NL East: Tally 14 strikeouts without allowing two runs in one game with Sandy Alcántara on All-Star

• NL Central: Hit a home run in one plate appearance with Eric Davis on Hall of Fame

• NL West: Tally four hits and one home run in one game with Hunter Renfroe on All-Star

These are, as a group, considerably easier than the Chapter 2 Extreme moments that required similar feats with lesser players, some of them on harder difficulties. If you are a better pitcher, and can stand the anguish of possible resets, striking out 14 or shutting out an opponent on All-Star isn’t even particularly hard. And though the Miller and Bagwell moments literally and essentially require two homers in a game on Hall of Fame, respectively, the Miller one brings a switch hitter to Yankee Stadium against right-handed pitching, and the Bagwell one allows him to pull pitches to the Crawford Boxes in Houston.

These Extreme Moments award 10,000 TA XP each for a single completion. If it takes 10-15 minutes for you to get one done, that’s a good return on time invested. But if multiple restarts are likely, it may make more sense to go after stats and repeatable missions.

If so, that is best done with pitchers — preferably previous Team Affinity Bosses — who can mow down batters in droves. Tallying 30 Ks with a division’s pitchers in Play Vs. CPU — generally the best way to grind out XP for programs — will generate 5,000 XP, as will two saves in Mini Seasons or Conquest; double-dipping by also getting some of the 1,500 Parallel XP with Bosses from any of the three Chapters that is worth 5,000 XP (and repeatable) or the stats with each Chapter 3 Boss that garner 10,000 XP per Boss (but are not repeatable) is the way to gnaw off huge chunks of TA progress in a sitting of offline play.

And if you want to make progress toward the vouchers in Mini Seasons or Conquest that can juice the reward path progress at the same time, you may end up triple- or quadruple-dipping on those missions without really trying.

As usual, this means that being able to tally stats on the mound and on the plate in the same game is crucial to being efficient with Team Affinity. With that in mind, let’s look at the strategies to employ when choosing TAS1C3 Bosses.

Breaking Down Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3’s Bosses

Here are some thoughts on the best, most valuable, and least crucial Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 3 cards in each division

AL East

Best card: Blue Jays CP Tom Henke

First choice: Henke

Last choice: Orioles 2B Brian Roberts

The AL East’s quintet of four hitters and Henke is an odd mix: None of the hitters is a full-on slugger, with the closest being Brad Miller, and all four are primary infielders, which could clog up your lineup a bit. But Henke’s 125 K/9 and Outlier four-seamer will make overwhelming batters easy, making him the easy first choice, and all of Miller, Wade Boggs, and D.J. Lemahieu should be slightly better options for tallying total bases than Roberts, though Roberts slides more easily into rosters that have the Switch Hitters Captain Carlos Santana active.

AL Central

Best card: Twins 3B Harmon Killebrew

First choice: White Sox SP Lucas Giolito

Last choice: Tigers SS Alan Trammell

Killebrew is set to be one of the premier sluggers in all of Diamond Dynasty, with stunning 117/125 Power R/L attributes, and while his defense at third is just okay, he can be stationed in left for flexibility purposes and is obviously a terrifying first baseman or designated hitter. Still, taking Giolito — a better strikeout pitcher than Guardians ace Cliff Lee, more of a control specialist — first and Killebrew second is best for XP purposes.

Lee might be a good third choice, but whether he or Royals second baseman Whit Merrifield is third or fourth, Trammell really ought to be fifth, as his exemplary defense at short isn’t nearly as valuable to players as his pedestrian hitting stats for a 99 OVR — 109/119 Contact, 78/84 Power — are likely to be disappointing.

AL West

Best card: Athletics CP Blake Treinen

First choice: Treinen

Last choice: Rangers 2B Ian Kinsler

The AL West might have the most obvious unlock sequence: Treinen, who has 125 H/9 and Pitching Clutch, is a strikeout machine, and then Angels CF Jim Edmonds, Mariners 3B (!) Edgar Martinez, and Astros 1B Bagwell come in descending order of flexibility and usefulness before the steep dropoff to Kinsler, who doesn’t have a hitting stat higher than 93 except his 107 Power against lefties.

For a division with the reigning World Series champions and some storied franchises, this group of Bosses could also be higher-wattage. Bagwell, Edmonds, and Martinez are all veritable legends, but outside of Edmonds’ defense, they lack flash.

NL East

Best card: Phillies 3B Mike Schmidt

First choice: Braves SP Tom Glavine

Last choice: Nationals (but really Expos) CF Andre Dawson

The NL East’s Chapter 3 Bosses consist of four Hall of Famers and a Cy Young winner — and not one of them is truly terrific, which is a bit odd. Schmidt might be the best card by default, and this is probably far from the best version of him that will appear in Diamond Dynasty this year, with his pop against lefties being his primary asset as a hitter but less valuable than his almost maxed-out defense at third.

Glavine is the first pick because his stats suggest he’ll fan more CPU batters than Sandy Alcántara — which makes little sense, as Glavine never struck out 200 batters in a season, something Sandy has done twice in far fewer years — but Gary Carter being the rare catcher in Team Affinity gives him an argument for that status and makes him a no-brainer as the first hitter even if his swing is more solid than spectacular. Dawson’s hitting stats are also unimpressive for a center fielder even compared to lower-OVR players.

NL Central

Best card: Cubs SP Kerry Wood

First choice: Wood

Last choice: Cardinals RF Ryan Ludwick

This Wood is every bit the flamethrower his best cards should be, and though he will be difficult to locate with, he will also be hellish to hit against. As the only pitcher available in the NL Central, he’s also the easiest first pick in all of Chapter 3.

But cases can be made for any of Eric Davis, Robin Yount, and Willie Stargell to be players’ second picks: Davis has maxed-out speed and will devour lefties with his whip-like swing, Yount is a very good contact hitter that will also provide superb defense at shortstop, and Stargell is a classic lefty slugger who fits beautifully at first and will be fine in the outfield.

Ludwick — a one-time All-Star who played for six MLB teams and is probably not in the top 50 players in Cardinals history — is plainly both the least of these NL Central Bosses, with very good but not extraordinary stats as a hitter and surprisingly good defense for a player remembered largely for his bat and a straight-up puzzling choice for a 99 OVR Team Affinity Cardinals card. Would flip-flopping him with the Jack Flaherty from Chapter 1 or the Joe Torre from Chapter 2 not have been better?

NL West

Best card: Diamondbacks 3B Eduardo Escobar

First choice: Escobar

Last choice: Rockies 1B C.J. Cron

Finally, in the NL West, we get the most loaded quintet of Bosses, the only hitter who has a great case to be the first pick, and a last pick better than some first ones.

In Escobar, players are getting one of the best players in Diamond Dynasty, full stop. His switch-hitting and excellent swing compliment Contact and Power stats that are already over 100 from both sides of the plate before the substantial boost that the Santana Captain will provide, and his Diamond defense and secondary positions of second and third base means he can be adapted to most any lineup. Giants closer Brian Wilson is going to be an absolute menace on the mound with 117 H/9 and 125 K/9 and Pitching Clutch — and Escobar should still probably be the first pick from this pack, because he’s just that good.

But third- and fourth-best in this division are Padres pulverizer Hunter Renfroe and his twin 125 Power attributes and 99 Arm and hitting machine Gary Sheffield from his Dodgers days, with the quick swing to make his reverse-split better-against-righties attributes worthwhile. Cron is last more by default than anything: This version is a first baseman with no secondary positions, so even if he’s going to rake, he can only really slot in at first or DH, unlike other versions that have had outfield eligibility.