What to Do First in Diamond Dynasty

MLB The Show 23 has launched with more Diamond Dynasty content available day one than anytime in the mode’s history. The excitement of launch day is always overwhelming — deciding where to start and how you want to begin building your team. The additions of Negro League legends, the World Baseball Classic, and 99 overall players out of the gate makes this process even more difficult. I spent early access weekend in every corner of Diamond Dynasty and put together an itinerary of sorts to help you decide what to do first in Diamond Dynasty.

What To Do First In Diamond Dynasty

1. Starter Program And Conquests

Once you complete the Diamond Dynasty tutorial, you’ll be completely free to do whatever you choose. You might not care about any offline grinding and want to jump straight into online play. That’s perfectly fine, but unless you’re opening your wallet you’re going to have to work on building your collection a bit.

For me, step one is completing the Starter program and the basic Conquest maps. The reasoning is simple: You’ll get a free 87 overall Justin Verlander along with an 88 overall Sammy Sosa to immediately add to your squad. These are both very decent cards to start building your team around and will certainly improve your chances at more efficient offline grinding. The Starter program won’t take much time at all and you’ll come away with Stubs and other goodies as well.

The starter Conquest maps (Batter Up) are more geared towards teaching new players how to play Conquest. Experienced players can make use of these as well. For me, it helped me start getting my timing down while also getting some early damage in on the Team Affinity PXP grind.

So complete these easy and fairly quick programs and maps to at least get a couple diamonds on your squad. My pre-order pack luck was atrocious so I needed all the help I could get.

2. Storylines – The Negro Leagues

Next, I highly suggest completing the entirety of Storylines featuring the Negro Leagues. This post is obviously geared towards Diamond Dynasty, but the sheer love and passion put into Storylines is evident and the mode was an absolute blast to experience. Hearing dozens of stories about these legends that really highlighted their talents and impact was enlightening and entertaining. That alone makes Storylines worth your early time with MLB The Show 23.

Speaking purely about the impact on Diamond Dynasty, you also get a 90 overall version of each of the Negro League legends. Several of these cards feature two-way player eligibility, meaning you can use them as pitchers and have them hit for you and play the field. The attributes vary, of course, but early on in Diamond Dynasty these cards will most likely be your best. They’re also free and each Storyline only takes 20-30 minutes to complete.

The big bonus is attained after you complete all the Storylines. You get a 95 overall Buck O’Neil Captain card that gives massive boosts to all Sanford Greene Negro League legend cards. We’re talking +25 Power against both sides and +25 H/9 and BB/9 for the two-way cards. These boosts are insane and raise these cards true overall ratings into the mid-to-high 90s range. You’ll immediately have almost an entire starting lineup full of high diamonds with very little time investment to get there. Add these to the Justin Verlander and Sammy Sosa cards I mentioned earlier and you’ll be sitting pretty. This will allow you to field a pretty competitive team in Ranked, not just for the first couple weeks, but feasibly for a good while in Season 1. Additionally, it’ll make your offline Conquest grinds easier as you’ll stack up better against the better CPU teams.

3. The World Baseball Classic Program

Next on the list is at least starting the WBC program. There’s a ton to do in this program and I suggest starting with the Moments. To do these quickly and efficiently, use the main menu to access the Moments tab.

Then enter Other Programs and you’ll see the WBC moments waiting for you. If you attempt these moments from within the DD menu, you’ll have to re-enter each time you complete a moment. Doing them from this tab will drop you right back in so you can just tab down to the next and keep going.

As with most programs, you’ll be earning progress within said program and also accumulating smaller rewards along the way. Packs and stubs are never more valuable than they are at the beginning of each Diamond Dynasty cycle. They’ll obviously go into your coffer to help you build out your squad over time. Complete all the moments and you’ll make a decent amount of progress in the WBC program. You don’t have to complete all the moments but they’re all pretty easy and those smaller rewards add up. Doing this will get you 70 stars in the program and net you the 7 packs of 90 overall WBC choice packs where you’ll be able to select all 14 cards in the pack. That’s right, you’ll get another 14 free cards that are 90 overall to add to Verlander, Sosa, and all the Negro League legends.

Why is this important? Each of those cards have PXP missions within the program and completing all those will earn you another 70 program stars in the WBC program. You’ll earn some more choice packs featuring 95 overall cards featuring names like Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. These cards also have PXP missions on top of being better cards to add to your squad. You’ll also earn cards within the program path, including a closing pitcher version of Shohei Ohtani and a 97 overall Randy Arozarena that easily stack up with some of the best cards available in the game at launch.

4. Nation Of Baseball Conquest Map

Everything led to this moment, the USA map. You’ll embark on a long, arduous journey across the United States as you conquer each MLB team’s stronghold and earn a ton of rewards along the way.

The reason I suggest all the grinding before starting this map is to maximize your PXP mission work. There’s a smaller Conquest map that will earn you 30 points in the WBC program for completing and taking an all-WBC team into it. But you can double dip on PXP by using a combination of WBC and MLB cards as you earn progress in the Team Affinity program as well. You won’t earn PXP toward Team Affinity progress using the Negro League legends and that’s fine — they’re just really good cards that are free. Use whatever combination of cards you want as you can always come back and redo this map after you finish it and repeatedly earn the 20 Show packs.

You’ll earn over 40 packs for completing the map as well as 11 other free cards. Not all of those cards are great, but I’m betting you’ll be able to find a spot for a couple of them on your squad if you followed this itinerary. You’ll have a pretty fleshed out team that might not feature the high-powered cards that are available already, but you’ll have a pretty balanced team and can start looking at specific directions you want to take your team building.

5. Have Fun!

When it comes to deciding what to do first in Diamond Dynasty, ultimately the most concise answer is have fun. There’s plenty of online competition waiting for you and there’s quite a bit of offline grinding already available. We don’t really know what to expect since Diamond Dynasty has been completely revamped, but rest assured that we’ll be getting plenty more content as the weeks go by. You’ll find your groove and the areas you like specifically, but this list can help get you started.

What’s your approach to the new Diamond Dynasty cycle? What do you do first in Diamond Dynasty?