MLB The Show 24: What To Do First In Diamond Dynasty

MLB The Show 24 officially launches tonight at midnight, after a four-day early access period. For many of us, this time of year is as ingrained as the seasons as we jump into our normal routines and get on with our new year.

For newer players, however, there can be a level of intimidation with figuring out what to do first in Diamond Dynasty. I remember how lost I was when I first jumped into Diamond Dynasty way back in MLB The Show 19.

We got you.

This is a basic itinerary of sorts to help you get started in DD. We’ll get you on your way to earning cards that can instantly start on your squad, explain some of the basic modes and much more.

Storylines Negro Leagues and Derek Jeter

We’re lucky enough to have two brand new Storylines to play through this year. For those unfamiliar, Storylines debuted last year with Season 1 of the Negro Leagues. This is a well produced documentary style game mode that explores the history of baseball and specific players before feeding into curated Moments. Negro Leagues Season 2 was a foregone conclusion as it was announced last year, but we were surprised with a Storylines featured around Derek Jeter as well.

I think this is the best place to start regardless of skill level or experience. Firstly, Storylines is just simply incredible and an absolute blast to play through. Hearing Bob Kendrick talk about the Negro Leagues and Derek Jeter recounting his own career is the best kind of icing on the baseball cake that is MLB The Show 24. Overall, I think just jumping right in and experiencing this unique side of The Show is a great way to begin the year no matter what.

The Diamond Dynasty implications are the free cards and rewards you’ll earn. You’ll get cards of each Negro League star as well as a handful of cards from the Jeter Storylines that feasibly can start on your squad out of the gate. With Cornerstone Captains in the game this year, the choice pack letting you select one free Captain at the beginning of each Season, you have the ability to really build a team from scratch. You also get a Rube Foster Captain card that boosts Negro League Series cards.

I wasn’t keeping precise time, but it took me roughly 3 to 3.5 hours to finish both. There will be new content released for each Storylines mode in the coming weeks, so knocking these out now sets you up to jump into the new (and free!) content as it releases.

Starter Programs and Conquests

There’s typically a Starter Program at launch every year and that’s true again this year. It’s a short program with some easy tasks to complete on your way to earning a free 86 overall Sandy Alcantara. This is actually a very good card to earn for free as Alcantara has nasty stuff with decent BB/9 attributes for a low-Diamond. You can easily take this card into Ranked and make hitters look foolish early in the game, making this an easy task to recommend early.

The Spring Breakout Program features some really good cards as well. In fact, these cards can become rather elite for the early game if you select the Cornerstone Byron Buxton from your free choice pack. Buxton boosts nearly all the Spring Breakout cards in the program, including the featured player – Dylan Crews.

It remains to be seen what kind of content structure we get as the game fully launches. The power creep is back and 99 overall cards every day no longer exists. I’m currently rocking several Spring Breakout Program cards on my main squad with the Buxton Boost and having an absolute blast.

The Starter Program is rather straightforward whereas the Spring Breakout Program is more congruent to the Programs we’ll see all year. That meaning there’s a mix of Moments, stat missions, PXP missions and more that will earn you progress toward completion. You can work on this program by simply using some of the program cards in the Batter Up Conquests.

There’s a few easy Conquest maps meant to introduce new players to the mode. It covers how to move spaces, capture territories and strongholds and more. There’s also some free packs you’ll earn along the way. On that note, free packs and rewards is a major selling point to Conquest maps. Even when the mode gets tedious to you, they’re typically all worth doing for the freebies.

You can build a lineup featuring Spring Breakout Program cards you’ve earned, as well as random MLB players to complete the stat missions while earning free rewards.

Nation of Baseball Conquest

If you’re unfamiliar with Conquest, it’s a territory-capture style game that sees you conquer opposing teams before stealing their fans and strongholds. Essentially, it’s a time sink that leads to 3-inning games against MLB teams with your Diamond Dynasty squad.

For me, the USA map is the very first major task I embark on after building up my team a bit doing the previously discussed tasks. This Conquest map requires you to traverse the entire USA map and conquer every MLB team’s stronghold.

In layman’s terms, that’s at least thirty games you’ll need to play to finish the map. I say at least because if you aren’t paying attention, the CPU will attack a stronghold you control and force you into a game you don’t have to play.

Why is this map so important and an early game ritual for so many of us? Well, there’s all the free packs littered throughout the map. You earn packs, Stubs and XP just for completing tasks within the map. Hit the requisite button depending on your console to pop the task menu and you’ll see what you must accomplish. You’ll also see the rewards for each task.

Not only will you earn free packs, Stubs and XP but you’ll unlock free cards as well. If you’re playing without putting money into the game, some of these cards can end up starting on your squad for a while. Again, with the advent of Cornerstone Captains and the radical change in approach to Captains in general – creativity is at your disposal.

Team Affinity

Team Affinity is home to card rewards amongst all the other rewards you can earn. There’s plenty of Diamond cards available that will be usable or flat out nasty depending on your Captain choice. I normally recommend chipping at Team Affinity, but SDS made it so much easier to grind TA this year that I think it’s worth some early focus.

You can tackle this how you see fit. If you just want to knock out all the TA content and be done with it, you can do that with some of the repeatable missions being fairly easy alongside PXP grinding. If you’re a more advanced player, you might know the Captain you want to use and can scour the various Boss packs to decide which division to tackle first in order to beef up your squad.

There’s a ton of content and rewards to earn by completing Team Affinity.

Have Fun

This was a basic guide to help newer players get started. By the time you finish the USA map, you’ll have earned plenty of free packs so hopefully you pulled some good stuff. If not, don’t fret and keep trucking on. You can jump into Mini Seasons if you prefer playing offline or jump into online play with Events or Battle Royale. If you pulled some good stuff along with your free cards and you want to throw down – hop into Ranked and begin climbing the leaderboard.

I personally use the early access period to grind as much offline as possible. I like getting my inventory as buffed up as possible to have more options for events and any program grinds. When it comes to playing online, I’m very particular about my squad being at a certain point before jumping into Ranked. Cornerstone Captain Byron Buxton is making that easier this year, so I might hop into Ranked way sooner than usual.

Regardless, the main reason you should be playing this game is to have fun. Like any game, MLB The Show 24 will frustrate you to no end at times. If online play has you feeling a certain way, hop into Mini Seasons. Most of the time, the most enjoyable games I have are random 9-inning games in Play vs CPU on Legend difficulty at my created stadium. The game just feels pure in those moments and serves as really good practice for the online world.

No matter what – have fun.

Stay tuned here at ShowZone as we’ll have more tips and guides to help you along the way, not to mention the valuable tools at your disposal like the Player Database and more.

What will you be doing first in Diamond Dynasty? Let us know in the comments!