The current rules are making people converge towards a common denominator in regards to your faster skilling players, i.e. the ball carrier.

GA/SP Ghouls for example will mostly go Block, then Sure Hands, then Stats, Stats, maybe Stats again if +AG hasn't happened yet. +AV isn't too bad for them if you want to keep rolling stats after the two +MA mandatory boosts.

GP/AS Thrower archetypes like a Thro-Ra or a Dwarf Runner will go Block, then maybe Leader or On The Ball, or even straight to stats, again settling for double +MA if +AG doesn't materialise. Dodge is a nice to have option when you don't like the stats you are offered.

This is all pretty straightforward. If you hoped for increased variety from the new skill system, the obvious optimal path doesn't seem to bring it at all. On the other hand, it makes building your freaks a lot less random and a lot more accessible; while some people liked the luck component in the old system, to be fair it's still there, in the hunt for the +AG unicorn. Almost every carrier in future majors will probably be +2MA with some lucky sods sporting a bit of elfishness on top of it.

There's a difference in development paths coming from the evil teams. Anybody with M access has a lot of interesting Primary skills for a carrier, such as Big Hand, Two Heads, Extra Arms, etc. that might actually compete with stats as you can make a poor man's +AG with just 2 primary skills. Here the order in which you pick stuff might actually vary, so I was interested in how the cost in terms of Star Player Points would pan out depending on the order in which you take them. Of course, the order might impact how fast you can reach the next stage, as the progress is not steady and might be influenced by what you pick fist along the way.

There is also the possibility that you start building your carrier from a player that rolled a nice random in the first stages of the team, which makes them marginally more efficient in terms of TV and SPPs, but that seems quite eccessive in terms of attention to detail. That said, on a new team it's probably a good idea to start carrying with that one goat that rolled a random Block or Sure Hands as it will be marginally cheaper during redraft.

It turns out the order doesn't seem to matter much anyway. Two primary skills followed by two Stat rolls cost exactly the same as two Stat rolls followed by two primary skills. It's kind of neat how it follows naturally from the way they priced it. There is a slight difference if you look at the costs of the sixth skilling options, but it's so far into the future it's no big concern for most coaches.

I wanted to discuss this without turning it into "BB20 BAD" as it sometimes goes when people ponder the changes, so what do you think? Is it nice that now everyone can build the optimal choice for the majors without having to grind for a hundred matches, or does it take away from the thrill of the skillups?