Slowly becoming pay to win

Nobody is saying these prebuilds don't have advantages. They obviously do. The problem is you’re jumping from “this is stronger on paper” straight to “this breaks the game,” and that doesn’t automatically follow.

Yes, some prebuilds have X-Factor combos, AP totals, and size/skating mixes you can’t make on a custom build. That’s true. But hockey isn’t decided by adding up AP points. Those stats don’t all fire at once, and they don’t override positioning, reads, stamina, RNG, or team play. The game has diminishing returns built in.

The “take an organized team and give them prebuilds” argument actually proves too much. Of course a good team gets better when you give them efficient tools—that’s true for *anything* in the game. If that logic holds, then every meta build, strategy, or playstyle is automatically unacceptable just because good players use it better. That’s not how competitive games work.

Calling something pay-to-win means customs stop being viable and results are basically decided by spending. That’s not happening. Customs still work, organized teams still lose, and games aren’t predetermined. If these builds were truly “mathematically broken,” comp play would already be solved and everyone would be forced into the same builds. That hasn’t happened.

So yeah—paying gives you an edge. No one’s denying that. But “edge” isn’t the same thing as “game-breaking” or “you bought the win.” Hockey games still come down to execution, not spreadsheets.