Why Salaries Grow
Finding value should be rewarded. Keeping it should eventually cost you.
A great contract should matter.
It just shouldn't stay great forever.
IceCore allows General Managers to find value through the draft, waivers, prospect development and long-term roster building.
Find a player before everybody else and you should benefit.
But if that player becomes one of the best assets in the league, his salary eventually has to follow.
That is why keeper salaries grow.
Three Paths
When a regular player is protected for another season, his salary follows one of three paths.
Most players simply grow by 5 Coins.
A Top 100 fantasy player grows by 10.
And when a Top 100 player is still carrying a salary of 20 Coins or less, the increase becomes 15.
Three numbers.
Everything else is just the story of how a player got there.
The Normal Keeper
Start with a useful established player carrying a 35-Coin salary.
He remains productive, but finishes outside the Top 100.
Nothing dramatic happens.
Every offseason the General Manager pays another 5 Coins to keep him.
Eventually the question changes.
Not:
Is he a good player?
But:
Is he still worth keeping at this salary?
That decision is the point.
The Breakout
Now imagine a player already carrying a salary of just 1 Coin.
Then he breaks out and finishes inside the Top 100.
The General Manager still has an extraordinary contract.
The breakout was discovered early, and IceCore rewards that.
But suppose the player does it again.
His previous salary was still 20 Coins or less, so another Top 100 season produces another 15-Coin increase.
Now the salary is above the low-cost threshold.
If he remains Top 100 again:
The bargain survives.
It just doesn't stay frozen forever.
The Waiver Discovery
Some of the best fantasy stories begin with a player nobody owned.
A player entering the IceCore economy without an established salary can be acquired from waivers at 0 Coins.
If he remains outside the Top 100 and you protect him:
If that waiver discovery explodes into a Top 100 season:
There is no 0 → 10 path.
A 0-Coin player is automatically inside the low-salary tier, so a Top 100 finish triggers the 15-Coin increase.
You found the player for nothing.
You still get the bargain.
But now the league knows what you found.
The Dropped Contract
Releasing a player does not erase his IceCore salary.
Imagine a player carrying a 10-Coin salary.
His franchise drops him and another General Manager claims him.
He does not become a new 0-Coin asset.
His established salary follows his IceCore history.
If the new General Manager protects him after an ordinary season:
If he finishes inside the Top 100:
Changing franchises changes the owner.
It does not reset the contract.
The Expensive Star
Salary growth is not only about cheap players.
Imagine an established superstar already carrying a 95-Coin salary and continuing to finish inside the Top 100.
There is nothing wrong with keeping him.
He may be worth every Coin.
But under a 500-Coin Salary Cap, the rest of the franchise has to live with that decision too.
Keeping an elite player is easy.
Building around an increasingly expensive elite player is the challenge.
The Rookie
Then there are players who enter the system differently.
Every IceCore Entry Draft selection joins his franchise at:
There is no immediate salary escalation.
He was drafted at 1 Coin.
That is his salary.
If he eventually becomes a regular player and is protected again in a future offseason, normal salary escalation begins.
Imagine that rookie becomes a Top 100 player before his next regular keeper decision.
The franchise receives the benefit of finding and developing the player.
Success eventually begins moving the contract.
The Prospect Who Stays on the Farm
Development Keepers work differently.
A player protected from the franchise's NA farm enters the new season at:
And if he remains eligible for the development system and is protected from the NA farm again the following offseason, he can remain:
IceCore does not charge a franchise more simply for being patient with a prospect who is still developing on the farm.
The development system is there to reward scouting and patience, not to create salary pressure before the player becomes part of the regular roster economy.
When that player eventually becomes a regular keeper, the normal salary rules begin to matter.
Cheap Does Not Mean Permanent
This is the balance IceCore is trying to create.
Find a breakout early?
You deserve the advantage.
Develop a prospect for years?
You deserve the 1-Coin asset.
Discover somebody on waivers before the rest of the league?
You deserve the bargain.
But once those players become established pieces of the franchise, their contracts begin moving with them.
The system does not immediately erase good scouting by forcing every breakout player to market value.
And it does not allow elite production to remain almost free forever.
Find value early.
Benefit from it.
Then decide how long it is still worth keeping.
The Decision Returns Every Year
That is what salary escalation is really for.
Not inflation for the sake of inflation.
Not punishment for finding a great player.
It makes the same question return every offseason:
At his new salary, do I still want him?
Sometimes the answer will be obvious.
Sometimes a 5-Coin increase will be enough to change it.
Sometimes a 100-Coin superstar will still be worth every bit of the cap space he consumes.
And sometimes the hardest decision will be releasing a player you found years ago for almost nothing.
That is not the system taking your advantage away.
That is the advantage becoming a contract.
Great value should be rewarded.
Great value should also evolve.