Being a Wall

A key to succeed in Guild battle is the ability to resist opponent assault. Some key points :
  - your energy should be 100% or close to it ;
  - you strategy should be set up to slow down (spoil) the game, with either many passes, many kicks or worst: many penalties...
  - you can attract opponent by doing a tight loose or tight victory on a weak team, to appear as a small harmless cute lamb. This will allow a brainless player to go strike you without bonus, or even with low energy.

Bringing substitutes in the middle of the game, even of a lower talent, do significantly increase your chances of winning.

Buying very bad players which brings down your average strength (stars) can also be effective...
The stronger teams (high star rate) get always attacked by the stronger opponents or with high bonus... and I hate this as I have a high star rate...
Only some of us can apply this trick (like flammes) because somebody needs to be the strongest...

So do you guys use the substitutes only if you are using a certain strategy and they have different settings (such as aggressiveness, kick rate etc.) or even if they have standard ones?

I always use substitutes, sometimes even on fake games !