AFL Prospectus: Draftstars in 2017
Draftstars emerged as the most exciting new AFL Fantasy competition in 2016. The ability to play daily or weekly fantasy and win money off our fantasy expertise is a fun and rewarding experience for both new and seasoned fantasy players. This article will not only provide you with everything you need to know to play the game, but also show you the tricks and nuances of playing daily fantasy which can turn your winnings from chump change up to Tom Boyd type money.
The beauty of playing Draftstars is that it tests your knowledge on a weekly basis. A major gripe with regular fantasy formats is that you pick your team at the start of the year and then you can only tinker from there. The best part of the year is picking a team at the start of the year, but the rest of your year can be underwhelming. Not with Draftstars. Every week is like the start of a brand new fantasy season.
Game Formats
Draftstars offer countless ways to play daily fantasy. You can take your time and draft a team of nine players, or use turbo and speed up the process.
– Salary
Draft a full roster using a $100,000 salary (nine players)
– Turbo
Quicker drafting with no salary cap. Just pick one player from each group
– Qualifier
Winners advance to bigger Draftstars tournaments
– Live Draft
Traditional fantasy draft. No salary cap
Prize Pools
How the prizes are awarded is something to look out for. Not only are there many different ways to play the game, but also many different ways that the prizes are awarded. Before entering a competition think about how you want to play.
Do you want to target the big prizes in the guaranteed contests, or play a little safer and enter the head-to-head contests?
– Guaranteed Contests
Prize pool is guaranteed even if the contest doesn’t fill
– Featured Contests
The biggest contests, which have large cash prize pools
– Head-2-Head (H2H)
Play head-to-head against one another
– Multiplier
Multiplier games (double up or triple up) pay close to the top half or top third of players
Beginner Contests
A core element to Draftstars is their beginner contests. If you want to learn how to play or just play casually, then these are the competitions for you. Free to enter with big prizes at the end of the tunnel. You would be silly not to play.
– Get a feel for the game – you vs other new players to Draftstars
– Beginner Contests include SALARY Games but majority are TURBO Games
HOW DO WE WIN?
To win the big dollars in the big leagues, there are six key tips:
1. Pick undervalued players
2. Pick unique selections
3. Pick players with good matchups
4. Ignore durability
5. Do your research
6. Pick player you like
Undervalued Players
Long-term Fantasy players understand how the pricing formulas work. A player’s starting value is based off their previous season’s performance and as the season progresses it fluctuates based around their recent form. You need to find players coming off a bad month who should outperform their price-tag.
Unique Selections
To win the big leagues you need a unique line-up. In the big leagues you make money by winning. It’s no good having Lance Franklin in your team if everyone else
does. A player like Adelaide’s Tom Lynch averaged just four fewer points, but was found in far fewer teams last year.
Good Matchups
Player prices won’t factor in upcoming opponents. Eyeing off easy matchups will be the key to finding value. If a key forward is coming up against Brisbane, get on board. It works both ways though. Midfielders coming up against Ben Jacobs should be avoided like the plague.
Ignore Durability
Who cares if someone lacks durability, you only need your players to survive one game, not a whole season. Our golden rule for drafting a yearlong fantasy side is the best kind of ability is availability. Daily fantasy almost goes the other way, injury prone players are often the players currently under-priced and taking the risk on them is the right decision.
Do your research
large portion of the winnings in daily fantasy go to a minority of the players. That minority are the players who take their time and do their research. Our Fantasy Freako newsletter for 2017 will focus on daily fantasy in 2017. If you want all the information and numbers required to win the big dollars, subscribe for free and reap the rewards.
Pick players you like
Remember that Draftstars should be played as a form of entertainment. Have fun while you play. Pick the players you like and cheer them on, instead of being forced to barrack for a Collingwood player.
The Correct Selection Order
Believe it or not, there is a correct order to selecting your line-up every week. Some types of players have greater variances in their performances than others. Key forwards are the prime example. A key forwards good game compared to their bad game can be a massive swing. Compare that to the swing in scoring between a good game for a key defender and a bad
game for a key defender. Using this to our advantage means we should prioritise getting the right key forwards before getting our key defenders. The right key forward selection will have more impact on your weekly score than correctly choosing the right key defender.
Scoring Variance:
1. KEY FORWARD
2. MIDFIELD
2. RUCK
4. MID-FORWARD
5. GENERAL FORWARD
6. GENERAL DEFENDER
7. KEY DEFENDER
This scoring variance rankings should be used as a guide when selecting your side. First, search through the available key forwards for the week and choose the best value players. Secondly, flip to the midfielders section and select your midfielders for the week, then head to the rucks and choose your ruckman, double back to the forwards and fill your remaining spots with general forwards and then head over to the defenders section to fill the remaining spots in your side. This team selection method should lead to greater long term success.
The John Butcher Paradox
Would you believe that for one week in 2016 John Butcher was the most valuable man in Draftstars? Yes, that’s right, John Butcher. In Round 19 against the Lions, Butcher finished with 20 disposals, 11 marks, three tackles, and four goals on his way to a whopping 124 fantasy points for the round. As he is John Butcher, and had averaged just 40 fantasy points across his six games over the two seasons leading into the match. He was just about the cheapest player you could buy that week in Draftstars. If you had John Butcher in your team you would have not only had his 124 points on the board, but also had space to pick the pricey midfielders in Josh Kennedy and Scott Pendlebury who scored 156 and 148 respectively.
How do we find our John Butcher? We are looking for a player who is averaging under 70 for the year but is ready to explode in one week. When we look at the top 10 examples of this from 2016, seven of the top 10 and 11 of the top 15 examples are key position players. The other common thread in these performances, 11 of them came against bottom-five sides. The Lions, Bombers, Dockers and Blues were the teams to target for the big over-performing player.
The Newbie
Another great target in Draftstars are players still in their first five games of their career. Their price remains low until about week 5-6 when it catches up to their scoring potential. There were some huge scores posted by players in their first five games, clearly highlighted by Brayden Fiorini’s 166 in the final round last year. The list top right shows the top 10 scores posted by players in their first five games and the names on the list were very predictable. Every one of these players were gun fantasy players before making their debut. Fiorini is the prime example, he was the highest scoring fantasy player in TAC Cup in 2015 averaging 127 fantasy points. In fact, a majority of these players were highlighted in the 2016 AFL Prospectus as being enticing rookie targets. We have once again highlighted the best first year targets in this AFL Prospectus and that should be
a good starting place to find your “Newbie” targets.
The Big Kahuna
The Nick Riewoldt 200 point performance in Round 23 last year is the prime example of what you need to target in Draftstars. It’s those sort of performances that win you the big prizes. It’s nice to get a 120, but 150+ performances is where the money is won. In the big prize pools where first place holds a majority of the winnings, you need to take risks. Don’t settle for Scott Pendlebury’s consistency. Gamble on Tom Rockliff clearing 170 (which he did three times). The winner in each of those three weeks had Rockliff in their side. Pendlebury was rarely found in the winner’s side. Of the top 50 weekly scores achieved in 2016, 39 were by midfielders, five by key forwards, two were by ruckmen, three by general defenders and one by a key defender. It’s really no surprise where the big scores are found. Midfielders. After you analyse the key forward market, find the midfielder you think will produce 150+.
Matchups
Matchups Matchups Matchups!!! If there is one element of Draftstars you need to understand it’s how to play the matchups. After you snaffle up all the great underpriced players you then need to look at the elite AFL players to find the right one for your side. The table below shows the points each AFL side conceded to each different type of position. Using his table will be integral to your success in 2017.
Defenders
Defenders last year scored highly against the Bulldogs, Saints and Dockers. The Bulldogs might surprise a few people, but their game style was conducive to scoring for opposition defenders. The Bulldogs were controlling territory, meaning the ball was always in their opposition’s defensive half. They were also ineffective when going forward, offering opposition defenders plenty of intercept opportunities. Given the Bulldogs relatively inexperienced key defenders, many Draftstars players would have targeted opposition key forwards, however, the Bulldogs game style meant that their opportunities were limited and they actually conceded the fourth least points to this position. In 2017, target players opposing teams who play a territory style of game like the Bulldogs played in 2016.
Midfielders
The points conceded to midfielder’s ladder followed closely to the actual AFL ladder. Midfielders typically cashed in against the weaker teams. The team that conceded the most points to midfielders was Essendon. Their depleted midfield allowed their opposing midfielders to average seven points more than the AFL average. In 2017 target midfielders playing against bottom six sides.
Rucks
The rucks formula was pretty simple. Take the ruckman playing against Port Adelaide. They were playing makeshift ruckmen for the majority of the year and were allowing opposition ruckmen to win almost every hitout. They won a hitout from 30% of ruck contests – ranked last. The Suns ranked second-last for this metric and conceded the second-most points to opposing ruckmen. Melbourne and Max Gawn ranked No.1 in this measure and conceded the fourth-least points to midfielders. In 2017, target players playing against poor tap ruckmen. The mobility of the opposition ruckman has a small impact on opposing ruck scores, it’s the tapwork that matters.
Forwards
The forwards were even simpler to figure out in 2016. Take the forwards playing against the Lions. They were conceding 131 points per game, 24 more than any other side. Those extra four goals offered plenty of scoring opportunities for opposing forwards. In fact, opposing key forwards against the Lions averaged an additional 20 points than against the AFL average, 14 points more than any other team. The Lions also conceded the most points to general forwards of any team. In 2017, target players coming up against teams with high points against. The other two sides that rounded out the top three for points conceded to forwards also rounded out the bottom three sides for points conceded.
AFL