What is “Fantasy Football” all about?

[CBDees 3,162]

Although I am not sure how to create a link to the actual article, I notice that the AFL website has revealed their top-priced “fantasy “ players for the 2018 seasson. Neatly split into the top backmen, mids, forwards and rucks, it gives the high-priced elite players in each category.  It lists ten backs, ten midfielders, eleven mids and seven rucks. There is only one Melbourne player in Michael Hibberd!

There is no Lever, Oliver, Gawn, Jetta, Petracca, et al. Although I have never played the game, it seems that the Melbourne list could well produce quite a few surprises for the punters, who may well overlook us at their peril. Any comments from Demonlanders who play the game.

http://www.afl.com.au/

[BAMF 3,787]

Fantasy football is a game where you have a pick of all the AFL players in the league and make your own team.

Results are based on the real AFL games each weekend.

Points are given to the players for actions they complete in games. For example, a kick might be worth 4 points. A handball would be worth 1.

If you have Patrick Dangerfield and he has 20 kicks (20*4= 40) and 10 handball a (10*1=10) you would have 50 points.

There is a salary cap involved. So you can't buy all the good players.

Each week a players price will increase or decrease depending on their score.

You can make a large amount of trades throughout the year. So the idea is to buy a cheap player, hope your player plays well and eventually upgrade to a premium player.

The AFL website runs Dream Team.

Herald Sun runs Supercoach.

They are very similar. 

We have a whole seperate section based on it on demonland. Like how we have a seperate area for drafting/trade discussion.

[Bluey's Dad 3,419]

Don't be too miffed. A good 'fantasy price' or 'fantasy score' in general will correlate to better players. However there are so many factors involved that you can't draw a conclusion that just because Melbourne has few expensive/high scoring fantasy players that it means we're down on talent.

Tom Rockliff is the the epitome of the fantasy/reality divide. He has been for some years one of the best scoring and most expensive players in fantasy footy. But as we know, his high possession count doesn't always result in a great overall effect on the game.

Nev Jetta is another example in the reverse. Horrible fantasy scores but often wins those vital 50/50's that a team needs to win a game.

Then there's the whole 'KPP' issue - where someone like JJK or Franklin will kick a bag of 6 and score 200 or something incredibly high, and then the next week kick 1 and get 30. KPPs are 'roller coaster' players in fantasy, incredibly unreliable. But on the footy field, even if they don't kick a massive bag they often add significant value in other ways, and you wouldn't drop them if their stat sheet said 1 goal 3. In fantasy, you always take a risk when you pick a KPP.

However, just so we don't feel totally left out, Clayton Oliver was the #7 ranked overall player in Supercoach last year (by round average score, excluding Jacob Townsend who played 1 game for 118 points).

He averaged higher than Zorko, Neale, Sloane, Duncan, Crouch, Murphy, Adams, Merrett, Pendlebury. Those are some MASSIVE names, and Clarry was only in his second year.

Source:

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/supercoach_scores?p=&min_salary=0&max_salary=800000&sort=2&order=D

 

Fantasy footy are fun games to play, but are not a true reflection of talent of real world value to a team. It's more like the stock market than footy.

[Little Goffy 12,545]

The AFL official fantasy is for some reason always a few seasons behind the Supercoach system run through the Herald Sun, but the concept is basically the same.

I have up on the AFL Fantasy comp a couple of years back when they still hadn't updated to include disposal effiency or contested posessions or any of that. Maybe it has improved since then, but I'm not ready to commit to joining two different systems for the same amusement.

Anyway, the runthrough for people unfamiliar.

You get a salary cap. To buy players. Their value is set, and gradually changes, according to how many points they earn through their actions on field.

Basic scoring is for kicks, marks, handballs, goals, tackles and all that, but the system is tinkered with each year depending on how sophisticated the available stats are. For example, a long effective kick is worth more than a short effective kick, and a contested possession is worth more than an uncontested, and so on.

The points system still favours players who get a lot of the ball - that's why top defenders are the likes of Docherty and Hibberd, and why midfielders dominate the prices. It used to be much worse on that, but still today you wont see many low-possession players get into the high prices. Take Lever - there will be some games where he scores massively thanks to a string of contested or intercept marks, but some weeks he'll just be killing contests or even 'worse' covering an opponent so well that the ball just doesn't come near them.

The main 'strategy' part of the game is selecting players who will score better than their current value. So, if you pikced up Clarence Oliver for cheap at the start of last season, you were laughing.

You can also trade players, the common example is starting the season with a few new draftees who have very low price - even some ordinary games will see them go up in price. You then dump them, bring in a new kid at basement price, and use the spare money to replace one of your other players with a star. Of course, there's a limit on the number of trades you can make each round and in total.

Probably the best thing about Supercoach for me is it adds a ritual in the pre-season when you are organising your starting team. You check your way through players and have a think about how you think things will go for them, are they on the up, or too risky, and so on. A nice process for thinking about the season ahead.

It is also a perfect moment for indulging in optimism. For example, I'd be putting all of Gawn, Hogan, Viney, McDonald, Hannan, Hunt, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, and Smith on a watchlist of players who realistically could go up in value a lot in 2018. And that's a freaky load, especially when it doesn't include any new top draft picks.

 

 

[Demonstone 19,084]

5 hours ago, BAMF said:

If you have Patrick Dangerfield and he has 20 kicks (20*4= 40)

Might need new batteries in your calculator, BAMF.

[BAMF 3,787]

9 hours ago, demonstone said:

Might need new batteries in your calculator, BAMF.

Ha! I tried typing that on my phone when walking to work. I thought the overall score of 50 was a bit low for a 30 possession game.

I justified it to myself as I didn't bother including marks and tackles!

[BAMF 3,787]

Supercoach has always been the better scoring system in my opinion.

It now correlates directly to the official AFL Champion Data points system. Therefore, you get more points for those clutch moments. A set shot goal kicked when you are 2 points down with 5 minutes to go gets more points than kicking a goal while you are 50 points up.

@CBDees you should keep an eye out at the start of next season for the Fantasy Footy board. http://demonland.com/forums/forum/34-fantasy-footy/

There is a guy on here @DeeVoted who does an excellent job setting all the leagues up for Supercoach. I'm sure there will be a league for beginners. It takes a bit of work to get your team setup at the start of the year, but its very easy after that. Its a lot of fun and makes all the non Demon games more interesting because you have players from opposition sides in your team and you want them to do well.