Strategies for Your Snake and Auction Draft

The Draft Fantasy newsletter is sponsored by Inbox Zero. Inbox Zero uses AI to help you empty your inbox daily. What previously took hours, now takes minutes. Inbox Zero is your VA for emails.

In this first newsletter of the season we’ll cover some strategies to help you with your draft and the season ahead.

Auction Drafts

This is our favourite type of draft. We’ve been doing an auction draft in our own league for years.

In an auction league you have a budget of £250m and you bid on each player till you fill your squad of 15 players. The top players usually go for around half the budget, and many players at the end will go for £1m.

Here are some insights to help you manage your draft:

The teams that pick up the superstars perform well

In our league last year, the team with Haaland came second. The team with Salah came first.

Salah was bought for £123m. Haaland for £112m.

We saw similar results in previous seasons.

There are three players I’d classify as superstars this season and they’re Haaland, Salah, and Kane. With Kane being somewhat of a risk to leave if a late Bayern Munich transfer goes through.

Ødegaard, Rashford, Saka, Martinelli, Trippier, and De Bruyne all performed well last season. But they don’t have the consistency the other big names have.

It will be interesting to see what Haaland goes for in our league this season. Especially if others in the league read this, but I’m expecting £130m+ and possibly as high as £150m.

There are always low budget gems

As the draft progresses there will be players that go for cheap. Some gems that went for cheap in our league last season:

Toney - £1m

Odegaard - £6m

Richarlison - £2m

White - £3m

Mitrovic - £1m

Part of this was due to new and promoted players being overlooked. And part of it was due to teams running out of space in their squad to bid on players.

We see this every year. Having the patience to wait it out till late in the draft will give you some really good value picks. But there’s no rewards for having money left over. So be careful you don’t leave it too late. And as I mentioned getting 1-2 massive players early may give you the best results.

Rotate during the season

A handful of players in your team will stick with you all season. But others you can rotate weekly when the fixtures change. Don’t overthink your lower value picks and they’ll often get moved out within a few weeks for players with better fixtures that are available for free.

Utilize the ‘Nomination Strategy’:

You can nominate players you don't necessarily want but think others will overbid on. This drains their budget and leaves more resources for you to secure your preferred choices.

You can also get others to fill up their position slots. For example, if someone has 3 strikers they can’t pick up anymore and you’ll have less competition when you go for strikers once everyone’s squad is full of strikers already.

Don’t Get Caught with Money Leftover:

While overspending can be a downfall, having a significant amount of budget left near the end can be equally detrimental. Balance is key.

Fixtures Don’t Matter for your Top Players:

Fixtures can be very important when it comes to fantasy football. Especially for players you rotate. But the top players you pick will likely be in your team all season long and so they have the same 38 fixtures as everybody else. If you trade with others in your league then it can have an impact but most leagues we see have minimal manager to manager trading.

Snake Drafts

Some of the same tips will apply to snake drafts but many don’t as there’s no dollar amount attached to each player. You always want to pick the best player. Our main recommendation here is to pick the most consistent and top-scoring players when you can. With a greater focus on attacking players than defending players.

Save keepers till last as there are 20 starting keepers and many perform well. Strikers are the most limited with only 1-2 per club and 3 striker slots available in your team.

Teams

Here’s a brief look at the top teams. During the season we’ll be a lot more interested in the hidden gems playing for the lower down clubs as all the big players will be taken, but during draft week, the most important players to look at are the ones at the top clubs. Here’s a quick look at the top 7 and what to pay attention to while drafting:

Arsenal

They did really well last year and will only be stronger this time around with the addition of Rice, Timber and Havertz to their squad. They’ll have a real desire to do one better than last year and win the title. The great thing about Arsenal is they have minimal rotation. So if you get Saka/Odegaard/Martinelli you know they’re going to play nearly every game barring injury.

Some nice early fixtures will help boost the team’s confidence too assuming they win those.

Chelsea

A new manager and a completely different squad to last season. Unclear how they’ll do. They can’t do much worse than last season but will they be able to push for a top 4 finish? We’ll have to see. With so many players having left, there’s less competition for spots and the starting lineup is more clear than what we saw last season.

Liverpool

The midfield has undergone quite a change this season. Szoboszlai and MacAllister have been brought in. Henderson, Keita, Fabinho, and Firmino are out.

Liverpool ended last season in strong form and I expect that form to continue into the new season. Liverpool have been a top two side for the past few years. And we could see them jump back to being title contenders again this season.

Manchester City

Some big changes to the City squad with Gundogan and Mahrez leaving. This will give more opportunities to the likes of Grealish, Foden and Bernado Silva as no new attacking players have been brought in. Kovacic will take Gundogan’s place in the team. Alvarez will see more gametime too.

The defence has been strengthened with the arrival of Gvardiol.

It will be interesting to see how City perform this year. The squad is weaker than last year’s but you can never count City out. Winning 5 of the last 6 titles they’re still strong favourites to win the title.

Be careful going for rotation prone players when eyeing Man City players and Pep Roulette.

Manchester United

Some decent transfer activity, and ETH did a great job in his first season in charge. But unclear whether they’ve solved their main problem which was a reliable source of goals. Hojlund is injured for the first few weeks and even once he returns it will take the young striker some time to adapt. It may be a few years till United get the best out of the Dane.

Mount and Onana both look like good additions that will help the United attack.

Newcastle

Surprise Champions League entrants. Newcastle will be looking to keep their top four spot and with the arrivals of Tonali, Barnes and Livramento have only strengthened their already strong squad. Trippier was Newcastle’s best performing fantasy player last season. The arrival of Livramento could lead to more rotation lowering Trippier’s value this year. Especially in the weeks with Champions League football.

Wilson and Isak will rotate across the season. Although both are great individually, the rotation will hurt their fantasy appeal.

Spurs

The big question for Spurs this year is whether Kane will stay or not. It looks like he will as things stand.

They have a new manager that could have a similar effect to the one Ten Haag had on United.

The arrival of Maddison is huge. Son had an awful season last year. Is he finished or will the new manager and the arrival of Maddison reignite his goal scoring from previous seasons?

Final Thoughts

The rules have changed this season. Games are much longer with new stricter stoppage time rules. Longer games means more opportunities to score. This might clean sheet prospects this season and give an advantage to attacking players. Longer games also means more fatigue and injuries so expect greater rotation.

The Draft Fantasy newsletter is sponsored by Inbox Zero. Inbox Zero uses AI to help you empty your inbox daily. What previously took hours, now takes minutes. Inbox Zero is your VA for emails.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter! Let us know what your tactics for the draft are. Good luck drafting at draftfantasy.com!