A lot of you might be aware of the Fantasy Premier League and must be playing it for a couple of seasons. This season, FPL decided to launch the FPL Draft. There has been a lot of buzz regarding the FPL Draft, a lot of us have confusion regarding what it is, how do we play, what will happen to the original FPL and many more questions.
Today, we try to answer all those questions and make life simpler.
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The FPL game was launched this week with no changes- 15-man squad, 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 strikers with a £100m budget. The FPL draft will be launched in the coming week and is free to play for all.
It has the same structure as the FPL regarding the number of players in the team. However, in the FPL draft, each player can only be in one league squad. That means if one of the members picks Eden Hazard, rest of the members in the league cannot pick him.
There is no squad budget when it comes to FPL draft as there are no price tags on the player. Each player will select the squad through a draft process with the selection process being randomly decided. Don’t worry, this does not mean that the first person to pick will get the best players.
Ex: Round 1: Team1, Team2, Team3, Team4
Round 2: Team4, Team3, Team2, Team1
From the above example, it is clear that in the first round, you may get your top-priority player, but in the next round, you may be the last one to choose. This way, the draft ensures that every manager has a balanced squad.
Now in a private league, the administrator will decide the date and time of the draft. It must be completed before the deadline of the 1st gameweek i.e. 6:45 pm (UK time) on 11th August. In a public league, the draft will take place around 24 hours after the 1st team joins.
So what happens if you cannot make the draft? Before the draft, each player will create a Watchlist of the players, picking their top priority player for each position. This way, if you are unable to attend the draft, the Watchlist will select your players.
If you do not make a Watchlist and remain absent during the process, then draft ranks will be used to make automatic selections. Each player will be given a draft rank based on their total FPL points last season and/or their potential for points in the 2017-18 season.
Players collect points the same as they do in FPL with one exception- the draft does not have a captain or a vice-captain.
After the draft is made, managers can make changes in the squad in two ways- by submitting a ‘waiver request’ for a new player or by making a direct transfer from the free agents' pool. There are NO direct transfers between managers.
You may wonder what is a free agent. Well, a free agent is a player which is not selected in the draft. These players can be swapped 24 hours before the gameweek deadline in the Free Agency Mode.
If a new player is added to the game or released by a manager, they do not become free agents immediately. Initially, they can only be signed using the waiver request.
You are now wondering what is a waiver request and how does it work. A waiver request is similar to the draft process. It ensures that all the managers get the chance to pick new players released by other managers.
While proposing to swap a player with an unselected one for the same position, you make a waiver request which is processed 24 hours before the gameweek deadline. You can make any number of waiver request you wish.
Waivers work once a week. On the waiver deadline day, a process will look through all the waivers and make the changes. The team which is lowest ranked will get the first priority. Once the waiver request is successful, that team will move to the end of the Waiver queue for that gameweek. Once all the waivers are done, the free agency mode will be activated.
The FPL Draft looks an interesting addition to the game. With the draft not compulsory to play, it depends on the player if they are interested in it or would just like to stick to FPL. The draft is a nice way to attract new people to the game and it would be interesting to see if it gains popularity.
