NRL Fantasy 2024 Part 2 - We've all been waiting for Weekes

robelgordo wrote:Probably a dumb Q but do you need to pick a full 21 before R1 lockout to score?

Like if you just picked a captain, VC and the Vegas lads can you leave the rest blank? Or do you need a bunch of placeholders and make changes during the rolling lockout?

Yes this is my 5th season but I’m asking the n00b question

Gonna guess you need to complete the 21? No harm doing it with placeholders from late games anyway just to be sure.

rhinoceroo wrote:

Gonna guess you need to complete the 21? No harm doing it with placeholders from late games anyway just to be sure.

Yeah that makes sense, I should probably not muck around with this.

Also this will 6th season, can’t even count.

Yeah make a full team and change them as many times as you want to be safe.

Also, all you bastards are pushing me towards a gun centre. I don't want a gun centre. But if I do, I want Val Holmes. Gotta be a Cowboy for me to cheer for if I am to entertain this craziness.

Mulvy wrote:Yeah make a full team and change them as many times as you want to be safe.

Also, all you bastards are pushing me towards a gun centre. I don't want a gun centre. But if I do, I want Val Holmes. Gotta be a Cowboy for me to cheer for if I am to entertain this craziness.

Every season we spend 75% of the preseason discussing the position “nobody cares about” lol

I have no opinion as still refusing to look at it.

I find myself wanting to go for a modified SI approach from a few years ago. Leave a chunk of money in the bank, and use it to pounce on everything in the first couple of weeks when things become clearer. I think SI retained a couple of million dollars and took a number of weeks to spend it. I would be thinking more like a few hundred thousand and only a week or two to spend it.

Thinking about it some more, the weekly byes might add some weight to this argument. In previous years the argument would be: Money kept in the bank is points left on the bench. It's wasted points.

But if I buy say, Fifita, or even Campbell, I've got money on the bench in rd 2 anyway. At least by holding the money, you have flexibility.

This is a thought bubble I thought I would share. I haven't thought too hard about it, but thought I would add to the conversation.

Mulvy wrote:Thinking about it some more, the weekly byes might add some weight to this argument. In previous years the argument would be: Money kept in the bank is points left on the bench. It's wasted points.

But if I buy say, Fifita, or even Campbell, I've got money on the bench in rd 2 anyway. At least by holding the money, you have flexibility.

This is a thought bubble I thought I would share. I haven't thought too hard about it, but thought I would add to the conversation.

I suppose technically if you keep $200k back, you're losing 15 points of scoring every week (all things being equal, which they aren't). The question is whether you can more than counteract a 30 point deficit in the first two weeks, say, by being able to use that money to get better long-term players, or by not forcing a downgrade of a player you'd prefer to keep in order to get one who's started on fire.

As usual, the answer to whether it's worth it is probably "yes, if you make the right decisions; no, if you don't"

The extreme of this is that the optimum starting team would be one high-priced captain (say Cleary) and then *everyone else must have value*. So no guns priced at value: no Haas, Hynes. Grant etc to begin with. There'll be a tipping point where too much cash in the bank becomes counter-productive, but there's enough 350-550k players that you could make an experimental 17 full of those players, add four pure cows 18-21, have plenty of change and see how it works out.

rhinoceroo wrote:

I suppose technically if you keep $200k back, you're losing 15 points of scoring every week (all things being equal, which they aren't). The question is whether you can more than counteract a 30 point deficit in the first two weeks, say, by being able to use that money to get better long-term players, or by not forcing a downgrade of a player you'd prefer to keep in order to get one who's started on fire.

I did a lesser version of that strategy at the start of last year - I started with both Bird and Walsh despite neither of them playing round 1. This cost me a few points that round (I played Talau, AKP and Alamoti for 33 points between them) but it meant that I already had them in my team and could thus use my two trades the following round (I ended up buying Hammer and the Carty Party) instead of using them on Bird and Walsh.

Bethany_B wrote:

I did a lesser version of that strategy at the start of last year - I started with both Bird and Walsh despite neither of them playing round 1. This cost me a few points that round (I played Talau, AKP and Alamoti for 33 points between them) but it meant that I already had them in my team and could thus use my two trades the following round (I ended up buying Hammer and the Carty Party) instead of using them on Bird and Walsh.

In hindsight you would've been better off in points and money to have gone the other way around; started with Hammer & Carty (fairly popular selections) and brought in Bird & Walsh R2...

So I'm not entirely sure if your anecdote advocates for willingly having high-value unavailable R1 players

rhinoceroo wrote:

I suppose technically if you keep $200k back, you're losing 15 points of scoring every week (all things being equal, which they aren't). The question is whether you can more than counteract a 30 point deficit in the first two weeks, say, by being able to use that money to get better long-term players, or by not forcing a downgrade of a player you'd prefer to keep in order to get one who's started on fire.

As usual, the answer to whether it's worth it is probably "yes, if you make the right decisions; no, if you don't"

The extreme of this is that the optimum starting team would be one high-priced captain (say Cleary) and then *everyone else must have value*. So no guns priced at value: no Haas, Hynes. Grant etc to begin with. There'll be a tipping point where too much cash in the bank becomes counter-productive, but there's enough 350-550k players that you could make an experimental 17 full of those players, add four pure cows 18-21, have plenty of change and see how it works out.

I personally think the drive to utilise as much cash as possible (otherwise you're leaving points in the bank) is overstated. It's a nice feeling to believe a low balance means you're efficiently using your cash (whether that's actually true is another thing)

I looked back at my average bank balance across the whole season last year, and it was a surprising $204k - albeit this was boosted by the bye period where the use of high-value players is a bit more restricted (I had close to $800k in bank in R19 ready for the big post origin spend for example).

A realistic optimum squad at any given point seldom necessitates spending every dollar, so the bigger focus should always be around value, squad balance and maximising points on the field week in and week out (duh - obvious to say, but often difficult to navigate).

I think under $50k bank is getting a bit lean, over $200k is probably wasting some potential points

Mulvy wrote:I find myself wanting to go for a modified SI approach from a few years ago. Leave a chunk of money in the bank, and use it to pounce on everything in the first couple of weeks when things become clearer. I think SI retained a couple of million dollars and took a number of weeks to spend it. I would be thinking more like a few hundred thousand and only a week or two to spend it.

Every team I've made so far (about 2 total) has had 500-700k left over and I've liked the balance. But come TLT I'd probably just upgrade Flanagan to Hynes and be done with it

The beauty of being a Roosters fan is that I can comfortably start the season without Teddy, and if he fucking dominates from the get go be at peace because he's killing it for my team. I'm assuming others feel similar about Ponga, Latrell etc

I love the idea of keeping money in the bank. The chances of spending near the full cap, and finding the perfect starting team are slim to none. Even if you did, so what? You start the season in first? There's still a million other ways to lose/win throughout the year.

I'd say it's far more detrimental to have a bad start to the year (MS last year can probably attest) than it be good to start strong. I mean wasn't Booze something like 3000th after a few rounds?

Can't see the harm in holding 300-400k in the bank to start the season assuming you have decent coverage and no blatant missing players.

Mulvy wrote:Yeah make a full team and change them as many times as you want to be safe.

Also, all you bastards are pushing me towards a gun centre. I don't want a gun centre. But if I do, I want Val Holmes. Gotta be a Cowboy for me to cheer for if I am to entertain this craziness.

Unless we get some value out of nowhere on TLT, seems like the right move for the first time in forever. Pretty confident now that Iro and Strange will not be options come round 1 sadly.

I thought round 1 was going to be a rolling lockout before each game meaning we don’t need to have a full team in before round 1 begins. Just the players who play the first 2 games of the split round.

Guidlines still stipulate:

“If your team is not complete prior to 2 am on the day of the first game for the upcoming NRL round, your team will be auto-filled”

Edit: it prefaces the above with the following “If you register once the season is underway, you should complete your team before the next lockout comes around”. Could well be different for the start of the season compared to “once the season is underway” but it does say that you need to create a team with 21 players for it to be valid. When the cut-off point is exactly, I’m not sure.

Alfie wrote:Guidlines still stipulate:

“If your team is not complete prior to 2 am on the day of the first game for the upcoming NRL round, your team will be auto-filled”

Edit: it prefaces the above with the following “If you register once the season is underway, you should complete your team before the next lockout comes around”. Could well be different for the start of the season compared to “once the season is underway” but it does say that you need to create a team with 21 players for it to be valid. When the cut-off point is exactly, I’m not sure.

It makes sense to require all the positions be filled prior to the Vegas games, in order to avoid managers potentially filling a team with multiple guns from the Broncos, Manly, Roosters and Rabbitohs and physically being unable to fill the remaining roster with $230k players.

Snatchpato wrote:I love the idea of keeping money in the bank. The chances of spending near the full cap, and finding the perfect starting team are slim to none. Even if you did, so what? You start the season in first? There's still a million other ways to lose/win throughout the year.

I'd say it's far more detrimental to have a bad start to the year (MS last year can probably attest) than it be good to start strong. I mean wasn't Booze something like 3000th after a few rounds?

Can't see the harm in holding 300-400k in the bank to start the season assuming you have decent coverage and no blatant missing players.

I struggle to see many scenarios where having 300-400k is advantageous and having 100-200k wouldn't suffice.

That extra 300k could turn your 21st man base-priced turnip into an elite Centre... (or a 40 point MID)

One week won't harm your season too much either way (unless you're hoarding a mil), but there comes a point where saving too much money is probably hindering you more than helping you

Rabbits21 wrote:I thought round 1 was going to be a rolling lockout before each game meaning we don’t need to have a full team in before round 1 begins. Just the players who play the first 2 games of the split round.

Haha do this at your peril

Like someone else said, worse case just fill in with cheap dolphins and cowboys (last game of R1) and work out what you really want later

For anyone keen to play Supercoach this year and wanting to be in FF leagues, this is now open for registration:

https://www.nrlfantasyfanatics.com/t2346-2024-nrl-supercoach-fantasy-league-registration