2018 NRL.com Fantasy Thread Part 21

Rippin and Tearin wrote:

Its an absolute shambles this year. At least last season looping was effectively restricted to 3 rounds max and to just your captain.

This year as I showed earlier you can feasibly do it twice in a single round, and basically everyone ill have the ability to do at least once for the majority of the rounds in the season. I can't believe the muppets that came up with this format.....

So that leaves me in a bit of a different position from you guys in that I would loop if I could, but I typically can't cause I don't have the time during the weekend to do it. 2 kids, heaps to do, so it aint gonna happen. SO that leaves me effectively in the same position as you which is a choice between playing the game on an uneven playing field, or ditching it all together.

What I'll probably end up doing is playing for as long as I feel like Im in with a shot and then dropping out....

Revraiser wrote:At the moment I'll keep playing till seasons end, the challenge of tryin to finish as close as i can to those loopers is something else to focus on, maybe. Its disappointing so much forum space gets eaten up with loopy talk, but I'm not one to restrict what we can say or talk about here, thats what makes it a gr8 place.

Cap'n Ranta wrote:With Kennar out this will be my first time I have an NPR to loop and I'll be getting my free look at Kikau tonight. 35+ is my baseline to keep him there with only Rochow or Fualalo as my other trade in options.

Going through it all I realised that this years comp is going to be very different. Sorry if this has been pointed out before.

The ideal final team I see for this year is 19 guns and 2 NPRs. These NPRs would be in your starting WFB and starting HLF postions (Could realistically be any position you want but HLF and WFB tend to have the highest variance in scores).

Your 18-21 would look something like the following

18. SJ / Widdop
19. DCE
20. Rapana
21. RTS

You'd only bother doing this once you had a full 17 up and running but this will give you

a) coverage (assuming your 13-17 cover other valuable positions (2RF, FRF, HOK) any of these guys would be a good bench inclusion when you run out of trades
b) a chance to look at a volatile player capable of 100's but also with a low base (i.e. Rapana or SJ) with a more consistent backup player if they flame out
c) For H2H players it lets you act with more knowledge (i.e. more games played). If you have the lead you can match players to secure a win or switch to try and catchup
d) for Overall a chance to play the odds I.e. SJ is in 50% of the teams above and he did alright (45) whereas Widdop is only in 10% and might catch you up a few points. Worst case and SJ goes big you can just take his score anyway (non-asymmetric risk profiles at play)

Obviously like others have pointed out this has drawbacks

a) no guarantee of match orders working in your favour for optimum looping. However this is only 1 example of a double loop setup. This same group of players could have my two NPRs at 16 and 17 to loop in the two best of my 18-21 which may help in a week where match orders aren't as helpful as they could be.
b) This needs at least another 1.5M in cash to work with 2 more gun players than you would for just a final 17.
c) you'll likely burn more trades to get a final 19 than you would to get a strong final 17. You may have to spend trades to get ideal looping candidates too. This would affect your origin plans as you'd want a few more trades than usual to pull this off.

So while ranked subs and locking Captains may have prevented the Captains loophole (which I like) but replacing it with rolling lockouts and ranked subs means they have created double and possibly triple loophole options (Consider the above but use DPP guys like Walker and Mbye) where it rewards you for tactically arranging a team rather than giving you the 1 AE with the lowest score.

So congratulations Fanhub you have replaced a small but risky exploit (only 1 loophole but you must have 17 or less players and NPRs must be true NPRs. With 25 in a squad that meant 8 NPRs and no backups) with a repeatable multi position trick that you can use with just the 1 or 2 NPRs. Glad they made squad sizes smaller otherwise we'd have even more loophole chances.........

TLDR: Loophole is a valid strategy that the best teams will likely need to use to win. Doesn't mean I have to like it (not in the spirit of what the game is meant to be) but planning a final team around it would seem wise.

Rippin and Tearin wrote:

Haha, yeah that was me....procrastinating again. It was kinda fun to try and solve the puzzle of double looping though I'll back off now....

Chewie wrote:I'm not looping atm... I might do it during the bye rounds and near the end of the season. I prefer to have my cows on the field eating grass

Revraiser wrote:At the moment I'll keep playing till seasons end, the challenge of tryin to finish as close as i can to those loopers is something else to focus on, maybe. Its disappointing so much forum space gets eaten up with loopy talk, but I'm not one to restrict what we can say or talk about here, thats what makes it a gr8 place.

Fortitude wrote:

!00% this.

I refuse to loop, if others wanna do it that's cool. But its not for me. Im never going to win anyways.

Cap'n Ranta wrote:

Kudos. I really respect you for the way you approach it. Looping definitely breaks the feeling of lining up your best 17 for the week as your own NRL coach.

I will loop because its there and my desire to beat my friends and other league mates (where guys I'm up against are looping) is stronger than the fun of fantasy. However, I don't like that it comes at the expense of players who hate it to the point that fantasy isn't fun anymore and I really dislike the convoluted team specific can I do this loophole conversations that take away from the game and player discussion here (although I am admittedly guilty of it). Hopefully now that we are a few weeks in that'll disappear a bit.

I don't really know how they fix it so its win win for everyone (Failhub included). I can certainly agree I'd be happier overall in a game that didn't have loopholing though. My only suggestion is to completely get rid of the AE concept all together but maintain a rolling lockout with locked Captain and Vice Captains.

That's how NFL fantasy is played and I've never had a problem with it. Tracking injuries (which people will complain about) and choosing to play a worse healthy player over a better but injured guy is part of the decision process every week. Admittedly these are different sports where health is more subjective, game times are generally closer and in NFL I generally play in a draft mode where you have unlimited trades/waiver pickups but it could work.

Ozymandias wrote:

I spend a lot of my time on UK TFF site (soccer to most of you) and the main difference I noticed starting here is that everything gets talked about on the one thread (well most things at least), and a fast-moving thread at that - it's easy to miss information and some days I have to just give up any hope of catching up - or, spend ages looking back at something I thought I read 2 days ago.

The loophole arrangements/details/arguments could easily be shifted to a separate thread, then we can all dip in and out of it as required (or not). The same could be said for some other subjects too I'm sure.

wolfking wrote:I'm playing Carty.  I think he'll still get some decent minutes.

Fortitude wrote:I know this looping is hot property ATM, but id super appreciate a response to my previous question Copied below. I need emotional support on this one

In most circumstances the following trade is a no brainer right? other option is no trade for another week. Can field a strong enough 17, will need to play Carty though.

Merrin>Murray
Carty>RFM

Or
Merrin>murray
Croker>RFM