Fantasy EPL 101 – How to Play Draft Premier League

Looking for a better way to play Draft Premier League?  Our Fantasy EPL 101 looks into the world of ‘Draft’ Fantasy EPL, providing details of how it works, and why it is the best version of the game you could possibly play!  Fantasy EPL on Fantrax is the place to be… and here are the reasons why!

A Classic Fantasy EPL Scenario…

It’s the start of the new English Premier League season.  Picture the scene: you and your friends have all chipped in the $20 entry, you’ve picked your Official FPL team, probably changed it a couple of times, and perhaps you’ve even checked the early season fixtures to correspond with your players; you’re all set!

You check the competition; everyone has Salah, Son, and Kane.  Obviously.  The real skill is to find the gems with the good fixtures.  Keep your fingers crossed that nobody else picks up on your differential picks.  So the season starts well, everyone is engaged and checking the scores, but the hectic Christmas schedule soon comes about and people forget to tweak their teams.  Two or three of the guys persist and come January only three people remember they are even in an Official FPL league.

We’ve all been there chaps.  The Official FPL version of the game is the past.  The ‘Draft’ version of Fantasy EPL is the future.

Fantasy EPL 101

You pluck up the courage to press the claim for the move to the Draft format of Fantasy EPL.  This is the best decision you could ever make.  Your fellow league managers will probably be skeptical about it, but once you’ve got them on board, the benefits are huge!  In a matter of weeks, Draft Fantasy EPL will be the most important part of every managers’ life.  Guaranteed.

The Draft format of the Fantasy EPL game is absolutely terrific.  From playing head-to-head games directly against your friends, to tapping into huge differentials from the free agent’s pool.  This format of the game is something special.  The competitiveness, the banter, and the longevity of the game is something that simply cannot be replicated playing the Official FPL format.

Draft Fantasy EPL is for the purists.  It requires so much more knowledge and skill to be able to succeed, and that’s why we love it so much!  You need to be dedicated to play this format.  You can’t just follow the ‘template team’ currently in vogue on Official FPL.  You’ll only have one chance to sign the top players during the pre-season draft, so you better make it worthwhile!

We’ve been playing the Draft format of Fantasy EPL for 8 years now.  Trust us when we say we know what we’re talking about.  Our main Draft League is an ultra-competitive 10-man league, and we’ve both got our names on the trophy.  We’ve experienced major ups, and major downs, during our time playing this format.  We’re talking from experience.

Fantasy EPL: How it Works

What Do You Mean by ‘Draft’?

So we’ve mentioned this being a ‘Draft’ version of Fantasy EPL.  This means that at the start of the season, each of the managers in your league will draft their team from all of the available players.  No two managers can own the same player!!  The way it should be!  There are no player values involved here, you just pick the best team you possibly can from the free player pool as the draft progresses.  If each player can only be owned by one manager, it makes things so much more intense and competitive.  The draft ‘snakes’ from one end of the draft order to the other, creating a fair system for all.  Our Fantasy EPL Draft Guide explains this in much more detail!  A squad of 16 players will be drafted.

How Many Managers Should You Have in a League?

Ideally, you should have 8, 10, or 12 managers in your league.  Get a group of your friends together, and enjoy Draft Fantasy EPL in a medium sized group.  If you have a larger league than this, the player pool will be spread extremely thinly, and managers will be stuck with players in their squads that never actually play.  If you have a smaller league than this, there will be too many good players to go around, and therefore all of the managers will have very good squads!

With between 8 and 12 managers, you’ll have the ideal amount of players to go around.  Most of the squads will be of similar quality, and this still means that there will be good players available in the free agent pool.

What’s The Free Agent Pool?

All of the undrafted players go into the free agent pool once the draft has been completed.  These are the players that are not owned by a manager.  Throughout the season, you can pick and chose players from the free agent pool, replacing an existing player in your squad.  You have unlimited pickups from the free agent pool during each period.  This is an important thing to note in this Fantasy EPL 101!  Unlimited pickups, every single week, with no point deductions!  Therefore, constantly adding and dropping players from the free agent pool (streaming) is recommended based on the weekend fixtures!

What’s The Waiver Wire?

The waiver wire is the order by which league managers can pick up players from the free agent pool, at certain times during each week.  Waiver wire requests are usually processed on a Tuesday and a Thursday, but this can be fully customized.  Once a player begins their weekend match, they will be ‘locked’ from being signed by a manager, and placed into the waivers.  Managers will then need to request to sign them using the waiver wire after the gameweek has finished.  If multiple managers request to sign a certain player, the manager at the top of the waiver wire order will get the player.

This is used as a fair way to determine the order by which managers can sign players.  The idea being if a free agent player scores three goals at the weekend, every manager will have a chance to sign him on the next waiver wire processing date.

Can I Trade Players With a Fellow Manager?

Yes!  This is one of the best aspects of playing Draft Fantasy EPL.  Due to the fact that each player can only be owned by one manager, you can offer trades of players to try and get hold of players that you really like!  This is where banter and competitiveness is aplenty in the draft format.  Offer your fellow managers trades to try and take their strongest assets.  You can find some tips on trading here!

How Do You Set a Lineup?

You are required to set a lineup of eleven players, with one goalkeeper, a minimum of three defenders, and an absolute maximum of five midfielders and three forwards.  You will set your lineup based on the best fixtures that the players in your squad have.  Pick your best eleven for the weekend’s fixtures, and away you go!  There are lots of options here for lineups though.  You could select options for autosubs to be brought into the team if one of your players doesn’t play.  You could select options so that you can make ‘live’ changes to your lineup, with each player being locked into your team only 1 minute before kickoff for their particular game.  Something to consider once you get used to the Draft Fantasy EPL format!

How Do You Score Points?

Draft Fantasy EPL offers a vast array of ways to score points, and these are fully customizable on Fantrax.  Gone are the days where you earn points simply for goals, assists, or clean sheets.  The Fantrax Scoring System offers a much more intelligent way of scoring points.  These include points for: key passes, shots on target, successful crosses, tackles won, interceptions, clearances, and aerials won.  Opta statistics are used to create an intelligent scoring system that rewards good statistical performances!  As we’ve said, Fantrax offers full customization of the points scored for each of these areas.

An important note: Draft Fantasy EPL doesn’t use captains! As each player can only be owned by one manager, the need for captains to differentiate between the scores players gain isn’t required.

A Draft Dictionary

We’ve covered off most of the common terms above, but here’s a list of other draft jargon terms that may not be known to new Draft Fantasy EPL players:

League Commissioner – This is the league manager who is in charge of the league.  The League Commissioner will be faced with the task of keeping all of the managers in line on the group Whatsapp chat, but also making sure things run smoothly on the online platform.  The League Commissioner sets up the league, determines the rules and customization options, and has the power to manually intervene on results or trades when required.

Mock Draft – This is undertaking a ‘mock’ version of a draft in order to gain data on which players are being taken in particular places in the draft.  This can be done with friends, but is best with random other players.  You’re trying to gain essential data on where the players are being drafted.  You can also use Mock Drafts to test out different strategies.

ADP – This stands for Average Draft Position.  The average place that each player is being drafted based on statistics from draft events that have already taken place.

PPM – This stands for Points Per Match.  The average number of points score each each game played.  A match counts the same if a player features for 90 minutes, or 10 minutes.

FP/G – This stands for Fantasy Points per Game.  This is the same as PPM.

PP90 – This stands for Points Per 90.  This is a more intelligent version of PPM, as it factors in the minutes actually played by each player.  This is the points scored divided by the total minutes played.  Rather than the points scored divided by the total games played.

Why Fantrax?

So Draft Fantasy EPL is the future.  The competitiveness and longevity in unrivaled, and it’s the most fun way to play Fantasy Soccer with your friends.  Now its time to pick a platform to play the game on…

The only real option is Fantrax.

Fantrax offers draft-style EPL Fantasy Soccer Leagues that are the most feature-rich, easy-to-use and customizable in the industry.  A Fantasy EPL Draft League on Fantrax is an incredible experience, unparalleled by any other platform!

The customization options are pretty much endless… Want to put a halt on the waiver wire claims for the next week? Go for it!  Need to manually override a particular head-to-head score from the latest period?  No problem!  Any possible customization you could ever think of is available on the Fantrax Fantasy EPL offering.

Fantrax was one of the fastest-growing fantasy sites of 2018 and it’s not slowing down any time soon! With multi-team trades, designated commissioner/league managers, and drag/drop easy click methods, Fantrax is sure to excite the serious fantasy sports fan.  NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL games are supported on Fantrax, as well as EPL Fantasy Soccer!

How To Play Fantasy EPL: Draft League Essentials

Here are some quick tips to ensure that your Draft Fantasy EPL experience is second to none!

Head-To-Head League

A Head-To-Head format for your Draft League is essential!  This means that you will play against a certain manager for each separate period of games.  The manager who scores the most points between the two will pick up three points for the win.  This is instead of an overall scoring league, where your points total is an accumulation of all your weekly scores.

This format increases the banter within your group of managers by a substantial amount, but also, perhaps most importantly, will keep the league standings close throughout the season.  Every manager will know that if they put together a few consecutive wins they could shoot up the table and be in title contention!  The competitiveness and longevity of your league will increase greatly, and it makes beating your rivals all the sweeter if it’s during a straight up one on one match-up!

Punishing The Loser

We would strongly recommend creating some rules to punish the overall loser of your Draft League.  This is to ensure that all managers are invested in the league for the whole season, creating a competitive environment, as well as some minor humiliation!  The league itself will become increasingly competitive, as managers are left panicked by the threat of potential forfeits.  Managers at the bottom of the league will therefore possibly be trying harder than those fighting for the league title!

End of Season Awards

The end of the Draft Fantasy EPL season is a time for celebrating success and ridiculing failure.  We implore you to get all the boys round to the League Commissioners place, get the beers in and the meat on the BBQ, and look back at all the banter your Draft League has provided over the last nine months.  If anything, just use this as an excuse to meet up with your friends for the weekend!  Your champion deserves to be recognized publicly, and your league loser certainly deserves to be ripped into by his fellow managers for the day.  The end of the season needs a suitable send-off!!

Conclusion

So there we have it.  Draft Fantasy EPL is the future.  That much is obvious.  This format of the game offers so much more fun to proceedings, and there is so much more skill needed to pick up differential players!  This game is for the purists.  You need to know your football to succeed!

And Fantrax is the best option for any Draft Fantasy EPL League.  The customization options are unrivaled.  Fantrax is the most feature-rich platform in the industry, and offers so much more than other online platforms!  Sign up now to play Fantasy EPL on Fantrax!

Looking for advice on how to draft well in Draft Premier League? Look no further than our Fantasy EPL Draft Strategy Guide for all the hints and tips you need!

Find our 23/24 Fantasy EPL Preseason Content here! And make sure you also check out the 23/24 Draft Kit from our official EPL content partners The Draft Society for Draft Rankings, Team Previews, Draft Strategy, Transfer Analysis, 22/23 Season Projections, and so much more!