The AFL season is upon us and many footy-heads are starting to focus on their hands-on involvement. And there’s a fantastic way to be invested.
For some, this might be their first time entering into an AFL Fantasy competition, with no idea what to do, who to select, and who to absolutely avoid — well, luckily we’re here to help.
With the new Opening Round… or ‘Round Zero’ – as people are calling it – drawing closer, so does a new year of fantasy footy, with thousands of fans set to be pitted against mates, testing their AFL knowledge and allowing them to act as club coaches.
Whether you’re a repeat offender or a newcomer to the game, we’ve complied a guide with all the necessary information for you to crush season 2024.
Straight off the jump, it’s important to know that there are two different types of fantasy formats that are played via the afl.com.au version — ‘Classic Mode‘ and ‘Draft Mode‘. We would highly recommend if this is your first time playing AFL fantasy, and you’re still learning the game, to play classic; it’s the easiest way to develop your game.
How do you play AFL Fantasy?
Classic Mode
When you first open the website and see the field of spots you’re expected to fill with star players for your team, it can look a little bit daunting, but trust me, it’s quite straight forward.
In this ‘how to play AFL fantasy’ section, we are focusing on the ‘Classic Mode’ where you begin with a salary cap budget of $15.8 million to select a squad of 30 – 22 starters, four on the bench and four emergencies. Obviously the starters all gather points that go towards your total tally, but only some of the four emergencies selected by you will score if one of your starters is injured prior to the first bounce.
In Classic Mode, you learn the skill of managing a team’s salary cap by ensuring you select and fill up all 30 available spots within the $15.8 million budget. You will not be able to play in any round if you haven’t filled your team or you’re over the salary cap.
Once your team is made, you have the option of just playing against the AFL community in an ‘Open’ competition, which is usually well over 100,000 participants, or you can join or make a ‘league’. The latter allows you to play against friends inside a private competition where you customise your experience, such as head-to-head matchups, the finals cut-off, and more.
In head-to-head leagues, it replicates a draw similar to the AFL, pitting your team against others in the competition for league points, resulting in a rolling ladder from these matchups and a finals series at the end of the season. These league usually require an even number of teams.
You can also do ‘Open’ leagues which can have any number of teams with rankings dependent on total points-scored across the season.
Draft Mode
When you’re playing draft mode, it gets a bit more complicated to get a handle on, but once you’ve done it once or twice you’ll be good to go and pushing for a premiership amongst your league.
The main difference between ‘Classic’ and ‘Draft’ modes is that each AFL player can only be selected once (meaning if you select Marcus Bontempelli, nobody else can), there’s no salary cap, and you have a specific time and date when you have to select your team.
Draft day is usually quite stressful, with a certain amount of time for you to make each pick, and players you were hoping to get being selected by your opponents. Each team is allocated certain picks in either a ‘snake draft’ (where if you’re pick 8 out of 8 teams, you’ll also get pick 9 as it snakes back to the person who had the first pick), or a ‘linear draft’ where you get the same pick spot each round of the draft.
During the season you’ll be able to trade players in and out of your team with not only the players who weren’t selected on draft day, but also with other teams in your league.
The draft format is definitely more enjoyable once you have experience playing AFL Fantasy, and feels more like actually being in control of your own team.
How does the scoring work?
The AFL Fantasy scoring is simple, yet complex, rewarding and penalising players for the smallest statistics. It should be noted that your captain scores double points in the round and in the event they miss the match, your vice-captain will score double.
Here is the scoring system below:
Points:
3pts – Kick
2pts – Handball
3pts – Mark
4pts – Tackle
1pt – Free Kick For
1pt – Hitout
6pts – Goal
1pt – Behind
-3pts – Free Kick Against
Please explain AFL Fantasy price changing
This is where fantasy footy gets a bit more complex. Each players price changes week-to-week, with their performances the main driver of their respective price gain or loss.
However, these price movements are not based on vibe. Each week, player’s breakevens are updated based on a complex mathematical equation that’s as secret as KFC’s herbs and spices.
Players’ prices will change based on a formula that takes into account their past performances. All games played by each player since the start of the season are taken into this calculations, with a sliding scale of weightings with the most recent game receiving the highest weighting, as well as a component of their performance last year.
You might notice throughout the season that you ‘team value’ is worth more than the $15.8 million salary cap you started with. That’s because the value of your squad is also calculated based on the total of each players current value, plus any unused money in your salary cap.
This basically means the better your team is early on in the year, the more money you have to use in your salary cap.
None of this matters if you’re playing ‘draft mode’ because there is no salary cap, making players’ prices irrelevant.
Why you should pay attention to bye rounds
The AFL controversial changes the start to the 2024 season by introducing an ‘Opening Round’ which features only four games based all outside of Victoria. It’s caused a bit of a shake up for fantasy coaches and how they will approach the year.
Bye rounds will still be in place for mid-season, but because of the eight teams starting a week earlier, a series of byes for those teams have been introduced and will occur over rounds two, three, five and six.
EMERGENCY PODCAST INCOMING…
— Adam 'Warnie' Child (@WarnieDT) November 16, 2023
We will chat through the fixture and some thoughts for both Classic and Draft.
Yep, it'll be different … but I know the team at Fantasy HQ will make sure it'll be fun and accessible for all!#AFLFantasy pic.twitter.com/70hEX7R0eX
Classic mode will tackle the early byes by implementing the familiar best 18 rule. That is, the highest 18 scores from your on-field 22 will count towards your weekly score. This is how the mid-season byes are treated, but only two (2) trades can be made during the early byes. Coaches can make three (3) trades throughout the mid-season byes.
Prices will not change between Opening Round and round one. Scores from players who participated in Opening Round will impact their price movements after round one. This, along with timing of bye rounds for certain players, will dictate some strategy with initial team selection.
From afl.com.au:
Early byes
- Rounds two, three, five, six
- Best 18
- Two (2) trades
- Leagues play head-to-head match-ups as normal
Mid-season byes
- Rounds 12, 13, 14, 15
- Best 18
- Three (3) trades
- Leagues can choose to turn off match-ups for these four rounds
