FFS Mini-Leagues & Community Competitions Gameweek 28

Welcome to the Gameweek 28 round-up of the Fantasy Football Scout mini-leagues and community competitions. 

Head-to-Head Leagues

Craig Johnson (aka Bouncebackability) extended his lead to seven points in League 1. His rivals for the Head-to-Head crown seem unable to mount a serious challenge. Both Ignazio La Rosa and Aleksander Våge Nilsen (aka AleksanderVN) lost as Simon Vazquez leapfrogged into second. 

The bottom ten teams in each division will be relegated at the end of the season.

Since losing to B.J. McNair (aka Ben McNair) in Gameweek 25, Portsmouth-fan Harry Vernon (aka Horse) has won all three of his matches and moved three points clear of the drop zone.

However it appears to have been a Pyrrhic victory for Ben who’s failed to win since. Despite being the fourth-highest ranked out of the 20 managers in the premier division, Ben is 15th – nine points behind 10th-placed Owen Walker (aka Amateur Pundit Zan).

Owen ended his own poor run with his first win since Gameweek 23. The early-season pacesetter has struggled for form since winning his opening seven matches.

Luck and Quality

Managers in the Head-to-Head leagues are getting better. In the last eight Gameweeks, the number of bosses in the top 1,000 has gone up from 7 to 15 and out of nearly 6,000 taking part there are now 144 in the top 10,000. 

However a good rank doesn’t always equate to success in the competition.

Spare a thought for Jonah Sinclair, who is somehow 18th in League 5 Division 2 despite a rank of 4,689. In FPL he’s 56 points ahead of the next highest ranked manager in his division, Feyzi Ercin, and a full 240 points clear of Nick Lee ranked 1,607,352nd. Yet Feyzi and Nick are chasing promotion in third and seventh respectively while Jonah is ensconced in a relegation dogfight.

League 7 is particularly topsy-turvy with several top 10,000 managers having a tale of woe to tell. They include Barry McCarthy 16th in Division 40; Robert Wyld 13th in Division 44; Kyle O’Shaughnessy 14th in Division 3; and Sigurd … 16th in Division 19, 15 points from safety. Can these managers avoid an unfortunate relegation?

Leading Performers

Abdullah Tamin is the highest-scoring manager across all 300 divisions. Another win for him in Division 1 of League 8 gives him an impressive 75 points out of a possible 84.

Meanwhile Niall Devlin, who shared the best record with Abdullah heading into Gameweek 28, lost to Joanne Linter and remains on 72 points in Division 143 of League 8.

Damjan Rupnik of Division 5 in League 6 is the only manager to feature in the current top 100 FPL managers. Damjan leads his division by eight points and is 78th overall.

A fixtures table will be published in the Scout’s Guide to Gameweek 29 ahead of the deadline. However, if you would like to find out who you are playing next before then, follow this link. Use your browser’s find in page function (Ctrl+F) to locate managers. All this information and more is contained in the main Head-to-Head page.

Fantasy Football Scout Mini-Leagues

For the ninth successive Gameweek the Fantasy Football Scout mini-league sits proudly atop the Best Leagues in FPL, however our lead is slowly being eroded. The Official FPL podcast, which regularly features community manager Geoff Dance, is hot on our heels. Please stop giving out good advice Geoff!

Leagues are ranked using an average score of the top five teams, so congratulations and thanks to the top five managers in the mini-league Chris McGowan, Mark May, Magnum Dong Carlsen, Christopher Berchoux, and Dima Burlaka. All five managers feature in the top 53 overall. 

Christopher and Dima replace Edward Ridout and Aleksandar Antonov in the mini-league top five.

Chris McGowan (aka Queens of the South Age) increased his lead to 62 points over second-placed Mark (aka Frankiem). With all his chips still intact, Chris remains the world number one, 17 points clear at the summit of the overall leaderboard.

For those who missed it, Neale’s interview with Chris can be read here.

There are currently 44,057 people participating in the Fantasy Football Scout mini-league, to join them enter code ooyz44 in your Leagues’ section on the FPL site.

The highest-ranked manager in the Head-to-Head leagues, Damjan Rupnik, still heads our Members mini-league. He has a 15 point advantage over Adam Warner (aka Bury94) in second and Nathan Woollaston in third. Adam and Nathan have the same number of points but Adam is second because he’s made two transfers fewer. 

The code to join the Members League can be found on the Members page. 

Fantasy Football Scout Cup

The second FFS Cup of the season gets underway in Gameweek 29.

The draw for the first round has taken place with the top 503 entries qualifying from Gameweek 28 along with nine former winners: Joe, Gribude, Sleeping master, Wild Rover, Leon Harris, A Manager Has No Name, TH14, Lokomotiv and the current cup-holder Philman.

A score of 37 points after hits was required to make the cut (or 36 points and an overall rank of at least 209,451).

Neale previewed the first round earlier today. 

Andy (aka Andy85wsm) is the only Pro Pundit to have booked his place in the opening round. He joins Mods & Cons Gregor, RedLightning, David (aka DavidMunday815) and myself.

Other notable qualifiers include Damjan Rupnik (aka rdamjan), Adam Warner (aka Bury94) and Craig Johnson (aka Bouncebackability).

Community Mini-Leagues and Competitions

In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score in Gameweek 28 was 28 points, this saw a total of 92 managers eliminated. 

The threshold for elimination increases to 20% for Gameweek 29, a minimum 72 managers will depart.

4,750 managers have exited the competition so far with 356 left to battle it out for the coveted title of Last Man Standing. Aside from bragging rights, the winner will receive a free Fantasy Football Scout Membership for the 2020/21 season.

In the Pundit’s Play-Off Community Tournament The Keane Fifteen are 10 points clear at the top of the overall leaderboard. Although this week they suffered a rare defeat, losing to Back to Square Owen who are making a late charge for a quarter-final spot. 

The top eight teams will feature in the end of season play-off, which starts in Gameweek 33. With four rounds to go there are four teams vying for the final qualification spot. In a competition where 15 points are up for grabs each week, just 8.5 points separate eighth from 12th. 

Long-time leader Neale Rigg (aka SkontoRigga) remains three points ahead of Fantasy League maestro Gareth Butler (aka Clouseau) in the FFS Mods & Cons mini-league. Although a disappointing week for both managers saw them drop out of the top 10,000 overall. 

David Nataf held onto first place in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league (league code m0tq9y). At 111th overall, he remains on course for a third top thousand finish in four seasons. Adam Warner (aka Bury94) is now in second place, 10 points behind.

David also leads in PDM‘s Top 1k ANY season mini-league (league code eejnyz) while Adam heads RedLightning’s Opening Day League.

The top three in Chaballer’s Top 1,000 HoF League (league code beeps2) are unchanged, meaning Svein Roald L Usken (aka Firminoooo) is in front of Ómar Olgeirsson and denial EASTOP. Just five points separates the leading trio.

Champions and Pro Pundits

In the exclusive FPL Champions League, Pro Pundit Simon March is gradually being reeled in by Matthew Martyniak. Although Matthew, who claimed FPL glory in the 2012/13 season, still has a 61-point gap to bridge if he’s to catch the 2014/15 winner.

Lateriser12 is still our highest ranked Pro Pundit, 12 points ahead of  Sam Bonfield (aka Sam FPLFamily) who has narrowed the gap by one point. The highest scoring Pro Pundit in Gameweek 27 was Holly Shand (aka FFCommunity_) with 44.

Meanwhile world chess champion Magnus Carlsen is back in the top hundred at 21st overall, thanks to a second successive pair of double-digit hauls from Wolves players Jota and Doherty. Earlier this season he was in the top hundred from Gameweek 10 to Gameweek 19, reaching the dizzy heights of number three in Gameweek 17.

2020 Mini-Leagues

432 teams have signed-up so far to RedLightning’s January to May League, which started scoring in Gameweek 21. 

Qian Hao Ong moved 17 points ahead of this season’s FFS Members Cup winner, Danny Mallon (aka Pep Pig).

An impressive 13 successive green arrows have enabled Qian to rise from 1.8 million overall in Gameweek 15 to 5,805 now. This is his eighth FPL season, with previous best finishes of 339th in 2016/17 and 6,642nd in 2017/18.

The league will remain open for any others who wish to track their progress in the second half of the season, the code you need is aafkpq.

And for those who fancy another challenge, The Last Ten mini-league will start scoring in Gameweek 29. This covers the last ten Gameweeks of the season, including the biggest doubles and blanks when most will play their chips. 

226 teams including last season’s winner Ted Maw (aka Rotation’s Alter Ego), have already entered. The code you need to join is p4unsq.

Submissions

If you are running a community competition and would like the latest scores included in future Round-ups, please email us a summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spreadsheet or head-to-head competition to geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk

Thank you to RedLightning for his contribution to this article.