Strategy guide for FanTeam’s £100k half-season Premier League Fantasy game

Sponsored by FanTeam

FanTeam recently announced their ‘Second Chance’ Premier League Fantasy game for the latter half of this season, starting from Gameweek 22 on January 14th.

There is a guaranteed prize pool of £100,000 in this Fantasy tournament, with £20,000 going to the winner and money for anyone finishing in the top 4,000.

And, remarkably, it’s completely free to play – so if you were reticent about paying to enter FanTeam’s season-long game back in August, then this is your chance to try it out at no cost.

BASIC RULES AND POINTS SYSTEM

Here’s the great news: anyone with any sort of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) experience should be able to pick up FanTeam’s game without issue. The rules, scoring and prices are very similar, with regular decisions to be made on your weekly free transfer (additional moves come at a cost of four points) and the double points that come with captaincy.

It’s essentially FPL but with huge cash prizes. Given that paid entry mini-leagues are now strongly discouraged by the Premier League, the FanTeam game offers Fantasy managers a legitimate opportunity to make money from their management expertise.

Unlike the main FanTeam game, this involves building a team of 11 players rather than a squad of 15. Therefore the 100.0m budget is now down to 80.0m. There must be at least one goalkeeper, three defenders, two midfielders and one forward. A maximum of three players from a single Premier League team can be selected.

Seasoned FPL managers should have no problem in adjusting to FanTeam and running a squad with its familiar scoring system, shown below:

KEY SCORING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FANTEAM AND FPL

• There is no Bonus Points System, which is replaced by plus/minus points (+0.3/-0.3) if a team is winning/losing during the period a player is on the pitch.
• Goalkeepers get 0.5 points for every save made, unlike the one point awarded in FPL for increments of three stops.
• Committing a foul that leads to a free-kick goal or converted penalty is penalised by minus two points.
• Midfielders and forwards get an extra point for completing the full match.
• Shots on target that don’t end up as goals are rewarded (+0.4 for midfielders and forwards, +0.6 for defenders)

STRATEGY GUIDE

Here are some tips on how to approach this game.

GO RISKY

One of the main differences between FanTeam’s Second Chance game and FPL is the ‘Safety Net’ feature, which makes up for the lack of substitutes. If a player doesn’t start a match, he will automatically be replaced by the closest-priced starter in that team’s position. For example, if you own Joao Cancelo (£6.6m) but he was given a rest by Pep Guardiola, then Ruben Dias (£6.1m) – if selected – would come into play.

This gives managers a freedom to pick ‘rotation risk’ options that would likely be avoided in FPL – ideal for when you know you want coverage of a top team’s enticing fixture but aren’t sure you can predict the starting XI. Or if you want a player who begins at the African Cup of Nations but will soon return, he can stay in your team and be automatically substituted out until his comeback.

ATTACK BLOCKS OF FIXTURES

Adding to the risk, managers can aggressively attack a team’s strong short-term fixtures knowing that the ‘Second Chance’ game only runs for less than half a season and you have a Wildcard in the pocket to overhaul when necessary. Although there are no Bench Boost, Triple Captaincy or Free Hit chips, starting in Gameweek 22 gives an advantage we don’t have for FPL Gameweek 1 – knowledge of which players are good, in form and in their manager’s favour.

UNLIMITED ROLLING TRANSFERS

Another interesting difference is that, unlike in FPL, there is no limit to how many free weekly transfers can be collected. It can go beyond two, enabling a scenario where your initial Gameweek 22 team is set up strongly for the first three-to-four rounds of fixtures and a ‘mini Wildcard’ can be used afterwards without even touching the chip. This combines well with ‘Safety Net’, where a team of 11 players can be chosen based on form and a promising fixture run, without a huge worry of Pep Roulette, Tuchel Tombola or Rodgers Raffle.

CLICK HERE TO HEAD TO FANTEAM’S £100k PREMIER LEAGUE FANTASY GAME

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