Maximising Profit With Your Wildcard

Team Value (TV) – I know, a lot of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers say TV isn’t important. In a sense they’re right, you won’t finish any higher in your mini-league because you had a higher TV. However, the higher you push your TV the more money you have to spend. Players in FPL are graded by price, based on how likely they are to return points. Therefore, having more money gives you the opportunity to buy higher graded players and hopefully return more.

So, when you Wildcard, regardless of the team you actually want to end up with, you should be playing the transfer market to maximise your chances of increasing TV.

The Process

1 – Follow the Predicted Price Changes

There are a few sites for this – they’re not always 100% accurate but give a good idea. Price changes happen sometime after midnight UK time. Price changes happen sometime after midnight UK time.

2 – Assess Your Team’s Situation

On the FPL site go to “Transfers” and click “List View”. This shows the Current Price (CP), Selling Price (SP) and Purchase Price (PP) for your players so you can make decisions on who to transfer out for players that are rising.

3 – Check Daily

Keep on top of the changes daily in the evening (UK time) and make transfers where applicable.

4 – Before the Deadline – Make Your Real Wildcard Team!

Hopefully with a little bit more in the bank to help you get what you want!

IMPORTANT

• Begin this process straight after the deadline of the previous Gameweek in order to benefit fully. The more time you’re playing the market the more price changes you can take advantage of.
• You can still create Wildcard teams that you actually want and play around with them, just don’t save the transfers. When you have a team you like, screenshot it and save it somewhere so before the deadline you can refer back and make your Wildcard team.

Example

Using the prices below as an example, you check the price changes against your squad…

• Squad – Van Dijk CP £6.4m / SP £6.4m / PP £6.4m – Söyüncü CP £5.1m / SP £4.8m / PP £4.5m
• Van Dijk Price Fall Predicted – tonight
• Young Price Rise Predicted – tonight

The predictor shows Van Dijk as falling in price tonight and Ashley Young as rising. A good move would be to sell Van Dijk and buy Young, even though I have no intention of having Young in my final Wildcard team and definitely will be keeping Van Dijk.

• When Van Dijk drops during the Gameweek I will be able to buy him back at £0.1m cheaper, making myself £0.1m. If he doesn’t fall I can get him back at the same price as I haven’t made any money on him.
• Selling Van Dijk for Young gives me some spare cash to spend in other areas of my squad while playing the transfer market.
• If Young only rises once, then I sell him before the deadline and that’s that. However, if he then rises again I would be able to sell him at a profit of £0.1m. Meaning including the Van Dijk drop when I bring him back in I will have made £0.2m just by playing the market.
• As a side note, I would not have sold Söyüncü to make space for Young because I have value tied up in Söyüncü and do intend to keep him in my final Wildcard team. If I sell him for his SP (£4.8m) it would then cost me his CP (£5.1m) to get him back in for my actual team at the end of the week, so I would lose money.

That is just one small example, but if you play your Wildcard in a busy transfer period in FPL then there should be a few of these things happening over the Gameweek. That’s why starting this process right at the beginning of the Gameweek is so important to have more chances to ride the market.

Two Extra Things to Consider Relating to Timing.

1 – When in the Season to Play the Wildcard Chip

There are certain times of the season where more transfers are being made than others. When more transfers are occurring there is more chance of price changes for players. So ideally, to make the most of the impact the Wildcard can have on the game, managers should be playing Wildcards during these windows.

For where we are now on the second Wildcard, you’re considering more seasoned FPL managers who understand how to play the game, so consider the following:

• Those who were gagging for the second Wildcard availability and play it early January.
• Those who are looking for either big transfers to rebuild their team around certain players, or the end of the transfer window to then hit the button.
• Those who are looking for the double/blank Gameweeks to use their Wildcard to help with that situation.

For the first Wildcard, you want to take advantage of all the soon-to-be ghost ship players. The game has just started, everyone is excited and the “normal” FPL managers haven’t given up yet. Therefore there are a lot more transfers happening early in the season. The first 6-8 Gameweeks would be a good guide before their enthusiasm starts to wane and the number of transfers per Gameweek begins to reduce.

2 – The Length of the Gameweek

The more time between the starts of two Gameweeks, the more likely there is to be lots of transfers made. So, try not to play it in the middle of Christmas when there is only a 48 hour gap! You really want at least to play it when there is the usual 5-6 day gap between the end of the last fixture of one Gameweek and the start of the next.

With these two things in mind, in my opinion a great time to play your first Wildcard is the first international break of the season. All the normal managers are still keen for the game and are actively making transfers, you’ve got some good data on how the new season is shaping up, and you’ve got a two week window where lots of activity will take place in the FPL transfer market.

No matter your team structure, which striker you prefer, to Salah or not to Salah, there is a correct way to go about using the Wildcard chip. Make sure you’re making the most of it.