Strikers Keepers Losers Weepers: Can you feel a draft?

You’ve got to hold and give but do it at the right time, you can be slow or fast but must get to the line. They’ll always hit you and hurt you, defend and attack, there’s only one way to beat them get round the back

– World in Motion by New Order

The Community Tournament World is in motion with 48 teams and over 1,000 FPL managers signed up wanting to join in the fun, it’s been a hectic transfer window and we’ve even had our first “celebrity” team endorsement as Tim Sherwood gave his backing to Sweet 2FA heading by FPL Haul.

If you want to catch up on what has happened so far then please have a look at this article which rather handily gives you all the links and information you will need. I’ll give you 10 minutes to get yourself up to speed. Right, ready? Then here we go.

LET’S GET READY TO DRAFT!!!!

The player application closing date has now been and gone while the pre-draft transfer window shut on 29th July, but for those free agents without a club and team captains still looking for the recruits never fear as the draft days will soon appear. John Barnes is not the only one with rhyming skills.

Yes, we will be running player drafts and of course the MVP draft on week commencing 1st August, the MVP version will take place on 3rd and will be swiftly followed by the remaining lucky dip.

Unfortunately, there will be some players who miss out due to the large demand and the limited number of captain applications so if you do want to make sure you stand out from the crowd then do make yourself know in the comments below or via twitter should you wish. The Team Captains still looking (as per time of writing) are below:-

Darth_Krid

Fanteamlagdon

FPL Inzaghi

FPL Solomons

FPL Transfer Tips

FPLLens

fpldeadlyledley 

fplviking_

kapilramcharan

lansdelltoby

Lexx Katz

Naman Bhardwaj

Pirlos Pen

Ryan Molesworth

Speedy

sreethe1

Srinii vas

Tierno85

THE MVP DRAFT

The first of the drafts will be for the MVPs, these are 32 FPL Managers all of whom have a wealth of experience and are only available to sign in the Drafts, see list below.

Magnus Carlsen, Pras, Az, Lateriser, TedTalks, Joe Lepper, Andy North, Holly Shand, Geoff Dance, Mark Sutherns, Seb Wassell, FPL Salah, FPL Family Sam, FPL Focal, Tom Freeman, Adam Hopcroft, Sonaldo, FPL champion Jamie Pigott, FPL Hints. Hall of Fame types Jon Ballantyne, Mark Mansfield, Dan Bennett, Matt Corbridge, Tom Stephenson plus FPL Harry, Zophar, Flapjack, Andy Martin, Morten Tveito, Luke Williams, Karam Tayser and Fabio Borges.

Also, up for grabs will be the players valued at £70m and upwards that weren’t snaffled up pre-draft before 29th July. As mentioned before, whereas the majority will be engaged in various team chats others such as Fabio and Magnus will remain silent partners. Magnus hasn’t even signed up yet for FPL so there is an extra added element of risk there!

Then once the MVP draft is over, we will run the remaining player drafts. The drafts themselves will be run as “snake drafts” with the teams with slots remaining taking their picks ordered based on the overall team value of their squads. Team captains will soon receive an email asking them to confirm their priority of their picks.

As with last year, we will be sharing the results of the draft on FPL Blackbox and hopefully if Boris can get the technology to work, we will do the draft live on our Community Pod.

TOURNAMENT STRUCTURE

The competition kicks off proper in Gameweek 2, in terms of format, it will be run as two leagues of 24 with each team playing each other once, depending on the team’s position in the leagues they will then be entered into knockout tournaments at the end of the season.

The top 8 in each league will compete for the BIG Champions League Trophy, the middle 8 will compete for the You’re Ropey League of Glory and the bottom 8 in each will duke it out to avoid the wooden spoon.

There will be Cups and a wooden spoon for each of the knockout winners or losers, a trophy for each of the league winners plus we will have an ultimate league champion when the winning teams of each league battle it out in something I am calling the Super Smackdown.

There will also be individual prizes for the top striker, goalkeeper and overall top scorer during the tournament. So, lots to play and bragging rights to be had.

SCORES ON THE DOORS

The big question is how does the tournament scoring system work?

Every match week, the teams will compete against each other with the captain having to choose a starting team of 14 from his 16 players’ squad. Within those 14 starters, two players should be selected to be the Striker, and a third to be the Goalkeeper.

The two strikers will play Head-to-Head against the opposition’s nominated players Goalkeeper and vice versa. The name of the game here is to score goals.

If either of your striker’s FPL score is bigger than the opposition’s goalkeeper, he/she gets 1 goal, plus an extra goal for every 20 points they outscore the goalkeeper. The goalkeepers do not score, if they score higher than either striker, they purely prevent the strikers from scoring.

The rest of the starting squad combine their 11 FPL scores, and should they outdo their opposition’s 11 players FPL scores, they too will score a goal, with an extra goal for every 30 points they outscore them by.

This link provided by the Boris the Brain shows a worked example

Striker Keepers Losers Weepers – Scoring Example (Link)

All the goals get added up to reach a final match week score. The winners get 3 league points, draws will see each team get a single league point, and loss gets nil. Simples!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well, that’s it for now folks, make sure to tune into BlackBox for the MVP draft results and look out for my preview of the season as we start the build up to kick-off. 

Thanks again for everyone who has signed up and let’s make it a good one. May your arrows be green, and fortune be not in your opponent’s favour!