Welcome to Genie's Corner for the World Cup! Here, I, (DraftGenie), will be providing you with my thoughts on all things draft! Each segment of Genie's Corner will focus on something specific and relevant to current events in the Draft Fantasy EPL world. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know I tend to take a bold and differential approach to the draft game, which has led to many fantasy titles. In these articles I will be giving you my unique insights, bold takes, sage advice, and much more throughout the season.
Genie's Corner World Cup Editions
Check out this weekly dive into the mind of our mercurial Fantrax EPL manager and analyst Draft Genie! Each week he provides his thoughts on strategies, players to watch, trades to push for, and much more!
World Cup Plans
Avoiding Fantasy Fatigue
We are finally here, the first ever mid-season World Cup, and a solid 6 week break from the EPL. Many managers may be dreading 6 weeks without Fantrax, but I see it as a nice break from fantasy and a time to just enjoy the sport played at the highest level. One thing I have seen countless times is managers complaining fantasy fatigue is a big reason for their end of season inactivity or losing streak, and just generally losing interest. Taking these 6 weeks and completely avoiding fantasy thinking will help eliminate that in my opinion. You will come back with a lot less exhaustion from worrying about your roster, trades, waivers, early lineups, Twitter chat, etc. As much as we love this game sometimes we spend too much time on it, and there would be nothing worse than to get bored of it midseason. Taking 6 weeks away should give you a lot more joy and desire to continue managing all the way until Gameweek 38, and maybe even make you hungrier to stay active, be more involved in your league chat, and of course trades.
Locking Your Player Pool
This was recommended on the KPC a while back by analyst Totti, and is something many Twitter leagues including the IGL are doing. Locking your player pool after Tuesday November 15 waivers until the end of the World Cup. This will really take off the stress of needing to worry about picking up a backup player if a star gets injured, or if a random player is hitting incredible World Cup form you won't be able to pick them up. Best of all though it will prevent managers from over tinkering. The urge to see moves on your team is not worth it over this time. It also allows managers the freedom to take a break from Fantrax over this time and not have to worry about missing a key pickup. When the World Cup is back everyone has a fair shot at picking up certain players (of course there's FAB and tiebreakers, but you get the gist).
World Cup Injuries
Unfortunately, injuries exist in the world of sport, and there may be a few this World Cup. As a fan and athlete myself the last thing I want to see is any player get injured, I know the feeling they go through and it is horrible. I wouldn't wish an injury in sports on my worst enemy. Unfortunately if one comes up it might impact your fantasy team. With such a short period between the World Cup and the season restart if it is a medium-long term injury you will more likely than not be missing said player from your roster. Even some short term injuries of 2-3 weeks can put players out until at least January depending on when they get injured, which is basically another 3 games putting their return at Gameweek 20.
First off, I would avoid panic trading out/dropping any player who gets injured during the World Cup. Wait until the press conferences before Gameweek 17 and then use that information to make the decision. Second, it is important to plan for this BEFORE your player pool *hopefully* locks. You might be wondering, how on earth can I plan for my first round pick to get a long term injury. Well, you can't but my point is you need to make extremely effective use of your roster before your player pool locks. Drop all streamer level players, and those non-keeper "floor" players. Example I am okay dropping Casemiro, Partey, and Bentancur but not Rice, definitely am okay dropping even low upside attackers such as: Harry Wilson, Buendia, Elliott, and Willock. Instead you can effectively plan to stash players who will either a) benefit from World Cup gametime or b) are close to an injury return and have significant trade value. I discussed option B a bit in previous editions of Genie Corner and Trade Advice. With regards to Option A I have thought about a few players that might be worth a stash and could be available in your leagues: Pulisic, Romero, and Kai Havertz are three players I believe are great stashes. All three have shown they can be solid fantasy players when in form which is crucial here. All 3 will surely play roles in their countries success, and if they hit form once we return from the World Cup you can sell them on a "World Cup high" or hope they do well over the Christmas period then sell them there. Always thinking about trade value with your moves is a huge key to upside potential.
2nd Half of the Season Title Push
"It's a New Season"
This is something that hasn't really been talked about much, but a mindset that most managers need to consider. This season is a weird one and basically broken up into 2 season. It is kind of reminding me of "Project Restart" but obviously there are fans, and the players aren't fully taking a break from playing the sport. It must be considered though that form absolutely goes out the window when we return. Doesn't matter that Son only has 3 goals in 13 games so far. He is basically starting a new season. With that when it comes to pickups, lineups, and of course trades, you need to take away recency bias more than ever. Just because a player finished off GW15 and 16 with a hot streak in no way means it will return. There will be a lot of talented players managers may undervalue either because of their injury woes in the first half or poor form. Saint-Maximin is a prime example. Managers may be worried he struggles to put a string of starts together, either because Howe is being careful while Newcastle is in good form, or because he will get re-injured. Of course reinjury is a possibility for any player, but he basically has 6 weeks with no competitive action to fully rehab his injury, and to work with the trainers to ensure it doesn't happen again. 6 weeks is a long time in terms of healing a minor injury, and something that may slip people's minds. This is really why I am not keen on making trades over the World Cup period. I think when action resumes we need to see 1-2 gameweeks to see how players react to a while off club football, and a good chunk having not played competitively for 6 weeks. Some may shock you (i.e. Sterling scoring in consecutive games), or we could have disappointments like the "in-form" Mitrovic blanking in 5 games straight. Think of this as 2 seasons and of course use this 2nd half of the season to push for the title.
Increasing the "Aggressive" Tactics
Now this is my favourite strategy as we approach "crunch time". No more time for sentimental holds and valuations. If you want to win, you need to be willing to chop and churn your squad more than ever. Each win is crucial in this portion of the season. No more thinking "oh its a long season, I can hold this player and just start winning in a few weeks". Sorry no, you just kissed your title hopes goodbye if you are willing to sacrifice 3 games to hold injured and out of form players. Even sacrificing 1 game is a no from me (as you will see in a few sections). There can be no more worry about who will pick up the player you drop because who cares. They aren't performing for you sell them or drop them for inform players or one's with easier fixtures. Fixtures will be crucial as we approach the final title charge. Rostering players with a run of say 4 "easier" games in a row can lead to some massive upside potential if teams perform how you expect them to. Having extra spots as we approach the dreaded Blank and Double gameweeks and of course heavy rotation season will be key to winning every week. As we get closer and closer to the end of season you need to have a very short term thinking mindset and basically play week to week. If a player cannot help you a certain week then they must be in consideration to be dropped. I am not talking about dropping Harry Kane if he gets a 1 game suspension but for example Anthony Gordon continues some poor form in the 2 gameweeks post World Cup - drop him. Jota is predicted to be out another 6-8 games after the World Cup - offer him out for some useable assets if no one bites drop him and let another manager waste a roster spot. These are the kind of the decisions that will really make or break your chance at a title.
Planning for Playoffs
If you are in a playoff league the aggressive tactic still applies, but once you are all but confirmed to qualify for your league's playoffs your only focus needs to be on the last 3-4 gameweeks. In a later article I will discuss teams and players to target/hold for those 3-4 weeks as those are the most crucial to your season, but for now the only goal needs to be getting into that top 6-8 (depending on your league's structure), and then its a 1 week season each round. This means taking even bigger value hits on trades. When City get into the later rounds of the UCL don't expect Haaland to be starting every EPL game in fact most teams I've seen with Haaland are struggling with more than 1-2 other useable players. In February, it might be time to look to ship him out for 2-3 useable players who will give you a chance to win every week and push you into playoffs. Sure you may have traded him to the manager in 1st place and given him a better chance in playoffs, but as I said each round in playoffs is a 1 week season. If a manager turns into "Haaland and inshallah", then if he blanks I don't expect him to make it past that round of the playoffs.
Verdict: SHORT TERM THINKING TO QUALIFY. If you are locked in playoffs then plan for those 3 gameweeks. From gameweeks 36-38 play week to week, big drops are okay (yes even round 1 picks) but we will get into this later.
Double and Blank Gameweek Basic Tactics
The dreaded gameweeks that are far from straight forward. So many key decisions on waivers, drops and lineups that can get you those 2-3 extra wins or cost you a title (literally). Winning these gameweeks is a must in my opinion as it is more often than not pretty straight forward.
Unfortunately sometimes in a blank gameweek, you may be up against the manager with Maddison, Kane, Eze, and Andreas all playing. While you are missing Saka, Martinelli, and Rashford, but I still believe these weeks are winnable. You must always start at least 10 players in a blank gameweek. Ideally 11, but sometimes it's better to avoid a starting defender vs say Manchester City, and just take a 0 in that spot. You should know the teams that will be playing in a blank week a few weeks ahead, and you slowly need to start planning for that week. Look at your lineup and see how many extra pickups you need to field a full XI, and start to pickup the "top" waiver targets for those playing teams a few weeks ahead of time. It will prevent you from needing to fight with 11 other managers for Daniel Amartey with your 2nd claim. Instead you only need to maybe get in 1-2 playing players. I fully recommend stashing defenders with good matchups that week before midfielders. There should be enough floor midfielders like Lewis Cook and Tyler Adams to go around the waiver run before this gameweek, but defenders in good matchups are always the first to go from my experience. You may wonder what level of player you should drop to win this week. Well please don't drop Rashford, Martinelli etc... if they blank, but all your "elite streamers" and floor players are easy drops. I am thinking players like Chelsea CBs if they blank, even as high as the likes of Neves and Soucek if need. Yes they are big drops but I promise you if you scour the wire enough you will be able to replace them over the last few weeks of the season. I would rather drop Soucek and his 7-8 PPM for the last 6 gameweeks to pick up Lewis Cook and get those extra 6.5 points that could push me 1 win closer to the title.
Double gameweeks are tough when some of your superstars only play a single game. I have seen some players get monster single gameweek scores, and double gameweek defenders be as bad as going double negative, or even getting a red card in the first match of the double gameweek. My rule is always start your studs unless for example Palace only have 1 game and it's vs. City then I truly don't mind benching Zaha, Olise and Eze for a DGW streamer. Next you want to try and get in as many "guaranteed" starters as possible. In the midfield these will be your floor players which are actually excellent gameweek winning plays in these kinds of weeks. Let's go back to Tyler Adams if he can get 6 + 7 across the 2 games thats a solid 13 ghost points from your MID5, add in a random return and I can promise you will come close to if not win your gameweek thanks to that "boring floor" pickup. Guys like Rice, Adams, Casemiro etc.. players who will probably get 180 minutes in two games have a lot more opportunities for points and that is exactly how you win a double gameweek. Of course, everyone will be running to those defenders and goalies with 2 potential clean sheets, so they may be hard to get if you lack FAB during this time. For goalies I would prefer the ones who can rack up the saves, because as you get closer to the end of season clean sheets are unpredictable. Leno, Pickford, Kepa are great example of goalies who will rack up a ton of saves even if they have 2 less friendly fixtures I would rather stream them over Ederson who plays Palace and Bournemouth, because if City don't keep 2 clean sheets odds are he gets you 10 or less if even. Where as Leno may concede four goals total but rack up 10+ saves leading to 15-20 points without any clean sheets! Defenders again targeting ones with "okay" fixtures but almost guarenteed 18- minutes is the route I take. Not necessarily easy fixtures but ones where they shouldn't concede more than 2 but can still rack up at least 5-7 points. Salisu is one that sticks to my mind here, even if he says plays Brighton and Spurs he can still get 7-9 ghost points in each, but if Saints somehow keep a clean sheet that's a 20-30 point score from your DEF3/4. I like to call this "Zag while everyone Zigs". Of course once we know the teams that will have these gameweeks we can start to throw out more accurate names to help you with those key pickups.
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