Competitions 2021: SCS Draft League

Wolffy84 · 1 Feb 2021

Hi Everyone

I'm organising an SCS draft league for 2021. Interested? Fantastic. I’ve listed the key details below.

How do I enter?
The draft will be utilising the HS Supercoach site here: https://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/afl/draft/predraft
The league code is 503712. Just sign up and let me know in the thread.

What is the entry fee?
Nothing. Just playing for fun and bragging rights.

Do I have to commit to more than one year?
No you don’t. It’s just a single season draft league.

I want to be involved but I've never played SC draft before.
More than happy to have beginners in the league. Sign up and I'm sure you'll find other coaches happy to help you out and answer any questions you have.

How big will the draft be?
The plan is to draft about 175-190 players in total.

Depending on the number of interested coaches, that means:
8 coaches = 22 players drafted each
10 coaches = 19 players drafted each
12 coaches = 15 players drafted each

When and how will the draft happen?
The draft will run from Monday 8th March (as the preseason matches finish) to Wednesday 17th March. Whilst 24 hours is allocated for each pick, it is expected coaches will monitor the draft throughout the day and make their choices promptly. As long as 20 draft picks are made each day, our draft will be complete before round 1 starts.

How does the season work?

The SC scoring system in draft is exactly the same as the salary cap game
Head to head matches will start from round 1 and finals will take place late in the AFL H&A season
The bye rounds will not see head to head matches played
Snake draft order
Captains off
One day waiver period and league approved trades

Coaches entered so far:

Nath_99
Maso
Beg2Differ
Randomcliche
Wolffy84

Beg2Differ · 6 Feb 2021

Pardon my ignorance but what does snake draft order mean and what other options are there?

KLo30 · 6 Feb 2021

A snake draft is a term commonly used in fantasy football for a draft that goes in the opposite order each round. In this type of draft the team with the last pick in the first round has the first pick in the second round and so on

Wolffy84 · 7 Feb 2021

Beg2Differ said:

There are three draft options.
Snake - As KLo30 explained. It's the fairest way to draft in a captains off league.
Linear - It just goes through picks 1 to 10 each time, giving a massive advantage to team 1 and a massive disadvantage to team 10
Banzai - Often used in captain's on leagues. The draft order is reversed in round 2 and stays that way for round 3 also. Then it goes back to being a snake draft. So team 1 would get picks 1, 20 and 30. Team 10 would get picks 10, 11 and 21.

Happy to discuss which option we should use. I've chosen the Snake option as it's usually the fairest.

Wolffy84 · 12 Feb 2021

Thought I'd put the call out again for any coaches that would like to join the league. Our draft is planned to kick off in about 3 weeks time and we need at least 3 more coaches (hopefully 5) to be able to get started.

If you are interested in taking part or have any questions, please reach out.

WindyHillWizard · 13 Feb 2021

Wolffy84 said:

Hi @Wolffy84, I just joined your draft league. Thanks for organising. Haven’t played draft for 3-4 years but it’s been fun in the past.

Ironhawk · 13 Feb 2021

I decided to give it a go. Never tried draft before, so go easy.

Wolffy84 · 13 Feb 2021

WindyHillWizard said:

Welcome and great to have you onboard

Wolffy84 · 13 Feb 2021

Ironhawk said:

Welcome aboard. There are a few first time drafters in the league which is great. Given you've setup a Midprice Madness competition, I think you will surprise yourself at how well that sort of research supports your draft team.

Wolffy84 · 14 Feb 2021

Our league now has 8 coaches signed up. We can edit the size of the league right up until draft time, so if still wish to sign up, please do so.

A couple of updates:

1. The cut-off day for signups will be Monday 1st March. The league needs an even number of teams, so if we find at this point we have an odd number, we may need a few days to find another coach.
2. To make sure we complete the draft before round 1 commences, I am bringing forward the draft start date to Friday 5th March. This will give us 2 weeks to complete the draft (~15 draft picks a day).

Beg2Differ · 14 Feb 2021

So what should I be doing in order to prepare for the draft?

My guess is that I should be changing the order of the players to the order I would like to get them.

Do I need to remove injured players?
Does it makes sense to agonise over the order now or is it just as good to wait until the draft takes place?
Is there a particular sub-section of the players to focus on (ie Rucks or price range)?
Are there positional issues to consider?
If I just did nothing would I likely end up with a decent team?

I really have no idea if their are strategic issues to consider like for example in Classic to what extend to consider mid-pricers. I know this game requires you to get mid pricers, I am just using that as example of a strategic pivot point you need to think about.

Appreciate any guidance because I am feeling a little lost at the moment and if I end up with a terrible starting team it will be hard to stay enthusiastic.

Beast_Mode · 15 Feb 2021

Beg2Differ said:

I’ve joined and here’s a few tips in response to your questions above.

I use the ranking as an indicative draft order to gauge my “value” selections. Although I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over creating this list.

The ranking order is probably more relevant during the drafts were you may only have 90 seconds to make your selection. This is because you automatically select your highest ranked player once the draft time has elapsed. Therefore it is worth moving LTI players down the list to avoid auto selecting them!

My general advice would be to select the best player available. However try to balance the depth across each line (i.e. don’t draft 4 defenders before selecting your F1).

The ruck dilemma varies from coach to coach. Two common strategies would be to either:
1. Select a top tier ruck type with your first or second pick. This strategy potentially compromises an elite mid/def/fwd (you will realise how quickly the quality drops off)
Or
2. Alternatively wait until the end of the draft and settle on a more speculative Pittonet/McEvoy type as an example.

The beauty about this format is there is no real right or wrong approach so you can have a lot of fun with it. On a side note, price range is irrelevant in this format. Purely focus on points!

Ironhawk · 15 Feb 2021

I see we get 5 bench players. How does that work exactly? Is it set something like 1/2/1/1 across the 4 lines, or you can pick any five you want regardless of position?

I'll have to have a good look at this next weekend, odds are we will still be in lock down anyway...

Wolffy84 · 15 Feb 2021

Beg2Differ said:

Thanks for reaching out well in advance of the draft. Don't want to see anybody disappointed with the team they have drafted. Below are three suggestions I'd have for preparations for the draft.

1. Try to create scoring tiers. For example, you may feel M Crouch, Macrae, J Kelly, Adams and Steele will all average between 110 and 115 SC points per game this season. You won't be able to draft all 5 of them, but by putting them on the same tier, you can focus on getting 1. As the draft goes on, cross off the already drafted players. It will give you an idea of how many players on each scoring tier you have left.

2. Try to remove long term injured players from your list. As it's only a one season draft league, players that are long term injured probably wont have much value and most won't be drafted. But if a top SC player was only going to miss the early rounds, he may still get drafted and just benched until he plays.

3. Have a practice draft. You can practice here (https://mock.thedraftdoctors.com.au/home). It's a very useful tool and should be able to help you gain confidence in when certain players are likely to get drafted.

As Beast Mode mentioned (and all of the advice he's provided is absolutely spot on), price is not a factor in this draft. So if in doubt, just taking the best player left on the draft board can be a great strategy. And remember there are unlimited trades throughout the season too. Each round you can utilise waivers, free agency and even trading with other coaches to try to improve your team.

Wolffy84 · 15 Feb 2021

Ironhawk said:

If we finalise the league at 10 coaches, it will be a 5 player bench. The bench spots aren't allocated to a line, so you can choose as many as you like from each line. Often coaches will draft bench players based on their potential to have a breakout season or as injury cover for a particular line.

Our league will utilise the 'Auto Emergency' option which means:
In that case, you'll get the lowest scoring emergency's score above 0 to replace ONE zero-scoring player on your starting line-up who doesn't play (irrespective of position).

Ironhawk · 15 Feb 2021

Wolffy84 said:

If we finalise the league at 10 coaches, it will be a 5 player bench. The bench spots aren't allocated to a line, so you can choose as many as you like from each line. Often coaches will draft bench players based on their potential to have a breakout season or as injury cover for a particular line.

Our league will utilise the 'Auto Emergency' option which means:
In that case, you'll get the lowest scoring emergency's score above 0 to replace ONE zero-scoring player on your starting line-up who doesn't play (irrespective of position).

Gotcha. Thanks.

Wolffy84 · 16 Feb 2021

The HS recently posted an article talking about many of the SC draft rules and what certain terms mean. The article covers Team Trades, Waivers, Free Agency and Snake Drafts.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/...1/news-story/9cafbc9232c31f88bf8880437c221b24

Crocodiles · 17 Feb 2021

Hi all, I just joined up as the 11th team. Also a newbie to Draft - it looks a bit of fun. Hopefully I don't disgrace myself.

Thanks for organizing

Wolffy84 · 17 Feb 2021

Crocodiles said:

Thank you for getting involved. If you have any questions around SC draft, please feel free to ask them in this thread.

Wolffy84 · 18 Feb 2021

Just 2 weeks until the start of our draft. With many new drafters in the league, can I please get people's thoughts on the below suggestions?

1. It looks like we will have at least 12 coaches involved (currently 11). I'd suggest we each draft 15 players made up of 3 DEF, 4 MID, 1 RUCK, 3 FWD and 4 BENCH. That would be 180 selections across 12 coaches at about 13 selections required a day.

2. There won't be enough rounds (bye rounds are skipped) to play head to head twice, so you will play some opponents once and some opponents twice. The top 6 teams will then play a 3 round finals series.

3. I'm thinking the coaches with their first selection at 10-12 will battle to match coaches with selections at 1-3, even after the second round snake. How would people feel about a Banzai draft? A Banzai draft is very similar to a snake draft, however round 3 is reversed. The first 3 rounds of picks would look like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
The draft then continues as a snake until the end. Based on my estimates, this draft system would be fairer than just snake all the way through.

4. This is more of a guide, but the more coaches we have, the harder it is for everybody to find a playing and decent scoring ruck. For the benefit of our many first time coaches, try to grab 1 ruck before filling any bench spots in other positions. And please try not to fill your bench with backup rucks until at least the late rounds of the draft.

Keen to get people's thoughts on the above? Are there any other rule changes we should consider before our draft?

Competitions 2021: SCS Draft League

Leadership Group