Fantasy GOAT Selby Lee-Steere’s tips for adjusting to the new era of KFC SuperCoach
He’s won AFL Fantasy twice and finished top 10 in KFC SuperCoach last year. And Selby Lee-Steere says the game has changed forever. Here’s how to use that to your advantage.
Selby Lee-Steere
4 min read
March 6, 2023 - 6:00AM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
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A lot has changed in the KFC SuperCoach landscape over the last decade.
We’ve seen the introduction of in-season dual-position changes, trade boosts and extra trades. It’s a different game now, and some of the old school SuperCoach philosophies have been challenged.
OLD SCHOOL
In the early SuperCoach years, there were just 20 trades for the season (and to think I ran out of trades early last year with 35 ...). If you were lucky, 10 trades were used for injuries/forced trades, leaving just 10 for upgrading cheaper players to reliable stars.
No wonder the best strategy was to start with who you think would score the most points for the year, regardless of price. Because if you didn’t start with the best players, there was no guarantee you’d ever own them for the rest of the season.
The SuperCoach gods became a bit more generous in the following years and upped the number of trades to 30. This is what most of the common SuperCoach philosophies are based on.
Assuming those 10 forced trades, there were 20 trades for upgrading. A typical upgrade requires two trades – one for trading out a cash cow to a new basement priced one, and the other for getting a cashed-up rookie up to a premium. This meant you could make 10 upgrades with your 20 trades if everything went right.
Noting the goal is to eventually own as many of the best players across each line to put the big scores on the board, the proven strategy was to start with at least 12 “keepers” and hope that your 10 upgrades would leave you with the 22 premiums required by the end of the season.
Under the guns and rookies strategy reliable high scorers like Jack Macrae were highly sought after. Picture: Michael Klein
However, additional forced trades would leave you short of 22 keepers. This is why the common mentality was still to identify who would score the most in each line and start with them, regardless of price, as you might not get a chance to own them again. It was too risky starting with someone who wasn’t a top liner unless they were a rookie – that was mid-priced madness. Why start a player who isn’t going to be a keeper as it will cost you a trade for the inevitable upgrade, especially when you make more cash with a rookie?
There is a reason why this “guns and rookies” strategy was so successful, and can still prove effective in modern SuperCoach, as the likelihood of a proven premium backing it up is much higher than of a mid-pricer delivering.
NEW SCHOOL
Covid granted us five additional trades and with the extra round this season, we have another, leaving us with an all-time high of 36. There are also five trade boosts, where you can use three trades up to five times in the season.
This has changed the game. Using the earlier assumption of 10 forced trades, that’s 26 trades we now have for upgrading. That means you could theoretically start the season with less than 12 keepers and still achieve a complete team by the end of the season. This gives a far greater licence to selecting mid-pricers in your starting squad. In fact, mid-pricers can be the key to success.
Patrick Cripps was a mid-price success story in 2022. Picture: Michael Klein
Last year, it was widely agreed that James Sicily, George Hewett and Patrick Cripps were underpriced. However, many were apprehensive to start with them, as it was unlikely these players would become season-long keepers and you’d be forced to eventually burn a trade to get in a top liner. However, not only did they outperform their price, Sicily and Hewett finished the season as top-three defenders and Cripps was a top-eight mid to start the season.
It wasn’t just last season where the mid-pricers made an impact. In 2021, Touk Miller soared from the 31st ranked player to within the top four. Sean Darcy was 162nd in 2020 and became a top-10 player in 2021. Darcy Parish also leapt into the top 10 from outside the top 100 the year prior. It doesn’t always work out this way, but there are a few flyers every season, you just need to find the right ones (easier said than done).
However, with 26 trades for upgrading, the downside of starting with a failed mid-pricer is far less as you can simply jump to a better alternative in the first few rounds if it doesn’t work out. Burning a trade doesn’t hurt as much these days, as you have so many more up your sleeve. And if it does pay off, like we saw with Cripps, Sicily, Hewett last season, then it can be game-changing. You can land yourself a keeper while saving a significant amount of your salary cap to spend on another potential keeper elsewhere.
It’s a value-based game. It always has been, given players are priced based on their prior season’s average (or at a discount if they played minimal games). The more players you can own who outperform that average, the more points you’re going to score.
Liam Jones comes at a heavily discounted price in 2023. Is he a risk worth taking? Picture: Michael Klein
The old school mentality is a safe play and proven to have merit. The new school mentality comes with the additional risk of trading aggressively and taking punts on less proven players in the pursuit of having a team of 22 premiums before everyone else.
I say this as I did run out of trades with five rounds to go last season, so there was egg on my face at the end. I went too hard the other way and I’m still searching for the best strategy for today’s SuperCoach. But I think the coach who finds the right balance between old and new school mentality will have success this season.
Selby Lee-Steere has won AFL Fantasy twice and finished top 10 in KFC SuperCoach last year. He’s produced an online Season Guide for SuperCoach, which includes player profiles for all players, articles and podcasts throughout the pre-season. 100 per cent of the proceeds of the Moreira’s Magic Season Guide are donated to The Starlight Children’s Foundation, up to $26,000 (four Starlight wishes). Grab your copy at www.oreirasmagic.com.au