Strategy SuperCoach Principles, Tips, & General Advice

[Miss_Brightside]

Hi Everyone!

I'm very keen to improve in SuperCoach (I'm outside the top 50,000 this year ☹️) in the future (2024) and am wondering if anyone would be willing to share some general principles, tips, or advice for SuperCoach. I'm not seeking for anyone to share their personal strategies or to advise me on my 2023 team, just some general guidelines for improving that anyone could apply. Maybe others may also be keen or find this thread useful.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rowsus]

Even with increased number of trades available, this rule still applies.

If you really can't decide if it's worth trading player A, to player B, you are generally better off not doing it, and saving the trade for later on.

 

[Bermi]

RE:....I'm very keen to improve in SuperCoach.......in the future (2024)........
Starting well is important, so in the first rounds, make correction trades early, as it is important not to carry duds.

 

[Leroy]

There's advice scattered around that fits into a bunch of categories: how to pick a starting team; how to pick/trade rookies; how to upgrade and choose keepers; how to plan your byes etc.

I'll say this on starting teams and the early rounds, advice that I still struggle not to break every year: set yourself a number of correction trades (6 max maybe in the 'more trade era') you can use to change your starting side and don't go over it.

That implies that of the 30 players you initially pick, you're happy keeping 25+ of them at least 6 rounds minimum, until they either get injured or make enough cash to trade out. Use those correction trades to jump on as early as possible to hot rookies (Chandler/Sheezel types) or sideways to hot keepers (Daicos) but no-one else.

'Missing' Will Setterfield in R2 won't cost you the season; burning up trades so that you're stuck with a dud F6, D6 or M8 in the last 10 rounds really, really does.

 

[THCLT]

A few 'oldies' but still 'goodies' which I hope will benefit your experience of playing SC as they have for me over the years.

• The general consensus of a good SC team is to start a Premium & Rookie over two Mid-Priced players.
• When a Rookie is considered 'Best 22' just find a way to fit him into your team regardless of price or position.
• Set/have realistic expectation on players, either in your team or about to be traded into your team. Just because a player is priced at $700k doesn't mean that you're guaranteed of a 140+ return from them.
• Resist the urge to 'chase points', unless the target players are 'true' Premium, those points are gone.
• Have a bye plan in place to ensure that your trades leading up to and through those bye rounds will optimise your spread of 'playing' numbers and hopefully scoring wise.
• Are you playing for overall rank or just leagues...? This will determine how aggressive or conservative you go with regards to your trades.

 

[elzorko16]

From SuperCoach Talk ..
Father Dougal’s Rules of Cow-quisition

Rule Number One: “Start the season with as many good cows as you can get, up to where you have undesired left-over money.”
Rule Number Two: “Good cows have good job security. A cow without job security is just an unreliable loophole.”
Rule Number Three: “The cheaper the better. Lower cost and higher profit.”
Rule Number Four: “Cow availability determines your structure; not the reverse. Select all the good cows, none of the dodgy cows, and build the rest of your team around them.”
Rule Number Five: “Money is gold, trades are oxygen, and downgrade targets are platinum. Never waste a downgrade target by starting with him on your bench.”
Rule Number Six: “There is NO rule Six!”
Rules Number Six-A: “A cow and a premium are better than two mid-pricers with the same total cost.”
Rule Number Seven: “When a cow is best 22, you pick that cow”
Rule Number Eight: “DPP is nice, but no more than nice. Definitely not enough.”
Rule Number Nine: “No matter how much you like your herd, when the teams are announced, you will have to make changes. Be ready”
Rule Number Ten: “The cows you have to pick from are the cows everyone has to pick from. Stop complaining and start planning.”
Rule Number Eleven: “Better an unknown cow than a known bum steer”
Rule Number Twelve: “A cheap cow that loses his job is a loophole. A high priced cow that loses his job is a source of funds. A mid-priced cow that loses his job is a problem.”
Rule Number Thirteen: “It’s going to go wrong. Pick the cows who will go wrong in the ways you can best cope with”
Rule Number Fourteen: “A cow that has both job security and ruck as a position is a rare gift, for he allows you another cow on field.”
Rule Number Fifteen: “Any non-premium player who has a reasonable chance of going up in price by $150,000 should be considered a cow for purposes of the rules of Cow-quisition.”
Rule Number Sixteen: “A fallen premium is not like a cow, no matter how far they have fallen, because you aren’t going to sell them to turn them into a premium.”
Rule Number Seventeen: “Cows on better teams tend to score better.”
Rule Number Eighteen: “Cows playing better teams tend to score worse.”
Rule Number Nineteen: “Know your coaches. It doesn’t matter if a cow should play, it only matters if the coach thinks he should play.”
Rule Number Twenty: “Know your teams. A cow filling in for two weeks before a gun comes back from injury is really a loophole waiting to happen.”
Rule Number Twenty One: “Sometimes you have to suck it up and downgrade to a loophole. When you do, find as cheap of one as you can.”
Rule Number Twenty Two: “Downgrading to someone who might be a loophole beats downgrading to someone you know will be a loophole.”
Rule Number Twenty Three: “Some cows aren’t worth a trade to deal with. Keep them, be patient, and hope. It’s a long season, sometimes things go right in the end.”

 

[Darkie]

Try to ensure that every trade adds at least 150 points to your season total, especially when considering trades early in the season.

Also, try to ensure that both sides of each trade (the “in” and the “out”) benefit your side, where possible.

 

[BigRuss]

Figure out which posters around here seem to know what they’re doing and copy them.

That’s what I do anyway

In all seriousness there’s some people on here that are much better at the game than most of us will ever be. Listen to them when they decide to share some advice or an opinion.

 

[Wheedus]

There is so much advice and theory out there, it's almost impossible to capture it all in one place. I've often thought about doing "The Golden Rules of SC" but I just wouldn't know where to start (or where to finish)

These are just a few of my thoughts:

- Do your research and by that I mean, do your own research. This site is great because of the sheer volume of info and the quality / experience of posters. But you still gotta critically analyse everything. Use all available resources. DFS is a seriously good site for stats and role analysis.
- Watch as much football as you can and listen to players and coaches first, the media second.
- Plan, plan, plan and use a spreadsheet to do it.
- Have an idea of what you want to achieve and work towards it. Plan your trades for next 2-3 rounds and adjust as you go. Like any successful venture, if you have a plan and a budget you are far more likely to succeed.
- Be careful with DPP. It's great to have flex but you can often find yourself hamstrung with players in the wrong part the ground. This is also part of the planning process.
- Use the VC/C loopholes and emergency loopholes but again be careful. What appears to be a great plan can often end in tears, particularly now with starting subs coming from a team's emergencies. I'm a strong advocate for starting a dead body at R3, ideally with R/F status for VC/C loophole purposes.
- Be patient and don't make rash decisions. Avoid making trades / decisions when drunk
- Don't assume that a player who has just produced a run of 140s will keep doing it. Assume the opposite.
- Look for ways to create upside / benefit from every move you make. Review as many options as possible and choose the best one.
- Don't get despondent when something goes wrong. If it's something out of your control (injury etc), that's just bad luck. Work out how to fix it. If you make a mistake, learn from it and avoid doing it again.
- Realise that there are a million ways to win this thing and no-one has the perfect side. Based on the average winning score for the past eleven seasons (excluding 2020), you simply need to average 103.4 from each on field spot.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

Go hard, or go home 😎

 

[7/11]

Do the opposite of Tim Michell is a good starting rule.

Seriously though, back your gut if you have decent knowledge of the game. Most of the time there’s a good reason you are leaning a specific way and second guessing yourself generally leads to heartbreak. I’ve had theories going into BBL, read info here that conflicted with my own gut feels and went against my gut to my own detriment.

If you don’t have decent knowledge, there are a heap of users here to learn off who have strong knowledge of how to play SuperCoach rather than having substantial knowledge and experience in a sport. They know how to play the percentages, what has worked in the past and understand the nuances better than the majority of users.

 

[Diabolical]

Have fun and enjoy the moment. You can’t change what has already happened, so no point losing sleep over it. Learn from both your mistakes and your successes and you should continue to improve.

 

[Shaunpro1]

Honestly my biggest thing is to not take the game too seriously, think keeping calm and not acting like every move is life or death really helps.

Theres obviously fundamentals that lead to doing well but just got to back yourself and enjoy the ride, at the end of the day its a game and we will all go to work on a Monday.

 

[Zoku Pops]

Three from me:

1) Pick a super boring cookie cutter starting team. Pods are not worth it early in the season.

2) When it comes to a head v heart decision, go with your heart. Nothing worse than doing the 'right thing' and it not working out. Always easier to stomach if you've backed your gut and it goes wrong.

3) This game is a good 80% luck, anyone that tells you otherwise is kidding. You can minimise the bad luck you might cop (ie. not picking the Kelly, Fyfe, Whitfield types) but ultimately you don't have a lot of control over what happens on the weekend. Keep that in mind when making decisions and you'll feel better about the outcome, no matter what happens.

 

[donnybuang]

Just keep reading the matchday threads, then preseason threads, when they start up and you'll pick up everything you need to know.

Ask questions if there's a term or a strategy someone mentions that you don't understand.

 

[Professor]

Identify why you're here, league glory or overall, don't get stuck in between like myself. Early round corrections are necessary to ensure you have the best rookies onfield/bench. I don't know much else, so I follow all the amazing advice on this site.

 

[Chumpion]

My two cents.. spend as much time as you can on your starting squad. Trading is super important but it's hard to trade yourself back from a poor starting squad, and you ultimately end up with compromised premiums or just chasing the pack trying to get in the good players they started. Every year is different, but the general rule of thumb I follow is:

1. Get 3-4 top end premiums that can be VC/C players, and who I genuinely believe will be at worst, top 5 in their position. Ideally top 3 but that's not always easy. All things being equal, these players should be in your final completed team. Usually these will come from mid and ruck lines.
2. Rookies, where are the best ones? Ignore things like team balance and just get them in. There are usually some clear cut standouts so get them in, and then put in the "feel pretty good about" ones.

From here you can complete the team with rookies/premiums as money allows - don't worry about fancy strategies or anything yet. Just get the team completed.

Everyone will have a different view of the ideal starting squad, and it is very dependant on the year, so listen to the group talk here and get a gauge as to who might be the midpricers it's worth bending for, and who are the rookies/premiums you just have to have. If there is legit 5 standout defender rookies you might go light on premiums, or vice versa if the options aren't there you might go heavy. Don't get locked into one position (eg, I HAVE to have 2-3 premiums on each line) because ultimately, you start with X premiums and get to 22 premiums eventually.. and having the best rookies will get you there faster.

Couple of other thoughts:

1. Always leave room in your forwards for a mid player to get forward DPP. We got Bont, Parker etc last year, Macrae this year, and I'm going to confidently bet we'll get more next year. Other positions seem less common, but specifically forwards leave room.
2. If you are inclined to take a risk, take a popular risk. If it doesn't work out you aren't too far behind the majority, and if it does you get a nice edge. But if you are alone on your island with a pick that doesn't work, it's rough.
3. The first few rounds should be for correction trades - $700k mid premium has scored back to back 80's? A player you liked doesn't have the role you expected? You missed a rookie that looks fantastic? Get them in! Starting team is important, but almost more important is your round 3 team. That's the one that should be the best it can be based on the information you now have.
4. If you are torn between various opinions, back the one you think. It feels better to back yourself and be wrong than to not back yourself and watch that pick dominate.
5. Injury history is real. Players sometimes shake it for a season or two, but if a guy has a history, he has a history. Doesn't mean don't pick them, but you almost have to assign a correction trade to them. So don't pick a stack of them in your team or you're just putting an anchor around your neck.
6. PODs are great but don't focus on a POD for the sake of it. Early in the season, there is safety in numbers, and rookie roulette/Captain loopholes will separate the pack over time. If there is a good POD grab them, but POD hunting early usually backfires.
7. Don't have a baby 2 weeks before the seasons starts (joking but that did massively derail my year as I've had to come from a LONG way back!).

Wrote these after a 4very interrupted night of sleep so if they don't make sense, no hate!

 

[Chumpion]

Identify why you're here, league glory or overall, don't get stuck in between like myself. Early round corrections are necessary to ensure you have the best rookies onfield/bench. I don't know much else, so I follow all the amazing advice on this site.

I actually agree with this massively - the advice you follow varies greatly depending on what your goal is. Could be a good site enhancement where people have that under their AFL team in their member profile when they comment. Most probably start off for both, but if someone chasing leagues is holding Sic and someone chasing overall is trading, it helps to know which makes the most sense for you..

 

[Bermi]

My two cents.. spend as much time as you can on your starting squad. Trading is super important but it's hard to trade yourself back from a poor starting squad, and you ultimately end up with compromised premiums or just chasing the pack trying to get in the good players they started. Every year is different, but the general rule of thumb I follow is:

1. Get 3-4 top end premiums that can be VC/C players, and who I genuinely believe will be at worst, top 5 in their position. Ideally top 3 but that's not always easy. All things being equal, these players should be in your final completed team. Usually these will come from mid and ruck lines.
2. Rookies, where are the best ones? Ignore things like team balance and just get them in. There are usually some clear cut standouts so get them in, and then put in the "feel pretty good about" ones.

From here you can complete the team with rookies/premiums as money allows - don't worry about fancy strategies or anything yet. Just get the team completed.

Everyone will have a different view of the ideal starting squad, and it is very dependant on the year, so listen to the group talk here and get a gauge as to who might be the midpricers it's worth bending for, and who are the rookies/premiums you just have to have. If there is legit 5 standout defender rookies you might go light on premiums, or vice versa if the options aren't there you might go heavy. Don't get locked into one position (eg, I HAVE to have 2-3 premiums on each line) because ultimately, you start with X premiums and get to 22 premiums eventually.. and having the best rookies will get you there faster.

Couple of other thoughts:

1. Always leave room in your forwards for a mid player to get forward DPP. We got Bont, Parker etc last year, Macrae this year, and I'm going to confidently bet we'll get more next year. Other positions seem less common, but specifically forwards leave room.
2. If you are inclined to take a risk, take a popular risk. If it doesn't work out you aren't too far behind the majority, and if it does you get a nice edge. But if you are alone on your island with a pick that doesn't work, it's rough.
3. The first few rounds should be for correction trades - $700k mid premium has scored back to back 80's? A player you liked doesn't have the role you expected? You missed a rookie that looks fantastic? Get them in! Starting team is important, but almost more important is your round 3 team. That's the one that should be the best it can be based on the information you now have.
4. If you are torn between various opinions, back the one you think. It feels better to back yourself and be wrong than to not back yourself and watch that pick dominate.
5. Injury history is real. Players sometimes shake it for a season or two, but if a guy has a history, he has a history. Doesn't mean don't pick them, but you almost have to assign a correction trade to them. So don't pick a stack of them in your team or you're just putting an anchor around your neck.
6. PODs are great but don't focus on a POD for the sake of it. Early in the season, there is safety in numbers, and rookie roulette/Captain loopholes will separate the pack over time. If there is a good POD grab them, but POD hunting early usually backfires.
7. Don't have a baby 2 weeks before the seasons starts (joking but that did massively derail my year as I've had to come from a LONG way back!).

Wrote these after a 4very interrupted night of sleep so if they don't make sense, no hate!

That's at least $2 worth.

I hope some AI is taking note of all the info in the Posts above, so in the future we can have a quick reference to it.

 

[Zagbag]

Some rambling thoughts…

• You do not need PODs in order to win or be successful. Stop chasing them.
• You should have a rough end-goal team that you’re looking towards. Pick 8-10 players on each line, and target those as trade ins. For the most part, trading in the hot player that was outside your top 8 targets is usually folly. The exception to this is the very early rounds, where a cash grab can work (but even the Setterfields and LDUs didn’t pan out as hoped this year, Taylor Walker was an exception last year). I am looking at people trading in Fyfe, Tarryn Thomas, Yeo etc. right now – that is just asking for trouble to up against people with Full Premo+ sides. The time to trade them was in round 2-4. The only players you should be trading in now are gold-edge premiums, or lowly-priced Premiums you think are massively discounted.
• People are too reactive in trading injuries. Your goal should be to continually improve your team. Instead of trading out the premium who’s out for 2-3 weeks, trade IN a different one – and you’ll end up with both and a stronger overall team for the last 8 rounds. Start upgrading early and never stop upgrading.
• 400-500k mids are a death trap. Ditto 350 defs/fwds. People look back at success stories and think it can be replicated. It can’t, stop trying. There’s 20 failures to every 1 success story.
• Rookies determine the depth of each line. Never let anyone tell you that your Defence is too weak or Forwards too strong or whatever. We all have the same starting salary, if you’re weak in one place then you’re strong elsewhere. If one line is weak it’s probably because there are stronger rookies on that line. Spreading across lines is pointless – balance is for gymnasts, not supercoachers .