Fantasy Rugby Games Overview – Fantasy Rugby Draft Six Nations 2021 Fantasy Game

Fantasy Rugby Geekon

The next in a series of game overviews to give you the ins and outs of the available games in place for the 2021 Six Nations. If any new games pop up, please let us know at fantasyrugbygeek@gmail.com or @frugbygeek on Twitter.

Next under the microscope is the hotly anticipated first season of the Six Nations on the one and only Fantasy Rugby Draft.

THE PREMISE

A draft style Fantasy Rugby league. Fantasy Draft rugby is quite different to traditional salary cap style fantasy rugby as you know it. The key aspects of it are:

  • For the Six Nations, you are competing in a private league of 6, not against the rest of the world
  • You draft your squad over 17 or 21 rounds depending on the team size selected by the commissioner
  • Unlike in salary cap style games, there is only one player per league (i.e. only one team can have Jonny May)
  • If you choose the 11 man team option (more on this below…), then each team’s front row is available as one “player”
  • You can change your squad via trades, the waiver wire and free agents
  • Each week you go head to head vs another team in your league, the winner of this matchup picks up the win in the league table

The guys at Fantasy Rugby Draft have been working hard to introduce to introduce a game for the Six Nations, and the format of the competition means that one season in the Six Nations will be a sprint compared to the usual marathon of Premiership and Super Rugby!

The best part of the FRD experience, and you’ll know this if you’ve played before, is drafting. One-by-one in order (as a result of a random draw), the managers pick the players that make up their team. In order to keep things fair, at the end of each round the order of picks is reversed (so if you picked the first player in Round 1, then you’ll get last pick in Round 2). The draft usually goes on for a couple of hours and is always a great laugh.

I’ve played it for a number of years; it’s a brilliant game and well worth you pulling together with your mates to put a league out. If you are looking for a league to join, I’d highly recommend you joining the Fantasy Rugby Draft Hall of Fame facebook group, as there are often people looking for leagues there.

THE KEY POINTS

  • Squad Size: 17 OR 21
  • Team size: 11 (3 x Outside Backs, 2 x Midfielders, 1 x Fly-half, 1 x Scrum-half, 2 x Loose Forward, 1 x Lock & 1 x Front Row) OR 15 (3 x Outside Backs, 2 x Midfielders, 1 x Fly-half, 1 x Scrum-half, 3 x Loose Forward, 2 x Lock, 2 x Prop & 1 x Hooker)
  • Double scoring captain?: No
  • Designated Kicker?: No, you can have unlimited kickers
  • Transfers: Unlimited transfers (but only if the players you want are free agents or you have agreed a trade)
  • Max players from one club: Unlimited

THE EDGE

Know the format of the game that you are playing

In Fantasy Rugby Draft you can choose to play an 11 man team (3 x Outside Backs, 2 x Midfielders, 1 x Fly-half, 1 x Scrum-half, 2 x Loose Forward, 1 x Lock & 1 x Front Row) OR a 15  man team (3 x Outside Backs, 2 x Midfielders, 1 x Fly-half, 1 x Scrum-half, 3 x Loose Forward, 2 x Lock, 2 x Prop & 1 x Hooker). You can also choose to play Classic Scoring or Fox scoring. 

Each format has it’s own strategic approach and the scoring styles are very different. Make sure before you draft that you know the format and adjust your strategy accordingly. The default scoring approach seems to be a 15 man team with Fox scoring. Check out the scoring below and plan your selections around it…

Kickers not categorised as fly-halves

Often fantasy games force you to select one kicker to gain points from conversions, penalties, drop goals etc. Not here, so if you can find kickers who play outside of the fly-half position (Thomas Ramos or Leigh Halfpenny for example) then they are well worth picking up, as they are guaranteed points.

Front row bonus

If you are playing the 11-man format, some players categorised as front rowers sometimes will end up playing in the back row. If you can find a front row with one of these utility forwards then it will provide your team with a 4th extra player.

Waiver wire

Keep a close eye on the waiver wire throughout the season. There are always absolute bargains that can appear here. Make sure you check out the upcoming matches for the weekend at the start of the week and scour the waiver wire for potential signings with a good fixture at the weekend. The pool of free agents tends to get fiercely competitive just after lineups are announced when Fantasy Rugby Draft managers swamp the site to see who in their team is playing and if there are gaps, then the pool of free agents gets ravaged as managers look to pick up the best possible starters from the remaining players.

Out of position players

Players who are categorised in certain positions, but mostly play in others can be great value. Outside backs who generally have a high probability of scoring tries, beating players, breaking the line and carrying for metres are traditionally the highest scorers, so if you can find an Outside Back categorised as a Midfielder, then load up! Likewise this works well if you can find a Loose Forward categorised as a lock.

Italy

With win points so influential, those playing against Italy are easy money. Wherever possible load up with players who have a fixture against the Azzuri

Manager Pro

If you are playing Fantasy Rugby Draft and are looking for a helping hand for your Fantasy Rugby Draft team, the good guys over at FRD have a hugely useful Manager Pro feature (what is Manager Pro you ask? Look no further…) 

You can buy Manager PRO here, it’s an absolute steal, so make sure you get on it; it’s a gamechanger. If you want to learn more about the game, check out our interview from 2020 with the founder of Fantasy Rugby Draft, Bruce Wilkinson, here.

 

Fantasy Rugby Games for the 2021 Six Nations

A summary of the top games that you can play fantasy rugby for the 2021 Six Nations…

Pre-tournament articles

In case you missed any of our other pre-Six Nations articles, make sure you check out the following to help guide your pre-tournament preparations…

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If you want some more sources to help you finalise your decisions, go to our resources page where you’ll find all the 2021 Six Nations fantasy games, all the stats sources, injury news, team news, fantasy relevant rugby betting odds and tons of other useful information.

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