The second in a series of game overviews to give you the ins and outs of the available games in place for the 2023 Rugby World Cup. If any new games pop up, please let us know at fantasyrugbygeek@gmail.com or @frugbygeek on Twitter. Next under the microscope is the first time in many years that there has been an Offical Rugby World Cup game, check it out here.
THE PREMISE
A salary cap style fantasy game, you have a budget of 100 credits to fill your team of 15 with players. You must pick 1 Hooker, 2 Props, 2 Second Rows, 3 Back Rows, 1 Scrum Half, 1 Fly Half, 2 Centres and 3 Outside Backs
Once the tournament gets underway, you can make unlimited transfers throughout the tournament, and you can shift your captain around reguarly too (1 captain change in each of the 5 “rounds” of the pool stage and 3 in the knockout stage – which includes the Bronze medal match).
The Rolling Lockout is an important point to note, particularly useful with squad announcements for the last matches in each round taking place after each round has started. At the start of the Round, your whole team will NOT lockout, and you can continue making trades. Players will lockout individually when their team starts playing in the Round. You may not make any Transfers involving locked out players until the end of the Round (For example, if you have players from France or New Zealand in your team, they will Lockout at the beginning of Round 1 as they feature in the first game. However, all other players in your team will remain unlocked and eligible to transfer).
One nice innovation is the introduction of score “boosters”. There are 3 boosters that are available. These are the Triple Captain (your chosen player will have his match score tripled), Super Kicker (will score double points for some kick related metrics) and Defensive King (will get double points for some defence related metrics). Each booster can be used once for the pool stage and once for the knockout stage of the tournament giving you the opportunity to play with boosters 6 times (although you can’t play two boosters in the same round).
Being the official game it will no doubt be hugely popular with a big player pool, so you are definitely recommended to sign up!
THE KEY POINTS
- Site: https://fantasy.rugbyworldcup.com/
- Squad Size: 15
- Team size: 15
- Double scoring captain?: Yes, you can change it for each round of the tournament
- Designated Kicker?: No, although you can set a super kicker booster
- Transfers: Unlimited
- Max players from one team: 3 in the Pool Stage, 4 in the Quarter Finals, 5 for the Semis and 6 for the Final and Bronze match
THE EDGE
Choose your captain wisely
There are double points for a captain, so choose your skipper wisely. You can play it safe with a kicker, or consult the anytime tryscorer odds to see if any player in particular is expected to fill their boots with tries.
Use your boosters strategically
Let’s dig into the “boosters” a bit deeper…
To recap, there are 3 boosters that are available that can all be played once in the Pool Stage and once in the Knockout stage. The boosters are…
- Triple Captain – Your captain will score you triple points for their next match.
- Super Kicker – The player you apply the Super Kicker booster to will score double points for the following kicking based scoring metrics in their next match (be aware that this will also double negative scores for missed kicks):
- Conversion scored
- Conversion missed
- Penalty scored
- Penalty missed
- Drop goal scored
- Drop goal missed
- Defensive King – The player you apply the Defensive King booster to will score double points for the following defensive based scoring metrics in their next match (be aware that this will also double negative scores for missed tackles):
- Each turnover forced
- Each interception
- Each tackle made
- Each tackle missed
Goes without saying that the Triple Captain should be someone you’d back to have a huge all round game, the Super Kicker someone who you expect to have a huge day with the boot, and the Defensive King needs to be a high performing tackle machine on a day where you think they will need to put in a big defensive shift.
With this in mind, for the Triple Captain, I’ll be targeting one of the biggest mismatches to try and have a player likely for a safe haul (Will Jordan v Namibia on the 15th September comes to mind). For the Super Kicker again I’ll be looking at a mismatch for a player likely to get many shots at the posts. For the Defensive King I’ll be looking at the indiviual defensive stats after the first two rounds to see any defensive outliers, and then I’ll identify their toughest remaining opponent and put the booster on them for that.
Use your budget carefully
You have a budget of 100 credits for 15 players, which gives you €6.6m per player. Unsurprisingly the premium players with premium price tags, however, there are also potential bargains to be had, including the likes of Capuozzo, Angus Bell, Emiliano Boffelli, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Charles Piutau and Ben Earl, all worth a look in, and should allow you to bring in some premium stars elsewhere.
Load up with kickers
There is no limit on the amount of kickers you can select and kicks are guaranteed points, so while you are restricted to one fly half, if there are kickers playing in other positions (scrum half and full back for example…) then sign them up.
Mismatches
The Rugby World Cup provides a rare opportunity for the minnows of the Rugby World to face up against the very top of the elite, and with this provides the prospect of some considerable mismatches and some large points hauls. The biggest mismatch on paper is on Friday 15th September when the might of the All Blacks (World Ranking #2) take on Namibia (World Ranking #21). In addition to this, there are several matchups with potential for some absolutely big points hauls and when a big side lines up against the likes of Uruguay, Romania, Namibia, Portugal and Chile, then that is the time to load up.
If you back your Fantasy Rugby skills to lead you to Fantasy Rugby World Cup glory, then join our public fantasy leagues.
We have two set up, one on the Official Game, and one on Superbru.
To join, for Superbru you can join here and for the Official game you can join the FRG league here. Good luck!
Fantasy Rugby Games for Rugby World Cup
A summary of the top games that you can play fantasy rugby for the Rugby World Cup (this will update as more games are added)…
- SuperBru – An old favourite of fantasy rugby among other games and sports – Check out our review here.
- The Official Rugby World Cup Fantasy game – The official game, a salary cap style game – Check out our review here.
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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 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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