AFL Dream Team Rules and Strategy for 2012

We have been lucky enough to find out the rules for AFL Dream Team in 2012. For us to plan for the new season, we need to understand what the playing field is like. How many trades, how we’ll deal with the byes and any new features that will change the way we think.

– Squad of 30 players.
– 24 trades.
– Maximum 2 trades per week, except for Rounds 11, 12 and 13 where you can use up to 3.
– Salary cap of $8.78 million.
– 18 teams leagues.
– League matches will run from Round 3-19, finals from Round 20-23.
– Reversible trades up until lockout.
– Ability to trade out a player from one position to get in a player in a different position with DPP.

Multi-bye rounds

The biggest news is that we play through the multi-bye rounds ‘as normal’. In each of the weeks (Rounds 11, 12 and 13) there will be 6 teams with the bye, meaning a third of the players in the competition will be unavailable. The ‘solition’ to this has been to increase available trades for those weeks to 3. There is also some added trading flexibility that we will touch on later to help us during these rounds.

Simple strategy is to avoid too many players from teams who share the same bye week. This is very important across individual positions, as well as the spread across your team. The teams with the byes in the respecitve rounds are as follows:

ROUND 11: Adelaide, Brisbane, GWS, North Melbourne, West Coast, Western Bulldogs
ROUND 12: Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle, Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney
ROUND 13: Carlton, Gold Coast, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St Kilda

We will focus on some different ways to work through these multi-bye rounds over the pre-season but it will need to be in all of our thinking in regards to team selection. For example, a ruck combo that includes a couple of Mathew Leuenberger / Dean Cox / Todd Goldstein / Sam Jacobs would take a huge hit in Round 11. Oh, and we won’t get started on Round 13 and the backline.

Stay tuned to dreamteamtalk.com for more on strategy during the multi-bye rounds. A series of posts will be forthcoming looking at each round and the related positions.

Leagues

Leagues will include 18 teams in 2012 with the inclusion of GWS (and GC from this year). The first two rounds will be non-league game rounds. We will play 17 head-to-head roster matches starting Round 3, through to Round 19. Finals will be played over the final four rounds – Round 20-23.

League matches will be played over the multi-bye rounds next season meaning our teams will take a huge hit. If you’re just playing for a league premiership and you’re sitting pretty in your leagues, take the hit with the losses and save those trades! They will come in very handy in the last 10 rounds of the season!

New trading rules

As mentioned, we will have 24 trades again this season with a maximum of 2 per week, except for Rounds 11, 12, and 13  where we can use two. But this isn’t new. We have two new trading rules that will add flexibility and some new strategy to our Dream Teaming in 2012.

Firstly, we can now reverse our trades up until lockout. Dubbed the “Heath Shaw Rule” after his Friday afternoon gambling suspension, we can lock trades in but they aren’t final until lockout. You will be able to ‘undo’ whatever you’ve done up until that final lockout – except for players locked because of partial lockouts.

FROM VIRTUAL SPORTS: “There is a full team/trade reversal system in place, available right up until lockout. This will reverse ALL changes made to your team during the week, and return it to what it was at the start of the week, at the completion of the prior round lockout.”

Next we have an exciting trading innovation. Here we can trade a player out from one position and using Dual Position Players (DPP), can trade a player into a totally different position with only one trade.

FROM VIRTUAL SPORTS: “New trading system allows up to 2 trades to be completed at a time, up to 3 in the bye weeks. It’ll also allow you to move dual position players, without having to have a ‘matching’ dual position player in the other position, from the new trade page. For example, you can elect to trade out a MID. If you have a DPP in your FWDs who is also a MID, he can be moved in that empty MID slot, so you then trade in a FWD.”

Let’s look at an example using a 2011 scenario. I trade out a DEFENDER (eg. Jack Grimes) and am left with an empty slot. I substitute a DEF/MID who is currently in my midfield (eg. Dyson Heppell) into Grimes’ empty slot and how trade in a new MIDFIELDER (eg. Dane Swan) into Heppell’s empty slot. So basically I have been able to trade Grimes (DEF) out for Swan (MID) using only the one trade.

This new trading rule adds more value to getting Dual Position Players into your team and across positions. The flexibility with this new rule will allow for some pretty awesome strategy during the season. There will be a lot more on this one over the pre-season to see how best we can use it. Fingers crossed there are quite a few DPPs for us to pick!

Stay tuned to dreamteamtalk.com for everything you need to get picking your AFL Dream Team in 2012. It’s going to be a fantastic season and we’ll be there for you right through the season.

Follow Warnie on Twitter: @WarnieDT