2026 Fixture and AFL Fantasy

The 2026 fixture dropped last week and there’s a bit to think about in regards to Fantasy for next season. The wildcard is the big change, meaning the pre-finals bye is no longer. This was brought in to stop teams from resting in the last round of the season. It worked for us in Fantasy. It may bring a slight change of this for the 4 teams in the wildcard if they’re locked in, but I think it is minimal.

Let’s look at some early ideas before we get stuck into the proper pre-season research in December/January!

BYE ROUNDS

Opening Round isn’t going away, but this year they extended it by a game with Saints v Pies on the Sunday night of the long weekend (maybe your Draft arvo can lead into that game on the Sunday arvo?).

Early byes feature the four northern clubs as per usual with Blues, Cats, Hawks and Dogs plus Saints and Pies. It is spread over rounds 2-4 so that they are done for Gather Round is round 5. This follows the 4-4-2 structure.

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Players with an early bye are generally an avoid. Definitely premiums, and I think we’ve learned a little about those who pop scores out of the blue in Opening Round (hello Sam Taylor) and the mid-priced player you’re hot on can be watched. Round 2 bye players are probably the ones you can wait on and look at them as trade targets when they return. Round 3 can be slightly more attractive but it would take a decent OR score to grab them, including Round 4 bye players.

Bargain basement guys are an exeption. Jagga Smith, despire his Round 2 bye will be a lock as long as he holds up well off the back of his OR debut (surely?!).

Moving into the mid-season byes, we have once again got five weeks of them. This means we have a 4-2-4-4-4 split. Last year it was suggested that the best 18 and 3 trades was overkill. Maybe we go back to just 2 trades during byes unless there are 6 teams on byes like the rule was brought in for originally.

We’ll dive into the weeds of this more during our pre-season previews and the content that goes through there, but Round 13 is the ‘easy’ bye with Giants and Tigers options. Strategy of holding off on players with the Round 12 bye should be part of your thinking as targets from these teams are good to get you through the remaining byes when you consider your moves.

LOOPHOLING

This can come into some thinking when picking your teams. Your premiums – or the players you are spending the extra dollars on – should be VC or C options for you. Having some playing early can be the thing that makes them a little more valuable as they can be used as a vice captain. Our VCs are usually those who we can trust with a decent ceiling. The only issue is that most blockbusters on Thurs/Fri nights are the move evenly matched games and this may not always see the best Fantasy scoring.

On the otherside, if you are looking for that non-playing player for a loophole, West Coast have plenty of Sunday games with Melbourne and Port players having a fixture that can be handy.

DOUBLE UPS

Does this mean much? Maybe not, but it does reflect the idea of the double ups being from the groupings which somewhat refects Fantasy points against. Port and Richmond get 4x green with North getting 3x dark green. Freo only have one red and the rest are neutral or favourable fixtures.

SCALE OF HARDNESS

One of the best features of our Patreon is Cal’s Scale of Hardness. There are some awesome resources out there for strength of schedule and DVP (I love dfsaustralia.com), but Calvin’s incredible use of colours is a sight to behold. He also adds analysis and tips with players included to help in the pre-season and then throughout the season.

I input the data and get the conditional formatting set up for Cal. He looks across each position in a handy spreadsheet. Check back to our Patreon when we fire back up for 2026 for the updated values.

Below is my ‘overall’ scale based on season points. It’s very basic, so don’t read into it massively … especially as you’ll want to dive deeper into the types of player.

Some quick takeaways…

Port Adelaide have a run to start the season! No early bye and then a heap of green to kick start their season. Zak Butters is the first name that springs to mind. He will be priced at 100 which has a 34 and 46 baked in. Almost a must-start based on scale. With Connor Rozee likely to have DEF status, he has to be considered. Jason Horne-Francis priced at 84 is under what he is capable of, but will he be MID-only? Eyes will also be on Will Brodie who will be a Classic lock if selected.

North Melbourne look ok early on and Tristan Xerri will be one to look at in the ruck. The rules for our rucks is going to be a talking point, but with Port, Eagles and Dons to start, he could get off to a hot start.

On the flipside, the Dogs will be an avoid off the back of Opening Round to star twith, but then three reds before their bye. We may be able to pounce on a cheaper premium for the R4 Bombers match up.

But hey … I’m going to leave this here and let Cal do this thing! Don’t want to tread on his little size 8 toes.

The fixture in the header image and below was created by @calculon559. It is very cool and takes me back to getting these in the 90s from the corner store or a pub and whacking it on the fridge. I would do my tips on them and keep a running total on the right hand side of each round. Click image of full-size copy.

Warnie

Co-captain of DT Talk since we started this thing in 2007. Best finish was 13th in 2009... that was a long time ago. Follow on Twitter: @WarnieDT and follow on Instagram: @warnedawgs.