Warnie’s take on the new AFL Fantasy Classic features

Unfortunately we won’t be having AFL Fantasy Classic to play with before Christmas this year. While it would’ve been fun to start building our teams, it means that these new things we are getting implemented into the game with the rebuild has a little bit more time to be tested ready for the January launch. When in January? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t expect it until the second half of the month.

You can already get into Fantasy Draft on web to get set up for the new year and we’ll be cranking out our club preview articles/podcasts from Boxing Day (Lions start us off).

Matt Jeffries, the AFL Fantasy Product Lead, penned an article on AFL.com.au last week with some of the new features we can expect when the game launches and when the season starts. He also joined us on the most recent episode of The Traders’ podcast to chat through things.

The key things to know is that the game has been rebuilt on a brand new platform that has plenty of fresh features and smoother gameplay. MJ named up some of the key features and I’ll give my take on them below… and what it might mean for strategy, gameplay and your experience. I have been lucky enough to see of this in action.

Triple-position players (TPP)

This is to try to keep player positions close enough to the real thing in the game. There would’ve been around a dozen players who ended up with TPP last season. The main one that come to mind was Caleb Daniel who was MID/FWD to start with and played his season in North’s back half. Ryan Maric was similar. Some think this makes the game ‘too easy’, but really, it is a nice thing to have in it as it reflects their positions. It adds to flexibility, etc. The thing about Daniel and Maric is that you would prefer to field them up forward anyway, so it didn’t change things too much. Super handy for Draft if you leave the default settings on to bring in the additional positions ahead of round 6, 12 and 18. Note: no players will start with DPP as they have to play 35% in a position to qualify (therefore it is impossible to start with DPP).

TOG threshold rule

This one might be a little more controversial. If a player plays 50% or less time on ground, if your emergency for that line scores more, their score will count in your 22. We’ve had the option in Draft (you can choose the %) for a few seasons now and has been considered for Classic, but the time was right to bring it in with the rebuild. Irony is that the sub rule has gone which would’ve made this even more helpful. But, it was a thing/thought pre-subs coming back in five years ago. What it helps is for the early injury. Remember Tom Stewart‘s 9 in round two this year? Or better still, Tom Green‘s 7 in 2024? They killed your weekend. At least your bench player could add a 50 or so. Remember, they are unlikely to give you a beast score, but it can help with the pain. This also applies to captaincy, so there is a handy get out there as well. One of the upsides for me is that it might mean people put more care into their benches … but it will be a balance!

Things that will make your life better

Improved trade flows – The editing trades and DPP (especially through Utility) will be a heap better. This is working very nicely. One of the best parts for me is that you can make your moves from the My Team page. If you’re an old man like me who likes using desktop, you can do it from the main page without the need to go into Advanced Trades. Moving players around is much easier. But the key thing is that editing the moves is going to be a whole heap better. More on this once the season starts and we look at the actual trade flow. You’ll be impressed.

Opponent view – While it was never a big deal for me, I know many will be pleased to see the new live scoring for your head-to-head match ups will be a lot cleaner with placeholders in for players who have made trades. Some wanted to see who they were before their game started (I wouldn’t want this… you can’t get a sneak peek), but you won’t see a player who has been traded out now.

Curated stats – This is a winner. Rather than cycling through a heap of pre-set stat categories from a drop down, you can set the key ones you look at to be part of your Stats Centre and My Team page (list view is nice here). I’m always checking Coaches Choice for ownership numbers, etc. I can get those in one place. I will post what my preferred set up will be once it launches. An improvement is being able to filter some of the key info by top 1% and 5% of the competition.

Other ‘nice to have’ upgrades

Trade history insights – We’ve always requested this – and hear it from others – but wouldn’t it be nice (maybe) to see what a player has averaged since you’ve had them … or what they’ve done since you traded them out? Now you can with the new trade history insights. There’s actually going to be a sweet page to show a lot about your season history without clicking back through each round.

Improved league history – Some great data has been kept over the years for leagues that get regenerated. Draft had a fair bit put in last season, now some extra stuff is coming to Classic.

Live round benchmarking – What’s par? How am I going compared to others? You’ll be able to see how you’re tracking on the rankings page with some benchmarking numbers. As the round transpires, keep clicking back to see what it looks like and whether you’re in for a good round or not before you hit up social for some of the dick swinging!

Ranking icons – Speaking of dick swinging, if you’ve finished top 100 before in the hat era, you’ll get a hat icon next to your team name in the overall rankings. Unfortunately they’re not backdating it to 2009. Maybe I should have a good crack this year!

These are the things MJ mentioned in the article, but some other things to look forward to include: improved projections (scoring, price changes), popular trades widget, team similarity ratings, improved bye detector, upcoming fixture more easily accessible, club selection improvement in stats, custom price range for stats, and plenty more to be revealed!

We’re excited by what we’ve seen so far and we know that the experience has got a much needed upgrade. As MJ said in the article, it is worth the wait! Stay tuned for launch in January.

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.