11 replies to this topic

[BSLChrisStoner]

I'm a fan of auction drafts, with a salary cap obviously, and the ability for 2-3 keepers (on 3 year contracts... each year, the keeper costing an additional $5 to keep).

At-least 12 teams, preferably 14.
1 starting QB. No defensive players.

What formats do you like, or don't?

[McNulty]

Numberfire is the best I've used.  Its sorta like draftkings, but its been around for 10+ years, it doesn't take money to play each week, and its free to start.

 

Edit: its fireleague, I'm an idiot

[Mike in STL]

I'm a fan of auction drafts, with a salary cap obviously, and the ability for 2-3 keepers (on 3 year contracts... each year, the keeper costing an additional $5 to keep).


At-least 12 teams, preferably 14.

1 starting QB. No defensive players.


What formats do you like, or don't?

Agree on all counts.

I like at least 12 teams. 10 or less and everyone's scoring points and it's a craps shoot, and I'm in a 10 team league. Would love to do auction drafts but my leagues are always the snake kind.

1 QB, no defesive players. The league I've been a part of the longest wants to add a second flex spot and drop 1 of the 2 RB spots. Im against it but I was the only one. So it has been done. They cited not enough feature backs anymore to make having 2 RB spots worth it. Well, manage your team better.

Any format is fine as long it's kept simple. I quit my fire house league because it got to be way too many rules. Started simple but now they put in bonus points for eveything. They instituted having 4 divisions for a 12 team league and only division winners made the playoffs. Last year guy with the 3rd best record missed out because he didn't win his division. The final straw was If your player gets placed on IR, you have first priority to claim their backup. Commissioner would place him on your team if he was in the FA pool. But if the backup is already on another team then you are SOL. Ummmmm. No.

The other thing is making sure team defensive scoring is minimal. Same league I quit had defensive scoring so inflated that the good ones would score at seasons end right up the with pro bowl caliber players. I distinctly remember one defense with an incredible game scored 63 points. That's just dumb. Defenses shouldn't be getting 20 points a week. Maybe 20 on a good week. 30 for a shutout + TD lots of turnovers. But usually under 15, like kickers, is about right.

[Mike in STL]

Listened to a podcast called "The Audible" today. They delved into a couple ideas for fantasy football formats that could be fun. 

 

Guillotine League: 17 teams. Don't really play head to head. The lowest scoring team each week is eliminated and that teams players are sent to the waiver wire where the can be picked up by the remaining teams with FAAB money. Have to really keep an eye on bye weeks, and how much of a $1000 budget would you spend on say, Todd Gurley, if his owner loses in week 1?

 

Empire League: Dynasty league format. Keep everyone you want. Year 1 you have a $100 buy-in for 10 teams making a $1,000 prize pool.  Of the prize pool you payout $500 and the other $500 goes into a jackpot fund for Year 2. Year 2 buy-in and prize pool the same way so the jackpot fund becomes $1,000 ($500 + $500). If you win back to back years, you win the jackpot, and the league ends. Or, you redraft and start over. So what happens is if you don't have a back to back winner for say 8 years, the jackpot pool is $4,000. Basically the other 9 teams conspire against the defending champ while still trying to win themselves. You might make some trades that otherwise wouldn't fly but maybe you have some under the table deal in place. Case of beer for a stud RB, 10% of the winnings if they win, etc... It makes winning back to back years hard to do, but if you do, you get paid handsomely and big time bragging rights for winning a league where 9 people tried to screw you over. 

 

Vampire League: Re-draft format. 13 teams draft while a 14th team does not. The 14th team, a.k.a, the vampire team, puts together a roster of free agents after the draft is over. The league commences as usual. In a 14 team league you play each team once before playoffs start (week 14). If the Vampire team beats another team, they can trade any player from their team for any player from the team they beat. So it's possible that over the course of a season they go from scrubs to having three or four all-pros. It'd be akin to the guy who started with a paperclip and through a series of trades ended up with a Porsche. Again, big time bragging rights if you win because you started with nothing.  I think it'd be a blast to be the vampire team in that format. Just a regular game for the rest of the guys except one week a year they possibly lose their best player. 

[Pedro Cerrano]

Hate auctions, hate salary caps, hate hate hate keepers.

[mdrunning]

The leagues I played in auctioned off the first five rounds with a salary cap of $50 for those first five players. After that, it went to a snake draft. I always preferred the auction because you weren't hampered by the luck of the draw regarding draft position. 

 

They were always 12-team leagues with no keepers (that's for baseball). We also gave out weekly prizes for most points scored, which were payable at the end of the season. That gave even the teams out of playoff contention incentive to keep playing.

 

Everyone played the full 17-week schedule. The four teams which qualified for the playoffs would face each other beginning in Week 15, but they also had a regular season opponent as well. You simply turned in two lineups: one for the playoff game, and the other for the regular-season matchup. Again, it kept everyone involved and interested.

 

The last year I played, I was in three leagues, made the Super Bowl in all three and lost every one of them. 

[cprenegade]

I don't like keeper leagues, even though I got the benefit of one years ago.  I happened to have the first pick in the startup of our league and it coincided with the years that Ladanian Tomlinson was a beast.  I held onto him for 4 or 5 years.  I prefer everyone getting a shot at the dominant players instead of one person hogging one player for years.  I had the tables turned in baseball as someone in a keeper league protected Albert Pujols every year during his prime.  Nope, just not a fan of keepers.  

[Mike in STL]

I don’t mind keeper leagues. My baseball one is going to be in year 10 next year. I don’t own Trout, Machado, Kerahaw, but I like being able to pick out prospects and have them flourish at discounted prices while Trout costs a boat load. Kind of like actual baseball.

Besides, the guy that has Trout has never won our league. Just like real baseball

[mdrunning]

I don't like keeper leagues, even though I got the benefit of one years ago.  I happened to have the first pick in the startup of our league and it coincided with the years that Ladanian Tomlinson was a beast.  I held onto him for 4 or 5 years.  I prefer everyone getting a shot at the dominant players instead of one person hogging one player for years.  I had the tables turned in baseball as someone in a keeper league protected Albert Pujols every year during his prime.  Nope, just not a fan of keepers.  

Keepers, at least in baseball, are fine as long as there's a limit to how long a team can keep said player. The leagues I played in didn't permit keeping anyone longer than three years, which is plenty of time. That way, there's always enough talent going through the draft every season. 

 

Friends of mine tried for years to get me into their fantasy football league. It was a 10-team league (too soft) with a straight draft. The catch was, every team could reserve up to five players indefinitely. The fantasy football version of the old baseball reserve clause. They offered me the No. 1 overall pick in the draft as an enticement. Great. So if every other team keeps the maximum of five players, I get the right to draft the 46th-best player overall, assuming that I didn't keep anyone on my team. Not much of a temptation, and needless to say, I didn't join the league.

[mdrunning]

I don’t mind keeper leagues. My baseball one is going to be in year 10 next year. I don’t own Trout, Machado, Kerahaw, but I like being able to pick out prospects and have them flourish at discounted prices while Trout costs a boat load. Kind of like actual baseball.

Besides, the guy that has Trout has never won our league. Just like real baseball

Is that a mixed league? 

[Mike in STL]

Is that a mixed league? 

Yeah. Mixed, H2H. 

[Mackus]

I like auction over snake draft.

 

Can go either way on keeper versus re-draft. 

 

I've never done a PPR league, but I think I'd like that.