Strategies to win WSL Fantasy
Analyzing what it takes to win the Fantasy Surfing game from World Surf League in terms of numbers
In the season of 2016 the player Entrando de Borda won the Fantasy Surfing game held by WSL. The player was able to achieve the mark of 6463.72 points on a set of eleven events.
If you're reading this article you probably know the rules of the game. In summary you chose eight surfers from different parts of the ranking, and your points depend on how those surfers score on an event. In a perfect scenario, a player could achieve first place on an event by having picked all eight surfers that advanced to quarterfinals. Following the same scenario, if all those surfers have scored only perfect tens (making 20 points in all heats) the team would achieve 1080 points. Following this pattern in all 11 events of the season we reach the imaginary maximum of 11880 points during a season.
For sure, the perfect scenario is just impossible to happen. If a player selected all the best picks from 2016, he would have achieved 8294.29 points. Choosing only the best picks through all the eleven events is just insanely improbable. Entrando de Borda, for example, was able to achieve 6463.72 points and has not picked the best team in any of the eleven events.
The performance of a team
An important number to have in mind is the performance of the player in terms of the perfect picks. This variable brings us a more precise value of how a player performed on an event. For example, the event where the best possible team scored higher in 2016 was J-Bay. The best team achieved the mark of 836.71 points. To make a good score on this event a player might have to reach the 700 mark. Entrando de Borda, for example has made 735.34 points, a performance of 87.88% of the possible points.
The worst event for fantasy points from 2016 was coincidently the worst from Entrando de Borda. The best possible team for Pipe scored 672.43 points. In this scenario, scoring better than 500 is just awesome. Entrando de borda made 473.49 points, reaching 65.05% of the best possible score.
The first player of 2016 had an overall performance of 77.92% (6463.72 points) of the best possible mark (8294.29 points). So, to battle for the title on the fantasy game, you have to be near the 80% performance.
This year the scenario has changed. The best player, at the moment, has the performance of 88%. The guy is a fantasy pro. If he continues to deliver at this level, we might see him winning the game before Pipe, just like John John did last year.
Average Position
Would be amazing to win all the eleven events of a fantasy season. But you don't need to achieve such a mark to be at first place by the end of the year.
Entrando de Borda's best position in an event was a 10º spot and his worst position was a 14635º. In fact, just in two events he was able to achieve a position better than 1000º. All those clues confirm a single truth in the world of fantasy games:
You reach the first place by having good scores on all events. Pursuing the best possible score of an event is a risk that won’t guarantee you a solid season
The average position of the first player during the 2016 season was 5407º. It means that if you start achieving this position or better in the events, you might battle for the title.
Average Round Elimination
It's great to know the performance of a player and the average position he achieves. But what that means in terms of picking a team?
In a fantasy season, a player makes 88 picks. From all those 88 possible picks, Entrando de Borda has picked 47 times a surfer in the best possible team. It means that in average, half of his team (4 surfers) was in the best possible picks. You don't have to pick the best 8 surfers, but to win the season you have to guess 4.
On all those picks, only eleven times a surfer from Entrando de Borda's team was eliminated on rd2. With this fact, one of your picks can get eliminated on rd2, no problem around that.
Following this same analysis, only 20 times the picks of Entrando de Borda have lost on rd3. So, on average, you can lose 2 surfers on rd3.
You're left to guess the 5 surfers that will win rd3, seems like a more reasonable mark to achieve. But have in mind that you might have to do it in all events of the season.
Advancing through heats, he had 42 surfers advancing to quarterfinals. Numerically it means that 3.8 surfers of your picks in an event have to advance to this round.
24 of his picks have advanced to semifinals and 13 surfers have advanced to the final. So one pick per event has advanced to the final.
Now you have a great picture. You gotta pick a team where:
- One surfer can get eliminated on rd2, no worries;
- Two surfers can get eliminated on rd3;
- You gotta start rd4 with five surfers;
- From the five left, four have to advance to quarterfinals;
- Two surfers have to advance to semifinals;
- One of them has to go to the final.
That's it, now you know how to imagine the position your picks have to achieve. The performance of your team might be around 80% and achieve near the 5000º position.
This year the scenario can get a little different as there are more players on the game. But with this setup in mind you're ready to fight for the title on the fantasy ranks. This strategy will guarantee you amongst the first positions of your fantasy leagues.
If you liked the post click on the heart and share your comments
