Five Tips & Tricks for Auction Drafts (Fantasy Football)
Editor’s Note: Check out all of our auction content including articles on how to build a budget, SuperFlex Auction Strategy, and the Art of Auction Nomination.
Every year, more and more Fantasy Football managers make the switch from traditional snake drafts to the auction draft format. Auction drafts offer a very different experience to the traditional snake draft, where you are locked into a specific draft position for the entire draft. In an auction format, you have the opportunity to build your team strategically through the ability to bid on any player at any time. This creates a dynamic and competitive environment, requiring a blend of skill, strategy, and intuition.
Here are five tips and tricks to help you dominate your fantasy football auction draft.
1. Create a Budget
One of the most crucial aspects of a successful auction draft is managing your budget. Each team starts with a fixed amount of money, typically $200, and knowing how to allocate these funds can make or break your team.
Here are some budgeting strategies to consider:
Stars and Scrubs: This approach involves spending big on a few elite players and filling the rest of your roster with budget-friendly options. The idea is to secure top-tier talent that can carry your team while finding value in lesser-known players and off the waiver wire.
Balanced Roster: Alternatively, some managers prefer to spread their budget more evenly, aiming for a well-rounded team with solid players and depth at every position. This strategy minimizes risk but may lack the high ceiling provided by top-tier stars that it takes to win week in and week out.
2. Know Your Players and Tiers
Understanding player values and tiers is essential in an auction draft. Creating tiers for each position helps you identify where the drop-offs in talent occur, enabling you to make more informed bidding decisions. If you’ve subscribed the the Ultimate Draft Kit (UDK) Here’s how to use those tiers to your advantage:
Flexible Bidding: If you miss out on a player in one tier, knowing who is left in that same tier can help you pivot without overpaying for lesser talent. This flexibility can prevent panic bidding and keep you within your budget.
Auction Values: Familiarize yourself with average auction values (AAV) for players in your league format. This knowledge can serve as a guideline, helping you determine when a player is overpriced or when you’re getting a bargain.
3. Nomination Strategy
The nomination phase is just as important as the bidding phase in an auction draft. How you nominate players can influence the bidding behavior of your league mates and help you execute your draft strategy. Consider these nomination tactics:
Nominate Players You Don’t Want Early in the Draft: By nominating players you’re not interested in, you can drain your opponents’ budgets while preserving your own. This can also help reveal your league mates’ strategies and player preferences.
Hype Chasing: Nominate players with a lot of preseason hype early in the draft. One or more of your league mates will have that player earmarked as a sleeper and will inevitably overpay for that player.
Diversion Tactics: If you notice a positional run (e.g., several wide receivers being nominated in succession), you can nominate a player from a different position to disrupt the flow and keep your league mates off balance.
4. Monitor Your Opponents
Keeping an eye on your opponents’ budgets and roster needs can provide a strategic edge. This awareness can inform your bidding decisions and help you capitalize on their weaknesses. Here’s how to do it effectively:
Track Budgets: Continuously monitor how much money each team has left. Teams with more money can outbid you, while those with less might be easier to push out of bidding wars. Many draft platforms will track this for you and may even show you that other managers “max bid”. This is extremely important in the later rounds. Let’s pretend you are a player you’re interested in has been nominated and you are bidding against manager B, who has a max bid of $5. If you bid $4, it will allow them to bid $5, and force you to go to $6 to win the player. If you skip the $4 bid and go straight to $5, you will have priced them out. Perhaps they wouldn’t have bid that final dollar and you would have won the player for $4…but do you really want to risk it?
Open Roster Spots: Identify which positions your opponents need to fill and use this information to your advantage. If both you and an opponent need a TE, nominating a TE could force them to bid, thus allowing you to get a different TE at a lower cost. The same can be applied to each position if you see one manager is clearly behind everyone else in a position.
Poker Face: Even in an online format, pay attention to your opponents’ bidding patterns and preferences. Some managers have favorite players or teams, and you can exploit these tendencies by bidding up their preferred targets. On the flip side, try to mix up your bidding to avoid creating clear patterns so others cannot use them against you!
5. Stay Flexible and Adaptable
No matter how much you prepare, auction drafts are unpredictable, and the best-laid plans can go sideways. Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. The ability to stay flexible and adapt to the draft’s flow is crucial for success. Here are some tips to remain adaptable:
Be Ready to Pivot: If a bidding war escalates beyond your budget for a targeted player, be prepared to pivot to other options. Your tier lists and budget planning will help you make these quick decisions without panicking.
Adjust to Runs: Positional runs are common in drafts. If you see a run on a particular position, decide whether to join in or take advantage of value at other positions. Flexibility can help you avoid overpaying during a run.
Patience is Key: Sometimes the best strategy is to wait. As the draft progresses, budgets tighten, and bargains can be found. Patience can be particularly rewarding later in the draft when managers are less willing to spend big.
Conclusion
Fantasy football auction drafts are a test of strategy, knowledge, and adaptability. Using these tips and tricks in your auction draft will help you navigate the complexities of the auction format and build a championship-caliber team. Embrace the excitement and unpredictability of auction drafts, and let these tips guide you to a fantasy football championship!