Ultimate FPL 2014 “The Ultimate Headache”- FPL Fantasy Football Premier League

So just when we thought we had this game all figured out, the comedians at Fantasy Premier League decide to hit us with this nugget. We were sitting with our pen and paper (laptop, for you geeks) crossing out teams for GW29 and worrying to death about how we would navigate the upcoming weeks. All of a sudden we heard a large thud, as FPL decided to drop their new Ultimate League on us, just when we thought things could not get any more complicated! But no worries at FF247 as we are here to help, with your team that is. We absolutely value your addiction to Fantasy Football and seek to make sure you don’t escape from the powerful hold it has on you. So let’s get started with the rules you need to know.

• The Rules: First let’s start with the simple stuff. You will find that this new game requires you to play under the same rules as regular FPL when it comes to your formations. So this will not be the time for you to try your “Park the Bus” strategy or pretend you are City and go all out on the attack. automatic subs also work the same; however we will address this later on because there is a caveat. The budget is different as are the amount of players you now require on your squad, but it’s a similar concept to the one we are accustomed to. One is asked to buy 25 players with 160 million; if you are a fan of a small club….I would expect you could easily buy 3 squads, as thriftiness is in your blood. Ok, that was the simple stuff. Let us move along to some of the big differences.

• The Differences: As previously warned the substitutions are a major variation from the current game. You are allowed 7 subs on your bench and 7 in reserves. These players on your bench can be manually substituted in for players who did not perform well on the first phase of a game-week. However if you do manually sub a player in your team loses its right to have players automatically substituted in.

This is what the FPL site has to say on the matter.

“If one of your starting 11 plays but either scores low or 0 points, and hasn’t received a red card, you can choose to replace him with a player from your bench of 7 substitutes, whose team has yet to play in the Gameweek.”

“You may also replace your captain, if he has not received a red card, with another player whose team has yet to play in the Gameweek.”

Thanks FPL, could not have put that better myself. In fact to avoid any confusion on any of the rules or to clarify any doubts please check their help page. Make sure to read through their FAQ and Rules tabs. This short read will go a long way into avoiding mistakes down the road.

http://ultimate.premierleague.com/a/rules

So as to not waste an immense amount of time getting you to read things that you can easily discover by reading the link above; what I will do is recommend what you should be looking through.

In the FAQ please look for:

Managing your teams & Manager Substitutions, it is essential that you understand these answers to have any success.

In the Rules Tab please look for:

Selecting your initial squad > this will cover the Home Grown/U21 rule and all other squad questions.

Managing your squad > Basically a more detailed explanation of the new wrinkles we will have to deal with, when it comes to substitutions.

Transfers and Emergency Loans > Very Important!! This will explain the amount of transfers you will have over the season and a whole new concept called “Emergency Loans”

Scoring > Normally I would not bother, but there are differences you need to know about. This will also explain why some players seem more valuable in the Ultimate FPL game compared to the regular one.

Player prices > These are frozen in this version of the game so you will not have to worry about rushing to do that early transfer for fear of their value pricing you out of the market.

***Strategy***

This seems to be a combination of Fantasy Champions League and Fantasy MLS. So playing this hybrid Fantasy game will definitely be an advantage to those of you who have played either or better yet, both. I am going to look at the first two game-weeks in particular and try to provide you with some Tips. (Love You Kop). So you ask why only the first two weeks, simples…  Due to the craziness on GW29 it is difficult to plan beyond GW28 for now, but at least you will have four free transfers to figure it out with. So let’s get to it and look at the fixtures and possible strategy to get you off to a great start.

1. Be aware of who plays on what days. This is of major importance as this will influence your substitution patterns. Not paying attention to this will cause you to not have players to put in the place of bad performers from the previous day.

So keep this in mind when forming your team:

There are seven teams who play on Matchday 1 both game-weeks. Four teams that play on Matchday 2 both game-weeks and 4 other teams who have a blank in GW 28. What does it all mean and why does it matter? Glad you asked, if you grab a player who plays on Saturday, it means you will have a chance to see their points and assess if a substitution is in order, by bringing in one of your Sunday players. So keep this in mind when selecting your squad. Here is a small graph with a built in difficulty tracker to help you assess which teams to focus in on.

Green are deemed winnable games, yellow could be close to call and red is difficult. Home games are in capitals.

Note: On the final table (The rest of the teams) These teams have different Matchdays, so one week they play the first day in the GW and the other they play on the second day.

2. Be aware of the deadlines! If you look at them you will notice that team sheets will be available for 3 games in GW 27, on the second phase of the game-week which is the Sunday. So before you make any substitutions make sure you check team sheets if possible.
3. You have 4 transfers for the first two weeks before you hit the Wildcard. So don’t be afraid to carry a City/United player or two. You can transfer them out before their blank.
4. Don’t captain someone going on the second day of the GW. Not because he might not be worthy, but simply because it can be changed later to that person if needed. For instance you could captain Hazard GW 27 and if he does not deliver you can switch it to Suarez who plays the next day. That way you maximize your possibility of getting it right.
5. Bench and Reserves: My tip here is to make sure that you leave most, if not all of your bench, full of players who go later in the GW. You will not be able to use reserves once the GW starts, so try and stick in your cheapos or the players who have no chance of getting in on said reserves. So if you have a starting 11 going on Matchday 1 there is no reason to have your bench full of players who can’t be substituted in because they play the same day.
6. There are throw away players, particularly in the first two Game-weeks. No reason to spend money on a third keeper who will not get off your reserves. For example: Mannone is practically useless the first two weeks. You will not start him against Arsenal away (I think) and he has a blank in GW28. So buy the £3.9m useless keeper and sit him in the reserves these first two game-weeks.
7. Last Tip: Make sure to look at the different categories in the player filters in the Transfers tab. There are several things in there that make certain players more important than others. Some of you will have noticed that the point tallies for Ultimate FPL are different for the players than the original one. That is because the new point scoring system causes a difference in how many points a certain player will accumulate in bonuses. Gone is the Bonus Point System, in is the new scoring system where playing well as a defensive midfielder is rewarded, despite not scoring goals. Where a Coutinho can squeeze an extra point or two because of his “Big Chances Created” where Skrtel becomes an interesting option for his ability to accumulate “CBI” (Clearance, Blocks, Interceptions) and so on and so on…..

If you made it to the end of this article, we appreciate your time and how hooked you are on Fantasy Football. If you have any questions please feel free to ask away, we will be happy to answer them to the best of our knowledge.

Thanks for reading Ultimate FPL 2014 “The Ultimate Headache“, this article was written by Mito21

To get involved with Ulitmate FPL, even if you haven’t registered all you need to do is make sure you are logged in to FPL and click this link:

http://ultimate.premierleague.com

Once you have sorted your 25 man squad! Join our classic league listed below:

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