the way thee Pies are falling I'd say Ruscoe seems fairly secure

Is it better to go for 2 of Lloyd and Petracca and empty all cash reserves given their high ceilings... or go for Haynes (or even Luke McDonald?!) and Whitfield leaving almost $160k to help get another premo soon?
Or even a mix - I could afford Haynes and Oliver.
I'm never sure if you should always just get the highest scorer that you can, or if taking the lower scorer but whose value opens up a quicker upgrade somewhere else is better.

My thinking currently is to just take a huge gamble on the Giants almost winning out. Yes GWS have to travel but they also have easiest run-in schedule.
Out: S.Hill, Pickett, Georgiades
In: Haynes, Wicks, Whitfield.
Two Giants in this week, then next week trade Devon Smith via DPP to Coniglio ( I probably can't afford Fyfe or better).
It'd get me as close to full premo asap as I'm perhaps gonna get.
The alternative is probably Haynes and Oliver, then desperately try and scramble enough $ over next 2-3 rounds to get Whitfield, Petracca or another top FWD.

Also rookie chat:
Wicks or Bytel? Wicks is named, but Swans just seem to have a conveyorbelt of reasonable youngsters who look good enough to play for purpose of getting games into, he could easily be out for Taylor again next round.
Bytel plays closer to the action as a genuine mid, but really he was covering for Zac Jones who will be back and relied upon rest of the year for Saints; yeah Gresham is hurt, but Lonie, Langlands or Byrnes perhaps more likely to earn that spot primarily in the forward line.
I presume these are the two clear rookie options; Woodcock seems a trap.

@ike:
Similar to Ant, I say if you can get to a full-on premo then I would go that way. Petracca at under $620 is still reachable. Not having these guys (and there are probably no more 5 or 6 across the whole competition) could punish you enormously.
I sincerely hope you didn't go for the "all eggs in the GWS basket" - that's a pretty stinky basket. I have 3x Giants and it is not a calming experience.
Hopefully, fixture announcements today will give you a better sense of the pinch points in your squad for the future bye weeks, and that will help you build a better mental picture of how to navigate the next block of rounds. You may find you are better set up for "best 18" for some rounds than for others. I am not locking onto my final upgrade targets, or if I decide to go through 1 or 2 premos short, until I know a little more.
Sorry if the horse has already bolted!

Round 15 will sort the men out from the boys. I can see already that I need to do some careful preparation to get though that round. If they had done a 3-4-3 it might have made it easier

Now given 3 extra trades (37), another $1m would be nice.

Does anyone know what time we might get updated stats to end R12?

Thanks walesy! Not sure if something weird is happening with filters but can't find the eagles rookie Nic Reid in stats?

Getting to full-on premo, as in getting the best players for D1 / M2 etc, for me means not getting to full premo at all as I'd likely finish with likes of Cerra and Day at D5 & D6 as I don't have the cash reserves to improve that much - too many poor decisions. Rankine at F6 too - though if we're expecting lots more 'best 18' weeks I think this is not terrible as Cerra and Rankine are capable of 100+ and if they have a really bad day, they just won't count.
I figure too, there's only like 2 rounds left until fantasy finals I think? So getting 4 positions upgraded in that time is probably unrealistic, so have to just ensure the highest scorers are in, especially if they've had their bye.

So I decided to go for the best premo I could, which was Oliver.
That didn't leave me enough in reserve to get Lloyd though. I was leaning towards Luke McDonald as I've seen a couple recent Roos games and he's suddenly getting a ton of it... but I took what was in theory the 'safer' option of Haynes. He ended up scoring less than Hill, who I'd traded out for him.
Wish I'd just done Lloyd & Petracca in hindsight, and tried to scramble to get to Oliver or Fyfe in 2wk time, but I was trying to follow that same principle of getting the best available.

This all said, I now have the same issue many others do with Sicily and Gawn... Sicily to Lloyd seems obvious, I need a bit of cash to afford it, and going to NicNat or Goldy gets me there.

OK, so maybe I should clarify. (Too late, I know!)

In my brain, "full on premo" is a guy you would captain, without hesitation. (Neale, Macrae, Gawn when fit, Petracca depending on match-up, but not many others?). I don't put Lloyd in that bucket - maybe that's just me. Oliver is probably borderline.

If not going for overall, your point re- best 18 is well made and I agree with your short-term objective. It obviously depends on your exposure to the byes, but you can afford to be carrying a couple of cheapies/non-performers in those weeks. Of course it won't help you for the H2H grand final week.

Petracca was probably better value than Oliver, but I don't think you have done a lot of damage with the choice you made last week. And the Sicily/Gawn thing is just unavoidable now. There will be more carnage to come - my bunions tell me that we're all going to burn through any emergency trades we think we have pocketed. H2H Grand Finals may prove to survival of the fittest/fortunate.