Logging onto the Supercoach site last night, I'm sure like me everyone noticed that they were left with a lot more money than they expected when they entered their teams. It was commented somewhere here earlier that the magic number is about 4864 this year, compared to 5300-5400 last year. (For anyone who dosen't know what a Magic Number is, this means that the price of a player who averaged 100 last year will only by 4864 X 100 = $486,400 - in other words everything's cheaper.) I thought it would be good to have a discussion about what the ramifications of having a low magic will be and how it will affect the way we should choose our teams.
In my opinion, basically what this will mean is people will be able to afford and fit more premiums into their starting teams. This factor, in addition to having 2 more rounds and 4 more trades, will lead to teams becoming fully upgrades faster. What this implies, is that people should be looking to getting more premium premiums. While you might have got away with a F7 averaging 85 in the past, you will struggle this year as more elite teams will probably have the whole top 7 forwards. I think it will also make a more extreme Guns and Rookies approach more viable because you can afford more guns and don't have to start as many rookies. Another thing is that I think it that is makes DP and the 'supersub' idea more viable. With many people having near perfect teams be the end of the season, any advantage gained by covering zero's and getting the best cover possible will be valuable. With the supersub idea, you might find you have the cash and trades to upgrade an extra 23rd player who can fill in for any byes through use of DP.
I can see a couple of things occuring. Firstly, everyone will have awesome teams. So you're going to *need* to trade hard, trade early and trade often to reach the pinnicle of point scoring first. After that though, I reckon that once you've upgraded, you're going to have plenty of trades left. So I think you'll need to figure out how to use them- along with the byes- to maximise your points. One final point that I'm looking to explore once TS is open for 2011 - with so many rookies playing through the GC, we're going to find that prices move differently than in the past. Possibly premiums will fall faster, while rookies rise slower... I'll need to do the math on it though!
only done a quick rough draft of my team, but don't know how but ended up with only 4 gun mids and the rest were rookies, i'm pretty happy with my rucks that's won't change much/at all maybe but my backs and fwds i struggle to find many good rookies in that position, thus going for more premiums/mid tier players
<blockquote>Quote from walesy on February 1, 2011, 14:40 After that though, I reckon that once you've upgraded, you're going to have plenty of trades left. So I think you'll need to figure out how to use them- along with the byes- to maximise your points. </blockquote> With this point, it will be more important than ever to watch for players who look like their having a streak of form. Like Goodes at the end of last year, Rioli near the end and Pavlich at the beginning, it will be important to have these players in your team when they are hitting their peak. It could even be possible to trade them out again when as they hit a lull to another player who has hit form.