No, not really - you can obviously go with various possibilities there, but I have no issue with what you propose.
Next Draft - Ideas and Discussions
- Thread starter Edgar Allan Pillow
- Start date
If the idea is to rank the best drafters, you surely have to disregard the actual XIs to some degree. At least that's how I would take it: You decide who has done the best job drafting a 14 man squad given the pool and whatever factors are relevant (like luck, draft order, etc.). In other words, you don't reward someone for grabbing a GOAT early on if there's nothing to it beyond pure luck, etc.
Any thoughts on the above voting method for the best drafter? A neutral should hopefully be able to take the votes.
I'm with Chester. We vote on the initial squad and leave it to the voter to decide on relevant factors - with the proposed pool and Billy No Mates rule the later picked players will hopefully make meaningful tactical choices like they did in the All-Time Americas Draft. You don't want to post an XI before the first round and using an XI could misrepresent the squad- they could have gone for a specific set-up to stop Messi for example.
Any thoughts on the my amendment to the club version of the No Mates Rule in which a player who shared a season with that player but never played in the shared season due to injury could play together. The thought was prompted by Fat Ronaldo's time at Inter.
I also like the idea of the keeper breaking the deadlock in case of a tie. Penalties are a bit of pain.
It's easy to add a poll to the main thread. We can do a impromptu vote in the thread, shortlist to 4 or 5 contenders and then add a poll to find the best drafter.
Personally I would prefer a rule where the draft master is not allowed to vote in matches.
That's it. This is perfect for when there are multiple great sides with very little to choose from.
I thought that this was already a rule in the previous Billy No Mates draft? Anyways, if it isn't, it should be. The chosen player must not have appeared in the same team as the previous chosen players.
Why is that?
Neutral, impartial perspective from the one running the draft just seems a bit more official that way.
Is that against me specifically?
Draft masters usually don't participate in their own drafts to remain neutral. I fail to see why they can't even be allowed to vote. What bias could they have when not participating?
Ive never been a fan of anyone running / organizing amy competition and then directly voting on the outcome. Im just a fan of a system where someone facillating the draft doesnt vote and maintains a degree of impartiality. I appreciate you lot run the best drafts on the english speaking internet here and if its tradition for draft masters to vote , totally cool with me but just giving my personal opinion on the topic.
The concept of a 'draft master' as a special position is relatively new in itself, till a long time we only had snake drafts and the 'draft master' was just another manager who was just creating match threads, etc. Whether the man is himself participating or not, there's literally no difference between him and another manager, or anyone else for that matter.
I understand where you are coming from, but the drat master is not capable of influencing an entire game by himself. It's just one vote of many. I've never seen a game where a draft master broke a deadlock. It hasn't led to any controversy yet.
Personally, I think it's tidier not to vote when running the thing - but that's really just a preference on my part, I don't think there's anything wrong with the other alternative.
It's mainly a precaution of sorts: If something happens which means you're forced to make a call which could potentially piss someone off, it's best to be 100% neutral in every sense. In practice, however, it probably makes no difference - and I can't recall anyone ever accusing a draft master of being biased. Meltdowns over decisions, certainly - but no serious accusations of bias. I think we're generally not that bonkers round here - most of us don't take it that seriously at the end of the day.
It's mainly a precaution of sorts: If something happens which means you're forced to make a call which could potentially piss someone off, it's best to be 100% neutral in every sense. In practice, however, it probably makes no difference - and I can't recall anyone ever accusing a draft master of being biased. Meltdowns over decisions, certainly - but no serious accusations of bias. I think we're generally not that bonkers round here - most of us don't take it that seriously at the end of the day.
That's one support for this. Any others? I think the just being able to vote for one team is a bit restrictive.
I never had that they had to play in the same team at once as it is too research heavy. Imagine having a player who played once in a season with another and then having to find which game it was and to see whether the other guy played then. Let alone how annoying it would be with five appearances. This is also the reason behind the International criteria
All that said no appearances is easy to work with.
+ 1 from me as well, I like the idea of a neutral collecting all manager's top 3 drafted teams with point system. It would have to be refined to take opinion (vote) of assistants / scouts / draftmasters / shadowers and neutrals who are following the draft in account.
Thanks. Any thoughts on the tiered goalkeeping system to break draws? So if a team has Schmeichel and the other has Taibi the former side wins.
Can someone explain to me the concept of shadow drafting? I've never really followed it.
Just started in this draft.
Basically if you want to play the draft and either the places are full or you just have the interest in drafting and not the tournament you can basically pick a playing manager and pick whenever it is his turn with the same rules. So in a normal snake draft say you pick manager abc before the draw, the draw is made and you get his position in the order and pick whenever it is his turn.
It basically has little to do with the ongoing draft itself, just a way for some 'interested outsiders' to get involved and see what team they would have drafted if they were a part of it. You don't get to play in the tournament of course and your draft ends when the picks are over.
Thanks for the summation. That makes a lot of sense. Also with the proposed voting for best drafter you could have a separate poll for the shadow drafters as well as for the normal drafters to give shadow drafting a little more edge.
What could be tried at some point is something like this: Have any number of managers sign up (within reason – but it doesn't have to be 16, the current standard can be scrapped). Then rank them according to some voting system or other. Then do the knockout stage with the top 8, or even just the top 4.
Basically, more drafting (which is what most consider the fun part), less matches (and, at least in theory, just interesting ones featuring fairly evenly matched squads).
Basically, more drafting (which is what most consider the fun part), less matches (and, at least in theory, just interesting ones featuring fairly evenly matched squads).
Just thinking one step further, a benefit of the above model would be this: You'd send the less obvious, non-shiny picks straight to the latter stages of the knockouts, thus making it more likely that interesting players (non-usual picks) get some proper airtime: The normal model almost inevitably leads to more and more obvious teams the further into the knockouts we get, with said non-shiny category being replaced as soon as safer reinforcements become available.
Agreed, I was just suggesting a format which easily covers all that is needed.
As I said, I liked how I could easily find info in people's ops. Each manager with his own style, but the character limit somewhat made people stick to a given structure.
I see that argument but don't you think the ban on reinforcement from pick 1 and 2 minimises the shiny picks enough?
The inclusion of newcomers has contributed to the rise of the voters per game: 20-25 voters now 
Possibly - depending a bit on the pool, of course. However, I think the real question is whether we can just scrap a round (or possibly even two) of matches anyway: Many regular drafters seem a bit tired of the match stage as such, and the arguments/debates do have a tendency to become repetitive. If you limit said stage to fewer matches, at least in theory those matches should become more intense.
Again, though, it does depend on the pool/theme. For some drafts, it may make sense to have a full last-16 round - because there's plenty of novelty on display in the XIs. For all-time drafts, etc., however, one can consider cutting down on the rounds.
That makes sense
Yeah you do avoid one-sided first round match ups then, but I would argue that one of the thrills of the draft set up as it is, is that you get heavyweight contests in the first round which lets weaker teams slip through into the next.. and with reinforcements they can become a great team.
That's a fair point.
However, to me at least those great teams have a tendency to end up looking much like a muchness – and again, the arguments in the match threads tend to be pretty familiar too.
Just a personal perspective, obviously, but I'm pretty sure it's not an uncommon one among the regulars.
The match stage has been a problem in that regard for a while now, as I see it. So, that's where I'm coming from on this: I just don't think it's all that interesting, so what you do – for me – is either to cut down on the number of matches OR to reform the match format itself (but we never seem to get around to doing that beyond minor tweaks).
We can also have the list of managers akin to the UEFA Club list, with ratings and so on, measuring their success in the last 5 drafts and so on
The only real criticism I have towards this system is that the voting comes before you have a chance to really highlight an unknown player (even if you do the profile in the main thread most will scroll down and it's only when you link the profile in the write-up and explain why his qualities are well suited to this particular game he'll get recognition)
It seems that the matches will always have a voting method and win or lose seems the best.
A possible idea to mix things up would be to try and have injuries mid game so the manager has to react to it. The easiest way is to randomly select a player (possibly exclude goalkeepers although it might make picking two keepers make sense since otherwise you could have John O'Shea in goal). Obviously you could always add things like red and yellow cards in a similar manner. Fatigue would be too difficult to implement.
Ideally you'd want to make the more aggressive players more likely to be booked or sent off and the more injury prone to be injured.
The problem is creating a probability model which is easy to implement. I suppose you could make something in excel. It's the same kind of problem that we had trying to create a handicap for keepers in shootouts.
Last edited:
Wouldn't the teams that get through each time be quite similar though so every draft would have a similar looking set of players as the final 4 teams?
Interesting thought!
Have we ever done a Squad draft, where you have a squad of 22 players (no subs) and you play two games against the opponent, and you have to beat them on aggregate. It would reward good drafting because after the shiny picks are gone, you still have to construct a strong second XI to ensure you win both games.
Apologies if it sounds shite but maybe there is something there someone could work into a proper concept.
Apologies if it sounds shite but maybe there is something there someone could work into a proper concept.
Sounds nice, actually
I like that, but we'll need to halve the number of participants so that we don't overload on the matches. Imagine 16 matches for the first round if we have 16 players...I'm sure the drafters would get strained by it as well.
Isn't that the all time and reserve draft clubbed together?
Nah, you'd need to gamble on your opponent's line-up and spread your superstars over the two teams
You don't field Baresi and Pele together, you put an attacking team with Pele first and a conservative one with Baresi second to secure the score
mmm, interesting. Quite tactical. I like it.
Could go well with that vote for best drafter and halve the participants after the drafting stage.