The blind auction draft is now done and I’m looking forward to the weekend head to head in the new fantasy football game “My Little Nuts”. Here’s a blow by blow account of how it happened. The French version has 450,000 players and their app is #1 for sports in France. It’s now available for the English premier league
A new fantasy football game My Little Nuts – Blind auction draft completed
Basic concept
I’m partnering with a new fantasy football game called My Little Nuts. In very simple terms it’s a blind auction draft game where you and a small group of friends bid for a minimum 18 players. You compete with league members in a weekly head to head contest scoring points by goals and through a number of other events such as the usual assists and clean sheets plus other more detailed stats such as tackles, passes, recoveries etc etc. These are then converted into virtual goals. There are 3 competitions, the premier league, La Liga and Ligue 1. The length of the contests can be anything from 1.5 to 4 months.
Here’s the link to my introductory article if you want to see more about the rules etc. We just played in normal mode although you can play in expert mode which has additional features
Getting a league together
I started with the idea of a 10 man invitation league for FFGeek readers who were interested in playing. As the concept is a blind auction draft you can go through up to 3 rounds of bidding before you select your team. Unlike some American draft games there’s no time cut off and then computer picks for those who haven’t made their bids. That means that should people lose interest you have to replace them which can be difficult.
Our Group initially of 10 had a few issues with people who decided not to bid for whatever reason and so we started a new league with the 6 committed people and that worked easily.
I would say if you’re joining a public league go for one with about 6 people to minimise the chances of people disappearing. If you have a league with your friends that would work better as you’re better able to ensure they bid. Their is an ability to make your bid randomly by computer so o one has an excuse not to bid
I have to say though the whole blind auction by is a completely different way of doing things compared to my experience before and a really interesting way to play the game.
Their is a forum to talk to the other managers which is also helpful and adds to the game.
My bids
The game gives you a guide price for each player and you then have to make a judgement on how much you bid. You have £500m to spend and need to have minimum squad numbers. I decided to bid very high for 10 premium players, medium for secure gametime players that looked reasonable value and then introduce a few cheap punts. Here were my 20 initial bids with my 2 second round bids below that.
10 Premium bids
Pickford, Bailly, Mendy, Sanchez (Spurs), Dele Alli, Ozil, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Lacazette and Jesus
6 secure value player bids
Elliot, Gibbs, Wimmer, Choupo Moting, Doucoure, Richarlison
3 punts to take advantage if injuries happen
Bravo, Lewis Cook, Batshuyai
Prodl was the outlier as I don’t have a clue what the Watford defensive lineup is so I took a punt.
You can see from the team set out below that I got all the players I bid for except:
Jesus, Choupo Moting, Ozil and Pickford.
You can see in the graphic below that I only just got Dele Alli despite it being my highest bid and despite a big bid for Ozil just missed out.
Not getting those 4 players meant I was 2 players short of the minimum 18. So in my 2nd round I decided to just pay top cash with the money left for 2 of the few decent players left. I did get both Mahrez and Benteke unsurprisingly.
Unfortunately the bids were completed on Monday so I ended up with an injured Pogba who will probably miss the entire head to head
Final Team Lineup
So here’s how I’ve lined up my team for this week in my head to head. I went with 3-4-3 although there are a number of formations. I don’t think either Bravo or Pogba will play but I included them in case of miracles and they can just be automatically subbed.
So there we have it. If you want to try something different it’s well worth it and very quick as long as you have a group you can rely on.
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