Introduction

I have been an avid fan of fantasy sports, participating in fantasy basketball, football, and college basketball for years. The world of fantasy sports have turned otherwise uninteresting games into something I have personal interest in. Will Demarcus Cousins grab 10 rebounds to win me the category for the week in the boring Bobcats-Kings game?

For a while, a group of friends and I have participated in fantasy smash for the larger tournaments, which has been a blast. Never before would I really care whether Nintendude or The Moon won their match until fantasy smash.

So what is it?

Fantasy smash tests your knowledge of how players will do at a given tournament. Everyone drafts a team of players and gains points based on how well they will do in bracket. The person with the most points wins some money. Sounds simple right?

How to play:

Fantasy smash is simple and involves three steps: (Also download the MLG Fantasy Spreadsheet here)

1. Auctioning for draft position
2. Picking players in a “snake” draft
3. Watch the players perform at the tournament and tally up the points

#0 Setting up

Ideally, you want about 8 people participating. 10 people also works, but it can be cumbersome to keep everyone in the loop, especially if the draft is being done online. Also, at this point agree to a buy-in. Normally, my group agrees to $20 buy-ins with 1st place getting 75% of the pot and 2nd place getting 25% of the pot. Once again, if you want to vary the numbers, that’s totally fine as well.

Depending on the style of pools and bracket of the tournament, the point counts may vary. Adjust the points that each of the placings will get accordingly. For example, here were the point distributions for Apex 2014.

1st 380
2nd 360
3rd 340
4th 320
5th 300
7th 270
9th 240
13th 210
17th 180
25th 150
33rd 120
49th 90
65th 60
97th 50
Worse 0

To clarify, if you drafted a player that placed “3rd” then you would gain 340 points for your overall team for Apex 2014.

#1 Auction for positions

Unfortunately, there will be discrepancies in draft position. If everyone were to draft perfectly, there would be an uneven distribution of points. To rectify this, we auction off the draft order, so that everyone has a fair chance at getting the 1st overall pick if they so desire.

To draft for positions, start a bid in a chatroom and have people bid on the 1st draft spot until there is only one bidder left. The person who wins will gain that spot and will have the number of points deducted from his final total. For example, if I decided to bid “75” points for the 1st spot, then I would take a 75 point penalty at the end to compensate. Repeat the process for the 2nd spot, 3rd spot, etc… until the draft order is done

#2 Draft for players

Now, you may begin drafting. The draft is snake style, meaning the following. If we have 8 players (A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H), then here how’s the draft would go.

Round 1: Player “A” picks first, then “B”, then “C”, … then“H”

In round 2, the reverse order would apply, so Player “H” will pick first, then “G”, …, then A

Keep drafting until everyone has 10 players (you can modify this based on the overall tournament size)

#3 Scoring

Once the tournament is over, determine the placings of all the players you drafted, and then calculated the subtotal score. After calculating the score, deduct the amount of points you bid for your draft spot.

Sample Scoring for Evo 2013

#4 Misc Things

For MLG, it will be best to start a draft after SKTAR 3, in which all the qualifiers will finish.

Make sure to finish in a timely manner, the Gainesville draft ended up not finishing in time for Apex 2014

*Misc Rules – Once you start the draft, any new players that register are “banned” from being picked

Have fun and enjoy!

MIOM|Tafokints