What's that I hear you say? How do you become one of the top
dreamteamers in 2008? Well my friend you have come to the right place. Let’s
take a back seat from Flash for a moment and venture over to the world of dream
team, a game that distorts your perception of AFL and transforms you into a
number crunching Nazi. When you start yelling at the TV screen “Why didn’t you kick
the bloody thing?!?!”, you know you have the makings of a true dreamteamer.
This is part 1 of my guide to becoming a decent dreamteamer.
You will notice a supercoach banner posted above. This is dream teams nemesis,
but none the less fills the gap until the real stuff opens sometime next
week.
THE BASICS:
You have a salary cap, 30 players to select, only 20 trades
and a captain that earns you double points. It’s a lot to ask but with the
right strategy you’ll be fine. Picking the initial starting team is absolutely
essentially. No player will ever get it perfect, but the more accurate your
estimations are at the start of the year the less you have to pay for it at the
end of the year.
TIP 1: Pay close attention to the teams in round 1. When
selecting your rookies, look for those that are actually selected. Furthermore
select the ones that look like they will play most weeks. There is nothing
worse than have a $90,000 rookie on your bench doing nothing.
TIP 2: A wise person likened my strategy of dream team to
that of the stock market. You need to get the undervalued stocks, wait till
they appreciate, then capitalize on them. Our rookies are there to make money.
Once they have maxed out, get rid of them and upgrade an average player to a
“Gun DTer”.
TIP 3: “Gun DTer’s” are the likes of Jimmy Bartel, Mathew
Pavlich, Dean Cox and Chad Cornes. You need to have as many as these players in
your team by the seasons end. When selecting your initial team you need
balance. Get as many of the guns that are undervalued as you can.
TIP 4: You have 20 trades for the year. When finals hit you
want at least 4 left. The mistake of the “newbie” dreamteamer is to be too
trigger happy. “Oh no, I made a mistake in picking player X in round 1, trade
him out the next week”. Massive mistake. Would you get rid of a puppy the first
time it craps on the carpet? No you persist with it. These are precious and you
should resist using them at all cost. If you are lucky you might get to use 12
trades upgrading and 8 on injuries.
TIP 5: A little bit of research never hurt anyone. Players
you should be looking out for.
- Proven dreamteamers that were out the previous season
due to injury.
- 3rd-4th players that are ready to
explode
- Retired players whose positions need filling. Someone
must step up into the roll.
TIP 6: Talk the talk wherever and whenever you can. As far
as you’re concerned you’re the best dreamteamer and everyone else lives in your
shadow. Egotistic banter may give you that psychological edge over your
opponent.
More tips to come pre-round 1 so stay tuned and get
researching there is only 720 hours left till lockout!
