What is FPL Draft and how to play
FPL Fantasy Draft is a different way to play Fantasy Football. Here we explain how it works, how to make transfers, pick players and more.
What is Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Draft?
We answer these questions below as part of our FPL Training Academy series, covering all the basics of the game.
Our How to Play FPLpage covers everything you need to know, with guides for complete beginners and managers who want to gain an edge over the competition and win their mini-leagues.
For everything else, including our tips on best players and expert team reveals, see our Ultimate Guide to FPL – there’s plenty of free information, but for access to our best stuff and incredible toolbox, you’ll have to become a Hub member.
What is FPL Draft?
Fantasy Draft in FPL uses a draft-style team selection system, rather than a budget-based one.
In other words, players cannot be owned by multiple managers within the same mini-league.
Instead, FPL managers take it in turns to select players for their team. Once that player is selected, nobody else in their draft league can select them.
There is no budget in Fantasy Draft, meaning a team’s value could theoretically exceed £100m from the start.
Where can I find FPL Draft?
You can find Fantasy Draft in FPL on desktop by hovering your cursor over the “Fantasy” tab on the main menu.
Doing so will bring up two options: Fantasy and Fantasy Draft.
When using the official FPL app, on the ‘Fantasy’ tab under ‘Pick Team’ and ‘Transfers’, there is a box labelled ‘Fantasy Draft’.
How does FPL Draft work?
Managers who want to play Fantasy Draft in FPL can join both public and private draft leagues.
In a private fantasy draft league, the administrator will determine when ‘the draft’ takes place.
is the time in which managers must come together to select their draft teams.
In a public fantasy draft league, the team selection begins 30 minutes after the first team joins.
What is the maximum number of managers in FPL Draft?
Private fantasy draft leagues can be be joined by a maximum of 16 managers.
Public fantasy draft leagues can be joined by four, six or eight managers.
How do you select a team in FPL Draft?
Selecting a team in FPL Fantasy Draft is easy.
If you’re in a private draft league, your league administrator will decide when the team selection will take place. This should be a time that every manager can attend.
If you’re joining a private league, the draft starts 30 minutes after the first manager joins.
Once the draft begins, managers will be selected in a random order to pick their first players.
Depending on the settings that the administrator chooses, managers will have between 30 and 120 seconds to select each player.
Once each manager has selected their first player, the selection order will ‘snake’ back in the reverse order.
For example, four teams are in a draft mini-league. Team 2 selects first, followed by Team 3, Team 1 and Team 4.
Once all four teams have picked their first players, Team 4 will then pick again, followed by Team 1, Team 3 and Team 2.
This process repeats until each manager has selected 15 players (five defenders, five midfielders, three forwards and two goalkeepers).
Remember, once a player has been chosen by a manager, he is unavailable to everyone else.
You can also run a mock fantasy draft first so that managers unfamiliar with the process can see how it’s done. This is just a mock, and therefore won’t have any bearing on the actual draft.
What if you miss the FPL Draft?
If you miss the fantasy draft, your watchlist will make player selections on your behalf.
A watchlist is a list of players you’d ideally want in your team. If you don’t have a watchlist, or if the players on your watchlist are selected by others, your draft team will be filled automatically.
How do you make transfers in Fantasy Draft FPL?
Making transfers in fantasy draft works differently to the main FPL game.
Players can either be acquired from the ‘Free Agents’ list, bought via ‘Waiver Requests’ or traded with other managers should the league settings allow it.
Free Agents in Fantasy Draft are players that have not been selected during the draft process. They can be acquired up to 24 hours before the next Gameweek deadline when in ‘Free Agency mode’.
Players that are newly added to the game or released by other managers are not Free Agents. They need to be acquired via a Waiver Request.
A Waiver Request is made when you want to swap a player from your squad for an available player in the same position. If multiple managers submit a Waiver Request for the same player, the player who is lowest in the league gets priority.
Waiver Requests are processed 24 hours before the gameweek deadline and you can make as many as you want. However, you’ll need to prioritise multiple Waiver Requests in order of the biggest importance to you.
Manager-to-manager trades in Fantasy Draft can be made if the league administrator allows it.
Check out our fantasy football ultimate guides
Our Ultimate Guide to FPL has everything you could ever need to guide you through each gameweek. Regularly updated, it includes all our FPL content in one handy place – from team reveals from some of the best FPL managers in the game to tips on the best players and much more.
We also have ultimate guides for Dream Team and Telegraph Fantasy Football, which are also home to tips and regular articles from experts in these formats.