2018 Forum H2H League & Pigeon Cup

I was thinking about the bench the other day and how stupid it is since we have unlimited subsitions and rolling lockouts. Why would the game create a money sink like that. Just get rid of the bench and increase player price (or reduce the budget). So I went to check the rules on the bench just in case and it is explained in the rules that there are autosubs for Did-Not-Play players.......... What the actual fuck. This is so exploitable.

I was wondering why people high in the rankings took giovinco and put him on the bench this week. And why so many high ranking guys started bye week players. Like if they were looking for cash bumps there is easier way to go about it like putting cheap guys on last weeks dream team. Why would they have a 10+ cost guy on the bench for a maybe .5 increase (no garuntee, he’s was in a downslide). And how could a top ranked player screw up so badly to start someone on a bye.

They are leaving high rank players on the bench so that if he had a monster game then they start a for sure cheap DNP player and he will autosub in after the week finishes (or if the bench player is good enough to win a H2H match you take the garunteed points). And if he doesn’t play well then they rejigger their lineups to take a second crack at a higher score (albeit with a deminished budget).

This season is seriously the worst.

I enjoy the ingenuity of people (it is a clever little tactic), but seriously what is the point of fantasy anymore if you intentionally put starters on the bench only to not use them if say they get you a pedestrian 2pts. Of course if a 10+ guy only get you a 2, you put in almost anyone at any price for the chance at 2+. And since you get to look at ever lineup before the game I’m sure you could find a 4.0 guy starting.

Like for example if you really thought rusnak was gonna have a monster game this week so you pick him and put him on your bench. He ended up with a 2pts. So now you are in a pinch cause you can’t afford much and you play Ashley cole not cause you want to play him, but for the smaaaaaaal chance at clean sheet and/or a goal/assist. Lo and behold, he gets you an 8 this week. That sucks for your opponent. You should have been punished for a bad rusnak pick but luckled into 6 extra points worth from Cole.

I don’t fault the players for using it. Good on them for thinking critically. I blame the game designers for making a game a little less about soccer and a little more about black-scholes option pricing.
Yes. There are an assortment of substitution hacks this season created simply by lazy design. I generally avoid them because they are so ridiculous it’s not even fun or rewarding exploiting edges in this case. Though I don’t fault anyone for doing so and may occasionally for shits and giggles.
 
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I was thinking about the bench the other day and how stupid it is since we have unlimited subsitions and rolling lockouts. Why would the game create a money sink like that. Just get rid of the bench and increase player price (or reduce the budget). So I went to check the rules on the bench just in case and it is explained in the rules that there are autosubs for Did-Not-Play players.......... What the actual fuck. This is so exploitable.

I was wondering why people high in the rankings took giovinco and put him on the bench this week. And why so many high ranking guys started bye week players. Like if they were looking for cash bumps there is easier way to go about it like putting cheap guys on last weeks dream team. Why would they have a 10+ cost guy on the bench for a maybe .5 increase (no garuntee, he’s was in a downslide). And how could a top ranked player screw up so badly to start someone on a bye.

They are leaving high rank players on the bench so that if he had a monster game then they start a for sure cheap DNP player and he will autosub in after the week finishes (or if the bench player is good enough to win a H2H match you take the garunteed points). And if he doesn’t play well then they rejigger their lineups to take a second crack at a higher score (albeit with a deminished budget).

This season is seriously the worst.

I enjoy the ingenuity of people (it is a clever little tactic), but seriously what is the point of fantasy anymore if you intentionally put starters on the bench only to not use them if say they get you a pedestrian 2pts. Of course if a 10+ guy only get you a 2, you put in almost anyone at any price for the chance at 2+. And since you get to look at ever lineup before the game I’m sure you could find a 4.0 guy starting.

Like for example if you really thought rusnak was gonna have a monster game this week so you pick him and put him on your bench. He ended up with a 2pts. So now you are in a pinch cause you can’t afford much and you play Ashley cole not cause you want to play him, but for the smaaaaaaal chance at clean sheet and/or a goal/assist. Lo and behold, he gets you an 8 this week. That sucks for your opponent. You should have been punished for a bad rusnak pick but luckled into 6 extra points worth from Cole.

I don’t fault the players for using it. Good on them for thinking critically. I blame the game designers for making a game a little less about soccer and a little more about black-scholes option pricing.
It's switcheroo to the max and it is annoying.

I simply can not and will not be a guy checking my phone before every kickoff to swap players.
 
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I was thinking about the bench the other day and how stupid it is since we have unlimited subsitions and rolling lockouts. Why would the game create a money sink like that. Just get rid of the bench and increase player price (or reduce the budget). So I went to check the rules on the bench just in case and it is explained in the rules that there are autosubs for Did-Not-Play players.......... What the actual fuck. This is so exploitable.

I was wondering why people high in the rankings took giovinco and put him on the bench this week. And why so many high ranking guys started bye week players. Like if they were looking for cash bumps there is easier way to go about it like putting cheap guys on last weeks dream team. Why would they have a 10+ cost guy on the bench for a maybe .5 increase (no garuntee, he’s was in a downslide). And how could a top ranked player screw up so badly to start someone on a bye.

They are leaving high rank players on the bench so that if he had a monster game then they start a for sure cheap DNP player and he will autosub in after the week finishes (or if the bench player is good enough to win a H2H match you take the garunteed points). And if he doesn’t play well then they rejigger their lineups to take a second crack at a higher score (albeit with a deminished budget).

This season is seriously the worst.

I enjoy the ingenuity of people (it is a clever little tactic), but seriously what is the point of fantasy anymore if you intentionally put starters on the bench only to not use them if say they get you a pedestrian 2pts. Of course if a 10+ guy only get you a 2, you put in almost anyone at any price for the chance at 2+. And since you get to look at ever lineup before the game I’m sure you could find a 4.0 guy starting.

Like for example if you really thought rusnak was gonna have a monster game this week so you pick him and put him on your bench. He ended up with a 2pts. So now you are in a pinch cause you can’t afford much and you play Ashley cole not cause you want to play him, but for the smaaaaaaal chance at clean sheet and/or a goal/assist. Lo and behold, he gets you an 8 this week. That sucks for your opponent. You should have been punished for a bad rusnak pick but luckled into 6 extra points worth from Cole.

I don’t fault the players for using it. Good on them for thinking critically. I blame the game designers for making a game a little less about soccer and a little more about black-scholes option pricing.

Do I have this straight? You put a quality player from an early game -- like Giovinco this past week -- on your bench. You put a lesser but solid player from a later game in the lineup. If Giovinco lays a stinker, keep things as is. If he goes off, swap the starter for a 4.0 never play loser and, if really ambitious and if time permits, use the extra dosh to beef up another position. That is involved. I could probably swing something like this maybe 5 weeks a season when the weekend isn't busy, but I'm not likely to do it at all.

Also, I wonder what is the over/under line for making the switch for a forward. I'm thinking 9 points or better, but I bet there are folks who have data and know for sure.
 
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Do I have this straight? You put a quality player from an early game -- like Giovinco this past week -- on your bench. You put a lesser but solid player from a later game in the lineup. If Giovinco lays a stinker, keep things as is. If he goes off, swap the starter for a 4.0 never play loser and, if really ambitious and if time permits, use the extra dosh to beef up another position. That is involved. I could probably swing something like this maybe 5 weeks a season when the weekend isn't busy, but I'm not likely to do it at all.

Also, I wonder what is the over/under line for making the switch for a forward. I'm thinking 9 points or better, but I bet there are folks who have data and know for sure.
This week I had lesser but solid players on my bench and figured with my schedule I could see what was going on and make changes between 5 and 6 and knew I wouldn't be able to look at anything after that. I did and nobody on the bench was worth subbing in so I left everything the way it was.

Personally I would sub a goal scoring forward in, so 7 points would be my magic number.
 
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Do I have this straight? You put a quality player from an early game -- like Giovinco this past week -- on your bench. You put a lesser but solid player from a later game in the lineup. If Giovinco lays a stinker, keep things as is. If he goes off, swap the starter for a 4.0 never play loser and, if really ambitious and if time permits, use the extra dosh to beef up another position. That is involved. I could probably swing something like this maybe 5 weeks a season when the weekend isn't busy, but I'm not likely to do it at all.

Also, I wonder what is the over/under line for making the switch for a forward. I'm thinking 9 points or better, but I bet there are folks who have data and know for sure.
I think there are two ways to play the exploit.

First one is as you described, you play gio because you actually wanted him this week but to hedge your bet you play him on the bench. If he converts that pk he probably has 10+ points this week and you want him in your lineup so you put in a injured or bye week player to garuntee he is subbed in (don’t just put a regular 4.0 cause there’s always a small chance you get cockblocked with a 1 min sub appearance). Someone needs to be on your bench might as well be a 4.0 DNP and then you spend money elseware. If he plays poorly as he did and you want to keep him on the bench you just have to make a team with a 10mil less of a budget to work with and like my example earlier maybe it forces you into a lucky Ashley cole or badji play. And your hedge pays off swimigly.

Second and more perverse use of the exploit would be to take a flier out on a really cheap player and force him into your lineup by exploiting both the autosub and rolling lockouts. So for example putting valot from RBs this week on your bench because you saw he was in the lineup and he maybe could get a a brace or something. What the hell he only costs 5.0 as a mid. Well he gets 12pts. You definitely want that, so you play. 4.0 DNP. And there you cheaply got 12 point boost. If he does squat no harm it’s only 5.0. You can probably still afford 7 top shelf mids/forwards.

In the past you might be good at guessing valot would get a start this week (on account of CL midweek) so you take a flier out and put him on your bench for a price raise, but you certainly don’t insert him into a starting slot unless your a gambling man. Now you can cheat your way into that by knowing he will play last minute and forcing him on using autosub if the points are there.

It hard to argue that it’s really soccer knowledge helping you win. I mean it doesn’t take a genious to put a starting 5.0 winger on your bench then switching him in If he does well. Just takes free time to read the teamsheets. The old way hard lockout meant you had to take a guess on who might play and who would have attractive games, and if you wanted to go all in you play cheap nothing subs. Hedging your bets meant putting one or two subs that might play if there was a surprise illness, but that take budget away from starters. Now guessin good performances is still a part of the game (kinda, you could just copy someone else’s team) but your forgoing 5-10pt boost if you don’t play this autosub game.

As for the in/out cutoff line. I’d say it’s 7 for a forward. It’s not a bad result. Forwards don’t score every game and depending on play style they don’t do enough to garner other passing defending bonuses. So if you get a 7 that’s decent enough to keep cause your looking at a volatile distribution 3 - 14 where as a mid who plays 90 is like 5-11. If you don’t that that 7 you might be looking at a 3 for your backup plan.
 
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Or you can simply captain Gio and have a lousy week like BBA Beard.
 
oh my god are you kidding me. Are they counting the bench points in the total now to curb the auto-sub hack?! i have 91 points recorded for the week when my starting 11 were only worth 77. The rules explicitly say the points from the starting team is what counts towards your score. I saw this yesterday and was waiting for the update, surely it had to be a glitch. But the week has updated and my score is locked in now. WTF! you can't change the rules on the fly like that, even if you screwed up by making gaping loopholes! what is going on?! i feel like im taking crazy pills!

edit:
Cancel erroneous comment. Lodiero got a massive bump in his overnight scoreline and he was my cap. Thought he only finished with 5pts (10 for cap) and now he's at 11 (22 for cap). I didnt watch the game but i saw there was a redcard, though being a man down hurt him so i didn't question the validity of the 5pts.

Double edit:
Dah-damn, im 18th overall. That's crazy. I'm flying too close to the sun. I can't maintain this pace. I didn't even want to do fantasy this year, but i didn't want to take a prize last season and bail so joined to contributed to the pool this year. But look at me now, this pig is flying.
 
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oh my god are you kidding me. Are they counting the bench points in the total now to curb the auto-sub hack?! i have 91 points recorded for the week when my starting 11 were only worth 77. The rules explicitly say the points from the starting team is what counts towards your score. I saw this yesterday and was waiting for the update, surely it had to be a glitch. But the week has updated and my score is locked in now. WTF! you can't change the rules on the fly like that, even if you screwed up by making gaping loopholes! what is going on?! i feel like im taking crazy pills!

edit:
Cancel erroneous comment. Lodiero got a massive bump in his overnight scoreline and he was my cap. Thought he only finished with 5pts (10 for cap) and now he's at 11 (22 for cap). I didnt watch the game but i saw there was a redcard, though being a man down hurt him so i didn't question the validity of the 5pts.

Double edit:
Dah-damn, im 18th overall. That's crazy. I'm flying too close to the sun. I can't maintain this pace. I didn't even want to do fantasy this year, but i didn't want to take a prize last season and bail so joined to contributed to the pool this year. But look at me now, this pig is flying.
I've noticed the day-after point adjustments this year can be very high at times.
 
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Okay so I'm not technically in this league because I didn't find out about it in time to join, but I got way too into FMLS and built a point projection model that you guys might like:

Here's the writeup: https://medium.com/@thedummyrun/my-...ntasy-mls-point-projection-model-768ffd09862b

And here are the Week 6 forward/midfielder projections:

0ZHN9xb.png
 
Okay so I'm not technically in this league because I didn't find out about it in time to join, but I got way too into FMLS and built a point projection model that you guys might like:

Here's the writeup: https://medium.com/@thedummyrun/my-...ntasy-mls-point-projection-model-768ffd09862b

And here are the Week 6 forward/midfielder projections:

0ZHN9xb.png

Adding positions would really help in your fantasy spreadsheets. We can't have 6 midfielders in our starting 11. Also knowing we can only have 4 players from the same team.
 
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Adding positions would really help in your fantasy spreadsheets. We can't have 6 midfielders in our starting 11. Also knowing we can only have 4 players from the same team.

I could theoretically break it up between F/M but it would take a lot more spreadsheet work just to get it to label them. Figured people would recognize most of these names anyway. But if it helps, here's the 'roo-ready lineup I set based on the model:

RVI9WU4.png
 
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dummyrun dummyrun I will make sure to tag you next season.

This league is very competitive this year. Right now we have 5 teams (out of 12) in the top 215.
 
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dummyrun dummyrun I will make sure to tag you next season.

This league is very competitive this year. Right now we have 5 teams (out of 12) in the top 215.

Thanks! Yeah I spent the first few weeks just learning the game but I figured we must have some serious fantasy players around here from the scores I see forum folks putting up in the non-H2H league. I'll look forward to joining next time.
 
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MLS Digital has sooooo many errors like that throughout the site.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/standings/live

I'm not sure that's an error, even though it's clearly wrong and out of date. They've removed the links to that page from the main standings page. You're not supposed to see it. It's sloppy to leave it up and non-updated, but I'm thinking it's intentional. My guess would be they plan to revive the page later in the season when live mid-say and mid-game standings are of more interest. Still, they could just let it run with updates all season. Once you write the initial update script it shouldn't take much work to keep it going.
 
I am absolutely flabbbergasted how played piatti and he isn’t even in the 18. I looked and looked and looked again at my team before leaving the office today. I didn’t want piatti but his production was hard to overlook, and I forced him into my lineup. Then I checked the prematch report and confirmed everything is as it should be.

Who the hell is piette and why does his name look so damn close to piatti!!! I knew I was playing to well. My glee will be my undoing. Woe is me.
 
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I am absolutely flabbbergasted how played piatti and he isn’t even in the 18. I looked and looked and looked again at my team before leaving the office today. I didn’t want piatti but his production was hard to overlook, and I forced him into my lineup. Then I checked the prematch report and confirmed everything is as it should be.

Who the hell is piette and why does his name look so damn close to piatti!!! I knew I was playing to well. My glee will be my undoing. Woe is me.
I played Piatti and Taider (who received a straight red 12' in)
 
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