It’s a new year of fantasy gymnastics on a new site, and since the rules are a little different, we rounded up tips and tricks to help you stick the landing.
Drafting Strategies
The fantasy format this year is a little different. In the Gymlytics game, players will have 20-member teams and each event will be 10 up five count. That means you have a little extra room for error since you can now drop five scores on each event week to week.
What does that mean for drafting? For one, it allows players to be a little more risky. Someone like Savannah Schoenherr, who may be in and out of lineups this year with the incredible depth at Florida, is suddenly less risky since you’ll have more space to drop a potential zero. It also means that drafting gymnasts returning from injury, as well as freshmen, is less fraught since you’ll have space to take zeros if they don’t make lineups and hold onto them until you can figure out where they’ll factor in.
For drafting, this format also means that it could make sense to draft excellent specialists higher than you might have in the eight-up-five-count format since players can be less reliant on all arounders and three-eventers. So go ahead and put Carly Woodard or Nya Reed high on your draft list.
Waiver Wire
The other big difference this year is in trading. To eliminate issues with time zones for our international friends and to alleviate the stress of the old trading free for all, Gymlytics has implemented a waiver wire. If you’ve never played another fantasy sport, that just means that trading will be similar to drafting: You’ll make a list of gymnasts you’d like to pick up and the gymnasts on your team you’d like to drop to make the space. Each Monday after the waiver deadline (12 p.m. PST), trades will go through in reverse order—meaning whoever made the most recent trade the previous week moves to the back of the line.
That means you need to list your preferred trades in order, highest preference first. If your first choice is taken by someone who is in line ahead of you, you’ll move to your second trade pick.
If you have a gymnast you need to drop, it makes sense to choose multiple gymnasts you’d like to pick up to fill their spot. Just list the same drop gymnast with each pick up and be sure you list the gymnasts you’d like to trade for in your order of preference. That way, when the trades go through, you’ll be sure you dropped the person you needed to.
This can be confusing! Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Susie Jane was injured last week, and you need to drop her. Mary Ann would be the perfect gymnast to fill her spot, and she’s available. You’d also be fine picking up Rory Lane or Patty Rae. You also want to pick up Amy Elizabeth and drop Terry Beth, who hasn’t competed. Here’s how you’d list the options on the waiver wire:
Pick up: Mary Ann, drop: Suzie Jane
Pick up: Rory Lane, drop: Suzie Jane
Pick up: Patty Rae, drop: Suzie Jane
Pick up: Amy Elizabeth, drop: Terry Beth
In this example, let’s say you’re not first in line for a trade. The person ahead of you also listed Mary Ann first on their waiver list, so you end up getting Rory Lane and dropping Suzie Jane. No one else had their eye on Amy Elizabeth, so you were able to pick her up, too!
If you’ve never played with a waiver wire before, this can be confusing, but as soon as you experience it once or twice it will make a lot more sense, and you’ll find that it feels more fair and less chaotic than the open trading of yore.
Resources
As always, we’ll be here each week with a new installment of Fantasy Central to help you navigate injuries, lineups and those specialists hiding in plain sight. For drafting, be sure to take a look at Jenna’s expert drafts, and our Last Week in College Gym series. Check our injury updates page to be sure you’re not drafting someone who is out for the season!
Of course the Balance Beam Situation has a variety of lineup predictions as well, though we caution our readers to double check injury status, especially of freshmen, when using those resources in case anything slipped under the radar or occurred since their publishing.
READ THIS NEXT: A Q&A With GymChem, Creator of a New Fantasy Gymnastics Game for 2022
Article by Emily Minehart
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Thanks for this! Question – In the example given, what happens if you’re first in line and get to pick up Mary Ann and drop Suzie Jane, and then when it comes back around Rory Lane is still available. That would be the next choice, but you’ve already dropped Suzie Jane, who is listed as part of that trade? Do you just have to miss out on your choice? Thanks!
Good question! In your example, that request with Rory Lane would be skipped or marked invalid since you already dropped Suzie Jane. However, if you also wanted to potentially pick up Rory Lane, we would suggest putting in requests for 1. Mary Ann (drop Suzie Jane), 2. Rory Lane (drop Suzie Jane), 3. Rory Lane (drop another gymnast on your team that isn’t Suzie Jane). Hope this makes sense! Don’t hesitate to reach out again if you have additional questions.
So, where is the trade option on gymlytics homepage? Been looking but can’t find it. Thank you!
It won’t be available for a couple more weeks.