RSO Draft Strategy

[bigmac9812]

Conducting my first Reality Sports Online league in early May and just did my first mock auction. The system is very quirky and I feel worried for my live (dynasty) auction. Add in the fact I'm a bit lost on how contracts work and what not, I feel very unprepared at this point. Any RSO people want to share their live auction strategy? Thanks, fellas.

[flexcapacitor]

I have done a couple start up drafts where it was auction to draft your team but the rest of the time auction was not used. If that is also true for you I've got a few tips but I do not play in contract leagues.
- have a plan going into the draft and try not to deviate from it to much. ex - drafting young, going after draft picks, straight value or more established players to compete year one.
- write out your rankings and what you would pay for each player.
- try to find some auctions that have all ready happened so you can gage what each player is going for.
- a lot of times the 1st few players go for bargains because everyone is weary of what to do and what to pay. Then there will be a point where people will really get into it, go overboard and pay way to much for players. Then after 20-30 players go off the board everyone will be able to had for a reasonable price. If you can hold onto your money the best deals are had at the end of the draft when people are running out of money so there aren't as many people to compete with.
- there will be a point in the draft where it will be perceived by most people that there is only 1 or 2 players left in a certain tier or at a certain position. Then even though it's towards the middle of the draft people will start bidding like crazy to get the last guy in the tier and sometimes overpay to the point that they could have gotten their #1 player on their board.

[Goirish374]

Conducting my first Reality Sports Online league in early May and just did my first mock auction. The system is very quirky and I feel worried for my live (dynasty) auction. Add in the fact I'm a bit lost on how contracts work and what not, I feel very unprepared at this point. Any RSO people want to share their live auction strategy? Thanks, fellas.

Bigmac,

always glad to see another DLFer take up the reins of an RSO league! there are some good general live auction tips in flexcapacitor's post above. as it happens i do have some pointers that i think may help out:

a) understanding how the contracts work is critical, so if you feel a bit lost let's start there. from the site homepage, hit the "how it works" at the top. this is their FAQ. scroll down about halfway to the "What are the other key features" question, and go over the answers numbered 1-4. This is a ton of great information, so mastering it is a strong first move. if you know this part well, you will be answering questions for everyone else in your league!

Don't worry--everyone new to the platform feels a bit lost at first. You will pick up quickly! (ultimately you'll want to read the entire FAQ, but that part will help you with that specific question).

b) you're already on the right track with the next bit--spend plenty of time in the mock auction room. if you've already been in there, you've seen that there is an AI that will bid against you for the other teams and help simulate things. obviously its not the same as real people, but its helpful. when you set up a mock, you can set up the date/time and invite your future leaguemates to it to help everyone who is new get their feet wet together (you may not want to for strategic purposes, but you can). i would mock and mock until you feel comfortable with the interface, as that timer goes quickly during the real auction!

b and a half) get a feel for whether you like to display remaining budget or max bid for each team. you control this in the top right corner. know how to switch back and forth. similarly, get a feel for whether you want the auction history to display the bid history or the signing history and how to switch.

some more b) make sure you get comfortable with the "manual offer" box in the top right. you will be racing the clock to input values there and want to be comfortable with how to navigate it.

c) are you the Commish? if so, you have some pause and rewind tools at the bottom of the auction page. make sure you play with those a little to get the hang of them if you need to use them during your auction.

d) you are not limited by your roster size, only by your budget. you can sign as many players as you can afford and can cut down to roster limits after the auction (you do, however, owe the guaranteed amount to anyone you sign in the auction, even if you cut them right after, so be careful)...note that signing players for 1 year league minimum (500k) incurs NO guarantee, so you can cut them after the auction at no penalty. (ETA: when you reach your roster max, you won't be able to nominate new players, but you can bid on and sign those nominated by others if you can afford them).

e) between the 'nominate' and 'help' buttons on the right is an "auction board" link. this will open a browser tab with the auction board. open this at any time and it will refresh automatically to keep track of results.

f) your salary is your entire budget for the year--so you need to leave some for inseason blind bidding AND to fit any trades in that you want to make. opinions on how much that should be vary between 3 - 20 million (!).

g) there is something a little wonky about their rankings so i strongly recommend adding players to your personal queue by clicking on the little "+" sign to the far right of each name. in your queue you can drag and drop players to the order you want and IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY NOMINATE THEM ON YOUR TURN. when you're not bidding, be setting up your queue. this was really, really useful for me! the search function in the available players box works well and you can use the "clear" button to reset to their rankings after searching, finding and queuing a player.

i hope some of this helps!

has your commissioner set up/paid for your league yet?

[heyfeefellskee]

We should schedule a few public mocks on rso.

[bigmac9812]

Very helpful GoIrish! I agree zfifelski, PM me.

[Nixon]

I'd be willing to do some RSO mocks

[heyfeefellskee]

Pm me your emails so I can invite you

[bigmac9812]

RSO mock tonight if anyone is interested. PM me your emails or tweet me @bigmac9812 (Prefer twitter)