Trading Before and During Your Fantrax Draft and Why It Can Help You Win a Title

Trading is a very big part of the Fantrax game, but how would trading during your draft or even before it work? Would you be foolish to trade away all your FAB pre-draft, or do a complex pick trade? Trading is always a delicate task with fine margins being the difference between winning multiple gameweeks or going on a 6 game losing streak. I personally have been involved in many trades both before and during my drafts in past seasons, so I have truly seen the pros and cons of each of the sides. Playing it safe is never the way to go to win a title, but just how much risk should you take? This article below will help you decide if you should trade draft picks or if you are better off holding off until after it is complete. For more great articles to help you plan for your draft check out our 24/25 Draft Kit and our Pricing Plans.

Check out our 24/25 Draft Kit for all the pre-season information you could ever need. We've got a Live Draft Aide, Draft Rankings, Team Previews, Cheat Sheets, Strategy Articles, Draft 101. Dominate your draft!

How it Works

In order for this to work, your commissioner must ensure that you are able to both trade draft picks, and FAB. They can do this through the commissioner league settings under the "Transactions & Periods" tab, then proceeding to the "Trades" sub tab. Ensure that you have checked off: allowing trades before the draft, allowing trades during the draft, and allow trading of draft picks. Once all these settings are good to go, then trade offers and counters are made in the same manner as during the season. Just scroll down to the bottom of your team page or your trading partners page and click the Trade toggle under the draft picks or FAB section. For more info on trading draft picks, check out our Draft 101 piece on the matter by Tottiandor.

Getting More Elite Picks

The most obvious route that managers will try to take is trying to acquire more first round picks. More often than not managers will not want to part ways with their first round pick, especially managers with a top 6 overall pick. These involve assets that are set and forget and ones that can single handedly win you gameweeks. In my experience if you want to get a first round pick, even the 12th overall pick you will need to give up a package involving your 2nd rounder, 3rd/4th rounder, and most if not all of your FAB. Usually in return you get back the managers first rounder and their 5th-6th rounder. Obviously this is a huge price to pay, but again you are taking the gamble that having 2 potential top 10 assets will be enough to carry your team. After that you will sit out a few rounds, probably not selecting until the 4th round where there will be a significant drop off of assets. The best way I can portray this is by using potential examples from the upcoming drafts. If you were the manager RECEIVING the first round pick, your first three assets could be something like: Salah, Odegaard, and Bernardo. The manager GIVING up their first rounder will probably have two 2nd round picks and either two 3rd rounders or two 4th rounders. Their first four players could look like this: Kudus, Gordon, Porro, and Nunez. As you see these are two very different constructed rosters. One will have 2 sure fire elite assets then a 4th rounder type player with high upside but inconsistency. The other manager will have 3-4 assets with high ceilings but liking that fire power of a 15 PPS player. On top of that the manager gaining a FAB advantage will be able to either get first pick of the late transfer window entries, or get multiple assets.

I have been on both ends of these kind of trades, and I can say if done right they are definitely win-win trades. Which side should you try and pursue? In my experience my opinion is always trying to get as many top 10 picks as possible. Now using my previous trades I will try and layout a potential trade road map you could use to accumulate another 1st round pick without giving up too many draft picks. Trading all of your FAB to a manager looking to collect more has to be step 1. I would say target a manager who is known to have an eye for the shiny new toys. You should be looking to get at least a late 3rd or early 4th round pick with all of your FAB, and may have to give them an 11th rounder as well to seal the deal. From there you now have two 4th round picks. You can start approaching managers with Picks 4-7 (usually the top 3 are nearly untouchable), and seeing if you can offer them both your 2nd and 4th round pick for their 1st round pick and a pick in either in the 5th or 6th round. While you are giving up a 2nd rounder, the logic here is you get two round 1 picks, followed by a pick in round 3,4, then either two in round 5 or two in round 6. As you see based off my past experiences this will only work out well if you can ship off 100 FAB from the start. Usually there is at least 1 manager interested in this kind of deal.

As you can see there are ways to both win by GIVING UP and RECEIVING first round picks, but the roadmap above should give you a starting point for how to potentially get 2 first rounders, especially if like myself you find you prefer to stay out of the summer window FAB wars. A word of caution here is in order for this to work, you need to be very strong in waiver pickups. Having a very "top heavy" team will mean less of the mid tier assets to round out your squad. Being strong on the waiver wire and with your pickups will allow this strategy to fully work.

Mid Draft Trades - When Are They Beneficial

Before we dive into the specifics of the mid draft trades, it is worth noting that these will only really work well during slow drafts when there is a decent amount of time between picks, and even sleep timers. In fast drafts most managers will be too busy watching what players disappear from their queue and trying to set up a Plan B and C. This could work in fast drafts in later rounds when there's less pressure to get each pick right, but even then they may be difficult to agree on and execute with your entire draft most likely finished within 90 minutes.

You Missed Out on the Previous "Tier"

It's a few picks before your 4th round pick and there are only 2 players left in your next "tier", and suddenly they are both gone! Now you are put in the spot of having to reach for one of the players in the following tier that you surely could have drafted in the next round or two. Your best option here could be trading your upcoming pick for a later pick and some extra FAB or a later pick + an upgrade on a later pick. For example: trading that 4th round pick and 10th round pick for someone's 5th + 8th round pick. Deals like that get done more often than you might think during slow drafts. Managers are eager to get their next pick, and targeting a manager who is 6+ picks away from their turn usually has the best success rate. This is something I like to see as a value trade. You lose your 4th round - but will still get 1-2 assets from the current tier given you have two 5th rounders now, and also get an extra 8th round pick.

The Late Rounds are Just Throwing Darts Now

This usually happens after rounds 10-12 depending on league size, and knowledge of managers, but at a certain point you are either just drafting for early fixtures or throwing darts at random punts, or hoping for a last minute transfer. This is the time you can work your way to some extra FAB, which will handily pay off in the long run. During a draft last season this strategy worked quite well and I ended up collecting an extra 30ish FAB. I was already the FAB leader thanks to a mid draft trade giving me 200 total FAB, but these extra late round ones brought me to about 230 FAB. Down the road this gives you an advantage in upcoming FAB wars and of course post-draft trades where FAB is always a hot commodity in the last few weeks of August. Odds are trading your 12th round for someone 14th round will end up getting you some FAB and you probably won't miss out on all of your lottery picks. My strategy is to usually have a list of about 10 lottery ticket assets I am looking to get in the last 3-5 rounds. As long as I come away with 2-3 of them it is a successful day. This is the best win-win strategy as you will for sure get some of your targets and potentially walk away from the draft as the FAB leader without giving up much draft capital.

You Drafted Someone's Target Under their Nose

This is a very common occurrence. A manager has Dominic Solanke lined up for Pick 24 but the manager with Pick 22 grabs him as they went for a midfielder in round 1. This makes that manager take the next best option in Kai Havertz or Darwin Nunez, but they really aren't too happy about it. This of course offers the opportunity for a trade, potentially beneficial. If you are the manager who took Solanke, and you believe you can get good immediate value for him, it is always worth exploring. Potential trades here would include giving up Solanke for the pick the manager just made + a decent upgrade on a later pick. Potentially getting their 4th/5th round in exchange for your 5th/6th round. This 20+ pick upgrade is more than worth the trade for a player within the same tier as Solanke, and who could potentially outscore him. Don't get too attached to your players, and always look at the larger value picks, in the long run this + scooping up extra FAB will set you up nicely to start the season and in the trade market.

Do I Need to Do These Type of Trades To Win Leagues

The short answer is no. Sometimes managers who want to make trades just for the sake of trades end up the worst off. These trades need some logic and planning behind them especially when they are made before the draft even ends. A lot of times these trades involve high risk - especially when we are talking about trades with picks before the 6th round. Here you need to be sure you hit at least one of your first few picks on the money, or know the approach you will take with your FAB/the extra late draft picks. My word of caution here is if you are someone who is new to the Fantrax draft world, and the trading game to see the draft out fully before attempting trades. For those who want to take that risk that could lead to a strong title challenge or a potential bottom table fight. As a "risk-taking" manager I will definitely be attempting trades before the draft is over - using a road map to how I want my team to look at least for the opening parts of the season.

---

Check out our 24/25 Draft Kit for all the pre-season information you could ever need. We've got a Live Draft Aide, Draft Rankings, Team Previews, Cheat Sheets, Strategy Articles, Draft 101, plus so much more. Dominate your draft!

For all the latest from The Draft Society , follow @Draft_Society on Twitter!

And for more in-depth and exclusive resources, become a member of The Inner Circle.

---

Have you heard about our revolutionary Draft Fantasy Football app? We call it The Fantasy Toolkit. Expand to read more!

Each gameweek, The Fantasy Toolkit will bring you:

• Recommended waiver adds & drops

• Optimal lineup suggestions

• Matchup projections vs your opponent

• Trade calculator

• Fixture Difficulty Tracker (for each position on the pitch)

• Gameweek Transaction Data from the "Big 3" community leagues

• ROS & Playoff Planning Tool

• Team Power Rankings for every team in your league

• ABD EVEN MORE TO COME!

• All in one customized and personalised package

It's included in our Ultimate Pass and Season Pass plans and will give you a massive leg up on your league-mates. Check out a full demonstration video HERE for more info!