We’ve added two new league variants! “Twin Babies” just looked like too much fun for us to pass up, and TE Premium leagues have been on the wish list of many customers for many moons.
It’s also time to bring back the Newbie Corner, helping our newest members get acquainted with all DataForce has to offer.
Introducing “Twin” Babies
One is not cute enough? How about trying a “Twin Baby” league, and a chance to win a FREE Bronze-level ($100) playoff league?
Even cheaper than Tin Baby leagues, these are intended mostly as draft practice, or as boredom-busters while you wait for your other league(s) in the lobby to fill.
$10 gets you a set of twins, and you can use up to $6 in bonus money toward your purchase! No regulatory fees added! In other words, if you have some bonus money stored up, it costs only $4 for some fun draft practice and a chance to take home bonus money prizes.
You’ll draft a double-roster in a draftmaster league (no changes to the team after the draft, no setting lineups) that contains only starters. No bench. That means every player contributes every week that he plays.
But the double-roster is actually two teams in one! It’s like getting a two-fer, two teams for $5 each! You’ll draft a red roster and a blue roster for your team, and then each colored roster will compete separately! Blue rosters against blue rosters, red rosters against red rosters. Who can draft the best starting lineup?
You’ll literally participate in a single 12-team serpentine draft, where you’ll get one pick in the first six draft spots (your red team) and a second pick in a spot between 7th and 12th (your blue team).
Don’t worry, it might sound complicated but it’s not. Just do a good job of drafting and you’ll wind up with two good rosters.
And yes, there’s a prize fund! The highest-scoring red team wins $30 in bonus money at the end of the year, and so does the top-scoring blue team. Six owners, $60 in, $60 out, pretty good odds! (Well, full disclaimer here, we don’t pay out any real money in Twin Baby leagues. What goes into the prize fund is bonus money, which spends just as well at DataForce, but can never be withdrawn.)
It gets even better! Win both the red and blue contests and exchange your bonus-money winnings for a free Bronze-level ($100) playoff league!
We’ll only put one Twin Baby league up in the lobby at a time, at the very top, and it fills when 6 people join. When that one fills we’ll put up another, experimenting with different lineups and scoring options, so you can try lots of variations on the cheap by joining Twin Babies. These should move quickly through the lobby at that price, so join the fun!
TE Premium Leagues
Let’s finally give our hard-working tight ends a break, shall we? How about 1.5 points for every catch they make? Maybe they’ll make a few more plays if we give them an added incentive.
I know, a lot of you were lobbying for a full two points per catch when we introduced TE-premium scoring as an alternative option, but we’ve gone with the slightly more popular scoring option. After all, we don’t want to make Trey McBride or Brock Bowers, the de-facto #1 pick right out of the gate, do we?
TE Premium leagues aim to elevate the value of tight ends so that they’re more than an afterthought, and so the true stars at the position have a chance of becoming a first-round pick.
We’ve placed a few of these leagues in the lobby to see if they draw interest, but now is your chance. What sort of league do YOU want us to add, using TE-premium scoring? If we think we can fill it, we’ll add it to the lobby.
Minor Timer Change for Speed Drafts
We’ve made a minor correction to draft penalties for speed drafts.
When you miss your pick, the computer auto-selects a player for you, but in email (slow) drafts, it also decreases your timer for the remainder of the draft. For example, if you’re in an 8-hour draft and you miss your pick (except in the first round, where there’s no penalty) you’ll be drafting on a 7-hour clock the rest of the way. Miss again, and it goes down to 6 hours.
The timer never drops below half, so that caps the penalties to a 4 hour minimum in an 8-hour draft.
Well, we’ve been watching, and it turns out this is just a bit too extreme for speed drafts. These drafts allow only 4 hours per pick, so taking a penalty gets pretty vicious. Three hours per pick can make it pretty easy to oversleep and miss your turn, and what then? You’re down to two hours per pick! Probably you’re stuck doing autopicks the rest of the way.
So, we’re loosening the penalties a bit, just for speed drafts. After you miss two picks, you’ll drop to three hours per pick, and after you miss two more (four total) you’re down to two hours.
App Review Fix
A couple of people told us they “couldn’t rate or review the new app” because the link at the top right (the three vertical dots) didn’t do anything. Sigh, they were right, but we’ve fixed it so it should work now! If you feel so inclined to give us a rating/review for all of our hard work on version 2.0, clicking those dots will now take you to the store where you downloaded the app, so you can leave a rating and/or a review.
Or, if you happen to be on your phone right now, here are the same links:
IOS: Download free from the App Store
Android: Download free from Google Play
Because this was such a huge upgrade, our ranking at the App Store started over, so we’d be especially appreciative if you’d leave a rating (hopefully we deserve five stars!) with your iPhone to help us get the ratings built up again!
The Newbie Corner: 3rd Party Projections
All of our favorite stat projection sources are up and running! Here are the sources available to choose from, directly on the DataForce Fantasy Football site:
- The Wonk Way (premium source – $20)
- Fantasy Pros (free)
- Fantasy Nerds (free)
- 4for4.com (premium source)
- Fantasy Sharks (free)
Premium sources aren’t free, but the others all are! For example, to use 4for4.com, you’ll have to subscribe to their service. Trust me, they’re worth it!
Each suite of projections is tailored specifically to DataForce’s scoring system. This time of year, the easiest way to tap into the power of projections is to enlist the help of The Wonk for drafting. He’s the cute little guy above.
The Wonk lets you select your preferred projection source and then shows you the best available player in your draft for each position, including an overall evaluation. Give him a try! Unless you choose a premium projection source, The Wonk is free to consult!
Here are a few other pages where these projections are directly integrated:
- Your Set Lineups page will have projected week scoring each week, from your chosen source
- Your Matchups page will have lineup comparisons each week with your opponent
- And of course, once the season begins, The Wonk will be busy making waivers and lineup recommendations for you.
For each of these pages, you can choose your projection source. Try them all, switching between source projections on each page, and decide on your favorite. Then go to your Owner->Setup page and select your default projection source.
🏈 Leagues Forming Now at DataForce Fantasy Football! 🏈
Ready to draft? We offer the widest variety with the best prize payouts anywhere!
Come check out what we have available in our lobby and Orphan Marketplace.
Join the fun and draft your winning team today at DataForceFF.com!
Lee Harmon
Commissioner