Middle Earth Fantasy Football World Cup

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

Of course, trades have been open since when the competiton began.

It occurs to me that, during the Group rounds, trades should only be permitted at the end of each round of matches. Otherwise a team could score points from one player, transfer him or her out, and go on to score points from another player in the same position in the same round.

Or is that the idea ...?

[Nogrod]

I guess the idea was that during the round-robins one could change any player up to 10 trades whenever one wished.

But after that stricter rules would apply.

So one wouldn't be wise in changing half of her/his squad after every game as s/he might then face a situation where the ten changes are used up and half of the teams one's players are collected from have dropped from the competition...

[Nogrod]

To think it again... ten changes surely is a lot and would allow that kind of "un-sportsmanlike" behaviour.

Happily no one has gone in to that this far...

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

... s/he might then face a situation where the ten changes are used up and half of the teams one's players are collected from have dropped from the competition ...

Which raises an important question. Are the ten trades valid until the start of the first matches of the knock-out rounds? In other words, do we still have the ten trades (or whatver is left of them) to transfer players in and out after we know who has qualified and who hasn't, or are we then restricted to the two each round?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

do we still have the ten trades (or whatver is left of them) to transfer players in and out after we know who has qualified and who hasn't, or are we then restricted to the two each round?

How I see it: you have ten changes during the Group rounds. You may change ten players during that phase and if you don't, all these "unused" changes will be lost.

At the knock-out phase there will be different rules.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

How I see it: you have ten changes during the Group rounds. You may change ten players during that phase and if you don't, all these "unused" changes will be lost.

I suspect that you are right.

I foresee a flurry of transfer activity shortly ...

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

after we know who has qualified and who hasn't

But this is important... Surely we shouldn't be required to make our final changes before the last matches of the round-robins! That would mean that with all the teams who have already played two matches the trading window would be closing in a day or two - and we wouldn't even know which as the fixtures have not be given to us in advance!

So changes (those that go within the ten for the Group-stage) must be allowed after the last result of the round-robins are played... At least they should be...

Surely they should be made before the knock-out phase begins...

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

But this is important... Surely we shouldn't be required to make our final changes before the last matches of the round-robins!

Why not? Once each team has played two matches, it should be possible to predict with relative certainty who will progress and who will not (some teams will already have qualified). And, while (for some teams) there is no absolute certainty, it adds an additional element of skill.

[Nogrod]

A good question... and a reasonable answer.

But I would surely like to know the official answer before any of the teams plays their third match...