The Chaos That Is 2024 (Round 0 Explained)

If you’ve been sleeping under a rock (or just have any young children) you might have somehow missed the fact that the AFL, in all their wisdom, have added another round to the start of the season that is called ‘Opening Round’ or Round 0. With only 8 teams playing. Why? Money, obviously. But what does that mean for us, or SuperCoach players everywhere? Well, it’s chaos. It’s chaos because those 8 teams now need to have byes throughout the season (rounds 2, 3, 5 and 6) to be exact. Take a look at the byes below.

So what does this mean for Injustice League? Well, the FAIREST way to handle this would be to start the season in Round 0 so that all drafted players would play an equal amount of games.

HOWEVER, SuperCoach is run by buffoons and this isn’t even an option. So Injustice League will be starting in round 1 and anyone who has players from the following teams will get 1 less game out of each of their players than those who don’t:

• Brisbane
• Carlton
• Collingwood
• Demons
• Giants
• Tigers
• Suns
• Swans

But luckily, like all byes, we can limit the number of counted players, right? Wrong. SuperCoach doesn’t even count these as bye rounds. So if an IJL member can somehow manage to draft a team with no players from the above teams, they’re going to have an advantage in the early rounds.

Lessons Learned and Immediately Disregarded (Team Sizes and Structure)

Last season Injustice League moved to a permanent 18 team structure, and as part of that we also reduced the number of players on each team’s bench to 3. This was intended to encourage team trading, and it worked. There were more team trades last year than any season prior. So with the success of the reduced bench space last season I’m happy to announce that this year the bench spots will be… increased to a record high of FIVE. It’s not ideal, but this one of the ways we’re attempting to counter the mass amount of unofficial byes this season.

Another thing we’re doing this season is reducing the number of midfielders from 7 to 6, so the team structure will now be:

6 Defenders 6 Midfielders 1 Ruck 6 Forwards 5 Bench Players 1 FLEX player

This means that despite removing one midfielder, there’ll be 25 players drafted per team, more than any in history of Injustice League meaning (presumably) the longest draft we’ve ever experienced.

Wait, what was that? (FLEX Player)

Uhh yeah, this season SuperCoach added a FLEX player which they describe as this