Guides · Draft strategy
Snake draft strategy by pick position
How your draft slot changes everything: turn math for picks 1-4, 5-8, and 9-12, plus how to plan pairs of picks instead of one at a time.
Think in pairs, not picks
In a snake draft the only number that matters is the gap between your turns. From the fourth slot in a 12-team league you wait 16 picks between rounds one and two. From the eleventh slot you wait four. That gap decides how much risk a "best available" pick carries, because everything you pass has 16 chances to disappear rather than four.
Early slots (1-4): pay for certainty, then absorb the gap
You get the closest thing to a sure starter, then the longest wait in the draft. Plan rounds two and three as a single decision: list the four or five players you would be happy with at the turn, and check how many of them are likely to survive. If the answer is fewer than two, you are relying on luck rather than a plan.
Middle slots (5-8): let the runs tell you where to go
The middle of the board is where positional runs hit hardest, because managers on both sides of you are reacting to the same shortages. The advantage is information: by the time you pick, you can see which position is draining and take the tier that is about to break instead of the name that is one spot higher on a generic list.
Late slots (9-12): draft the tier, not the player
Back-to-back picks let you take two players from the same tier or split across two positions with no exposure in between. The mistake is treating your two picks as independent. Ask which combination of two players leaves the strongest roster, and remember that the second of the pair often decides whether you needed the first.
The one number to watch all draft
Survival probability — the chance a target is still there at your next turn. When a player you want has a low chance of surviving and the next player in his tier has a high one, taking the fragile player first is nearly free. Draft Waiver computes that number live from the actual board, your slot, and how the managers ahead of you have been drafting.