RFW Draft Results/Analysis for Weeks of 7/15/13

{Current Mood: Shiny}

Good Evening,

And welcome to another set of RFW draft reviews and game recaps.

When we last left our heroes (in this case, that would be The Joan and I), they were in the midst of a heated battle in their weekly matchup. My Goatface Killa squad had a 14.1 point advantage over The Joan and Weed the People heading into Friday night’s blue show broadcast. With a 108.8 to 76.9 victory on Friday night, I avoided a sweep and picked up the weekly game win by the final score of 235.9 to 189.9. A 46-point victory that makes me feel a tiny bit better about my 57.75 point loss to her in our nightly matchup.

She received the first pick in this week’s weekly draft as a result with me receiving the first pick in the nightly draft.

MORE RECAPPING GOODNESS

Main Raw lineup (7/8/13): Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, CM Punk, Dean Ambrose, Alberto Del Rio, AJ Lee, Kaitlyn, Vickie Guerrero, Paul Heyman, & Justin Roberts. Total Points: 162.15

Main Weekly Lineup (7/8/13 to 7/12/13): Orton, Ambrose, Bryan, Del Rio, Dolph Ziggler, AJ, Kaitlyn, Heyman, Roberts, & Lilian Garcia. Total Points: 213.65

My 213.65 point score that my main weekly lineup netted for me was good but not great in comparison to my fellow players. It got me a third place finish in the Reedy Show weekly freeroll that was won by their resident Diva Michelle. I also finished 8th in a 13-person weekly freeroll as well as 4th in a six-person freeroll that was almost won by The Joan who only finished 2.7 points out of first. My 98.3 points I got from the Smackdown broadcast killed my chances of doing more damage with my lineup.

I should also note that I made some last second changes to both of my main lineups last week. I replaced Christian with Del Rio in all of my nightly games and I replaced him with Ambrose in all of my weekly games. It was a 14.35 point swing in my favor for the nightly matchups as leaving Christian in would have caused me to lose all but one of the four games that I won. However, if I had replaced Ambrose instead of Christian, I would have won the one nightly game that I failed to get first place in.

In another great example of how these last minute types of changes can backfire, I took Christian and his 34.25 total points out of my weekly lineups in favor of Ambrose and the one, single, solitary point he got me for the entire week. My potential 246.9 score would have won me the Reedy Show weekly freeroll and moved me up to fourth (of 18) and third (of 6) in the other two games I entered. I suppose these things happen.

PPV RECAP

Main PPV Lineup: Bryan, Orton, Punk, RVD, Wade, Ambrose, AJ, Kaitlyn, Brad Maddox, & Vickie. Total Points: 184.1.

Well, I thought I had a good plan. Load up on Money in the Bank competitors and hope that I received a butt ton of points.

My strategy was predicated on me having both MITB winners in my lineup as well as those matches opening and closing the PPV. This was a risky strategy being that there was no way of knowing which matches would open and close the show and RFW hadn’t scored any ladder matches up to that point. The potential reward you get with this strategy is bloated point totals due to weapon usage and the peripheral stats.

It was very interesting to note that the blue briefcase MITB competitors scored much better than the All-Stars competing for the red briefcase. Even more interesting was that Damien Sandow (only 25.2 points), who won the blue briefcase, was outscored by Cody Rhodes (29), Antonio Cesaro (29.75), Ambrose (32.65), & Jack Swagger (32.9).

Looking at these scores I discovered that picking the winner of this match wasn’t nearly as important as picking the people who were going to get you the most points, which wound up being a total crapshoot. People who put Swagger and Cesaro in their lineups as cheaper options benefited from the 12 points they each got for double team moves.

On the other hand, Sandow saw his score insanely bloated by variables: 2 points for a pre-match promo, 5 for being the opening match, 2 for a match bonus, 2 for winning by the required stipulation, & 3 for drawing blood. That’s over half of his point total and it was gained via crapshoot stats. He was in only one of the 41 lineups I looked at between the seven PPV games I entered and the guy who used him finished in 13th out of 18 people. Further proof to the idea that you don’t have to pick the match winners correctly in certain situations to wind up with a good score.

I also thought I had an edge having four guys get three points each for being the main event match. I threw in two guys from the blue briefcase MITB match and got 10 bonus points. That proves the value of being able to accurately predict the opening match and why it’s more important to accurately predict than the main event matches. I saw a lot of people use both Cena and Henry in their lineups thinking they would be the main event. Cena (28.4 points) still scored higher than all but one of the All-Star MITB participants. Who knew?

I find it amazing that the All-Star MITB wrestlers scored so much lower than the blue briefcase MITB guys. The fear I had with my strategy was that, while there would be a lot of points given out for weapon usage, they would be too evenly distributed between the multiple match participants to matter. That’s precisely what happened and it definitely screwed up my plan.

Where the All-Star MITB guys got the majority of their points was through strikes. Daniel Bryan (23.55) had 11.8 total strike points, almost half of his total point output. Orton (24.25) had 7.1 total strike points, Punk (20.45) had 9. Sheamus, whose 31.35 points led the All-Stars, recorded 8.7 total strike points and 4.5 points for weapon usage. He was also only in one of the 41 lineups. Quizzical since these kinds of matches favor his brawling style. Too bad I’m realizing that a day late. 

Another sobering statistic about this PPV: Randy Orton, who has been on arguably the hottest streak of his career, won the All-Stars MITB match with a score of 24.25. It was only the second time since the last PPV that he failed to crack 25 points and the third time since the May 13th edition of Raw. He recorded the second highest score of that particular match, which main evented the PPV, but it would have put him behind five of the seven participants in the blue briefcase MITB contest.

Ryback (24.5), Dolph Ziggler (24.5), Curtis Axel (32.3), and John Cena all outscored the guy who won the main event match. That tells you all you need to know about how my strategy worked out.

Also interesting to note that Alberto Del Rio’s 40.5 points led all PPV scorers. Why I continue to bet against him in title match situations is really beyond me. Also, why I continue to use Wade Barrett (21.1 points) when he continues to fail to give me the points needed to justify his price tag is baffling. At least Vickie got me seven points for being on the pre-show and post-show commentary team and that super deep sleeper pick wasn’t a total wash.

LEADERBOARD UPDATE

Entering this week’s set of drafts, I was pleased to see that I retained my status of #1 ranked RFW fantasy player...... IN THE WORLD! 

Unfortunately, after last night’s set of games, I relinquished the title yet again to TheGame316 who moved up to #1 with 15,110 points. I’m not too far behind though at 15,056. 54 points out of #1 with the Weekly games yet to be finished scoring. So we’ll see how the results of the blue show alters those standings.

The Joan has broken 10,000 points and holds down the fort at #3 with 10,983 points.

Unfortunately, Michele of Reedy Show fame was knocked out of the Top 6. She’s still holding up strong at #8 though with 3,784 points. PSS’s Daniel has moved up to the #6 spot with a total score of 4,206. Rounding out the Top 12 are Reedy Show stalwarts Mr. Trivia (#9 – 3,257 points), Kenjamin Reedy (#11 – 2,706 points), and Diamond Dave (#12 – 2,668 points).

And now… WE DRAFT!

RAW DRAFT (7/15/13)

RAY (1st pick)

1) Randy Orton (#1 pick) (53.1 points)

2) RVD (41.35)

3) Brad Maddox (12)

4) Alberto Del Rio (39)

5) AJ Lee (3)

6) Roman Reigns (3.4)

7) Sheamus (6)

8) Dolph Ziggler (18.35)

9) Zeb Coulter (12)

10) Kaitlyn (0)

Total: 188.2

JOAN  

1) Daniel Bryan (#2 pick) (6 points)

2) Paul Heyman (1)

3) CM Punk (4)

4) Justin Roberts (7)

5) Layla (0)

6) Dean Ambrose (1.2)

7) Curtis Axel (0)

8) Alicia Fox (0)

9) Jerry Lawler (22)

10) Luke Harper (-1)

Total: 40.2

Analysis: Ouch. That’s really all that needs to be said here. When Jerry Lawler outscores all nine of your other players combined, you’re in for a bad time. When two of your players outscore your opponent’s entire team by themselves (with Del Rio being 1.2 points away from doing so too), you’re going to win 10 times out of nine.

The Raw after a PPV like MITB is always a tough one to pick lineups for. There’s no way of knowing which injury reports are overblown, which are legit, who’s healthy enough to wrestle that night, and who isn’t. You really have to guess and pick the guys you think give you the best chance at a long, points-filled match.

Randy Orton became the first person not named Daniel Bryan to be drafted first overall by one of us. And as long as Orton is holding that briefcase and putting up 50-plus points against the Fandango’s of the world, he deserves #1 pick consideration.

In other news, I feel good that I finally ended Roman Reigns’ five draft streak of not being selected. He gave me 3.4 whole points to show for it. Joy. We were also both scared away by the news of a possible Christian concussion, which ended his six draft streak of getting selected. He still jumped up one spot in the ADP rankings though so there’s that.

My Main Lineup: Bryan, Orton, Punk, Del Rio, Sheamus, RVD, AJ, Kaitlyn, Roberts, Maddox. Total Points: 171.45

Not bad considering I only got 16 points out of Bryan, Punk, & Sheamus. Choosing guys that put up three of the highest point totals of the night bailed me out here. And Brad Maddox got me a nice total as well. If Bryan, Punk, or Sheamus wound up having a match, this lineup would have been unstoppable. I feel like I played the right people though.

Despite that small caveat, this lineup helped me win a four person game and place second in three others (out of 3, 7, and 10 people respectively).

WEEKLY DRAFT (7/15/13 to 7/19/13)

JOAN (1st pick) 

1) Randy Orton (#1 pick)

2) Alberto Del Rio

3) Paul Heyman

4) Brad Maddox

5) Lilian Garcia

6) Kaitlyn

7) Layla

8) Damien Sandow

9) Dean Ambrose

10) Dolph Ziggler

Total after Raw: 141.45

RAY

1) Daniel Bryan

2) Weekly Ref

3) RVD

4) AJ Lee

5) Zeb Coulter

6) Roman Reigns

7) Seth Rollins

8) Curtis Axel

9) Justin Roberts

10) Natalya

Total after Raw: 88.95

Analysis: At least it isn’t a 148-point lead, but this is still ouch-worthy. I’m going to need a historically epic comeback to avoid falling to 5-2 against The Joan in our weekly head-to-head matchups.

Literally the only people saving me from drafting a huge, embarrassing failure of a team (at the moment, at least) are RVD, who has almost half of my points from last night, and the Weekly Ref. 

By the way, $8,800 for 41.35 points seems like a fair trade-off to me. Makes me happy I snagged RVD in both of these drafts and plugged him into all of my lineups.

I was kind of banking on a tag team title rematch between The Shield and The Usos, but we could still see it happen on the blue show. Sometimes you have to take risks like these when 92.1 points get drafted in the first three picks.

LoL at Orton and Berto outscoring my entire lineup by themselves.

My Main Lineup: Bryan, Orton, Del Rio, Sheamus, RVD, AJ, Kaitlyn, Weekly Ref, Zeb, Maddox. Total Points: 187.45

I had Justin Roberts in Zeb’s place in one of the two weekly freerolls I entered and didn’t get to switch him out before Raw started, but I only lost five points plus whatever Zeb gets on Friday night’s blue show broadcast. 182.45 would still be the highest recorded Monday night score out of all the lineups I logged so I’ll definitely take that.

My hope is that Bryan and Sheamus wind up wrestling on Smackdown since they didn’t wrestle on Raw. I won’t count on it, but it would be nice.

ADP UPDATE

Without any more of this ado nonsense, an updated list of the top 20 RFW competitors by draft position.

1.1)  Daniel Bryan

1.2)  Randy Orton

2.1) RVD (+18)

2.2) Alberto Del Rio (-1)

1.3) Dean Ambrose (-1)

2.3) Weekly Referee (+2)

1.4) Curtis Axel (-2)

2.4) Christian (+1)

1.5) Kane (+1)

2.5) Chris Jericho (+1)

1.6) Roman Reigns (-5)

2.6) Seth Rollins (-5)

1.7) Paul Heyman (+2)

2.7) Fandango (-2)

1.8) Ryback (-2)

2.8) AJ Lee (-2)

1.9) CM Punk

2.9) John Cena

1.10) Bray Wyatt

2.10) Kaitlyn (-4)

As you can probably tell, the plus and minus signs represent how many spots a particular player rose or fell. RVD was ranked outside the top 20 last week as a result of never having been drafted before last night and then went both third and sixth overall. This shot him at least 18 spots up to #3 on the ADP list.

For the purposes of this list, I’ll just assume that anyone outside the top 20 has the same ADP of 21. If I tried to organize everyone who’s been drafted into a list, it would take way more time than I currently have to spare.  

In order for RVD to make the list, someone had to get bumped. That wound up being Alicia Fox who wound up officially dropping eight spots from #20 to #28.

OK, so I do have a list of the order in which everyone who’s been drafted is ranked. I feel like posting it would be a moot point, unless anyone is legitimately interested in seeing it. 

No one has really moved around too much over the past week. Nobody moved up more than two spots and aside from Reigns, Rollins, & Kaitlyn, nobody moved down more than two spots either.

The real movement is coming from the people outside the top 20 who are trying to maneuver their way into the party. Maybe over the next few weeks we’ll see some new names in the top 20. Unless we decide, all of a sudden, that drafting Fandango and Ryback is conducive to success.

People drafted 12 times out of 12: Bryan, AJ, Orton, Heyman, Kaitlyn, & Justin Roberts.

People drafted 11 times out of 12: Ambrose, Axel, & Del Rio

First time draftees: RVD & Luke Harper

People finally drafted more than once: Zeb Coulter

FINAL NOTE

So apparently I have two RFW accounts. One of which I made the night after Wrestlemania and is under my regular, everyday email account. When my email was given to the RFW folks so that they could set me up in the test run Reedy Show freerolls, they were given my Yahoo email address which I barely used to that point.

Apparently I signed into my old, previously untouched account last night when I drafted my teams against The Joan. I thought it was weird that my account was only entered into two games and I had no money in it. So I entered a few more games under that account just to cover my bases. Games that I, unbeknownst to me, had already entered under my original account.

So if you see Goatface Killa and RayRayMarz entered into the same games for this week, that’s my fault and I apologize for the confusion/inconvenience/making it seem like I'm trying to cheat the system. At the end of the week, I’m withdrawing whatever money I win out of that account and deleting it so as to avoid any more confusion.

If I had drafted my teams under the correct account name, I would still be the #1 ranked RFW player……. IN THE WORLD!

My brain is fried. I need a vacation. Yes, I just got back from a vacation but I need another one already.

KThanksBye

-Ray Ray Marz-