When to use the 1st Wildcard

 

A lot of self-important twerps in the FPL online forums like to pontificate that there are rigid rules for this - that you cannot possibly use your first Wildcard before 'the first big turn in the fixtures' (whenever they deem that to be...), or not before some arbitrary, distant date like... Gameweek 15.

That's all nonsense, of course.

The answer is, you play it when you need to.

Certainly, it's nice to be able to hang on to it as long as possible. 

In an ideal world, I like to keep mine right up until the GW19 cutoff for using it (unless it's a year when we have the midwinter Asian and African Cups to worry about, in which case it can be handy to drop it a bit earlier, to swap out the players departing for those tournaments). We tend to get a lot of injuries during the winter fixture logjam, and the second half of the season (as the fixtures reset) does tend to form a fairly distinct new phase of action; so, there are good reasons for fancying a major rebuild around then.

And there shouldn't be any reason to want to do so any earlier than that - unless things have gone badly wrong.

But, alas, in FPL things very commonly do go very badly wrong.

Indeed, that is most likely to happen right at the start of the season! We're all largely betting blind as we go into Gameweek 1. We don't really know which players or teams are going to be in form; and there are usually some big surprises in store for us. Our initial squad is nothing but a collection of hopeful guesses; and many of those guesses will turn out to be wrong. Sometimes, nearly all of them will! Moreover, injuries early in the season tend to be extremely common - as players push themselves just a little bit too hard when not yet quite fully match-fit; when things really go badly for you, you can easily lose 4 or 5 players to early injuries in the first few weeks of the season.

If that happens, it's perfectly reasonable to go with a Wildcard very early in the season - to rectify those unfortunate wrong guesses and/or strokes of cruel fortune.

If you've had a disastrous opening to the season, you should probably try to hang tough for a few weeks, to see how everyone's form develops; Gameweek 1 isn't always a reliable guide to how things are going to go. Indeed, many of the top clubs have a bit of a habit of being slow out of the blocks, and may only start to show their true capability after four or five weeks, or more. So, it's worth hanging on a bit, to assess the situation. Gameweek 5 is still pretty early to play a Wildcard; but I can see that really exteme circumstances might sometimes seem to warrant using it in Gameweek 4 or Gameweek 3.....

My basic rule-of-thumb is: If the number of changes you desperately want to make (injured already, transferred out of the league, unexpectedly not starting, or just in really poor form) MINUS the number of Free Transfers you have available is MORE THAN 5, then it's legitimate to resort to the Wildcard.

A Wildcard is typically used to make at least 6 or 7 or 8 transfers. It is a bit of a waste to use one for any less than that.

If the number produced by my formula is only 4 or 5, probably not all of those changes are absolutely essential (probably 1 or 2 of those unwanted players are at least starting - and might yet rediscover their scoring boots), and you could take a chance on leaving your bench empty for a week or two. You could even consider taking a few 'hits' - spending points for additional transfers. But in all probability, you can just be patient, and make the desired changes with Free Transfers over the next few weeks. Even if your surplus of needed changes over available transfers is 6 or 7, it might still be a marginal call whether the Wildcard is the best option; don't use it rashly.

In a nutshell, you drop your first Wildcard as late as you can,... but as early as you need to.