Do Wilcard transfers affect prices??

 I don't know.

I don't believe anyone (not ordinary FPL managers struggling with the game, anyway) does know for sure. Although a lot of people have convinced themselves that they do know - on no obvious basis. The idea that transfers made under a Wildcard are excluded from affecting the price-change mechanism in the game seems to be no more than a pervasive myth.

FPL Towers declines to publish any rules on how the price-change mechanism works (because, presumably, they don't want people to get too good at 'gaming the system'). And none of the online guides I've looked at over the years, guides which claim to have deduced the main 'rules' from close observation of price changes over an extended period, has ever suggested that Wildcard transfers are excluded from the process. Moreover, FPL frequently makes tweaks to this mechanism, without announcing or explaining them; so, even if such a 'rule' might have been in place at some point in the past, even last season, it might not necessarily still be in effect now.  So, nobody can really know for sure; and anyone who claims they do is a victim of self-delusion (a sadly common ailment in the FPL community).

I would imagine that this notion arose because it is fairly obvious that transfers made while a Free Hit chip is in play are so excluded from affecting prices; and so it might seem reasonable to suppose that the similar Wildcard chip is subject to the same proviso.

But there is a very obvious difference with the Free Hit: those are not 'real transfers' - they're all going to be automatically revoked within a matter of days.

With the Wildcard, however, the expectation is that all changes may persist indefinitely; and almost certainly some will remain in place for a long time, perhaps for the remainder of the season. And even those which are rapidly reversed, while the Wildcard is still in play, are nevertheless reversed by a conscious decision of the manager playing the game - based on his appraisal of unfolding circumstances. Even if a transfer has only been 'in place' for 24 hours, it is still a 'real transfer'; there is no good reason for disregarding its possible impact on overall ownership levels and price-change cues just because it was made under a Wildcard.

The purported rationale for such a strange and pointless rule is that it is intended to dissuade people from trading for profit on their Wildcard (particularly over an extended gap between gameweeks, such as the current extra-long international break - as I discussed at some length this morning).

There are two problems with this explanation. 

First, individuals trading for profit, or even quite large groups of managers trading for profit, are not generally going to have any decisive impact on price-changes. You usually need huge numbers of managers making the same trade within a short space of time to trigger a change. There are only going to be very rare gameweeks where you do have a very substantial percentage of managers all using their Wildcards at once - such that this might become an issue.

Second, since a Wildcard can be played retroactively at any point before the next gameweek deadline, such a 'deterrent policy' can be easily circumvented by paying points for the transfers initially, and then wiping out that points-spend with a subsequent playing of the chip. [There is now in theory a cap of 20 transfers per gameweek - which is not applied to the Wildcard or Free Hit chips; but that really is a huge number of transfers to make, even in a very extended gameweek. When I have tried speculative trading, I don't think I've come anywhere close to making that number of transfers. So, the prospect of being able to use 'unlimited transfers' with the Wildcard isn't much of a factor in seeking to guard against this supposed 'abuse', I don't think.]

My own - yes, superficial, anecdotal - experience of trying out Wildcard trading over international breaks (when, presumably, very large numbers of managers - perhaps responsible for the majority of the transfer volume in these periods - are indeed on their Wildcards) is that Wildcard trades do appear to play into the price-mechanism. (There wouldn't be such large volumes of transfers every single day unless a lot of them were being produced by Wildcards. There may, of course, be a further question as to whether Wildcard transfers - and perhaps Free Hit transfers also - are publicly counted in the official transfer numbers, but kept apart from a second, secret number of 'real' transfers. But I don't think the denizens of FPL Towers are capable of that level of sophistication in their cruelty - or simply in their administration. I repeat that my impression has been that the large numbers of transfers we see over an extended gameweek like this must be largely due to Wildcards in play,... and they do seem to be affecting price changes.) But, like I said at the outset, I can't be sure; and there is really no way to tell.

However, it doesn't really any difference. Whether or not you yourself are playing your Wildcard is utterly irrelevant to the price-change mechanism in the grand scheme of things. The only factor that would make a difference is if very large numbers of other people are also playing their Wildcards at the same time. And if that is the case,.... well, FPL Towers would be rotten kill-joys if they excluded those transfers from the price-changes. But... maybe they do, maybe they don't.  So what??  We seek to trade-for-profit based on the transfers we can see happening (and our own appreciation of which players are likely to become popular or unpopular). We don't know who those people making the trades are, we don't know if they're on a Wildcard or not; we just have to accept the transfer numbers that the game publishes, and act on those. We may resent that the actual number of transfers may be much higher and is not being fully counted, we may bridle at the thought that our own - and our fellow Wildcarders' - transfers are perhaps not contributing to the price shifts we hope to benefit from. But we have no way of knowing what's going on behind the scenes at FPL Towers; we have to accept the transfer picture and the likelihood of price changes that is presented to us.

The common idea that Wildcard transfers don't affect prices is not only - in all probability - an unfounded myth; it is, ultimately, utterly unimportant, it has no bearing at all on how we approach trading-for-profit on a Wildcard.

The allure of the 'LONG Wildcard' again

Some folks like to play their Wildcard when there's an interruption in the regular Premier League schedule - such as now, when we're getting an especially long 'international break', nearly 3 weeks with no Premier League football. [This is a very slightly adapted re-post of a piece I first wrote for the international break we had this February.]

There are four possible reasons for this preference (though two, no, three of them are pretty frivolous):

1)  You can take advantage of a 'best of both worlds' situation, being able to make transfers early (as soon as the deadline for the current gameweek has passed!) to avoid possible adverse price changes on players you're interested in - while having the security of being able to swap them out again, if they get injured before the next gameweek deadline. 

2) Since these long gaps between deadlines increase the risk of being hit by multiple injuries (there are invariably other games - European ties, domestic cups, or internationals - going on in the interval between regular league matches; and training seems to be becoming more hazardous than playing, in the modern game!), some may find it reassuring to have a Wildcard in play so that they can easily address any such developing crisis - even if they weren't hankering to make any active, improving changes to their squad.

3)  Some enjoy having the leisure to contemplate a major squad rebuild over a longer period of time. Some, indeed, find it difficult to visualise what different combinations of players would look like (and what they'd collectively cost...), and so actually use the 'Transfers' page for trying out multiple 'drafts' of possible new squads. And they can't get enough of this pleasant diversion: they want to drag it out over days and days.

4)  And some pursue 'trading for profit', focusing on trying to build their squad value rather than necessarily improving the total points-potential of their selection. Because there is more time for transfers to happen, and maybe more transfers needing to happen because of the longer period of time elapsed leading to a larger accumulation of injury problems, and because of the probability that more people than usual are using their Wildcards in a gameweek like this,... a long gameweek will tend to have a higher volume of transfer traffic, and this will result in a greater number of price changes. There are various FPL resource sites online that attempt to predict when price changes are imminent (and this year, the FPL website has added one of its own; but there's no 'rocket science' about that - it's fairly easy to anticipate which players are likely to be suddenly popular or unpopular, and you can check in on their recent transfers numbers regularly to see just how big a swing in ownership they are experiencing. 

Transfer trading for profit like this has become more difficult in recent years, as FPL has tweaked its 'algorithm' in a way that makes it rather less easy to trigger a price-change (in either direction), and so we now very rarely see multiple changes in the same gameweek. And of course, you need a player to go up in price twice in order to be able to make a profit on them, because the dreaded 'transfer tax' limits you to half the value of any increase in price since you bought him (rounded down!) when you sell a player on again; hence, you don't earn anything on a first increase in price, nor any extra on a third increase; and you can't reach a fourth increase during such a period of Wildcard trading, as the number of price changes within one gameweek is capped at three. However, where there is an extended gameweek, there is an increased chance that a player's price may rise twice (or twice more, if you were unlucky enough to miss out on his first price rise at the start of the gameweek; although the threshold for each successive price rise within the same gameweek is set far higher, so it is almost unheard-of to see three price rises in one gameweek), thus enabling you to take a quick 100k profit by selling him on immediately. 

In practice, these days it is very difficult to realise a rise in squad value of more than a few hundred thousand through this exercise. And it does take a lot of effort, in scrutinising the transfer numbers every day, and perhaps making dozens of speculative transfers over the course of the gameweek (most of which will return no profit).

You might also be able to take advantage of selling-and-buying-back a player who's falling in price to boost your squad value, by buying him back cheaper than you sold him. That is a little easier to achieve than chasing price rises on new purchases, but.... you rarely want to be buying players who are falling in value!

[I only discovered recently that there is a widespread concern in FPL-land that Wildcard transfers supposedly don't count towards price-changes; and many people use this as a reason for following the risky strategem of initially paying for their mutliple 'long gameweek' transfers (to try to make sure that they will count towards official, potentially price-influencing transfer numbers), and only playing their Wildcard shortly before the deadline (to cancel the huge points spend on all the transfers they've accumulated). This, of course, is a very hazardous procedure, because the FPL website might crash close to the deadline (it often has in the past!), or you might lose your phone, or your Internet connection,... or you might simply forget... and be left with a huge 'bill' of points needlessly spent on futile speculations in the transfer market.

Since FPL Towers are extremely secretive about the 'rules' on price changes, we have no way of knowing for sure whether this notion is true or not; though I believe it to be mistaken, unfounded.  I think it would be impactical of implementation, and would serve no useful purpose. And it does not accord with my own observations of frequent transfer trading over international breaks. Ultimately, though, as I argue in that extended post on the issue that I just linked at the start of this parenthesis, it just doesn't matter. We look at how prices are actually shifting, and predicted to shift, based on the announced numbers of 'eligible' transfers, whatever they are. As with all things FPL, we are at the mercy of whatever figures FPL Towers chooses to give us, and we just have to work with that!]

So, really, only the first of those reasons is potentially a good one for considering a 'long' gameweek to be a tempting opportunity to trigger your use of the Wildcard.

But even that is a weak reason. And it is, almost always, going to be outweighed by the fact that, as I explained here a little while back, any interruption of the regular league schedule disrupts a club's usual training and preparation routines, and thus makes their form upon the resumption of league games more uncertain; and...  you don't want uncertainty when you're planning a major rebuild of your squad for a long run of games (or, for the 2nd Wildcard, for the whole remainder of the season).

I rather feel that - in an 'ideal world', anyway - it's still too early to be contempating using the 1st Wildcard. We haven't had time yet to evaluate the possible impact of changes made in the recent transfer window. And there are no major 'turns' in fixture difficulty for a few weeks yet. It's always better to hang on to a Wildcard for as long as you can - unless there's a pressing need to use it.

Better to hold off a while longer, if you can; but I can see how it's getting mighty tempting at the moment. (I might even succumb to the impulse myself....)

The key argument for waiting a bit longer this year is the unprecedented length of this first international break: the Premier League schedule being suspended for three full weeks. Not only does this increase the possibility of us being hit by multiple injuries before Gameweek 6 (some of which might perhaps not become apparent until after the gameweek deadline!), I fear the risk also of 'stored up' injuries: players returning from international duty with undisclosed minor injury niggles, or simply being caught out by the sudden resumption of much more intense club training, and breaking down ahead of Gameweek 7 or Gameweek 8; that could well be more of a problem than immediate injuries going into Gameweek 6. And then there's the perennial problem that players who've had particularly long flights back - all of the South Americans, usually! and Chris Wood!! - are often unavailable for the first weekend back because of fatigue/jet-lag; so, an optimal Wildcard squad for the next several gameweeks might find itself being short of a full starting eleven, or at least short of a full bench, in Gameweek 6.

Perhaps even more importantly, the long interruption in regular club training is going to be hugely disruptive of everyone's form (that's likely to be a particularly big issue for teams like Liverpool, Chelsea, and Manchester United, who are already struggling for consistency and need a lot of intensive coaching to fix their problems). We just don't know how anyone's going to be playing when we kick off again in October, the season is essentially re-setting and starting again from scratch. And on top of that, we have a number of possibly significant 'turns' in relative fixture-difficulty looking likely over the next few gameweeks after the resumption. 

So, it is very much looking as if the 'ideal' time to play the first Wildcard this year would be in late October or early November. And it would almost certainly have been worth hoarding up a few Free Transfers in case you need them to fix problems going into Gameweek 6.

A LONG Wildcard?

Some folks like to play their Wildcard when there's a little interruption in the regular Premier League schedule - such as now, when we're skipping a weekend to make way for the 4th Round of the FA Cup, giving us 11 days between the FPL deadlines for Gameweeks 26 and 27. (Sometimes, when there's an international break, we may even get a 14 or 15 day gap between deadlines.)

There are four possible reasons for this preference (though two, no, three of them are pretty frivolous):

1)  You can take advantage of a 'best of both worlds' situation, being able to make transfers early (as soon as the deadline for the current gameweek has passed!) to avoid possible adverse price changes on players you're interested in - while having the security of being able to swap them out again, if they get injured before the next gameweek deadline. 

2) Since these long gaps between deadlines increase the risk of being hit by multiple injuries (there are invariably other games - European ties, domestic cups, or internationals - going on in the interval between regular league matches; and training seems to be becoming more hazardous than playing, in the modern game!), some may find it reassuring to have a Wildcard in play so that they can easily address any such developing crisis - even if they weren't hankering to make any active, improving changes to their squad.

3)  Some enjoy having the leisure to contemplate a major squad rebuild over a longer period of time. Some, indeed, find it difficult to visualise what different combinations of players would look like (and what they'd collectively cost...), and so actually use the 'Transfers' page for trying out multiple 'drafts' of possible new squads. And they can't get enough of this pleasant diversion: they want to drag it out over days and days.

4)  And some pursue 'trading for profit', focusing on trying to build their squad value rather than necessarily improving the total points-potential of their selection. Because there is more time for transfers to happen, and maybe more transfers needing to happen because of the longer period of time elapsed leading to a larger accumulation of injury problems, and because of the probability that more people than usual are using their Wildcards in a gameweek like this,... a long gameweek will tend to have a higher volume of transfer traffic, and this will result in a greater number of price changes. There are various FPL resource sites online that attempt to predict when price changes are imminent; but there's no 'rocket science' about that - it's fairly easy to anticipate which players are likely to be suddenly popular or unpopular, and you can check in on their recent transfers numbers regularly to see just how big a swing in ownership they are experiencing. 

Transfer trading for profit like this has become more difficult in recent years, as FPL has tweaked its 'algorithm' in a way that makes it rather less easy to trigger a price-change (in either direction), and so we now very rarely see multiple changes in the same gameweek. And of course, you need a player to go up in price twice in order to be able to make a profit on them, because the dreaded 'transfer tax' limits you to half the value of any increase in price since you bought him (rounded down!) when you sell a player on again; hence, you don't earn anything on a first increase in price, nor any extra on a third increase; and you can't reach a fourth increase during such a period of Wildcard trading, as the number of price changes within one gameweek is capped at three. However, where there is an extended gameweek, there is an increased chance that a player's price may rise twice (or twice more, if you were unlucky enough to miss out on his first price rise at the start of the gameweek; although the threshold for each successive price rise within the same gameweek is set far higher, so it is almost unheard-of to see three price rises in one gameweek), thus enabling you to take a quick 100k profit by selling him on immediately. 

In practice, these days it is very difficult to realise a rise in squad value of more than a few hundred thousand through this exercise. And it does take a lot of effort, in scrutinising the transfer numbers every day, and perhaps making dozens of speculative transfers over the course of the gameweek (most of which will return no profit).

So, really, only the first of those reasons is potentially a good one for considering a 'long' gameweek to be a tempting opportunity to trigger your use of the Wildcard.

But even that is a weak reason. And it is, almost always, going to be outweighed by the fact that, as I explained here a little while back, any interruption of the regular league schedule disrupts a club's usual training and preparation routines, and thus makes their form upon the resumption of league games more uncertain; and...  you don't want uncertainty when you're planning a major rebuild of your squad for the remainder of the season.

I rather feel that - in an 'ideal world', anyway - it's still too early to be contempating using the 2nd Wildcard. We haven't had time yet to evaluate the possible impact of changes made in the recent transfer window; and we've just seen a couple more managerial sackings (and we might yet see one or two more). And there are no major 'turns' in fixture difficulty likely for several weeks yet. It's always better to hang on to a Wildcard for as long as you can - unless there's a pressing need to use it.

However,... a possible factor that might tempt people to risk such an 'early' Wildcard now is the increasing attractiveness of some high-priced players who haven't previously been worth having: Wirtz finally getting into his groove at Liverpool, Palmer starting to pick up regular points with Chelsea again (though he still doesn't look fully fit to me), Semenyo settling in very well at City and - rather unexpectedly - getting regular starts (so far; I still fret that he might face occasional rotation once Doku's fully fit again), Sesko and Gyokeres possibly finding their scoring boots at last, and Mbeumo and Cunha also becoming very alluring as United's season has dramatically turned around under Michael Carrick. If you suddenly fancy bringing in even one or two of these players, that might require three or four changes - to shunt your budget around to be able to afford them. And if you have one or two injury problems as well,... then you're finding yourself in Wildcard territory. 

Better to hold off a while longer, if you can; but I can see how it's getting mighty tempting at the moment.