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The Draftstars Kayo Sports $200,000 AFL live final brought to you by the Colonial Brewing company is rapidly filling with qualifiers for the golden tickets now filling fast. The team at Daily Fantasy Rankings are already impressed with the contestants for the event. Well known DFS players in ‘Chriseddy999’, ‘Jayk123’, ‘Rexel9’, ‘Donkey’, ‘Mattylee’, ‘Clangers’, ‘Procession’ and with the sites very own ‘BigHef’ have their tickets, it is a who's who of the Australian DFS community.

But I wanted to hear from the players who climbed to the top of the mountain and qualified against the best and go against the best. In this week’s edition of the “Little Dogs”, I have reached out to the “smaller” players in the past couple of rounds of the AFL and asked to describe their experiences in reaching the AFL live final on behalf of Draftstars.

One player who is keen on getting down to Melbourne is ‘yidarmy18’. The Adelaide native is a Teacher by profession but a big NBA and golf nut on Draftstars. If you click on the current 43rd ranked player on the DFR site, ‘yidarmy18’ certainty excelled at NBA and Golf with 1st place finishes on both sites. A pretty impressive golf resume so far! 

‘Yidarmy18’ had 5 teams for the $2 Adelaide vs Giants match-up in Adelaide, in a game that our winner actually attended. For key plays, our ticket holder had “Taranto at relatively low ownership and also Luke Brown smashed value at only 6% which helped a lot but Tex was my man”. As for the sweat, ‘yidarmy18’ recalls “I was watching with a few mates and I saw that I was leading at half time but had then slipped to around 10th a 3/4 time. As I mentioned Tex was the man to get me the W and he turned it on in the last, taking a few big grabs and kicking a goal. With about 1 minute left I think I was equal first and after that centre bounce I had 4 of my players involved in scoring plays which put me in front”. 

In town for the final will be good mate and fellow DFS player ‘MattressMagi’ who took down a Saturday slate earlier this season, when I ask ‘yidarmy18’ about the final itself:

“I was pretty pumped to get the ticket. Anything can happen in the final. I won't have any big expectations but still hopeful I can go well.”

For the Sales Rep down from beautiful Hobart in ‘Trent_L’, the Live final is actually no stranger to Trent as you may recall, Trent came 2nd in the Big Bash Final earlier this year. Trent was introduced to Draftstars by the “Beat Barry” promotion back in 2017. Big fan of AFL and NBA, Trent doesn’t mind dabbling in other DFS sports who he has confessed is a bit “clueless” on.

Trent who is currently 27th ranked on the DFR rankings, entered 7 teams in the $2 and 2 teams in the $50 Queens Birthday game between the Pies and Demons. It was one of the $50 teams that took the chocolates in which it was a stressful experience:

“I had Max Gawn at 33% owned and Hoskin-Elliott at 23% owned with low ownership and they were my value scores...The sweat was real, I watched the game at home with my housemates and with 11 seconds to go I was down by 3. In the Melbourne forward line big Max lays a big tackle on Levi Greenwood and gets pinned holding the ball and kicks a point after the siren for an 8 point play to put me up by 5. Then it was the nervous wait for adjustments to be locked in and luckily no major adjustments and the win was sealed!”

Not to be content with the one ticket, come the next round Trent has obtained his 2nd ticket and will have a couple of cracks at the first prize this time round. We he go one better? Well let’s see if the form stacks up!

Finally I also caught up with 78th ranked member ‘therescav’ who obtained his first ticket by taking the Kangaroos and Giants game down in Hobart. ‘therescav’ is a corporate lawyer from Perth who manages to squeeze in some DFS in a variety of sports including AFL, Golf and more importantly NFL. Playing on the sites when they were first launched, ‘therescav’ likes to take the “strategic/game theory considerations that are required to be good at DFS. I really enjoy my job, which involves a lot of strategic thinking, and I think DFS incorporates similar elements. I am also generally a massive sports fan, so to be able to combine something I love watching anyway in a fun, competitive landscape with the opportunity to make some money is great!”

With 10 teams in the $2 mini and the same 10 in the $2 qualifiers it was almost an airball for our lawyer:

“Other than the winning lineup, I was pretty off with the slate generally. Whilst I picked a lot of Giants stacks, I unfortunately had a lot more Goldstein than Mumford. I also tried to go contrarian and played a lot of Tomlinson (who was priced down but is capable of big games where he marks across half back/wing and tons up) and Dumont (thinking he would get a bit of increased mid time with no Higgins and that most people would pick Ziebell or Cunnington as their North mids). I had two of the "gun" giant mids in all of my lineups though, and one guy I was heavy on was Hopper. Definitely considering myself lucky that one of my few Mumford lineups was one that got everything else right!”

“As for getting a ticket (I am) pretty relaxed. I'm going to treat it as a great weekend trip away from Perth and a chance to meet up with some of the legends in the industry. The live events are such an awesome initiative, and I'm excited to have the opportunity to play for some very big money!”

Want to join these guys and play for a share of $200,000? There are $50 and $2 qualifiers running daily during the AFL season with one ticket guaranteed in each qualifier. There's no better time to jump on board!  Make sure you also check out our free Resources on the Daily Fantasy Rankings website which provides you with all the tools, data and stats to help you construct a winning lineup on Draftstars.

Have you qualified for the AFL Kayo $200,000 live final and want to share your story with the world here on Daily Fantasy Rankings? Contact us or shoot us a message on Twitter and we will get in touch to share your story with the Australian DFS community!