Fantasy Football Head to Head Snake Draft Strategy
By Adam of Rotopicks.com
Note: This article was written with Draftstreet's head to head snake format in mind. Other sites offering serpentine drafts may use different formats resulting in a different number of rostered players.
Like a showdown between two Old West gunfighters, the Head to Head Snake Draft is the quintessential battle for fantasy football dominance... and I hope to arm you with the necessary weapons to slay any opponent. There are 3 steps to a successful draft: preliminary research, queuing players, and drafting.
Preliminary Research
Before entering a draft, you first need to research the relevant football news for the week in question. This is actually not as daunting a task as you might imagine. First off, do not get bogged down in matchups. Aside from choosing a Defense, it's usually a waste of time. Second, steer clear of any injury that might sideline a player for that week. Once your draft is over, you cannot run to a waiver wire should any of your players be inactive. So, let your opponent worry about injured players. Third, and most important, know the studs. At any given point, you can probably rattle off the 5 best QB's in the NFL and maybe the 2 best TE's. Furthermore, you can probably also come pretty close to naming the 8 best RB's.
Simply put, forget matchups, forget the injured, and know the studs.
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Queuing Players
Now you are ready to sign up for a Head to Head Snake Draft. (Note: I recommend starting with low entry fee games until you hone your skills).
Once you enter a Head to Head draft, a nicely organized and sortable list of players is in front of you. Toggle the list so only RB's are listed. Luckily, the default rankings are usually pretty reliable. Just remember to neglect the injured players. Simply queue over the top 8 RB's from the list. That is, highlight a player and click queue so he moves to your queued list. Having a queued list to work with is much easier than toggling and scrolling through the entire universe of players.
Next queue over the top 2 TE's and top 4 WR's. If there is one absolute monster WR, queue over only him. Then queue over the top 5 QB's and lastly, a few more WR's.
Drafting
Snake drafts are drafts in which the order reverses in every subsequent round (i.e. Round 1: Player A picks then Player B picks. Round 2: Player B picks then Player A picks.) So, in essence, you and your opponent take turns drafting two players at a time.
Now here is where strategy comes into play. My golden rule is to always have RB's in your Flex positions. They are more consistent than WR's and TE's, plus they typically have higher ceilings. With that in mind, your goal is to draft stud RB's until they're gone. Fill up your bench spots with more RB's so your opponent can't draft them. Force him to have to use WR or TE's for their Flex positions.
After your run on RB's, chances are your opponent has drafted one or two QB's. Good. Your next move is to draft your opponent's QB's best WR. This enables you to offset some of the points his QB scores, especially if they happen to have a huge game.
The next steps are to simply fill out your roster with a TE, DEF, and QB(s).
When there is a situation when 2 players at the Tight End position are far superior to all other TE's, it is a very strong move to draft both of them consecutively. This forces your opponent to have to draft a TE from an inferior group of players. Just remember to bench one of these TE's because like I said, always use RB's for your Flex spots.
Wrapping it Up
Use this information as a step by step guide to Head to Head Snake drafts, but it's more important that you understand the logic behind it. That way, you can tweak the strategy as necessary and develop your own style. These methods have worked for me and I've cashed in quite a few H2H leagues.
In terms of QB's, your opponent can only draft 3 of them. Add the 2 you will draft and you get 5 total drafted QB's. In any given week, I argue that the top 5 QB's are fairly interchangeable. Thus, it doesn't matter which 2 you end up with. That's why you wait on QB's.
As for the all-important RB position, in most weeks there are about 8 stud RB's. Your goal is to simply get as many as you can, filling up RB, Flex, and Bench spots. This forces your opponent to have weak Flex players and that is usually the deciding factor for your week. Game, set, and match.
Good luck and enjoy drafting!
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