Getting Started · 8 min read
Every Fantasy Football Format, Compared
There are more ways to play fantasy football than most people ever try. Plenty of leagues run the same redraft settings for a decade because nobody in the group knew there was a choice.
Here's the full menu, what each one actually changes about your season, and who each one suits. Formats get named after the mechanic that makes them different, so once you know the mechanic you know the format.
The formats, at a glance
| Format | The mechanic that defines it | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Redraft | Fresh draft every year, nothing carries over | Almost everyone, as a first league |
| Keeper | Hold a few players into next season, usually at a draft-pick cost | Groups who want stakes without a decade of commitment |
| Dynasty | Keep the whole roster forever, with rookie drafts | People who like building more than winning this year |
| Best Ball | Draft once, then no lineups, no waivers, no trades | Anyone who loves drafting and hates Sunday management |
| Auction | A budget instead of picks, every player biddable | Groups tired of the draft-slot lottery |
| Superflex | A flex spot a quarterback can fill | Leagues who want QBs to actually matter |
| IDP | Draft individual defenders instead of a team defense | People who watch the defensive side of the ball |
| Guillotine | Lowest scorer is eliminated every week | Groups who want every single week to hurt |
| Daily Fantasy | One slate, salary cap, done by Monday | People who want action without a season |
| Portfolio Fantasy | Buy tradeable shares of players at a market price | Researchers, and leagues that die by week 8 |
The roster formats
Redraft
The default. You draft in August, manage a lineup every week, work the waiver wire, and throw the whole thing away in January. Its virtue is that everybody understands it and every platform supports it. Its problem is that one August afternoon carries far more weight than any Sunday does, and a torn ACL in week 3 can flatten a season you spent a month preparing for.
Keeper
Redraft with a memory. You hold onto a small number of players into next season, usually by giving up the draft pick that matches where you took them. Grabbing Puka Nacua in the twelfth round pays you twice, once now and once next August. It adds real long-term thinking without asking your group to commit to the same league forever.
Dynasty
You keep the entire roster, year after year, and draft incoming rookies each spring. It's the deepest version of fantasy football and the most demanding. The honest downside is the rebuild: once you decide you're not winning this year, you can be playing out a lost season for two full offseasons before the plan pays off. Some people love that. Plenty of people quietly stop opening the app.
Superflex and IDP
These are modifiers rather than formats, and they stack onto anything above. Superflex adds a flex spot that a quarterback can fill, which instantly makes quarterbacks the most valuable asset on the board and fixes the complaint that the most important position in football is a seventh-round afterthought. IDP replaces your team defense with individual defenders, which roughly doubles the roster work and is wonderful if you actually watch linebackers.
The formats that change how you acquire players
Auction
Everybody gets the same fictional budget, typically 100 or 200 dollars. Players get nominated one at a time and anybody can bid. The highest bidder gets him. The draft-slot lottery disappears completely, because every player in the league is available to you if you're willing to pay. It takes longer and it asks more of a first-timer, which is the only real reason more leagues don't run it.
Best Ball
Draft your team and then never touch it again. Your optimal lineup gets set for you every week, so there are no start-sit calls, no waivers and no trades. If draft night is the part you love and Sunday morning lineup anxiety is the part you hate, this format was built for you personally. The flip side is that after Labor Day you have nothing left to do.
Guillotine
A newer format, and a genuinely clever one. Everybody plays total points, and every week the lowest-scoring team is eliminated and their entire roster is dumped into the waiver pool for everyone else. Last team standing wins. It solves the dead-league problem by force, since nobody can coast when a bad week ends you. It also means half your league is out by midseason, which is a different way to lose people.
The formats without a roster at all
Daily Fantasy
Pick a lineup under a salary cap for a single slate. Nothing carries over, which is the appeal for some people and the flaw for others. Being right about a player in October earns you exactly one payout and then the slate resets and you start again from nothing.
Portfolio Fantasy
The format this site runs, so read the rest of this section with that in mind. Every athlete is listed at a share price that moves on real performance, anybody can buy any player at any time, and you score on however much of him you own. There's no draft and no roster. It belongs to a genre that's been around since the nineties, usually called a fantasy sports stock simulation, with the difference that this version runs as an actual league with standings and a commissioner.
It fixes the two complaints that show up in every fantasy thread every year: one draft deciding your season, and the league that dies in November. It also takes away draft night, which for a lot of people is the entire reason they play. That's a real cost and you should weigh it honestly.
How to actually choose
- You love draft night above all else. Best Ball, or auction if you want the draft to be harder and better.
- Your league goes quiet by Halloween. Guillotine forces engagement. Portfolio Fantasy removes the reason people check out.
- You want decisions that compound. Dynasty or keeper for roster building, Portfolio Fantasy if you'd rather the compounding show up in a price.
- You have twenty minutes a week. Best Ball. Nothing else asks less of you.
- You want more football, not more management. Superflex and IDP both add depth without adding a second league.
The takeaway
Most leagues run redraft because it's the default, and plenty of them should. The formats above exist because different people enjoy different parts of fantasy football, and the one you're playing may simply be optimized for a part you don't care about. Picking deliberately is worth an evening of your commissioner's time.