CFL Game Zone changes?

[Foxhound]

I've been taking delight in CFL Fantasy since 2015-16. Now in any one week luck is the pivotal factor in Fantasy scoring while I'm a relatively objective stats driven by-the-numbers player. But over the course of a season my stats driven approach has me trending toward the top of the season's standings.

Last year (in 2023) Genius Sports made a major change in Fantasy which undercut the advantage I could derive by being a rational, stats driven participant. I hate having to designate a Captain now. Designating a Captain introduces more of a random element to scoring (which I'm guessing is why Genius Sports did it). From a statistical standpoint, picking a single player with double scoring leads to a far greater random spread of results than picking a diversified team of seven equal positions. (That's why stock market investors value diversification.) Therefore picking one player to be a Captain effectively decreases the advantage a rational by the numbers Fantasy player such as myself can derive over a season.
 
Genius Sports also took away the six points Defences gained for scoring a TD. Plus they took away the point kick/punt returners earned for every 25 return yards. That was a factor I took into consideration when selecting my Fantasy team through the 2022 season and Genius Sports went and undercut my analysis. It better not have been to align CFL Fantasy with what they've been doing in the States. If so, that would give me yet another reason to just walk away in disgust, i.e. the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

But to give the CFL credit Blitz Picks was introduced midway through the 2022 season and I realized immediately that it was a game in which a rational, stats driven participant could excel over time. And so it was. Last year I finished fifth a scant two points out of a tie for second.

But!!! This year Blitz Picks has been changed to be team specific. So I'm now forced to compete with one certain group of narrow specialists, i.e. fans who live and die with one team. Meanwhile my strength is that I'm a very competent generalist. So once again they've acted to undercut my strength.

It is to scream.

 

P.S. Yes, I've emailed Genius Sports with these complaints.

[TecnoGenius]

Thankfully the pickems/fantasy hasn't change much this year, so there's no new confusion from 2023.

The only rule sheet I can find still doesn't say anything about the 1-point-per-catch that I think they added a while back.  Must still be in there, right?

I agree on most of your points.  Not giving points for return yards is just lame and makes returners basically non-pickable now.

I'm ok with the captain... but I see what you're saying.  Surely it should even out over a whole season, though?  As sometimes you'll pick the top-scoring guy?

What I really hate about Genius fantasy is there is too much money.  You can fill a roster with very good players plus a couple slightly less good players.  In the old fantasy if you wanted first-page players you had to get really creative with some basement dwellers to pay for it.  I love finding the "fantasy vulture" players... but now there's no point or you have $4k leftover.  They should decrease the weekly cap to solve this problem.

I also really hate how the leagues disappear every season.  That's lame.  It takes forever to re-find the leagues and join each one... and half my leagues aren't there anymore.  Can't find any of yours yet.

My week 1 isn't off to a good start with my WPG and MTL picks.  Who would have guessed Philpot would be the big winner of the game?

[Foxhound]

What I really hate about Genius fantasy is there is too much money.  You can fill a roster with very good players plus a couple slightly less good players.  In the old fantasy if you wanted first-page players you had to get really creative with some basement dwellers to pay for it.  I love finding the "fantasy vulture" players... but now there's no point or you have $4k leftover.  They should decrease the weekly cap to solve this problem.

Oh I agree! Finding a bargain basement player often doesn't help at all now since not using up most of your salary cap is a losing strategy over time.

I also really hate how the leagues disappear every season.  That's lame.  It takes forever to re-find the leagues and join each one... and half my leagues aren't there anymore.  Can't find any of yours yet.

An email was supposedly sent to previous members to rejoin Leagues when said Leagues were revived. Three of my Blue Bombers specific Leagues are still open to all:

Stegall's Soup Kitchen

7UFMRD1C

Lincolns and Locomotives

DUTBWY2P

Jacks and Indians

6AKEVQOS

Who would have guessed Philpot would be the big winner of the game?

My spouse noticed how much fun I'd been having playing Fantasy so she started playing as well some eight years ago. She's very depressed today because she dropped Tyson Philpot from her team because she had the Bombers' Defence and two other Bombers and she didn't like the conflict of interest. What a disaster her last minute change turned out to be!

 

[TecnoGenius]

Drat, I forgot to do the blitz picks before cutoff time!  I went in there anyway once you said it was a per-team thing, thinking they might leave the haven't-played-yet-teams open for entries (they didn't)...

I see what you meant now: the new entire blitz picks "game" is really dumb and useless!!  It's just a trivia game where you need to go googling to answer trivia questions about past occurrences!  No predictions or anything at all!

So basically whoever wants to put the most time into research will win, and there will be many ties because there is a "right" answer for every question!

I probably won't even bother playing that this year.

2023 Blitz Picks was basically guessing the outcomes on Vegas betting lines.  If you did good in blitz you should do well in gambling (though I was high up, I never tried that theory).  Since CFL is heavily pushing gambling now, you'd think the old format was ideal!  Not sure what this new version buys anyone, except maybe a chance to harvest emails for marketing by each specific team.

Ya, so thumbs down from me on this.  Sad, as the '23 version was lots of fun!

[gobombersgo]

I liked last years Blitz game. I won one of the weeks and got 200 bucks.

[TecnoGenius]

I liked last years Blitz game. I won one of the weeks and got 200 bucks.

Wow, that's awesome!!  I didn't know there were weekly prizes.  Can't argue with $200 smackers.

I think I was overall #2 sometime late in the season (I have a screenshot somewhere...).  Then I missed a week by accident and couldn't make up the ground again.  I don't think I would have beaten that #1 guy in any case: he was just too good.

What do you think of this new blitz game?

[gobombersgo]

Wow, that's awesome!!  I didn't know there were weekly prizes.  Can't argue with $200 smackers.

I think I was overall #2 sometime late in the season (I have a screenshot somewhere...).  Then I missed a week by accident and couldn't make up the ground again.  I don't think I would have beaten that #1 guy in any case: he was just too good.

What do you think of this new blitz game?

I tried to enter the Blitz on Thurs afternoon with the Bombers as my team however it said the game was already in progress. So I entered with the Als as my team. Not sure if I am stuck with the Als now.

There doesnt appear to be any weekly prizes this year.

The Pick'em contest is also pretty basic now. It used to be better when they had over/under and making picks based on confidence levels.

[Foxhound]

I think I was overall #2 sometime late in the season (I have a screenshot somewhere...).  Then I missed a week by accident and couldn't make up the ground again.

You were about two points ahead of me after week fifteen or sixteen when you missed a week. Like I say, I finished fifth overall two points out of a tie for second.

 

[TecnoGenius]

Weird, I looked at blitz picks again this week, this time on-time... and it looks just like blitz picks from last year, except (like Foxhound said) it's only for 1 team (of your choice).

Ya, so, I have no idea what I was seeing last week when I tried to enter after game 1 had started and it started showing me questions that looked like trivia... maybe that's because I was late?

I just want to confirm with y'all that the idea this year is you just pick 1 team and you can't go back and fill in the other teams' picks?  Because I picked Bombers but then went back to gamezone->blitz and clicked ham and it gave me their questions too?  Does that then negate WPG picks?

I realize now why I missed blitz in week 1... if you're in the other games, like pickems, and click the white button/dropdown that lists all the games to jump to the next game, blitz picks is missing from that list!!  I'm used to just going through that dropdown one by one, not going back to gamezone main menu, which is what you have to do to find blitz picks now.