The official newsletter of fantasywhales.com

The NFL is back and week 1 did not disappoint:

Fantasy football, however, was full of disappointment. Week 1 was full of duds from star players:

Why do we play this game again?

If Aaron Jones didn’t clutch up for me on Monday night with a 4th quarter wheel route TD reception — I was just about ready to hang it up for good. But now I’m Back, just like Russ will be for the Giants next week.

(for more info/definitions, visit: https://fantasywhales.com/dictionary)

Even though fantasy whales isn’t being publicly beta-tested this season, I still want to let you guys peak under the hood to see how it all works.

If you recall, the first goal introduced by the game is to become a Whale — players must reach at least 700+ units to play in the Bermuda Triangle (game’s final tournament for big money).

However, upon game start in Week 1, 900 units (90%) of all players’ buy-in goes to the Casino Treasury. If we think about it in percentage terms, players must recover 70% of their initial buy-in to become a Whale.

Each player starts with 100 units in Week 1. The first 3 weeks are a tutorial of sorts, letting players get familiar with the betting cadence and giving them some quick wins to start stacking units.

In Casino One (weeks 1-3), players must try their luck in the weekly casino events and complete bounties to get their units back in +100u payments. The below example is a macro view of how this all works, with an example 10-player league:

The first Bounties are essentially freebies if you just play the game, and the first few Casino Events are deceptively challenging. How many 1st/2nd round picks scored 10+ fpts last week? Fewer than you’d imagine…

Either way, it’s fun having another thing to watch/care about as NFL games are being played. And week 3’s casino event is especially hilarious, it’s essentially a voting mechanism on who the worst team in the league is at that point.

While the casino treasury stimulates the player economy through (somewhat) easy-to-win means, there is another force at play moving units. The players themselves are risking units amongst each other via H2H bets.

So while money is flowing back to the players from the Casino Treasury, players are also incentivized to have it flowing between each other. My favorite bet: “shorting” another player to score under 100 fpts. Their pride always gets in the way.

There is one main path to becoming a Whale (700+ units) in Casino One, and it’s unlikely. You must hit on practically all casino events, and net at least 100 units from H2H betting.

Most players will have a range of outcomes somewhere between 300 units — 700 units by the end of week 3, before they head into the unknown.

The gameplay in the first phase of the game is fun, but it isn’t meant to distract from the novelty/spectacle that is early-season fantasy football. fantasy whales heats up around mid-season, as it’s intended to be a metagame that keeps every player engaged, no matter their record.

In Week 04 of whale club we’ll be going over the Open Seas, where pure fantasy performance determines everything, and new Whales are made. I hope you’ll stick around til then, that’s when things get real exciting.