As changes to Fantasy Challenge are announced ahead of the game's full launch on Wednesday, FPL expert Sam Bonfield looks at what they will mean for managers.
Back in March when FPL Challenge went live for the first time, with the Unlimited Budget week, it gave me the same thrill that FPL does.
I love the different weekly themes and the fact that there is no long-term planning needed, because I pick a new team every week. This means that, unlike a lot of the other games I've tried, it hasn’t impacted my main FPL team, which is really important to me.
However, there were some things about last season's Challenge game that I felt could be improved.
Why pick a vice-captain when transfers and changes up until the ball was kicked meant I would never need him? The same applied with the bench. Why was it there? I never needed my bench players as I would transfer out anyone who wasn’t starting ahead of their match kicking off. That always felt a waste of the budget, to have to buy bench players.
I also found myself wishing that I could see multiple Gameweek points together. Being able to answer questions like, 'Who's had a good month, and who's been the best Challenge manager overall?' would have been great for adding to the competitive spirit of the game.
The launch of the new FPL Challenge for the 2024/25 season has now improved each and every one of those things!
Mini-league rivalries
For managers who like to be able to drop in and play for a week here and there, you can absolutely still play the game that way. There's no real change from how you played the game before. But for managers like me who want that extra layer, we now have the opportunity to set up mini-leagues for the season.
Knowing that I can run competitions with my friends and family adds a level of excitement to the game which was missing before. It also means it's far easier to create content around the game - which I'm personally delighted about!
But it’s not just the changes to the leagues that have made me excited.
Target the 5-a-side event
For the opening four Gameweeks of this season, FPL Challenge will be a five-a-side competition - a mini-competition inside the FPL Challenge competition.
This means that us managers will be able to win this early "event" and claim the bragging rights, even if the rest of our campaign goes downhill after that!
Grouping the different challenges into a few weeks of competition adds another level of excitement to the game, as well as added motivation to log in every week to pick a team! Knowing that as these four weeks play out I will be able to see weekly totals, plus the overall standings AND five-a-side totals, is excellent!
Given we can now bank five free transfers in the main Fantasy game, some of us might adopt more patient approaches and make less-regular changes. So it'll be great to play FPL Challenge alongside that and be able to make LOTS of changes.
No vice-captains or substitutes bench
FPL Towers have also tweaked the game, removing the vice-captain and the subs bench! This is exactly what the game needed.
We can change the players before they play and make sure that our captain is starting, so this is a perfect time-saving move which simplifies the game.
It also levels the playing field because there was a "hack" of sorts where managers were able to game the system by using their bench and their transfers to see how certain players had performed before making changes that would improve their score. This wasn't in the spirit of the game and wasn't fair on managers who were less experienced, so it's good to see that loophole closed.
Rank badges
Alongside all of this is the arrival of the rank badges. It is no exaggeration to say that this has made my heart happy.
In the main FPL game I have to go and search out my rank history. Now in Challenge I'm going to have a badge displayed on my profile.
Many of the non-Fantasy games I play have achievement badges or levels of players that can be unlocked based on performance, so I'm really looking forward to working my way up throughout the campaign.
Bring on the start of the season!
