I do not watch much NFL anymore, but I do not miss a season of Fantasy Football. I love competing, and Fantasy Football offers me a chance to compete against friends, shit talk, and have fun agonizing over decisions each week.

Much the same with Fantasy Critic—except I do a lot of the main activity related to the fantasy “sport”: I play video games. Each year, I get to compete against my friend and podcast partner, the Dev from Prof and Dev Play Games.

For those who’ve never checked it out, Fantasy Critic is a game system where folks “draft” video games coming out in the next year. Each drafted game nets the team a certain number of points based upon their average reviewer score from OpenCritic. Every point above 70 is one point. Every point above 90 is two points. Every point below 70 is -1 point.

So, a player drafts a stable of games and hopes that, collectively, they score higher than their opponent over the course of the year (yes, it’s a year-long game).

In addition to drafting, one also must “counter-pick” games on the opponent’s list, and the scoring is basically the opposite of how scoring goes for drafted games. For games one counterpicks, a player is hoping to select games that will score poorly. Points above 70 hurt the team counterpicking; points below 70 help the team counterpicking.

Those are basically 90% of the necessary rules to know.

Tonight, on our podcast, Dev and I are drafting 1/3 of our games. And I am slightly agonizing over what to choose. The past two years, I have drafted with my heart and selected Silksong first, and each year, Silksong did not release, netting me 0 points. So, the main question I have is—do I draft Silksong again this year? Do I let it slip further down the list? Do I draft a game I am unlikely to play but think will score highly (Monster Hunter Wilds) first?

Probably.

The goal is to get a stable of games that will score well—not a stable of games I want to play.

Dev and I have played Fantasy Critic against each other two years in a row, and both years I have won. So, I am okay choosing a few strategies that may be risky. I like competition, and I love when competition is close. The last few years have not been close, final score-wise, so I am hoping this year bucks that trend.

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I wrote all the above before the draft. After the draft, here are our lists so far (locks symbols indicate counterpicks):

Throughout the year, I’ll bid on the remainder of my games, and may the best podcaster win!

If you want to follow along with our league, please check out this link!