Fantasy Draft Helper · August 28, 2026

Your draft-day playbook

Use this as a decision assistant alongside your official draft room. Set up the exact league settings, keep the board current, and prepare alternatives before your turn.

Before relying on it: the defaults are 12 teams, half PPR, 6-point passing TDs, and −1 per interception. Those may not match your league. “Offline” means manual pick tracking; it does not mean the web app works without a reachable server.

The best workflow

Before draft day · 15–20 minutes

Pick your source. Use Sleeper Live to read picks from a Sleeper draft; use Sleeper League · Offline Draft to import league scoring and enter picks yourself; use Offline for a mock draft or another platform.
Confirm League settings & saved drafts. Check team count, your seat, format, roster slots, passing TDs, interceptions, and reception points. Sleeper users: search your username and season, then choose the correct league. Live mode also needs the correct draft. A provisional seat is not confirmed until Sleeper finalizes draft order.
Keep strategy simple. Start with Balanced strategy and Balanced decision mode. Only change weights after a rehearsal. Declare keepers before the draft starts if applicable.
Name and Save a practice draft. Use a clearly separate name from your real draft. Working settings and manual picks recover after reload; Save creates a named snapshot. Export JSON makes a portable backup.
Research and prepare your board. Open player details, review injuries and confidence, add targets/fades/notes, and queue 3–5 realistic options. Save a board profile if you want to reuse your research.
Rehearse two rounds and the round turn. Test search, queue order, a pick for another team, a pick for you, Undo, reload, and export/import. Do not make your first trial during the actual pick clock.

During the draft

Keep the official draft room visible. Sleeper Live is read-only: it cannot submit picks, bids, or trades to Sleeper. Manual mode requires recording every team's pick in order, not only yours.
Read the top card first. While waiting, “Your projected pick” shows players the simulation thinks might be options at your turn. On the clock, “Your recommended pick” uses the current board. A forecast is not a guarantee.
Keep two backups queued. Use player search and positional filters to find alternatives. Queuing a player does not draft them. The bottom command controls act on the selected board row, which may differ from the top recommendation.
Record accurately. In manual mode, check whether the action says “Draft to My Team” or “Draft Team N” before clicking. The snake order advances automatically. Drafting is temporarily disabled during a refresh to prevent stale decisions.
On your turn, compare value and roster fit. Check injury status, current news, projected points, ADP, positional depth, and your roster. “Take Now vs Wait” and “Pick Compare” are useful when two choices are close. Execute the real pick in your draft platform.
Recover promptly. Undo removes only the latest manual pick. To correct an earlier mistake, undo back to it and re-enter the later picks in order; this avoids silently moving players between teams. Export JSON first if the correction is large.
At breaks, Save and Export JSON. Use one browser/device as your primary record. Avoid making parallel edits in multiple tabs. If you see stale data, verify picks in the official room before relying on recommendations.

After the draft

Save and export a final JSON backup; export CSV or Text for a readable pick history. Open More draft analysis for Draft Recap and Season Outlook. Review Your Roster, Teams, and Watchlist for roster gaps and follow-up research. Watchlist notes are not automatic waiver or news notifications.

Features you should know

Area	What it does / when to use it
Draft status & next-pick card	Current round, last pick, your next two turns, and picks before you. The highlighted card separates the current recommendation from a simulated future option. It switches to “Draft complete” at the end.
Best Available board	Search by player, team, or position; filter QB/RB/WR/TE; sort by draft score, value rank, ADP, projection, confidence, or value. Up to 80 matching rows from the returned player pool are displayed. A position filter remains active when you type a search.
Player detail	Projection, ADP, replacement value, bye, injury information, scoring breakdown, projected stats, team context, model checks, confidence, outcome estimates, comparison, and “If I Pick This.” Close or Escape returns to the board.
Player context & board tags	Manual injury/depth-role context, projection override, news note, board tag, note, and tier override. These can change recommendations. Keep notes dated and remove obsolete overrides; they are your inputs, not verified news.
Queue & Plan	Queue options, reorder with Up/Down, remove individuals, or Clear. Plan builds a contingency queue. Drafted players leave the queue. A queue has no effect on your official draft-room queue.
Command controls & Lock Mode	Quick actions for the selected board player. Hide/Show controls reduces clutter. Lock Mode simplifies the view and reduces simulation work; it is a focus setting, not a lock against all edits.
Roster, Teams & Recent Picks	Track your roster composition and other teams. Recent Picks identifies owners; only the newest manual pick offers Undo.
Draft Sync & freshness	Shows source state, discrepancies and recovery actions. Live mode refreshes about every 30 seconds while visible and refreshes on return. Refresh retrieves the dashboard; it does not rebuild the underlying projection data.
Scoring & roster slots	Custom scoring for passing, rushing and receiving. Supported draft pool: QB/RB/WR/TE with FLEX, SUPER_FLEX and BN roster slots. SF/SUPERFLEX aliases are accepted. K, DEF and IDP are not supported by this model.
Strategy & decision controls	Balanced, Hero RB, Zero RB, Elite QB, Elite TE, Upside Bench and Safe Draft presets; Balanced/Safe/Upside decisions; advanced weights for projection, need, ADP value, availability, scarcity, volatility and position preferences.
Saved drafts & exports	Save named snapshots, load them from the selector, start New, Export JSON, Import JSON, or export CSV/Text. Import restores a manual draft; a JSON export is the portable recovery format. New saves a snapshot first when picks exist.
Board profiles	Save and reuse research preferences, context, scoring, strategy and queue. They are not a pick-history backup. Import accepts exported board profiles as well as drafts.
Test link vs Share snapshot	Copy test link includes address, source, seat and teams, not picks or custom scoring. Share snapshot embeds a point-in-time manual draft in the URL fragment. Neither creates synchronization or hosting. Use JSON for larger drafts and sensitive notes.
Likely picks / Take Now vs Wait	Projected picks by opponents, replacement options at your following turn, and positional cost of waiting. Use these as tie-breakers, not certainty.
Draft Assistant, Pick Compare & Tier Alerts	Alternative recommendations, pick-level tradeoffs, roster construction guidance, and warnings as positional tiers thin out.
ADP vs Model	Scatterplot and bargain/reach views compare market price with model preference. Large disagreements deserve research; they do not automatically mean the market is wrong.
Next-Turn Forecast & scenarios	Simulation of availability, likely options and conditional “if I pick this” outcomes. Numbers labeled uncalibrated are exploratory estimates.
Season Outlook & playoff emphasis	Model-based season comparisons and a playoff-weighting control. Projected wins or title chances depend on assumptions, lineup construction and input quality.
Experimental Lineup Optimizer	Research comparison based on legal weekly lineups. The UI explicitly labels its model/calibration and whether a fallback or incomplete evaluation occurred; it does not replace the production recommendation.
Strategy Lab & Draft Policy Lab	Compare strategies and inspect available historical policy reports by scoring, format and opponent model. These reports may cover different settings from your league.
Pick Trading & Trade Analyzer	Compare pick packages, pick-for-player offers, and player bundles. Model-calibrated and Jimmy Johnson charts are different valuation systems; do not treat the latter as a fantasy-specific proof. These tools evaluate only; they do not execute or remap real traded picks.
Dynasty rookie tools	Dynasty horizon profiles, rookie ADP CSV import and dynasty trade guidance. Use a matching market file and verify imported players.
Keepers	Enable keeper mode, set maximum and cost rules, declare team keepers, save, then review kept-player and value analysis. Confirm the order against your league platform before using it live.
Auction · experimental	Nominate a player; select the bidding/winning team; enter a whole-dollar bid or sale; record Sold or Pass. Budgets initialize on entry; sales update the available board, team rosters and pick history. New auction clears the shared auction after confirmation. Use Offline or Sleeper League · Offline Draft for manual auctions. It is shared server memory, not per-user storage, and is lost on server restart. It is not included in draft JSON. Do not rely on it as the only auction record.
Identity Review & League Memory	Inspect player matching issues and inferred opponent tendencies. Identity edits affect shared server data and are disabled in the remote preview. Opponent tendencies are estimates, not actual intentions.

Keyboard shortcuts

With focus on the board, use / search, ↑/↓ select row, q toggle queue, p plan, d record a manual pick, f fade, Enter details, and o hide/show controls. Esc closes details. Shortcuts do not override text fields, focused buttons, browser modifier shortcuts, or the open detail dialog. Tab/Enter still operate buttons normally.

Live test plan · about 30 minutes

Use a throwaway practice draft. Keep your real draft exported safely. Record device/browser, time, settings, exact steps, expected result and screenshot for any failure.

Access on desktop and phone. Open the preview link, sign in, then load it on your phone using cellular data with Wi-Fi off. Expected: the board loads, text remains readable, no page-wide horizontal overflow, and the main recommendation is easy to reach. A local-only address will not work over cellular.
Configure a realistic league. Set 10 teams, seat 5, and your actual roster/scoring. Expected: 4 picks before you before pick 1 is entered. Check scoring after Apply settings. Try seat 11 with 10 teams: it must reject the input; correcting it must restore normal operation.
Search, filter and research. Find a known player, switch positions and sorts, open details, edit a harmless practice note, and close with Escape/Close. Expected: the correct player opens, controls remain usable, and typing cannot accidentally draft someone.
Queue three players. Reorder and remove one. Expected: the command strip names the selected row; queuing alone adds no pick. Plan should add alternatives without duplicating existing entries.
Record 20 manual picks. With seat 5 in a 10-team snake draft, your turns are picks 5 and 16. At picks 10 and 11, Team 10 picks twice. Expected: owners, available players, queue, roster and next-turn timing stay consistent.
Undo and reload. Undo the latest pick, re-enter it, reload the page. Expected: picks, scoring, team count, seat, roster slots and queue survive. Earlier picks should not offer individual removal that moves later players to different teams.
Backup and move devices. Save, Export JSON and import into a separate browser/device. Expected: same settings, picks and queue. Try Share snapshot, add a pick after opening it, then reload: newer progress must remain. Future changes in one device must not be expected to appear on the other.
Connection recovery. Export first. Temporarily take the testing device offline, then Refresh. Expected: a stale/error banner, the last successful board, and no lost local picks. Reconnect and Retry. Check that new picks match the real draft room before continuing.
Sleeper integration rehearsal. Use an actual Sleeper mock draft or a permitted league rehearsal. Verify league, scoring, draft ID and finalized seat. Make a pick in Sleeper; Refresh here. Expected: it appears without local duplicate entry. Test background/foreground return. Live provider behavior must be verified with your actual account/draft.
Optional advanced checks. If using keepers, verify every declared player/cost. For auction practice, record a sale to Team 2 and an over-budget bid; the team must be correct and the rejection visible. Inspect any trades manually; this tool does not execute them.
Complete a tiny draft. In a separate practice draft, use 2 teams and QB, RB, WR, TE roster slots. Record 8 legal picks. Expected: “Draft complete,” disabled manual Draft actions, usable roster and recap; no ninth pick.
Final readiness check. Repeat on the browser/device and network you will use on draft day. Refreshes should finish comfortably within your clock budget (the automated manual-refresh check allows 15 seconds). Export a backup and verify a fallback route to the official room before declaring readiness.

Things to watch out for

Browser-local storage is not cloud backup. Another device, private browsing, cleared site data, or a new tunnel hostname has separate storage. Save is local; JSON is portable. Use one active editing tab.
Saved snapshots are not continuous history. Reload restores the working draft, but choosing an older saved snapshot intentionally restores that snapshot. Save before switching.
Source freshness and board freshness differ. A successful Refresh can still use old projections or ADP. Read the source timestamps. The refresh pipeline is a separate process.
Current news still matters. Confirm injuries, depth-chart changes, suspensions and transactions from sources you trust. An uncalibrated survival percentage should not justify passing on your preferred player by itself.
Manual order is snake. Manual pick assignment follows snake order. Do not use manual mode for linear drafts, custom orders or traded pick ownership without verifying every owner.
Supported scoring is limited. Confirm supported fields match your rules; custom bonuses or unsupported positions may not be modeled. Do not silently substitute app defaults.
Live import is not fully automated drafting. Sleeper reads require a reachable provider. Resolving sync via “Use Sleeper” or switching to Offline can change local state; export first and reconcile picks against the official room.
Advanced model outputs are not validated guarantees. Draft scores, playoff/title odds, backtests, dynasty values and opponent tendencies are decision aids. Experimental panels should not distract you while on the clock.
Be careful with shared URLs. A snapshot can include player notes, preferences and draft information. Only share with intended recipients; use Export JSON if the URL becomes too long.

Remote access

The temporary preview is served from your computer through a Cloudflare Quick Tunnel. Use the HTTPS link and login supplied with the review. Keep the computer awake, connected to power/internet, and both the app and tunnel running. Stopping either process or sleeping the computer interrupts access. A restarted quick tunnel usually has a new hostname.

The preview requires a password and blocks identity-file edits. Manual drafts stay in each visiting browser; auction state is shared by the preview process. This is for a small private rehearsal, not permanent public production hosting. Do not rely on tunnel availability as your only draft-day access.

For restarting and stopping the preview, see docs/remote-testing.md in the project. Cloudflare documents Quick Tunnels as a testing/development facility without an uptime guarantee: Quick Tunnel documentation.

This guide describes the current repository implementation. It does not claim that real Sleeper integration or all league-specific scenarios have been validated for your account.