00:00 Intro
00:53 Conservative vs. speculative strategies
02:44 Playing from behind vs. ahead
03:50 Conservative play
07:46 Speculative play
08:37 Example rosters
15:24 Thoughts on mountain specialists (non-GC climbers)
17:36 Thoughts on breakaway points
19:27 Time trial bonus points
23:50 Supercombatif award points
24:47 Wrap up
The third in a four-part strategy guide for the official fantasy Tour de France game, this video contains some advanced strategies and tips/tricks I have used to perform well in the past.
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hi there my name is Joe welcome back to the third video in my series of strategy guides for the fantasy tour to France game offer through the official Tor of France website in this video I’m going to be going through some tips and advanced strategies that I have for advanced players if you’re looking for an overview of the game and the basic rules or if you’re looking for basic strategy information check out my two previous videos If you’re looking for advice on which Riders to pick for the 2024 Tour of France stay tuned for another video or two that I’m going to be posting to this channel in the next day or two before the tour begins in this video while I am going to be showing some possible teams that you’d build with the 2024 Riders it’s meant to be General strategy that could be applied to any tour to France or any Grand Tour where they are using this Fantasy game system all right with that said the first thing I want to talk about is speculative strategy versus conservative strategy and of course we’re all here to earn as many points as possible that’s the main objective of this game however you can choose to take on a sliding scale of risk in how you build your teams and the Strategic decisions you make in pursuit of optimizing your points knowing when to increase the risk profile of the decisions you’re making and the team You’re Building versus decreasing your risk is an important strategy for doing well in this game now one of the times that you would want to take on a a very conservative strategy is if your main goal in playing this game is not to win the global league but instead to win a small private League whether it’s amongst a group of friends family co-workers whatever if you have a small number of other players you’re participating against and you are watching this video and you are researching strategy guides for this game well you can afford to play very conservatively and still beat out all the Casual players that you’re going to be going up against in your league however if your goal is to really really top the leaderboard of the global tour to France League you need to take on a lot more risk you need to make educated guesses and hope that those guesses pay off and that sort of speculative strategy is what you see all across the first couple stages of the tour if you look at someone who built their whole team based around stage one yeah you might be able to find yourself high up in the global standings but you’re likely not going to maintain that high standing throughout the rest of the tour if you have to change up your whole team right away after you’ve jumped up to the league so basically at the start of the tour if you want to win the global League take on a speculative strategy play very risky if you want to win a small League Play conservatively additionally throughout the tour you have to look at how you are doing relative to your competitors if you are in a commanding lead whether that is in the global League or a private League then you can afford to play more conservatively if you are falling behind you need to be aggressive and that’s not simply to take on more risk to Hope You Get Lucky in pass your competitors but it is because the people who are ahead of you in the rankings are likely going to be playing conservatively which means they are going to be having the big obvious Riders on their team and if you have a rider and they have a rider you both might be getting a lot of points but you are not closing the Gap to that other participant that you’re trying to surpass in the standings so you need to specifically differentiate your team that you’re building from the people ahead of you in the rankings that you’re trying to catch up to and that means sometimes making suboptimal plays making very very risky trades so that you can hope to Leap Frog them by having non-obvious riders that they certainly don’t have on their team now what do I mean when I say speculative versus conservative so first let’s talk about conservative strategy the biggest thing you want to do is focus on Jersey points if we go to the game rules you can see there are points awarded based on how Riders do On Any Given stage and then there are Jersey points which are awarded to Riders based on their position in each of the Jersey competitions at the end of the stage these are really really excellent ways to rack up a lot of points especially in the early and middle phases of the tour to France when you have people who maybe are not very expensive but they are doing doing well in whatever Jersey because of the fact that they found themselves in a breakaway early in the tour to France these points are awarded every day that they are high up in those competitions regardless of whether that day was a Sprint stage a Mountain Stage a TT whether they did well or not as long as they maintained their position you’re getting free points and if you have someone who’s high up in the yellow Jersey for 10 stages even if you know they’re going to Trail off and fall out of the competition eventually well that’s 50 or 40 or 30 or whatever point it’s multiplied by those 10 stages that’s you know as much or more than a stage win so focus on Jersey points also focus on sprinters the points that are awarded at the end of a stage are super topheavy meaning if you come in the top 10 sure that’s great but it’s a small fraction of the points that you get for first or second and when you’re looking at Breakaway stages or even Mountain stages except for the very very big GC days it’s really hard to safely predict who’s going to come in first or second you can’t really predict which climber is going to be in the Breakaway and then have the support of their team and then make it to the finish and have the race Dynamics play out such that the break wins in the first place that’s really hard to predict whereas on a flat stage you pretty much know who’s going to be in the top three or four or five on that stage and so if you pick the best sprinters they’re a very reliable safe pick to rack up a lot of points so I’m saying pick up sprinters focus on Jersey points avoid stage Hunters avoid the risky riders that are going to score a lot of points on maybe two three stages of the tour to France but you don’t know exactly which stages they are and you don’t want to be holding on to them for the rest of the tour when they’re not picking up any points these are riders that are usually very low in all of the Jersey competitions but can spike a win someone like matate mahor he always does well in the tour to France as a rider but always does pretty poorly in the fantasy game because he’ll be in low the competitions to specifically get himself out of the Limelight so he has the freedom to go into these breaks on a couple key stages that he targets also focus on proven Riders focus on Riders who have already done well this tour focus on folks who have established that they have good legs that they are targeting certain objectives whether it’s getting in breakaways whether it’s stages whether it’s the GC whether it’s Sprints focus on someone who’s already done well don’t try to be that genius who makes a really specul ative pick and then lucks out and that Rider wins the stage the next day no wait for them to win the stage and then if they brings high up in those Jersey competitions pick them up the day after they win it might seem a little weak to play that strategy be but I’ll tell you that’s how I’ve picked up a lot of points in the past wait for someone to do well then pick them up even if I know they’re not going to win the polka dot Jersey but they just won a stage and took the lead of the polka dot Jersey if I know that no one’s going to surpass them in that competition for eight stages well guess what that’s a couple hundred free points by picking that person up so don’t be afraid to pick someone up after they do well and in fact the opposite you should focus on writers that have already proven themselves don’t try to be the genius who cobbles together a ragtag team of Misfits who suddenly start doing well now basically the speculative strategy is the opposite of everything I just said you want to be focusing on the writers that might potentially win a stage out of nowhere you want to be focusing on writers that are very undercosted riders that might be racking up points in multiple Jersey competitions through one lucky stage where they get in the break and either win or contend for the win but you want to try to guess who that person’s going to be before it happens and to do that you got to look at stage profiles you got to look at who’s purposely falling back in the GC so that they have freedom to go on break the next day uh you got to do your research you got to really know what you’re talking about if you’re going to make those those picks also focus on Breakaway points Breakaway points are I think an excellent way to take on a speculative strategy with a bunch of Cheaper Riders and I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes all right so what would some of these teams look like so I’m going to show you four teams first let’s look at this team which I consider a sprinter heavy team that is very conservative and safe so this team again just an example we’re using the Riders from 2024 I’m not recommending you pick this exact team um but in this example if you felt that the first week was going to be very rewarding for the sprinters you might want to pick up a team like this where you can see I have the maximum of three riders that are classified as a sprinter including philipson that who I think is best in the world and then dele and Pon who I think are the second and third best uh sprinters in this tour I’ve maxed out the number of sprinters I can pick up and I’ve also picked up an additional Sprinter in the form of w van art because he’s classified as an allrounder even though we expect that if he’s here to make SPL make a splash and not simply support his leader he’s going to be in those Sprints obviously I picked up poacher I’m not even going to be talking too much about pacher or philipson for that matter because I consider these two writers really uh obvious picks the the odds on favorite for the green jersey and philipson and the yellow Jersey in pogacha notice that I’ve filled out the team with three riders that are at or close to minimum cost this pick of abrahamson you could just swap out for any other rider that’s at five stars just to give yourself a little bit more buffer also just note in these screenshots I’m messing around with a league where there’s a higher than normal budget so ignore my budget over here this league has a budget of 200 whereas the standard league has a budget of 120 so what would a sprinter heavy team look like if I wanted to take on some more risk well the first thing I do is I would try to get more Riders on the team that are going to be active and scoring a lot of points so you can see here I’ve replaced two five cost riders with medium cost Riders so I’ve got still three sprinters but instead of Pon and dele I’ve picked up two cheaper sprinters that I still expect will be messing around in all of the Sprints so they’ll be picking up Fifth Place sixth place maybe spike a Podium but they’ll be there every Sprint stage but they also cost a lot fewer stars in addition to that I picked up a allrounder instead of w vanard at 19 Stars I picked up gmet at 15 stars who I also consider for the purposes of this tour I consider a sprinter and I’ve picked up betol and court betol and Court are guys that especially in the case of Court he’s got a bit of a kick and he’s likely to be there in breakaways and hunting for stages and when there’s a hard finish that comes down to a reduced Bunch Sprint I think Court’s goingon to be really valuable bet all while he doesn’t have quite as much of a kick he does look to be in really good form and I expect him to be in the finish for a of the harder stages and he’s a way for me to spend a fewer number of stars while also picking up another known rider that’s likely to do well this sort of strategy you’ll note is probably not going to be earning the maximum points on each of the pure flat Sprint stages because instead of Pon van art and dele we’ve got kard Van Poppel gmai however by picking up two other really awesome riders in the form of court and bet all instead of the five cost Riders the minimum cost riders that are sort of a throwaway I’m going to be hopefully earning a lot more points overall that’s the reward that you would be hoping to get in exchange for the risk you take with a team like this now if you didn’t think that the sprinters were quite as valuable in the first week and you wanted to go for a GC heavy or climbing heavy team but you still want it to play very conservatively you might pick a team like this and you can see in this case there’s a couple things I want to point out first the total budget that I have here only adds up to 115 Stars not 120 what that means is that I can very easily trade out these riders for a better Rider without having to sell two Riders so I could trade out van gills for someone that costs up to 17 stars or more importantly I could trade out G for the most expensive rider in the whole tour who’s not already on my team Primos rogl so if Primos rogl is looking really good in the first week boom I could just swap out G pick up rogl and I don’t have to also sell van gills to free up some more stars the next thing you’ll notice here is that I really have four expensive Marquee riders in the form of POG philipson vard and G one middle cost Rider and then three cheap riders in this strategy I’m not going to be expecting very many points from these two or even this this third Rider these three guys are just filling out my team close to the minimum number of stars giving me room to buy really expensive safe picks up here vingard I don’t know exactly what form he’s on but if he’s on good form then this is a pick that you would be able to hold for the entire tour from stage one to Stage 21 and that is an excellent conservative strategy if you can pick up someone that you anticipate you’re going to have on your team at the end well that’s one less trade that you have to spend to pick up Ving aard later in the tour so this is what a GC heavy conservative team might look like finally if you wanted to take on a lot more risk but you still felt that the climbers were going to be earning more points in the first week you could pick up a team like this where you can see instead of G and vingard I’ve traded them out for some cheaper riders in the form of Carlos Rodriguez and Mato Jorgenson both of whom I think could be earning just as much if not more points than vingard if the race ends up playing that way so I’m making a gamble here that vingard is not in good form in which case Jorgenson is going to be the leader for Yambo Vima and he’ll pay off because instead of spending 22 Stars I’m spending 18 stars and I get a leader anyways you can see also that I’ve thrown in vills and Martinez who are really excellent climbers and could be doing well in the GC battle or more likely hunting polka dots hunting stages but they’re going to be picking up a lot more points than a five cost Rider like graier is going to be giving me and by exchanging vinga guard for some cheaper Riders I had enough stars to spend on an additional Marquee Rider so on this team you can see that I’ve got more really excellent Riders I have six excellent Riders here instead of five but I’ve taken a risk on some riders that are pretty expensive but potentially might be more points per star more effective than bagard with that I want to move on to the next tip here which is some general thoughts I have about the mountains competition so usually there are some really excellent climbers who either don’t have a great TT or for whatever reason they decide not to or cannot contest for the yellow Jersey and instead Target the polka dot Jersey Riders like Chone come to mind Riders like geska um Riders like nelon Palace these Riders are really excellent ways to pick up points in the middle part of the tour without breaking the bank without spending the stars that you would need to spend for a pogacha or a vingard but it’s really hard to predict who those Riders are going to be until you see the race play out on the road a little bit once you see that someone has identified they want to go for that polka dot Jersey competition well pick them up quick and early because in addition to the fact that they might be getting some amount of points at the end of the stage due to their position in the polka dot Jersey competition they’re also going to be picking up a ton of points on on the road they’re going to be picking up intermediate Sprint points it doesn’t matter if they care about these points at all if they’re in the first couple of riders going over the intermediate Sprint line because they happen to be in the Breakaway they’re going to be picking up you know 15 to 30 points obviously when they go over the mountain passes themselves they’ll be picking up a bunch of points especially the days with bigger mountains they also are potentially in the running for the most combative award at the end of every stage and new for 2024 they’re going to be picking up one point for every kilometer that they spend in the lead Breakaway so I really expect that these Mountain Specialists are going to be really valuable picks however you have to see how the race plays out on the road before you pick them up I don’t recommend picking up someone like neelon Palace on your starting roster partially because it’s not clear that uh the the first couple stages in 2024 work work weal but partially because you really want to see that he’s got good form and he’s intending to get in the Breakaway every day to get those Mountain points before you pick them up on your team I do have some additional thoughts about this new rule regarding Breakaway points it’s not clear how this is going to play out we really are going to have to look at the data after a couple stages to see how heavily skewed the point system now is towards these stage hunters and Breakaway Specialists but if imagine if you have 10 riders in a breakaway for 100 k that’s a thousand points that you’re giving out just to those Breakaway Riders which is more than you earn from like the top 10 Riders uh finishing on the Stitch or the top eight or so I I have a feeling that it’s going to be very impactful I have a feeling that the Riders who benefit from this new rule are also the riders that we were just talking about who are going to be contesting the pokka dot Jersey competition and I have a feeling that the writers that are going to be most valuable here are going to be the cheap minimum cost or close to minimum cost riders that you pick up at the start of the tour just to round out your team and who end up in a breakaway you know seven days out of the tour and rack you up tons of free points that you really weren’t counting on when you built your team I will predict that the winner of the global fantasy league for the whole world is going to have two riders that are either five or six stars that stay on their team throughout the duration of the tour to France and they just guess lucky that those two writers are the riders that are in all the breakaways I think this is going to be a Big Boon for the lowcost Riders the Riders who aren’t winning stages and it sort of democratizes and reduces the polarization of the point scales whereas in the past only the best riders in the world were scoring tons of points now I think there’s going to be a lot more riders in the middle that are scoring a decent number of points all right the next thing I want to talk about is the bonus question that is offered on time trial stages so you have to guess what you think the winning time will be on a time trial stage and based on your guess you can earn up to 100 bonus points this is the one piece of the fantasy game where it’s actually more of a science than an art obviously you still need to guess correctly but you can do some basic math that really will help you maximize these potential bonus points and really what you have to do is you have to look at the elevation profile of the time trial and then compare it to past time trials so if we look at this year’s Tor of France we’re going to have a time trial in stage seven and a time trial in stage 21 if we look at stage seven you can see it’s fairly flat but there is a real climb in the middle 1.6 kilometers at 6 and a half percent this is going to have a big impact on the stage this is not a pancake Flack time trial and as a consequence it’s going to slow down the winning time even more so if we look at stage 2021 would we expect the time to be slowed down to the point where we’re not going to be seeing time trial Specialists as much as we’re going to be seeing the big GC guys this is you know a time trial made for vingard made for pagota made for evle if he’s still in good form um so how could we really guess what the times might be so let’s just say we’re trying to figure out what the time will be for stage seven well I can look at some Pass tours to France so if I look at stage 16 of last year you can see this was a similar stage that had a short climb in the beginning and then it had a real climb in the end but this is certainly a bigger climb than the one we’re looking at in stage seven of this year and the winner did it in 41 kilometers per hour so I would view this as a lower limit for the winning speed of the stage seven time trial this year if we look at a different time trial let’s say 2022 stage 20 this was much more of a flat TT sure there were a couple little kickers but it was net downhill and relatively flat still you know this was one that was won by the GC guys if you ignore the fact that yonas gifted the stage to w v art but here you can see the stage is much closer to that 51 is kilometers that we often see on the pancake flat stages in fact I think I’ve I’ve got one here yeah here’s 2021 stage 20 this is a pancake flat TT one by vanart in just over 51 kilometers so right away just by knowing that stage seven is more hilly than a pancake flat TT and it’s less hilly than a real mountain TT like we had last year you can already know that the speed is likely to be something faster than 41 km per hour and slower than 51 km now exactly where in that 10 kmh range you want to pick well you have to look at the Riders and what form they’re in so look at Jonas vingard he’s he’s uh participated in you know a lot of grand tour itts and you can see how he’s done in the last couple of years you can also go through these see how he uh what his speed was for each one and look at the profiles do the same thing for T paga do the same thing for Evan AOL look at their past results get a better sense of where that Rider is likely to land in terms of speed then you know go back to the fantasy website there’s going to be a slider at the bottom on those stages that pops up right below your team and plug in what you think the time is going to be so velocity is equal to distance divided by time so time is equal to distance divided by velocity for stage seven in particular take let’s say 45 kilomet per hour is what I think the winning time’s going to be or sorry the winning speed’s going to be take the distance which is 2 5 km in this case and divide it by 45 km per hour that gives you the time in hours do the basic math to convert that time in hours down to minutes and seconds and there you go that’s what I’ve done the last couple years and it’s paid off you’re not going to always guess it’s spot on but you’re going to get pretty damn close and you’re going to be maximizing the points that you get the last tip that I have here for advanced strategy is regarding the super combatti award so this is the award that is granted by the jury at the end of the tour to France for the overall most combative Rider throughout the entire 21 stages of the tour that ryer will get 90 points in the fantasy league well this is pretty basic here in terms of tips but they publish who wins this award prior to the point that you need to lock in your team on the final stage so if you’re in North America Google it late at night if you’re in Europe Google it early in the morning the morning of the stage find out who the jury has awarded this super combat te award and use that to help influence any trades or other decisions that you’re making regarding building your final team I will tell you that in years past this absolutely has affected my decisions on the last day it’s really a basic tip but it’s one that you should be aware of nonetheless all right with that if there’s any tips that you have that you haven’t heard me mention here feel free to throw them into the comments below or feel free to join the discussion we’ve got going over on my Discord server a link to the Discord server can be found in the description of this video with that stay tuned for a couple more videos ahead of the tour this year take care bye