Let us discuss the wildcard today. A wildcard used carefully can turn around your entire season. Here, I will be explaining different ideal scenarios to play wildcards.
Source: Uniblog
What is a wildcard?
A wildcard is a chip in FPL that allows you to make an unlimited number of transfers in a given GW without any point deductions. You might know, you get 1 free transfer every game week. If you do more than 1 transfer, 4 points will be deducted for each transfer. A wildcard is played when you want to make multiple transfers in your team.
You have 2 wildcards available in a season. The first wildcard should be played anywhere in the first half of the season (before 29 Dec 14:00) which is the first half of the season. If you don't play it within the first half, you will lose it. The second wildcard is available in second half of the season after Dec 29 and can be played anywhere before the season ends.
When should you play it?
After GW1:
I have only once played my wildcard after GW 1, and it was the season when Michu was on a rise. I had a bizarre first GW and made many wrong choices. It can happen to anyone. I don't recommend this but many FPL managers play their wildcard in the first GW. Here, we are talking about the first wildcard.
If you performed very bad in the first game week or you have made wrong selection and have many non-performers, the wildcard is on the go. But again, a wildcard in the first GW is not a good idea because if your team didn't perform well in GW 1, they may do best in GW 2. I suggest only to use if your team can't move forward without the wildcard and you made abysmal team selection looking at preseason. Using in first GW goes well for some, and many use it in GW 1 to increase the team value.
At December:
Again, this is for the first wildcard and can be true for the second wild card too. During the New Year and Christmas, EPL has very tight schedules with as many as 4 games in the span of 10 days. FPL managers tend to rotate their squad heavily during this time. In some occasions, you would even find it difficult to manage 11 players for your team. You might prefer to use wildcard during this time and bring the guaranteed starter who are rotation free in your team to cope. But you also have free hit chips in this scenario.
During Emergency:
There are times when your team is in a crisis. It is time when your team has all out of form player, or injured player, and you think of yourself that its time to restructure your team. Then its time to use it, and save your team from sinking and give a fresh start. It can be any GW and is true for both of the wildcards.
Double Gameweeks:
This is the most popular strategy and used by many FPL managers. This is true only for the second wildcard as the double GW are scheduled in the second half of the season. Because of FA Cup fixtures, the league games are canceled for the team involved. The cancellation also take place due to bad weather. The canceled games are rescheduled in later GW which result in double GW. The advantage of playing wildcard for double GW is that all your starting 11 will play twice in that GW, and will bring massive GW points for you. Added to this, if you use Bench boost, 15 players will play 30 matches between them.
My Strategy + Suggestion
For me, I tend to use my first wildcards very early in the season somewhere between GW 8 and GW 10. By this time, you would know many things about the players and the team.
I use my second wildcard during the double game week and take huge advantage of it along with the bench boost. I have scored as high as 156 points during this time, and many managers score up to 200 points in single GW if everything goes right.