General Rant: Perhaps it is just down in the lower divisions, but has anybody else observed a glaring lack of DRs in the auctions? I've been looking since the last day of the previous season (so basically about 4 days) and there are so few options at DR it is kind of scary! Conversely, I'm guessing one could field a starting eleven of all DCs pretty easily :-p

To combine my last two rantings into a coherent thought stream, I just won an auction for a DR. I freely admit that I spent too many tokens, but I was testing two ideas at once, and I was willing to replace them for "science". I ignored the value the game told me for this DR because IMO his value was far, far greater given the scarcity of other options.

Here is what I did: I sniped in to be top bidder at the end of the list time, which meant I was the top bidder in the 1st knockout round. Not wanting to risk getting sniped, I immediately bid as the 1st knockout round began. My competitor bid, and we moved to round 2 with him as the top bidder. I sniped him at the end of round 2 but he had JUST enough time to get in a counter-bid. He then copied my strategy in round 3, and we actually carried this on for ten rounds! I finally wore him down and won the player, but it was nice to see that my strategy for avoiding being sniped is 100% viable and 100% recommended.

In short: if you are committed to winning an auction, are the top bidder in the knockout rounds, and want to avoid getting sniped, every new round you begin as the top bidder, place a new bid immediately. Yes, when you finally win you will have paid 1 extra token, but consider that a cost of doing business.