Daily Site Review: Sports Tradex

 

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our new Daily Content section in DLF. Daily leagues are growing in the fantasy community and we’ll cover them throughout the regular season. Remember, you can also get a DLF Premium account free for year (or your current subscription extended for a year) just by signing up with FanDuel and making an initial deposit. For more information on that special offer, click here.

Each edition of this series will highlight a different daily fantasy football site. Towards the end of the season, we will do more of a comparative analysis between the sites, giving a comprehensive overview of the daily fantasy football landscape.   For starters, though, we will focus on each highlighted site individually and give general impressions in order to give the reader an idea of exactly what the site has to offer.

Website and URL: SportsTradex, www.sportstradex.com

First Impressions: My initial introduction to SportsTradex was via their mobile site which appears very clean and professional.  The desktop site is equally clean and professional, lacking the clutter which some sites rely upon for revenue but making for a better user interface. Signing up was particularly easy and there is currently a 20% bonus offer available for all deposits, which can be made via credit card or PayPal.

[inlinead]I appreciate the simplicity of the homepage which displays “Contests,” “My Dashboard,” “My Lineups”,” “My Picks,” accoun, and login information across a top banner. Overall, I am impressed with the website design and am curious why more people aren’t playing on this platform yet.

Mobile Options: As previously stated, the mobile site is very easy to access and is synchronous with the desktop site. There does not appear to be a smart phone application available through the Google Play store or the Apple store at this time.

Types of Contests: SportsTradex offers four primary types of NFL contests:

1. Draft Contests – This is the most standard format for daily fantasy leagues, where contestants create their own lineups and submit them in various games against other contestants. However, SportsTradex offers a unique twist, which we’ll explore more in depth later, where you create 7, 8, or 9 player teams based on a tier system rather than a standardized salary cap.
2. Pick’Em Contests – Like a standard NFL Pick’Em contest but with fantasy teams rather than NFL teams.
3. Survivor Contests – Like a standard NFL survivor pool but instead of picking NFL teams, you’re picking fantasy teams. Pretty unique.
4. Trading Contests – According to the site game rules, “all contestants are given a fixed amount of Sports Tradex dollars (virtual currency)…all trades are made with this virtual currency…the goal of the contest is to accumulate as much virtual money as possible.” I’m not sure I 100% understand this and there are currently no practice contests available but this sounds very interesting and will definitely be on my list to check out in the future.

Lineup Format: Rather than the usual lineup with a quarterback, two running back, three wide receivers, a tight end, a flex spot, a kicker and a defense, SportsTradex has a very unique system where you choose between three different “rosters” which are built upon tiers of players. The options are:

1. Seven players – 3 players from Tier A, 2 players from Tier B, 1 player from Tier C and 1 player from Tier D.
2. Eight players – 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D
3. Nine players – 1A, 3B, 2C, 3D

The players in Tier A are generally elite players and players in Tier D are mostly backups or “sleepers.” On the plus side, there are no position restrictions so you can submit all running backs if you want to. On the down side, not every player is listed in a Tier so, for example, Peyton Manning is not an option to select this week. The narrowing of choices could conceivably create a situation where a lot of contestants are playing the same players which decreases variability.

Scoring Format: Standard PPR, one point per 10 yards rushing/receiving, one point per 25 yards passing.

Creating Lineups: This format is so different than any others I’ve ever done before but it’s a lot of fun. I’m considering throwing in an all running back or an all wide receiver lineup just to see what happens. The strategy is definitely a lot different than the standard salary cap league so SportsTradex definitely gets bonus points for creativity in my book.

Have you used SportsTradex yet? If so, what were your impressions? What other sites would you like to see featured in this series? Let us know below in the comments or on Twitter @jefeberan.

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