How to Play

Waiver Wizards combines traditional fantasy football with dice-driven playcalling and player progression. Each NFL player's position gives them a scoring identity with unique double-edged bonuses, creating strategic depth beyond standard fantasy scoring.

No. A lot of D&D-flavored fantasy football ideas just rename the same weekly stats. Here, every playcall is a dice check rolled by the server the moment it happens, Counterspell is a live reaction you throw back on a separate budget from your regular Energy, and the playoffs add real Fog of War — hidden markers, decoys, and scouting plays to unmask them. Progression follows genuine tabletop RPG structure too: six attributes, a Development (a feat or an ability-score boost) at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 — the same milestones a real D&D character hits — plus a season-locked Dual-Threat or Specialist choice at the midpoint. And it's all written in football terms first, so you never need to know what a "Constitution save" is to play.

On top of standard scoring, each player's position adds double-edged passive bonuses tuned to that player's attributes. See "Positions & Attributes" below, and the Positions reference, for specifics.

Every starter's points stack up in the same order:

1. Base points — the standard scoring above (yards, TDs, catches).

2. + Position bonus — their position's double-edged passive (a boom on a big game, a bust on a bad one).

3. +/− Playcalls — anything you or your opponent called on that player this week. A direct strike adds or removes flat points on the spot; a sap or a boost resolves once their real game is played.

= The player's final score. Add up all your starters and that's your team total for the week.

Only starters score — anyone on your bench scores 0, so set your lineup before kickoff (and don't leave a player who's out on injury in a starting slot).

Your WR catches 6 passes for 80 yards and a touchdown:

• Base: 6 receptions + 8 (80 yds ÷ 10) + 6 (TD) = 20.0

• Position bonus: a receiver having a big day → +2.5

• Playcalls: an opponent's Double Coverage saps −3.0, a boost you called on him adds +2.0

Each position has its own scoring identity: quarterbacks are high-ceiling gunslingers, running backs bruising volume runners, receivers explosive playmakers, tight ends dependable safety valves, and defenses aggressive units. Kickers are specialists — they boom on long field goals and get docked on a miss. Rookies are wildcards until they settle in.

Each position rewards its best games and punishes its worst. An RB loses points on a fumble, a WR busts on a quiet day, a QB is docked for interceptions. The TE is the steady, low-risk pick. Recruiting is choosing a risk profile.

Every QB shares the same scoring identity — but each player has six attributes that scale their passives: Power, Burst, Durability, Football IQ, Field Vision, and X-Factor. A high–Football IQ QB shrugs off interceptions; a Power QB squeezes more out of a big yardage day; a Power kicker banks more on a 50-yarder. So the question isn't just "who scores more" — it's "whose attributes fit the position."

On a player's card, tap any rating (or their Poise) to see exactly what it does for that player — which scoring plays it boosts, which penalties it softens, and which sabotage plays they roll it to shake off. No football knowledge needed: the game spells out how each number moves their score.

Each player card shows a Rough estimate — a floor / likely / ceiling point range based on the position and recent form. It's a rough guide to break a tie between two players, not a locked projection, so don't bench a hot hand over it.

Attributes are a stable base — they don't swing week to week. Instead, recent on-field form runs hot or cold. A 🔥 in-form player is harder to sabotage (spells targeting them roll with disadvantage, and they save with advantage); a ❄️ cold player is easier to hit. The variance lives in the dice, not the ability scores.

Players earn a Development at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19. Each one is your choice: raise ratings (+2 to one attribute, or +1 to two), or take a feat — a permanent perk like Burner (+1 Burst, +2 Poise) or Iron Lungs (+1 Durability, shrugs off 20% of incoming sabotage). It's the core decision that shapes who each player becomes for the rest of the season.

A standout player earns a one-time, season-locked upgrade — and it's a choice. Go Dual-Threat (breadth) to add a second position's passives on top of their own: more ways to score, but also more ways to get docked. Or become a Specialist (depth) to amplify the position they already play: bigger swings in the games that position is built for, keeping its double-edged identity. Dual-Threat spreads your scoring across more game types; specializing sharpens your best one.

Use FAAB (Free Agent Acquisition Budget) to claim players from waivers. Each team starts with $100 FAAB for the season. Higher bids win; ties break on waiver priority.

Most unrostered players can be added instantly. A player who was just dropped goes on waivers for about two days first — submit a FAAB claim for them instead of adding directly. Once that clears, if no one claimed them, they become a free agent anyone can grab.

Some leagues also turn on a weekly waiver window: from Monday until claims process Wednesday morning, the entire unrostered pool is claim-only, then reopens to instant adds for the rest of the week. Check your league settings to see if it's on.

Not sure what to call? The Encounter screen has a Best casts this week panel — a short, ranked shortlist of playcalls with a plain reason for each (cap their hot receiver, insure your slumping back, and so on). It's only a suggestion: holding your Energy is always a fine call.

Energy. Calling a play spends Energy — one weekly pool (not per-tier slots). Each playcall costs Energy (bigger/higher-tier playcalls cost more); it refills every week and your pool grows as your manager level rises.

How a playcall hits. A direct hit (a play like Blitz or Big Hit) deals flat points you see the moment it lands — your pressure has to beat their Poise, then you roll the damage. A sap (a play they make a stop against, like Double Coverage) instead drains a chunk of their real game — you won't see the exact points until their game is played (the hit lands at scoring). A boost lifts your own player's game the same way.

Roll a natural 20 to beat their Poise and it's a critical strike — double the damage. No math to do: strikes show real points, everything else shows up in the final score.

A few direct hits load the dice in your favor before you even throw: Money Kick rolls twice against their Poise and keeps the better result, so a bad roll doesn't sink the whole cast.

A direct hit's damage is set by their position and tier, not by how good they are — so the only thing that matters is who's easiest to beat (lower Poise). A sap is the opposite: it drains a cut of their REAL game, so it actually pays off more on their best player, not their weakest defender — the reverse of the obvious instinct.

Tap "Compare their lineup" on the cast screen to see landing chance — and, for saps, a projected point swing — across their whole roster for the play you've picked, instead of backing out and re-tapping a different player to check.

If you have Energy for more than one playcall, stacking every sap you've got on the same opponent star beats spreading one call each across several of their players. Every sap independently pays off more on their best real performer, so piling several onto that one target isn't diluted — it's straight addition. The Encounter screen's Best casts this week panel flags it when you've got enough Energy to do this.

A few playcalls don't make your player score more — they change what his production is worth, trading one kind of yardage for another. They're a bet on how his day breaks, and they're tuned so it's roughly a wash if you guess wrong-way-round.

No-Huddle plays fast: every yard pays more, touchdowns pay less — call it on a grinder who moves the ball all day. Bulk Up is the mirror: touchdowns pay more, yards pay less — call it on a guy you expect to finish drives. Coach's Challenge turns your defense loose: sacks and takeaways pay more, but you give up the reward for keeping points off the board. Move the Chains bets the other way for a possession receiver: catches pay more, touchdowns pay less — call it on a safety-valve target who racks up receptions without needing the end zone.

Each one only works on the players it's for — a yards-or-touchdowns call does nothing for your defense or kicker, and the takeaway call does nothing for a skill player.

Some playcalls are risky. On those you can go all-out — Send the House (on a rival) or Empty the Tank (on your own player) — to max the effect out. But it's a gamble: a bad roll can recoil onto your own starter or fizzle (that window shrinks as you level up). The safe alternative is Upcast: spend extra Energy to dial a playcall up a tier or more, no gamble.

The most explosive playcalls only unlock while you're on a losing streak — the leader can't wield them. Fall behind and you get a Hail Mary: a desperation heave, an all-out blitz, garbage-time daggers, an Onside Kick (a recovery attempt independent of who you target — land it and steal a cut of their score, muff it and a smaller cut of your own score goes the other way). Win once, and they lock back up immediately. Each comeback playcall is also capped at one cast per week — they're meant to tilt the odds your way, not decide the game outright. And however things stand when the regular season ends, everyone starts the playoffs on a clean slate — no comeback or lead-protection playcalls carry over into the bracket.

Take a Knee is the mirror image of a comeback playcall — it unlocks only while YOU'RE on a winning streak, and guarantees a deep floor (lingering 2 weeks) on one of your own players so a bust doesn't cost you the lead.

Rookie Adjustment guarantees a first-year player a floor so one bad week doesn't wreck their whole rookie season — but only through their first few weeks. Once there's enough tape on a rookie to judge them on their own merits, this playcall goes off the board.

A handful of playcalls are rationed for the whole season, not just gated by Energy or the week — Multiple Tight End Set (only a few casts all year) and Pick-Six (a handful of siphons, so it's a tactical strike rather than a standing tax on the league's best player). They're marked 🏆 with how many uses you have left, grouped under their own "Signature Plays" heading in the play-call screen — save them for when they'll actually swing the game, because once they're gone, they're gone until next season.

At manager level 7 you unlock one capstone playcall per position — the biggest, riskiest call in the book, and (Take a Knee aside) available to anyone, leader included:

Kitchen Sink hits 4 of the opponent's starters at once — every target still gets a save (a good roll shrugs part of it off) — and piles on EXTRA against anyone already having a bad week. The blast can scatter too: there's a real chance the splash catches one of your own starters for the same hit instead.

Cooked is a two-way call: one play both boosts a player on your own roster and saps an opponent's player — you pick both. Each half lands at reduced power (it's two plays for the price of one, not two full ones), and it resolves immediately — no waiting on the opponent to make a stop.

The rest round out the set: Bell Cow (all-or-nothing at its highest ceiling) and Erased (the tightest contain in the game) are open to anyone regardless of streak; Kitchen Sink (above) needs a losing streak like every other comeback play, and Take a Knee is the one capstone that flips that around, needing a winning streak instead.

An All-Out Blitz is a single massive strike on one opposing player — they still get a save (a great roll shrugs it off completely), but a failed one takes a huge cut of their real week. Jump the Route and Bait the Pick bet on a sloppy game — they dock points for every turnover the player commits, brutal on a bad day and a dud on a clean one (Bait the Pick hits harder, but only unlocks when you're behind).

A few playcalls attack the roster, not the scoreboard: Sucker the Coverage forces an opponent's bench player into their FLEX at lock, Healthy Scratch forces one of their current starters OUT to the bench instead, while Next Man Up locks your own lineup safe from all lineup manipulation for the week.

Statue of Liberty shows everyone but you a decoy target while it's pending — the real hit lands on someone else, so an opponent can't just bench whoever the feed says is targeted. The truth comes out once it resolves.

Rub Play protects one of your own players pre-lock: if something else hits them hard this week, part of that damage spreads thin across the rest of your lineup instead — and whatever your bench can't absorb before hitting its own floor is simply forgiven, so a deep bench turns a big hit into a smaller one for the team. It pays off most on a player who's already drawing incoming plays — the bigger their hit this week, the more Rub Play redirects.

Take a Knee and Rub Play guard against different things — Take a Knee covers your player's own bad real game, Rub Play covers damage from other plays landing on them. When you have both available, put them on two different players instead of stacking both on one favorite.

When an opponent calls a play that one of your players has to make a stop against, it doesn't resolve on its own — you make the stop. You'll get a notification and a "🛡️ incoming play" banner on the Encounter tab; tap it to roll the dice. A high roll makes the stop (or blunts the play to half), a low roll lets it land.

The dice are rolled by the server (nobody can rig it) — you're just the one who throws them. If you don't roll before your player's game kicks off, the server rolls the stop attempt for you automatically — same dice, same odds — so a missed tap never costs you the chance to make it. Direct-shot plays (like Blitz or Big Hit) are called by your opponent and don't need a stop from you.

Nagging plays (like a tweaked hamstring) don't go away after one week — they linger. Each week one is active your player gets a "Shake It Off" save: make it and the effect ends early, miss it and it keeps biting until it wears off.

Instead of rolling your own stop, you can spend Counterspell as a reaction — it shuts down a lower-tier play automatically, and rolls a contest against a higher one. A failed contest doesn't get a second chance: the play just resolves on its own, as if you'd never reacted at all. Counterspell draws from its own weekly Reaction budget, shown next to your Energy bar — spent on top of its normal Energy cost, not instead of it.

After the regular season, the league splits into a two-week postseason. The top 4 teams (by record, then head-to-head, then points-for) seed into the Championship bracket: semifinals in week one — (1) vs (4) and (2) vs (3) — then the two winners meet in the Final and the two losers play a Third-Place Game for the same stakes. Playoff games are single-elimination, so a tie goes to the higher seed.

The other four teams (seeds 5–8) drop into a parallel Consolation ladder — real, scored games on the same two weeks: (5) vs (8) and (6) vs (7), then a 5th-place game and a 7th-place game. In a bigger league, every four seeds beyond that (9–12, 13–16, ...) play the same bracket for their own placements. Nobody sits idle down the stretch.

Where you finish decides the order you'll choose your draft slot next season — and the consolation ladder wins that race: its champion (the best of the non-playoff teams) picks first, then the rest of the ladder, then the playoff teams (the trophy is their reward). So every game matters, whichever bracket you're in.

Scoring, Energy, and stops all work in the postseason exactly as they do in the regular season — there's just no next week to make it up. Playcalling itself gets one twist, though — see Fog of War below.

Once the playoffs start, incoming plays go dark. If an opponent calls a play on one of your players, you'll only see "❓ Something's coming" — no name, no tier, no idea who called it — until it resolves. A play you call on your OWN player (a buff) is never shown to anyone but you, playoffs or not.

You can still roll your stop blind, or spend Counterspell as a reaction instead — it auto-negates a lower-tier play, and rolls a contest against a higher one. But some of those markers are decoys — a bluff with nothing behind it — so a countered marker might turn out to have been nothing at all. Once anything resolves, the truth shows in the Spell Activity feed either way.

Two playoff-only scouting plays can peek behind a marker before you commit a reaction: Scouting Report confirms whether one of your markers is real or a decoy (without saying what it is), and All-22 Film fully unmasks one — name, tier, and who called it. Both spend Energy AND a Reaction, same as Counterspell — a separate weekly budget shown next to your Energy bar.

If your commissioner turns on Seasonal Events, a few times a season your league gets a shared, low-stakes event tied to the real NFL calendar. It's entirely optional — skip it and nothing about your standings or in-game power changes.

Early in the season, opt in and speak 3 prophecies about how the year will unfold — most of them about your own team's fate, so the challenge is calling your own season, not just naming something likely to happen to somebody. Once the join window closes, everyone's visions go public on a shared Prophecy Board — the fun is in the banter, not just the grading. Checkpoints through the season reveal each prophecy as truth or falsehood; land one and you earn a commemorative Trophy Room badge. Call all 3 true and fate rewards you further: a True Prophet head start where your next league begins at manager level 4 with Tier 2 spells already unlocked.

Thanksgiving week, the whole league teams up against a shared boss, the Turkey Wraith. Bring one of your own rostered players active on Thanksgiving as your "dish" — no active players? Donate a small Energy side dish instead. Each dish's real position routes it into one of four shared pools (Wizards/Barbarians/Rogues deal damage, Clerics shield, Paladins mitigate, Rangers cleanse), visible on a live party board so the league can see which roles still need covering. On Thanksgiving Day, real box scores tally into the pools and the boss swings back once — leaving a role uncovered makes that counterattack hit harder. Clear its HP bar before the day's games end and everyone who took part earns a shared Trophy Room badge — again, never Energy, never in-game power.

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