FPL Draft waivers explained

A waiver request swaps one of your players for an unselected player in the same position. It gives every manager a chance to claim a newly released or newly added player instead of rewarding whoever clicks first.

Read the full Draft rules for the wider game format.

Waivers normally run once per Gameweek. The official process takes place 24 hours before the Gameweek deadline, so your claims have to be in by then; remaining players become available in Free Agency afterwards.

The lowest-ranked manager receives the first claim. Before the first Gameweek, priority is the reverse of the draft order. When a claim succeeds, that manager moves to the end of the queue for the round.

Use priority on a player who changes your starting XI, not on a marginal bench upgrade. In a small league, saving priority can be more valuable than winning a short-term fixture punt.

Make a claim when news changes a player's expected minutes, when a starter is ruled out or when a fixture run creates a genuine upgrade. Check the latest predicted lineups before submitting your order.

Rank several requests in order. If the first player is taken, the next valid request can still improve your squad.

Because a successful claim sends you to the back of the queue for that round, only your first-ranked request is genuinely safe from the rest of the league — nobody has moved ahead of you yet. Every request after that has to survive every other manager's requests that get processed first in the same run, so it needs more than one name behind it.

A practical rule of thumb: for your Nth ranked request, assume roughly (N − 1) × (other managers in your league) rival picks could land before your turn comes back around, and line up that many ranked backups for that slot — not just a single preferred target. In an 8-team league that's normally fine with one option for your first claim, but closer to 7-8 realistic alternatives behind your second, and more again behind a third or fourth.

Don't force the list to hit that number, though. If only two or three players on the market would actually improve the slot, stop there — a short, honest list of real upgrades beats a long one padded with sideways or downgrade options just to look thorough.

Drop the player whose role, minutes or replacement value has deteriorated. Do not cut a secure starter solely because of one difficult fixture. Compare expected starts over the next three Gameweeks with the best player you can realistically claim.

After the waiver process, remaining players can be signed directly until the Gameweek deadline. This is the time to react to late team news, but confirm the move before the deadline because changes after it apply to the following round.

Use the Draft points predictions as a shortlist, then verify availability and minutes using current team news.