I’ve played fantasy football and basketball since middle school, took Bill Simmons’ advice a few years ago and started a fantasy celebrity league, and am now currently drafting for season eight of the best fantasy sport nobody knows about (yet): fantasy MTV Challenge.
For fantasy MTV Challenge, we actually used Fantasizr last season as an alternate scoring system. They were even kind enough to customize scoring options for us last year. Ultimately, we still stuck with our low tech Google Docs to track our long-running MTV league, but I knew Fantasizr had enormous potential. After all, as Simmons said, "One thing sports have taught us is that almost anything can be improved by creating a scoring system and holding a draft. Try it.”
So here we are with fantasy Game of Thrones, likely the greatest fantasy idea I’ve heard of in many many years! My co-commissioner Mel and I literally saw Fantasizr feature this and set up a league within 36 hours. We recruited the best of the best, the Top Gun of GoT and fantasy fans. Now, armed with seven owners, we’re ready to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. My only regret is that nobody came up with this idea until Season Four, and there will only be four or less seasons of this to play.
To answer some critics, aka lame friends who didn't want to play:
“Isn’t it cheating if you’ve already read the books?”
Not really. It could be an edge to know who lives or who dies, but ultimately points will be scored for what appears on the show. Things that happen off-camera won’t be counted and it’s very likely that a character who ends up dying could ultimately score more than a character who debaucherizes him/herself into the grave.
“Why would I play this if I enjoy watching the show? Paying attention to all this little stuff would be annoying!”
As anybody who has played fantasy anything knows, interest is a quadrillion fold increased when you are numerically invested in a player/character. Plus, the simple and brilliant scoring system aligns closely with all the reasons we love watching the show. I mean, don’t you enjoy GoT because it’s got plenty of killing, maiming, sexing, and drinking? Now if only backstabbing were part of the scoring...
Plus, it’s not like YOU are responsible for tabulating the scores of 44 characters. Unless your name is Ryan H., of course. (Thanks Ryan, good luck arbitrating disputes that are inevitably gonna happen!) So really, playing fantasy GoT is just sitting back and enjoying the ten week ride while you talk shit to your frenemies. That doesn’t sound like fun?
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