Draft night is the first chapter of your league's season. Use this guide to prepare a scheduled room, keep every manager's seat ready, and handle an absent friend without slowing the night down.
1. Commissioner setup
- Create a scheduled one-off draft room.
- Set the expected number of managers and the pick clock.
- Share the room code or invite link with the group.
- Ask everyone to join before you set the draft order. Once the order is set, nobody else can join.
- Save the order, or randomize it, ahead of time.
Scheduled rooms start automatically once the scheduled time arrives and everyone is ready. If no order has been saved, the commissioner gets a short grace-period window to save or randomize it, shown as a live countdown. Simply opening the order editor does not extend that window.
Once the room is full, extra join attempts are rejected. Before the order is set, the commissioner can remove a participant with the Kick button next to that manager's name, or the participant can remove themselves with Leave. Once the order is set, neither option is available, so starting a new room may be necessary.
2. Manager preparation
Each manager should:
- Join using the room code or invite link.
- Build a private player queue.
- Put the players in priority order.
- Switch the queue from Off to Armed.
- Press Set ready.
An armed queue is used if the manager's pick clock runs out. The app checks the queued players in order, skips anyone invalid or already taken, and picks the best valid available player if none of the queued choices can be drafted.
Joining needs an account, and the seat is linked to it automatically. Signing in again from another phone, browser, or laptop returns you to the same seat with your queue and ready state, so you don't need to stay on the device you joined from.
3. If a manager will be absent
The absent manager should:
- Join normally and keep their seat.
- Build and prioritize a queue.
- Switch the queue to Armed.
- Press Set ready.
- Close the browser tab or window.
Don't press Leave before the draft starts. Leaving removes the manager's seat, readiness, queue, and availability, and the commissioner has to wait for another manager.
Don't replace a known-absent manager with a bot. On that manager's turns, the commissioner can use Force pick to run the same queue-first selection right away instead of waiting for the clock.
4. Draft-night checklist
Commissioner
- Confirm that every expected manager has joined.
- Confirm that everyone is ready.
- Set the order only after everyone is in the room.
- Check that the order has actually been saved or randomized.
- At the scheduled time, confirm that the draft starts automatically.
- Use Force pick on known-absent managers' turns.
Managers
- Confirm that your queue is in priority order.
- Confirm that it says Armed, not Off.
- Press Set ready.
- Stay in the room, or if you'll be absent, close the tab without pressing Leave.
Common mistakes
- Setting the order too early: managers can't join afterwards.
- Building a queue but leaving it off: the queue isn't used when time runs out.
- Forgetting to mark yourself ready: the scheduled draft may not start.
- Leaving before the draft: this removes your seat, queue, and readiness.
- Only opening the order editor at start time: the order must actually be saved or randomized within the grace period.
- Signing in with a different account than you joined with: each seat belongs to one account. Sign back in with the same account to return to it; a different account gets a new seat.
- Adding bots for absent friends: keep their human seats and use Force pick instead.