How NRL Fantasy prices work
Why prices move the way they do, why they lag form by weeks, and how to get ahead of the change.
NRL Fantasy prices are not set by hand. They follow a formula that blends a player's existing price with their recent scoring, updating once per round. Understanding that formula is what separates guessing at price rises from knowing they are coming.
The core idea: prices move slowly and deliberately
The single most important property of the pricing model is that it is sticky. A player's new price is mostly their old price, nudged towards what their recent scoring says they should be worth. One enormous game does not reprice a player overnight — and one shocker does not destroy them.
new price = (0.75 × old price) + (0.25 × magic number × weighted average)
The weighted average covers the player's last five games including the round just played, weighted towards the most recent. The result is rounded to the nearest $1,000 and cannot fall below a floor price.
That 75/25 split is the whole story. Each round, only a quarter of the gap between a player's price and their "deserved" price gets closed. It takes several rounds of consistent scoring for a price to fully catch up to form.
Three consequences worth internalising
1. A big score keeps paying you for weeks
Because the score sits inside a five-game weighted average, a huge round doesn't just produce one price rise — it produces a reduced rise in each of the following rounds as it works its way through the average. This is why you want to buy a player before the run, not after the first big week.
2. Prices can move against current form
Each round, an old score drops out of the rolling window and a new one enters. If the score dropping out was bigger than the one coming in, the average falls even if the new score was decent. A player can post a solid game and still lose money — the comparison that matters is against what they are replacing, not against zero.
3. Missed games don't crater a price
When a player misses a game, the model fills the gap with the score their price implies rather than a zero. An injured premium therefore holds most of their value while sidelined, which is why panic-selling a short-term injury is usually a bad trade. See trade strategy.
Where the magic number fits
The formula converts points into dollars using the magic number — the competition-wide price-per-point rate. Divide any player's price by it and you get the score they are priced at. That "priced at" figure is the benchmark every price movement and every breakeven is measured against.
Getting ahead of price changes on yafss
Since the formula is deterministic, price changes are predictable given a score. yafss exposes this in a few places:
- Player pages carry a price forecast — enter or accept projected scores and see the resulting price path over the coming rounds, including a simulated peak.
- Price Movers shows who has actually gained and lost value over any range of rounds, sortable by dollar gain, percentage gain, total points or average — the fastest way to see which price runs are already underway and which are stalling.
- Player Finder lets you filter the full player pool on price and breakeven together, which is how you build a buy shortlist rather than reacting to last week's highest score.
What this means for how you play
The practical takeaway is that price is a lagging indicator. By the time a player looks obviously good and obviously expensive, the money has already been made by whoever bought them three rounds earlier. Your edge comes from identifying the change in role — more minutes, a promotion to starter, a shift to a higher-scoring position — and buying while the price still reflects the old role.
Check this week's team lists for role changes