How to play
NPC Fantasy is a free fantasy rugby game for New Zealand's NPC. Here's everything you need to know.
1. Build your squad
Pick exactly 15 players for a total budget of $100m, with at most 3 players from any one province. Your squad must make up a full starting XV:
| Prop | 2 |
| Hooker | 1 |
| Lock | 2 |
| Loose forward | 3 |
| Halfback | 1 |
| First five | 1 |
| Centres | 2 |
| Outside back | 3 |
2. Captain & vice
Name one player your captain. They score double points every round. Pick a vice-captaintoo: if your captain doesn't play a round, the vice inherits the double automatically.
3. Transfers
Transfers are free and unlimited. Change your squad as much as you like. Each round keeps its own history, so a later change never rewrites a round that's already been played. Don't touch it and your squad simply carries over.
Players lock in one game at a time. Each pick is yours to change right up until that player's own gamekicks off. So if someone is pulled from a team sheet on the morning of their match, you can still react. Once their game starts they're locked into the round, whether they take the field or not.
Your captain and vice-captainroll the same way: you can move the armband while its current holder's game is still to come, and only onto a player who also hasn't played. So if your captain is pulled from a team sheet, you can put the ×2 on his replacement instead of losing it. Once their game kicks off, that slot is set for the round.
Your boosteris the one thing that does not roll. It's committed when the round's first game kicks off. It is a once-a-season call, so everyone makes it before any result is known.
New to the game? You can join at any round. Arrive mid-round and your first squad picks from the teams still to play. One fairness rule applies to everyone, newcomers included: a round opens for picking once the previousround's scores and prices are final, so nobody can snap up the just-performed players at their old prices.
4. Lineups & late withdrawals
When teams are named (about two days before a round), players get an Starts badge if they're starting or a Benchbadge if they're a reserve, so you can pick confirmed starters. And if a named starter is pulled just before kickoff, we credit the points of whoever replaced them. So you're never punished for a late scratch outside your control.
5. Scoring
Every round, real match stats become fantasy points for your players (doubled for your captain):
| Try | +15 |
| Try assist | +9 |
| Conversion | +2 |
| Penalty goal | +3 |
| Drop goal | +3 |
| Tackle | +1 |
| Missed tackle | −1 |
| Dominant tackle (on top of the tackle point) | +2 |
| 50:22 | +5 |
| Line break | +7 |
| Line break assist | +3 |
| Defender beaten | +2 |
| Offload | +2 |
| Turnover won | +4 |
| Turnover lost | −1 |
| Penalty conceded | −1 |
| Metre carried | +0.1 |
| Lineout won (throw) | +0.3 |
| Lineout take (catch) | +1.5 |
| Lineout steal | +5 |
| Scrum won (props, hooker) | +2 |
| Yellow card | −5 |
| Red card | −10 |
Lineout stats reward hookers and locks (and anyone who wins one). Scrums won count only for props and the hooker, the front row. Carries, tackles and turnovers keep every other position in the game.
6. Boosters
Three one-off power-ups to play when it counts. You can use one booster per round, and each one only once all season, so pick your moment. Activate them in the picker before the round's first game kicks off: unlike your players, a booster can't be changed once the round is under way.
Triple captain
Your captain scores ×3 this round instead of the usual ×2.
Co-captain
Pick a second player who also scores ×2 this round, on top of your normal captain.
Defense boost
Pick one player whose tackles, dominant tackles, turnovers won and lineout steals all score ×3 this round.
7. Predictor
The Predictor is a second game alongside your fantasy squad. For every match, tip who you think wins and by how many points, before it kicks off:
| Result point: correct winner | +1 |
| Accuracy point: margin within 5 of the real oneCounts even when you called the wrong winner, if the two margins were still close. Tip a team by 2 and the other side wins by 1 and your margin was 3 out, so it pays. | +0.5 |
| Closest call: closest margin in your leagueNeeds the winner right and the margin within 15. Shared if more than one of you ties, never below 0.25 each. League tables only, so it is not on the global one. | +1 |
| Clean sweep: every winner in a roundNeeds the whole round finished and every match called. | +2 |
The result point and the accuracy point are separate, so a match can pay you both, one, or neither. A drawn match pays no result point to anyone, because a tip is always a team and a margin, but its accuracy point is still reachable. Tips lock the moment a match kicks off.
Standings ties are split, in order: most correct results, then most clean sweeps, then most closest calls. Managers level on every count share their ladder position.
The Predictor has its own leaderboard and its own leagues, separate from your fantasy squad.
8. Knockout cup
Every league with 4 or more members gets a knockout cup. It runs alongside the main game: cup results never change your fantasy points, prices, or the overall ladder.
The cup has two phases. First, seeding rounds: everyone is paired each round (a bye if the numbers are odd, and you never play the same opponent twice in seeding) and your seeding points are your fantasy points for that round, the same numbers the By round tab shows, plus 50 bonus points for winning your pairing. A level pairing scores no bonus. Seeding standings decide the bracket: the highest seed plays the lowest seed, and byes go to the top seeds.
Then the knockout: win and you advance; lose and you drop into a placement game the following week, so every manager keeps playing until every place from first to last is decided. The semifinal losers meet in the final's round for third place, and the earlier losers meet for fifth. The bracket is sized so the final lands in Round 10, the last round-robin round.
A pairing is decided when the round is final: higher round points wins. Level on round points goes to the higher overall season total through that round. If still level, a recorded coin flip decides. Live points never decide a cup tie.
The Cup tab shows the current round at the top, seeding standings, and your finishing place once the cup completes. Cups start and advance themselves: the next draw happens automatically once the previous round is final. There is nothing to click.