Draft Strategy Using Last Year’s Results as a Guide

It’s Red Carpet Rosters draft time! And this year is a strange one. I’m not going to call it a down year. After all, how can it be down when both Hundreds of Beavers and The Substance released to theaters this year? However, it is a year with virtually no clear frontrunners in any category. Sure, Dune: Part Two will likely win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and most would agree of Emilia Perez‘s chances of getting Best International, but we have no frontrunner for Best Picture and all the acting categories are up in the air. Zoe Saldana is probably the safest prediction to win an acting Oscar, but I’m not so sure she was as clear now as was Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) was a year ago or Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once) was two years ago. And as far as the Best Picture Race goes, let’s be brutally honest. Oppenheimer was the overwhelming favorite to win. This year? You could make the claim for at least five films’ chances of taking home the Oscar. So to say that this year is rife with uncertainty is an understatement.

And before I continue, the whole point of this post is to provide an exercise whereby if you can accurately predict the rankings, NOT THE POINTS, of each fantasy player in their respective positions, you will have a huge edge to dominate your league. Okay, now that I got your attention, let’s hop back into the post.

There are still commonalities between last year and this year when looking at Film Awards Fantasy: 1) The amount of nominations and wins (i.e. points) up for grabs is both finite and relatively unchanged, and 2) the top players per position will score many more points than the bottom players per respective position. That seems like a “duh” statement, but it’s important to remember that the top point getter will represent a percentage share of the total and finite amount of points. And because there is a set amount of points, fantasy managers need to go after the players that will snag the largest share of those points. To help see how the top performers in each category compare to their counterparts in that same category, I looked at the Top 20 players in each category in the starting lineup. I then calculated the share of each of these players in their respective positions.

For example, the top player in the CIN/EDIT spot was CIN Hoyte Van Hoytema (Oppenheimer) who dominated with wins across the spectrum. He accounted for 18% of the total points from the top 20 CIN/EDIT players, which is the largest share of any category. The lowest share came from the SCORE/SOUND/VFX/SONG position, which is to be expected. This spot has four possible category designations AND it’s full of SONG collaborators, which serve to spread the points. If I gave you just a moment to guess who the top player was, I bet you’d eventually arrive at SCORE Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer), and you’d be right. He secured a little more than 10% of the top 20 players’ points. So, the top player in any category is expected to receive as little as 10% to as much as 18%. These don’t seem like big percentages until you realize that if points were distributed equally, the top player would only get 5% of the points.

The following graph shows each category’s point distribution of the top 20 players. The vertical axis is the percentage of points earned (so if you added all the shares of the top 20 in any category, it equals 100% share) and the bottom axis is the rank of the player in that category (from 1 to 20).

Now it’s about to get kind of math-y, but bear with me. Even in a year with clear frontrunners such as last year, there are still categories that had a level of uncertainty. Uncertainty leads to flatter curves. This time next year, I imagine this same graph will have flatter curves, but the shape of those curves will be fairly similar. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that in a game where most ceremonies are nominating only five nominees per category and awarding only one winner per category, the fight for points is a ruthless one. There will INEVITABLY be point distributions that look…okay here’s when it’s gonna start to get math-y…like an exponential decay curve. Categories with clearer frontrunners will look like a logarithmic curve. Basically, both of these curves start out with a large share, quickly drops, and flattens out. In a “perfect draft” of a ten-team league, all managers will have a top 10 point earner per category. After all, SOMEONE has to own the best starting ACTRS player and someone has to own the worst starting ACTRS player.

The thing with logarithmic curves compared to exponential curves is that logarithmic curves start out hotter and has a steeper decline. In other words, a logarithmic curve provides a better fit for more certain categories. This has a severe danger of overestimating the shares of the top players, especially in a year where there is more uncertainty. Instead, I chose to use an exponential curve for each category. The exponential curve still has a great fit to predict shares, and will temper expectations, and may even underestimate, for the top point getters. This is a feature not a bug.

So if I use an exponential model to predict shares of the top 20 players in each category, I can predict the number of points that each player will get and further predict the VALUE of each player. (Value is a simple calculation of taking the points of a player and subtracting the 11th ranked player’s points, 11th ranked because that’s the best replacement player.)

Whew! Still with me? Great! You obviously really want to win your league!

Let’s go ahead and take a look at each category now.

PICTURE

Of course, any ANI/INT/DOC film can also be placed in your PIC slot, adding some nuance to strategy. People have won without a true PIC because of this rule, and last year saw two INT films break into Best Picture at both the Oscars and other ceremonies. For the purposes of this, only PIC’s are considered.

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTES
Oppenheimer**	196	155	HUGE value
Barbie*	152	111	Bonus pts for comedy
Killers of the Flower Moon*	124	83	The second horse in the two-horse Oscar race
Past Lives*	108	67	The small-scale contender
The Holdovers*	108	67	The other small-scale contender
Poor Things*	107	66	The PIC with tech contender
American Fiction*	86	45	TIFF Audience Choice
John Wick: Chapter 4	62	21	Mostly stunts pts
The Color Purple	43	2	BIG dropoff here
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1	42	1	Again, mostly stunts pts
May December	41	0	The first replacement, but still a great FLEX play
Maestro*	38	-3	Nice to have for the quarter-finals (i.e. Oscar noms)
All of Us Strangers	35	-6	Indie darling
The Iron Claw	32	-9	Damn I wish this was more of a contender, but had great late season value
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.	22	-19	Obligatory coming of age contender
Asteroid City	22	-19	Auteur Director
Guardians of the Galaxy	20	-21	Sci-Fi/Horror genre points
Talk to Me	19	-22	Sci-Fi/Horror genre points
Bottoms	18	-23	Comedy genre points
A Thousand and One	16	-25	Indie darling

And here’s the chart for PIC with the model trendline and a red arrow pointing to Oscar winner Oppenheimer.

Now let’s take the model equation and predict the number of points for the top PIC players. Here’s where the exercise for you also begins. Yes, the modeled points will absolutely be different than what is realized by the end of the season. But again, I’ve been doing this long enough, that the point distribution, no matter where those points go to, will be pretty similar. The trick, though, is to get the ranking right. I propose my rankings, but yours could be different. My point is that the modeled points and the modeled value will be somewhat stable. That means the biggest unknown is what ranking the PIC players will be by the end of the season. This is your exercise. Rank the pictures. See the projected points they would get depending on that ranking. Draft accordingly. The default ranked PIC’s are presented, but it’s up to you to determine if you agree.

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Anora	131.35	96.26
Conclave	115.11	80.02
The Brutalist	100.87	65.78
Dune: Part Two	88.40	53.31
Gladiator II	77.47	42.38
Sing Sing	67.89	32.80
Blitz	59.49	24.40
A Complete Unknown	52.14	17.05
The Room Next Door	45.69	10.60
September 5	40.04	4.95
Saturday Night	35.09	0.00
A Real Pain	30.75	-4.34
Nickel Boys	26.95	-8.14
The Piano Lesson	23.61	-11.48
Wicked	20.69	-14.40
The Substance	18.14	-16.95
Didi	15.89	-19.20
The Fall Guy	13.93	-21.16
Challengers	12.21	-22.88
Here	10.70	-24.39

The ranking has all the usual suspects, along with PIC’s that have little chance to get a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but are types of films that could get some points because of things like Acting Ensembles, Stunts, and Genre points. That’s why you see films like The Fall Guy (stunts) and The Substance (horror genre). This list, though, is light on comedy, so there could be some deep sleeper comedies lurking on the draft board. Again, your exercise is to rank the films yourself, the points and value estimates are dependent on the RANK not the films themselves.

DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY

There are complications with this category from last year to this year. The top two ranked DIR/SCRN this year are Sean Baker (Anora) and Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) because not only are they getting lots of buzz for both directing and writing their respective films, but they ALSO have a “below-the-line” position eligibility, which is a huge edge. There are more points to go around for DIR/SCRN than CIN/EDIT (Sean Baker has an EDIT credit) and SCORE/SOUND/VFX/SONG (Jacques Audiard has a SONG credit.) So having a strong DIR/SCRN able to camp out in a BTL starting spot increases their value significantly. Last year didn’t really see anyone like Baker and Audiard, but even when there’s no comparison, the model is still useful because you can just find more contenders in DIR/SCRN, and if you are lucky enough to own Baker or Audiard, you don’t even need to fill a bench spot with another CIN/EDIT or SCORE/SOUND/VFX/SONG. Instead fill your flex spot with another ATL player. So not only do you get great value, you get great flexibility with your, ahem, FLEX and bench spots.

Also, a strong DIR-SCRN is better than a strong DIR or strong SCRN because a DIR-SCRN has the double threat for points at each ceremony.

How did last year’s DIR/SCRN slots pan out?

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTE
Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)**	208	152	DIR-SCRN Top point getter, second in value.
Celine Song (Past Lives)*	180	124	DIR-SCRN Bonus pts for debut
Cord Jefferson (American Fiction)**	130	74	DIR-SCRN Bonus pts for debut
Greta Gerwig (Barbie)*	119	63	DIR-SCRN
Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)*	106	50	DIR-SCRN Slight bust, but still top 5
Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)**	95	39	DIR-SCRN
David Hemingson (The Holdovers)*	77	21	SCRN The first “single” threat
Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall)**	72	16	SCRN The first “single” threat Oscar winner
Noah Baumbach (Barbie)*	67	11	SCRN
Tony McNamara (Poor Things)*	60	4	SCRN (seeing a theme here?)
Samy Burch (May December)*	56	0	SCRN
Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)*	55	-1	DIR-SCRN Slow start but was a double Oscar nominee in the quarter-finals
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)*	49	-7	DIR First DIR without a SCRN credit
Eric Roth (Killers of the Flower Moon)	47	-9	SCRN
Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers)	38	-18	DIR-SCRN The Indie darling
A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One)	32	-24	DIR-SCRN The third debut player
Kelly Fremon Craig (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.)	26	-30	DIR-SCRN Another debut
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)	20	-36	DIR-SCRN Another debut that might have eligibility with US orgs this year
Josh Singer (Maestro)*	19	-37	SCRN
Alexander Payne (The Holdovers)	18	-38	DIR

So you notice that the top players have dual threat credits and also, which is somewhat unique to the DIR/SCRN slot, the top players are all Oscar nominees.

Also notice that Bradley Cooper isn’t in this table for Maestro. He had more value starting in the ACTR slot because of his cross-eligibility, so he’ll be in a following table below instead.

Also also notice that Celine Song and Cord Jefferson were #2 and #3. This is because DEBUT directors can be double- or TRIPLE-threats. There are enough debut points to make debut directors a very attractive option in fantasy drafts. These two debuts directors also ended up with Oscar nominees, which doesn’t always happen either. We knew Song and Jefferson were going to corner the market to be a potential top tier player, and that prediction was absolutely correct. Celine Song and Cord Jefferson were contenders for getting points for directing, writing, AND debut/breakthrough directing at every ceremony that had all three awards. Having a strong debut director, if you can also snag a safe Oscar nominee, is huge for your team. Figuring out which debut is a little harder. Last year it was easy. This year, there are a few names that you could target to snag debut points. Malcolm Washington (The Piano Lesson), Julio Torres (Problemista), Rachel Morrison (The Fire Inside), Dev Patel (Monkey Man), Rodrigo Prieto (Pedro Paramo), Josh Margolin (Thelma), William Goldenberg (Unstoppable), and Mike Cheslik (Hundreds of Beavers) all come to mind. There are also plenty of familiar names that have debuts too, which makes this a long list. Just remember there are a finite amount of points, and this is just for a small slice of the total point pie. Malcolm Washington is the safest debut, but I wouldn’t bank on him getting an Oscar nomination just yet. But if he corners the debut market, he could be a huge sleeper pick to help you get to the playoffs and the rest of your team can take it from there.

So what does the graph look like? Arrows point to Oscar winners.

Of all the top 20 directors and screenwriters, only 4 could’ve helped you in the championship, but 14 could’ve helped you in the quarterfinals.

What are the implied modeled points and value based on the pre-draft rankings? Glad you asked. Remember, it’s your job to put them in order, I’ve only made a suggestion.

Also, Baker and Audiard are represented here, even though they will undoubtedly have more value because of their cross-position eligibility. This just means there are potentially two more DIR/SCRN starters to take their place, which widens the field for a position that is rife with potential points.

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Sean Baker (DIR-EDIT-SCRN, Anora)	182.63	127.62
Jacques Audiard (DIR-SCRN-SONG, Emilia Perez)	161.98	106.97
Brady Corbet (DIR-SCRN, The Brutalist)	143.66	88.65
Greg Kwedar (DIR-SCRN, Sing Sing)	127.42	72.41
Denis Villeneuve (DIR-SCRN, Dune: Part Two)	113.01	58.00
Jason Reitman (DIR-SCRN, Saturday Night)	100.23	45.22
Peter Straughan (SCRN, Conclave)	88.90	33.89
Mona Fastvold (SCRN, The Brutalist)	78.84	23.83
Clint Bentley (SCRN, Sing Sing)	69.93	14.92
Steve McQueen (DIR-SCRN-SONG, Blitz)	62.02	7.01
Gil Kenan* (SCRN, Saturday Night)	55.01	0.00
Jesse Eisenberg (ACTR-DIR-SCRN, A Real Pain)	48.79	-6.22
Edward Berger (DIR, Conclave)	43.27	-11.74
Jon Spaights (SCRN, Dune: Part Two)	38.38	-16.63
Malcolm Washington (DIR-SCRN, The Piano Lesson)	34.04	-20.97
Pedro Almodóvar (DIR-SCRN, The Room Next Door)	30.19	-24.82
RaMell Ross (DIR-SCRN, Nickel Boys)	26.78	-28.23
James Mangold (DIR-SCRN, A Complete Unknown)	23.75	-31.26
Julio Torres (ACTR-DIR-SCRN-SONG, Problemista)	21.06	-33.95
Virgil Williams (SCRN, The Piano Lesson)	18.68	-36.33

A notable name missing from this list is Ridley Scott (DIR, Gladiator II). He was ranked 21st.

And looking at the modeled points seems to indicate that having a DIR/SCRN in your flex spot is a good choice. Although there is uncertainty which leads to more points being spread around, the amount of points for DIR/SCRN and for PIC are hard to ignore. Having any of the 11th-20th ranked DIR/SCRN to put in your FLEX spot could pay dividends for your team, especially because there are some with very attractive cross-eligibility. So don’t be afraid to pull the trigger on a strong DIR/SCRN early and often, even if it feels like a reach. I’d much rather reach for a couple quality DIR/SCRN than I would for a PD/CD/MUAH, for example.

Also, and I’m just gonna come out and say it, the top debut director by the end of the season will score enough points to have starter value. This player will give your team a huge edge in the regular season, so as long as you drafted enough Oscar contenders, you can ride the debut points to the playoffs and the rest of your team can take it from there. I think the top debut is going to be Malcolm Washington, but maybe you think it’s someone else. Whoever it is, snag them early, maybe even as high as the fourth round.

And because Baker and Audiard could camp in a BTL spot, Brady Corbet suddenly becomes the top DIR/SCRN player for The Brutalist according to the pre-draft rankings. The modeled points, though, would turn more inaccurate if we just ignored Baker and Audiard.

All in all, DIR/SCRN’s are the workhorses on your fantasy team. It doesn’t hurt to have a few.

ACTRESS

Actresses and actors are tales of two race: Best Lead and Best Supporting. They count for the same points, and the arithmetic is pretty straightforward. Five lead nominees plus five supporting nominees is ten total nominees. Your league probably has ten teams in it. Ten equals ten. But the top ten actors/actresses are nearly guaranteed to not represent the ten acting Oscar nominees. There will be critics darlings that get snubbed. There will also be a fair number of youth/breakthrough points, and this year has several contenders to get some of these points. I can talk about it more, or I can just show you the table.

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTE
Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)**	150	116	Basically swept wins for Supporting everywhere.
Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)*	128	94	Got lots of wins and got quite a few bonus breakthrough points.
Emma Stone (Poor Things)**	105	71	Got momentum late on her way to the Oscar
Sandra Huller (Anatomy of a Fall — The Zone of Interest)*	77	43	A dual threat with her two films, making her a strong actress in Nomination announcements
Greta Lee (Past Lives)	54	20	The first critics darling ACTRS to get snubbed.
Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)*	46	12	Had a slow start, but patient owners were rewarded in the playoffs.
Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)*	43	9	Slight bust, but got an Oscar nom.
Rachel McAdams (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.)	43	9	Another critics darling.
Julianne Moore (May December)	37	3	Is Moore a fantasy asset again this year for The Room Next Door?
Margot Robbie (Barbie)	37	3	Another Oscar snub, but also slightly bust material in the regular season.
Carey Mulligan (Maestro — Saltburn)*	34	0	She got a few bonus points for Saltburn, but the vast majority of her pts came from Maestro.
Jodie Foster (Nyad)*	28	-6	Hard to trust, but her Oscar nom saved her season.
Abby Ryder Fortson (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.)	24	-10	The most valuable youth actress. Youth actresses have some value if you’re looking for a FLEX spot or your ACTRS didn’t pan out.
America Ferrera (Barbie)*	22	-12	Once she got that SAG nomination, team managers jumped to the waiver wire to snag her.
Teyana Taylor (A Thousand and One)	22	-12	Mostly breakthrough points.
Rosamund Pike (Saltburn)	20	-14	Pike usually has at least fringe value.
Annette Bening (Nyad)*	19	-15	The least valuable Oscar nominee
Natalie Portman (May December)	19	-15	May December was grossly overlooked
Fantasia Barrino (The Color Purple)	16	-18	Bust candidate. She was getting buzz before the film was released only to be the 19th ACTRS
Penelope Cruz (Ferrari)	16	-18	She was on the fringe anyway, and ended up being 20th.

And here’s the chart with arrows for Oscar winners.

In this chart, you can clearly see that Da’Vine Joy Randolph was the clear frontrunner early in the season, and that status never relinquished. The next two were Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone, both in the lead actress races. They were nominated everywhere and traded wins until Emma Stone eventually took home the Oscar statuette. So the steep curve was expected, and a logarithmic model curve would’ve fit the observed data better than the exponential curve that is shown above. However, uncertainty flattens curves. And this year has more uncertainty. Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez) is the frontrunner, but highly doubtful she recreates a Randolph level of dominance. So I’m still comfortable using an exponential model curve to limit expectations from the inevitable top ACTRS player. Let’s get to the model table, then.

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Zoe Saldana (ACTRS, Emilia Perez)	105.58	70.79
Mikey Madison (ACTRS, Anora)	94.48	59.69
Angelina Jolie (ACTRS-DIR-SCRN, Maria — Without Blood)*	84.56	49.77
Danielle Deadwyler (ACTRS, The Piano Lesson, et. al.)	75.67	40.88
Karla Sofía Gascón (ACTRS, Emilia Perez)	67.72	32.98
Saoirse Ronan (ACTRS, The Outrun — Blitz)	60.61	25.82
Selena Gomez (ACTRS, Emilia Perez)	54.24	19.45
Felicity Jones (ACTRS, The Brutalist)	48.54	13.75
Isabella Rossellini (ACTRS, Conclave)	43.44	8.65
Tilda Swinton (ACTRS, The Room Next Door — Problemista)	38.88	4.09
Nicole Kidman (ACTRS, Babygirl)	34.79	0.00
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (ACTRS, Nickel Boys)	31.14	-3.65
Demi Moore (ACTRS, The Substance)	27.87	-6.92
Leonie Benesch (ACTRS, September 5)	24.94	-9.85
Marianne Jean-Baptiste (ACTRS, Hard Truths — The Book of Clarence)	22.32	-12.47
Joan Chen (ACTRS, Didi)	19.97	-14.82
Amy Adams (ACTRS, Nightbitch)	17.88	-16.91
Julianne Moore (ACTRS, The Room Next Door)	16.00	-18.79
Lupita Nyong’o (ACTRS, A Quiet Place: Day One — The Wild Robot)	14.32	-20.47
Maya Hawke (ACTRS, Inside Out 2)	12.81	-21.98

I’m gonna be honest with you. I feel pretty good about the top 5 actresses, at least for regular season value. I don’t think any of those five will fall 11th or below in the final rankings. But the rest of the actresses? Whew boy, I would be sweating if I had to roll with any of them as my primary ACTRS. There are so many unknowns once you get out of the usual buzzy names that pundits have talked about. Mikey Madison and Karla Sofia Gascon are prime candidates to get a lot of bonus breakthrough points, so they are top five, hands down. I do have a sinking feeling that the latter will be a critics darling only to get snubbed in the quarterfinals (i.e. Oscar nomination day.)

The sixth actress, Saoirse Ronan, is a potential dual threat. She should be a safe pick, even if the films themselves have been a little lackluster with early reactions. And Selena Gomez seems like a safe pick as the 7th actress, but she’s the THIRD actresses from the same film (Emilia Perez.) That certainly doesn’t feel safe to me. Sure it’s not unheard of to get three acting nominations from the same movie, but how sustainable is that for every awards body that like to spread the love around?

And speaking of critics darlings, Demi Moore (The Substance) is a huge potential sleeper pick. Horror actresses always have fringe value, and Demi Moore might be one of the most buzzy horror actresses in recent years. If I’m looking for a sleeper and don’t have to spend a high draft pick on them, Demi Moore is gonna be my first target. (Why am I telling everyone my draft strategy? I hope my leagues aren’t reading this!)

But so many of these films have such divisive opinions, and we aren’t even talking about the notable actresses that are not on this list. Lady Gaga, Zendaya, June Squibb, etc. are all potential sleeper picks, but the only way they can break into the top 20 is for some of these actresses to also drop out of the Top 20. I can definitely see that happening this year. So if you have someone in mind for that ACTRS slot who aren’t in the top 5 above, by all means, pull the trigger. Your guess is as good as mine.

And lastly, Lupita Nyong’o and Maya Hawke are on this list solely for voiceover points. It’s a very limited source of points, but they are safe points.

ACTOR

As with actresses, actors are either lead or supporting with a few actors getting points for youth/breakthrough and maybe even voiceover. Last year, the actor races were not nearly as clearcut as the actress races. Any reasonable person could probably admit that Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. were the favorites to take the Oscar statuette, but they got slower starts than their owners probably would’ve liked. Sure, they came around, but Charles Melton and Paul Giamatti were taking a lot more wins in the regular season than expected. So this curve was a flatter than the actress curve.

So let’s look at the table and the chart.

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTE
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)**	111	67	Took a while, but the wins came eventually later in the season.
Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)**	105	61	Same.
Charles Melton (May December)	92	48	THE critics darling this year. There is always one, and Melton undeservedly was it.
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)*	89	45	As RDJ and Melton were getting wins, Ken was getting nominated everywhere
Bradley Cooper (Maestro)*	88	44	ACTR-DIR-SCRN, and he got 19 points for writing.
Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)*	81	37	The only real competition for Cillian Murphy, and he stole a few wins from him.
Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)*	72	28	A safe source for nomination points.
Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers)	54	10	Gobs of youth & breakthrough points.
Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)*	53	9	Ruffalo is always a safe pick.
Colman Domingo (Rustin)*	46	2	Somewhat of a bust last year, and hopefully he can get recognized more this year.
Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers)	44	0	The Indie darling.
Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon)*	39	-5	A true draft and stash if I’ve ever seen one. Everyone knew he’s get an Oscar nom, so a good plug and play into the quarterfinals.
Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction)*	26	-18	Evidence that there is always value lurking on the waiver wire.
Glenn Howerton (BlackBerry)	19	-25	Another indie darling.
Barry Keoghan (Saltburn)	15	-29	Sure, why not?
Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon)	15	-29	He was a bust last year, had a lot of buzz but not a lot of points to go along with it.
Milo Machado Graner (Anatomy of a Fall)	15	-29	Another youth actor value play.
Shameik Moore (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)	14	-30	Voiceover points.
Franz Rogowski (Passages)	12	-32	Indie darling.
Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers)	10	-34	Another indie darling.

And here’s that flatter curve I promised:

In this chart, the model actually will predict more points than what was observed last year among the top tier of actors. I would argue that we could see a similar point distribution this year. There are NO clear frontrunners in either the lead or the supporting actor race. They are going to trade wins and nominations themselves will be hard to come by. Nevertheless, the model is somewhat useful, it’s all about the ranking.

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Ralph Fiennes (ACTR, Conclave)	138.38	103.22
Kieran Culkin (ACTR, A Real Pain)	120.66	85.50
Adrien Brody (ACTR, The Brutalist)	105.22	70.06
Colman Domingo (ACTR, Sing Sing)	91.75	56.59
Timothee Chalamet (ACTR, A Complete Unknown)	80.00	44.84
Denzel Washington (ACTR, Gladiator II)	69.76	34.60
Clarence Maclin (ACTR, Sing Sing)	60.83	25.67
Guy Pearce (ACTR, The Brutalist)	53.04	17.88
Daniel Craig (ACTR, Queer)	46.25	11.09
Sebastian Stan (ACTR, The Apprentice — A Different Man)	40.33	5.17
Stanley Tucci (ACTR, Conclave)	35.16	0.00
Peter Sarsgaard (ACTR, September 5)	30.66	-4.50
Jeremy Strong (ACTR, The Apprentice)	26.74	-8.42
John David Washington (ACTR, The Piano Lesson)	23.31	-11.85
John Magaro (ACTR, September 5)	20.33	-14.83
Glen Powell (ACTR-SCRN, Hit Man — Twisters)*	17.73	-17.43
Elliott Heffernan (ACTR, Blitz)	15.46	-19.70
Izaac Wang (ACTR, Didi)	13.48	-21.68
Edward Norton (ACTR, A Complete Unknown)	11.75	-23.41
Samuel L. Jackson (ACTR, The Piano Lesson)	10.25	-24.91

A LOT of names getting buzz and for a finite amount of points. Clarence Maclin is getting huge buzz, but a newcomer with no acting experience is risky, even if he did a remarkable job in Sing Sing. He becomes a big sleeper pick, but a little voice is nagging me that he is this year’s Charles Melton. He’ll help you get to the playoffs, and very well could be a top five actor, but if I’m a Maclin owner, I need assurance the rest of my team can win in the quarterfinals without him. Newcomers have broken into the Oscar nominations, sure, and Maclin very well could in a wide open supporting race. However, I’m gonna chase bona fide Oscar contenders if I happen to choose Maclin too.

And Elliott Heffernan and Izaac Wang break into the top 20 solely for their youth points. Izaac Wang could be this year’s Abby Ryder Fortson, a strong youth performer in a coming of age movie. Elliott Heffernan gets the edge, though, for being in a Steve McQueen film that seems more, for lack of better term, Oscar-y. Either way, if you’re chasing youth points, you can do worse than Heffernan and Wang.

Just like with actress, I don’t really feel safe drafting anyone outside the top 5. The sixth is ever-reliable Denzel Washington, but Ridley Scott movies in recent years have produced underwhelming points. Also, if it’s between Maclin or Denzel to fill my ACTR spot, I’m going after the breakthrough bonus points that Maclin will likely get. He’s more of a swing for the fences pick, and I like that.

Everyone else? Dart throw.

ANIMATED, INTERNATIONAL, & DOCUMENTARY

Ah the ANI/INT/DOC slot. The source of safety for some, frustration for others. Here’s the oversimplified breakdown for this slot. Not a lot of animated movies, so the top two ANI players will be a consistently safe source of points. Don’t overthink it. There are more INT players, and there is exactly one clear frontrunner that just so happens to be the #3 ranked player, Emilia Perez. Last year, there were two foreign films, but only one of them was actually submitted as their country’s representative for Best International Feature. I’m talking of course about The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall. Both were nominated for Best Picture. I don’t think two INT players will also get Best Picture nominations, but that’s totally fine. If you miss out on the top two ANI players, the INT player becomes your second safest pick. DOC players, though……whew boy. The “Documentary Exception” rule states that any points in ANY category, if the film in question is a documentary, will go to the DOC as a whole. In other words, we’re not drafting the crew from DOC’s. New for this year, that rule excludes songwriters. You can now draft songwriters who wrote songs for documentaries. Anyway, despite the point potential for DOC’s as a whole are more given the special rule and the number of documentary specific ceremonies, they are so volatile. It’s almost a running joke that the top regular season DOC will not get an Oscar nomination. I always draft a DOC to get me points in the first matchup, which is RICH in documentary points, but you can bet dollars to doughnuts that I’m also drafting another ANI or INT player in case my DOC doesn’t pan out.

What happened last year?

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTES
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (ANI)*	165	155	Couldn’t get the Oscar, but was a juggernaut.
Anatomy of a Fall (INT)*	148	111	A rare international film that WASN’T an official submission.
The Zone of Interest (INT)**	136	83	Dual threat and eventual Oscar winner.
The Boy and the Heron (ANI)**	109	67	Secured the Oscar, and was valuable everywhere.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (DOC)	101	67	The obligatory doc that got snubbed
20 Days in Mariupol (DOC)**	85	66	Timely doc
American Symphony (DOC)***	79	45	Had good value, even if the rule change about song-writers was in effect
Godzilla Minus One (INT)*	61	21	Huge sleeper pick
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (ANI)*	52	2	The third ANI that was a safe source of nominations everywhere.
Elemental (ANI)*	49	1	Somewhat of a bust, but animated was a crowded field.
Kokomo City (DOC)	45	0	Another doc snub
Four Daughters (DOC)*	43	-3	The second doc that actual got an Oscar nomination
Beyond Utopia (DOC)	41	-6
Robot Dreams (ANI)*	40	-9	Got value late in the season
Society of the Snow (INT)*	32	-19
Nimona (ANI)*	31	-19
Bobi Wine: The People’s President (DOC)*	30	-21
Fallen Leaves (INT)	30	-22
Little Richard: I Am Everything (DOC)	27	-23	Musical biodocs have limited value, but there’s always one
Perfect Days (INT)*	25	-25

Notice how many DOC’s there are without a little asterisk? Yeah, I rest my case. Also notice the top four are either ANI or INT? Again, I rest my case. This year, though, I don’t see any strong INT contenders that weren’t submitted for the Oscars as their official submission. Last year we saw TWO in Anatomy of a Fall and Godzilla Minus One. Yes, the Oscars are about the only awards body that mandates an official submission and only one submission per country, but those official submissions are an excellent proxy in most years. Sure, last year is the exception, but Japan’s selection Perfect Days was a pretty safe Oscar nomination prediction, even if it didn’t get a lot of points in the regular season. Even France’s submission The Taste of Things got SOME points. The point I’m making is that contending International films will make themselves apparent despite not getting picked by their respective countries. Can you think of ANY film that fits that bill? The only one that comes to mind is All We Imagine As Light, but this Indian drama doesn’t seem to be getting near the excitement outside of niche circles as Anatomy of a Fall or Godzilla Minus One did last year. Sure, Godzilla Minus One EXPLODED onto the scene, and there could be another one this year, but as of yet, there hasn’t been anything. I say all that to say that beyond Emilia Perez, The Wild Robot, and Inside Out 2, there is considerable risk. The second safest INT player appears to be The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Germany’s official submission. It’ll probably get nominated everywhere, but wins will be hard to come by.

Let’s look at the chart from last year:

And now the modeled points table…

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Emilia Perez (INT)	143.58	90.76
The Wild Robot (ANI)	129.92	77.10
Inside Out 2 (ANI)	117.55	64.73
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (INT)	106.37	53.55
Daughters (DOC)	96.25	43.43
Piece by Piece (DOC)	87.09	34.27
Sugarcane (DOC)	78.80	25.98
I’m Still Here (INT)	71.30	18.48
Memoir of a Snail (ANI)	64.52	11.70
Flow (ANI)	58.38	5.56
No Other Land (DOC)	52.82	0.00
Black Box Diaries (DOC)	47.79	-5.03
Dahomey (DOC)	43.25	-9.57
Will & Harper (DOC)	39.13	-13.69
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (ANI)	35.41	-17.41
Universal Language (INT)*	32.04	-20.78
The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim (ANI)	28.99	-23.83
Union (DOC)	26.23	-26.59
The Girl with the Needle (INT)	23.73	-29.09
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (DOC)	21.48	-31.34

Last year, we did see some dual threats. Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest got nominated for Best Picture. Even Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was recognized in some Best Picture lineups throughout the season. This year may not have two Best Picture contenders coming from abroad, but there are arguably more dual threats this year. The most obvious is Emilia Perez. It’s France’s official submission and it’s truly contender for Best Picture. It’s the clear frontrunner for the International race, which carries big value on its own, but I also can imagine that it’ll be at least nominated for Best Picture everywhere. Maybe it won’t be as dominant as Parasite was two years ago, but this is clearly the top pick to fill your ANI/INT/DOC.

The other dual threats aren’t dual threats because they could break into the Best Picture races, but they are dual threats all the same. Pharrell’s documentary Piece by Piece is animated, and could be a dual nominee. I would even argue it’s more likely that Piece by Piece is more of a contender for nominations in the animated race than documentary. But points are points, and because it’s a documentary, it opens up more point potential for getting nominated for something like VFX or Original Score.

Flow could pull double dipping by being an animated foreign film that Latvia submitted. And Dahomey is Senegal’s official submission.

A documentary is nice to have for that first matchup, and can get you some good points if you miss out on the top two ANI and the top two INT. Just know that DOC’s are like touchdown dependent tight ends…

And if you’re looking for a little clarity on the DOC race, the Critics Choice Documentary Awards announced their nominees. These aren’t counted for points, but the winners are on November 10th.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & EDITING

Personally, I don’t mind spending a high draft pick on a CIN player for a couple reasons. The top player or two in this category every single year is CIN because of two things: 1) More cinematography awards are present in ceremonies than there are for editing, and 2) because it’s more visual, there always seems to be a contender that distances themselves when they start picking up lots of wins. Last year, it was very apparent that Hoyte Van Hoytema (Oppenheimer) was going to be that top tier player. This year is much more unclear, but one thing is certain, a CIN player will be atop the rankings…except…there’s another name this year that has EDIT eligibility who will technically be atop the rankings. I’m talking, of course, about Sean Baker. But only one person can draft Baker, so if you didn’t, these rankings should help.

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTES
Hoyte Van Hoytema (CIN, Oppenheimer) **	106	88	Did not disappoint.
Jennifer Lame (EDIT, Oppenheimer) **	78	60	Another Oppenheimer tech, and rare for an editor to be #2.
Rodrigo Prieto (CIN, Barbie — Killers of the Flower Moon)*	75	57	Dual threat nominee, even if wins were hard to come by.
Robbie Ryan (CIN, Poor Things)*	53	35	Would’ve been #3 if Prieto wasn’t a dual threat.
Thelma Schonmaker (EDIT, Killers of the Flower Moon)*	39	21	Editors of long running time contenders always do well.
Yorgos Mavropsaridis (EDIT, Poor Things)*	33	15	Yorgos and Yorgos back again.
Matthew Libatique (CIN, Maestro)*	32	14	The best part of a fringe contender
Laurent Senechal (EDIT, Anatomy of a Fall)*	26	8	The first editor of a foreign flick.
Nick Houy (EDIT, Barbie)	21	3	First Oscar snub.
Kevin Tent (EDIT, The Holdovers)*	19	1	Another best Picture contender, noticing a theme yet?
Lukasz Zal (CIN, The Zone of Interest)	18	0	Zal always has value, it seems.
Linus Sandgren (CIN, Saltburn)	16	-2	The first non-BP nominee, and happens to be the 12th most valuable.
Michelle Tesoro (EDIT, Maestro)	15	-3	BP nominee
Mike Andrews (EDIT, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)	14	-4	Animated movies usually don’t appear, but Spider-Verse is not normal.
Jomo Fray (CIN, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt)	8	-10	Indie darling, but Fray is getting lots of buzz this go around.
Dan Laustsen (CIN, The Color Purple — John Wick: Chapter 4)	7	-11	These movies were grossly underlooked for tech categories
Jonathan Alberts (EDIT, All of Us Strangers)	7	-11	Indie darling
Edward Lachman (CIN, El Conde)*	6	-12	Unexpected Oscar nominee, there’s always one or two. Literally his only points are from his Oscar nomination and ASC.
Erik Messerschmidt (CIN, Ferrari — The Killer)	6	-12
Nathan Orloff (EDIT, John Wick: Chapter 4)	6	-12	Really wish action movies got more editing buzz

So if you miss out on the top few, you can afford to wait in the draft. And that really is true for all the technical categories. You can see the drop off in the chart:

And the modeled table:

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Greig Fraser (CIN, Dune: Part Two)	83.94	65.76
Lol Crawley (CIN, The Brutalist)	72.03	53.85
Paul Guilhaume (CIN, Emilia Perez)	61.81	43.63
Juliette Welfling (EDIT, Emilia Perez)	53.04	34.86
Joe Walker (EDIT, Dune: Part Two)	45.52	27.34
Edward Lachman (CIN, Maria)	39.06	20.88
Nick Emerson (EDIT, Conclave)	33.52	15.34
David Jancso (EDIT, The Brutalist — Monkey Man)	28.76	10.58
John Mathieson (CIN, Gladiator II)	24.68	6.50
Stephane Fontaine (CIN, Conclave)	21.18	3.00
Jomo Fray (CIN, Nickel Boys)	18.18	0.00
Sam Restivo (EDIT, Gladiator II)	15.60	-2.58
Claire Simpson (EDIT, Gladiator II)	13.38	-4.80
Shane Reid (EDIT, Saturday Night — Deadpool & Wolverine)	11.49	-6.69
Nathan Orloff (EDIT, Saturday Night)	9.86	-8.32
Eduard Grau (CIN, The Room Next Door)	8.46	-9.72
Andrew Buckland (EDIT, A Complete Unknown)	7.26	-10.92
Yorick Le Saux (CIN, Blitz)	6.23	-11.95
Jarin Blaschke (CIN, Nosferatu)	5.34	-12.84
Peter Sciberras (EDIT, Blitz)	4.59	-13.59

So if you spend a high draft pick on a CIN/EDIT player, then you better make sure it’s top tier. I’ve learned that the hard way.

And this is true of all technical categories. You shouldn’t be filling your flex spots with technical players unless you are chasing points for a particular guild award, like the sound guilds or makeup guild.

PRODUCTION DESIGN, COSTUME DESIGN, AND MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

This spot on your team is often overlooked, but that’s okay. I like to have a strong PD or CD player, but I’m not spending an early draft pick on them. Then I draft a MUAH player to ride my bench so I can then plug and play them in two matchups (three if I’m lucky): whatever matchup the MUAH Awards Nominations are in and the quarterfinals and (if I make it) the championship. Other than that, don’t reach for any of these. Let the rest of your team do the heavy lifting. There are going to be FIFTEEN Oscar nominees in this starting lineup spot, and there are only ten teams in most leagues. There will be something available either late in the draft or on waivers that will get an Oscar nominee to help your team in the playoffs. Sure having the top PD player is easy and you can set them and forget them, but they’ll have a slow start and they will have marginal value. If you can’t decide between one player vs. a PD/CD/MUAH, let me make the decision for you…pick the other player.

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE	NOTES
Sarah Greenwood (PD, Barbie)*	74	46	Regular season juggernaut, but didn’t get the Oscar.
James Price (PD, Poor Things) **	51	23	Consistent source of points all season.
Shona Heath (PD, Poor Things)**	51	23	Same.
Holly Waddington (CD, Poor Things)**	49	21	First CD player and the eventual Oscar winner.
Jacqueline Durran (CD, Barbie)*	49	21	Durran is always a contender.
Jack Fisk (PD, Killers of the Flower Moon)*	39	11
Ruth De Jong (PD, Oppenheimer)*	37	9
Poor Things (MUAH)**	36	8	MUAH Oscar winner, but 8th in total points.
Adam Stockhausen (PD, Asteroid City)	29	1	Stockhausen is always a contender.
Maestro (MUAH)*	29	1	Early frontrunner, but that nose…
Jacqueline West (CD, Killers of the Flower Moon)*	28	0	Period costumes.
Ellen Mirojnik (CD, Oppenheimer)*	22	-6	More period costumes.
Barbie (MUAH)	22	-6	The first snub.
David Crossman (CD, Napoleon)*	20	-8	Another period costumer.
Janty Yates (CD, Napoleon)*	20	-8	Same.
Oppenheimer (MUAH)*	18	-10	The Academy does like age makeup
Francine Jamison-Tanchuck (CD, The Color Purple — They Cloned Tyrone)	14	-14	Only a couple bonus points for Tyrone, but another period piece.
Arthur Max (PD, Napoleon)*	12	-16	Max is back with Ridley Scott this year.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. (MUAH)	11	-17	MUAH snub, and sci-fi/horror get disrespect.
Suzie Davies (PD, Saltburn)	11	-17	Rich people’s houses.

As you can see the value is there at the top, but once you get past the top tier, you still have Oscar nominees and plenty of value for your team. No team is anchored by a strong PD/CD/MUAH. Don’t ignore it, but this shouldn’t be your focus. I do like have options in this category on my bench, as I’ve said before, but these are middle to late round additions to your team.

Look at the chart:

Notice how far out the MUAH Oscar winner is. This is exactly why you want a MUAH on your bench only to be plugged in when the matchup dictates it. And if you were a Sarah Greenwood owner, you loved the points she got until the championship. This is not a rare phenomenon, but the point is you can afford to wait on these players.

The modeled table has plenty of nice contenders.

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Patrice Vermette (PD, Dune: Part Two)	65.74	40.06
Arthur Max (CD, Gladiator II)	59.84	34.16
Jacqueline West (CD, Dune: Part Two)	54.47	28.79
Massimo Cantini Parrini (CD, Maria)	49.58	23.90
Paul Tazewell (CD, Wicked)	45.13	19.45
Adam Stockhausen (PD, Blitz)	41.08	15.40
Nathan Crowley (PD, Wicked)	37.40	11.72
Dune: Part Two (MUAH)	34.04	8.36
Judy Becker (PD, The Brutalist)	30.99	5.31
The Substance (MUAH)	28.21	2.53
David Crossman (CD, Gladiator II)	25.68	0.00
Janty Yates (CD, Gladiator II)	23.37	-2.31
Nosferatu (MUAH)	21.28	-4.40
Suzie Davies (PD, Conclave — Hard Truths)	19.37	-6.31
Jacqueline Durran (CD, Blitz — Hard Truths)	17.63	-8.05
Linda Muir (CD, Nosferatu)	16.05	-9.63
Colleen Atwood (CD, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice)	14.61	-11.07
Wicked (MUAH)	13.30	-12.38
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (MUAH)	12.11	-13.57
Maria (MUAH)	11.02	-14.66

There are some familiar names here. Dune: Part Two will be present for all technical categories, including PD/CD/MUAH.

Horror gets a really bad wrap, but The Substance just might break into the Oscar race. There have been horror movies that have broken into the Oscar nominees. Even last year, Society of the Snow got an Oscar nom for making everyone in that movie look cold and injured. And there aren’t a lot of movies with a lot of special effects makeup this year that are also heavy contenders, except for Dune: Part Two. The other makeup contenders seem to be from “fun” movies. I’m talking about movies like The Substance, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Wicked.

So snag a top PD or CD in a middle round and spend another pick on a backup, kudos if it’s MUAH.

SCORE, SOUND, VISUAL EFFECTS, and SONG

Last category! Woohoo! Hope you’ve enjoyed your time here with me and, more importantly, hope you’ve gotten some good insight to your own draft strategy.

For this last one, I’m going to speak in generalities. Composers are the most important source of points here. Most ceremonies have a score award, less have song awards, even less have visual effects awards, and even less have sound awards. There are also a lot of songwriters that collaborate, which spreads the points around. We’re also drafting documentary songwriters for the first time, so even more points in the bag. There are also TWENTY Oscar nominees possible in this slot. So I like to draft a strong composer, even if I have to wait a little on it (I’m such a fanboy for Trent Reznor) and have two of the other three positions (i.e. pick two of SONG, SOUND, or VFX). The song, sound, and vfx have GREAT plug and play value. First matchup has the HMMA awards for songs. There are also two sound guilds and a visual effects society. The VES award a lot of points, so having a VFX for that matchup is a huge edge. I like having these positions ride my bench until those key matchups, including the quarterfinals, semifinals, and championship. That’s all I say. I give you the tables and chart, and leave it up to you to interpret them further.

Here’s last year’s results:

PLAYER	POINTS	VALUE
Ludwig Goransson (SCORE, Oppenheimer)	96	57
Andrew Wyatt (SCORE-SONG, Barbie)	75	36
Mark Ronson (SCORE-SONG, Barbie)	75	36
Robbie Robertson (SCORE, Killers of the Flower Moon)	62	23
Billie Eilish (SONG, Barbie)	56	17
Finneas (SONG, Barbie)	56	17
The Creator (VFX)	53	14
Oppenheimer (SOUND)	52	13
Daniel Pemberton (SCORE, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)	46	7
Godzilla Minus One (VFX)	42	3
Jerskin Fendrix (SCORE, Poor Things)	39	0
The Zone of Interest (SOUND)	39	0
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (VFX)	36	-3
Oppenheimer (VFX)	33	-6
Maestro (SOUND)	31	-8
Poor Things (VFX)	30	-9
Mica Levi (SCORE, The Zone of Interest)	27	-12
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (VFX)	26	-13
Jack Black (ACTR-SONG, The Super Mario Bros. Movie)	24	-15
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (VFX)	24	-15

PLAYER (you change this)	MODELED PTS	MODELED VALUE
Clement Ducol (SCORE-SONG, Emilia Perez)	80.79	39.86
Camille (SCORE-SONG, Emilia Perez)	75.48	34.55
Hans Zimmer (SCORE, Dune: Part Two — Blitz)	70.52	29.59
Volker Bertelmann (SCORE, Conclave — One Life — The Crow)	65.89	24.96
Dune: Part Two (VFX)	61.55	20.62
Dune: Part Two (SOUND)	57.51	16.58
Daniel Blumberg (SCORE, The Brutalist)	53.73	12.80
Gladiator II (VFX)	50.19	9.26
Harry Gregson-Williams (SCORE, Gladiator II)	46.90	5.97
Gladiator II (SOUND)	43.81	2.88
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (VFX)	40.93	0.00
Twisters (VFX)	38.24	-2.69
Emilia Perez (SOUND)	35.73	-5.20
Pharrell Williams (SCORE-SONG, Despicable Me 4 — Mufasa: The Lion King — Piece by Piece)	33.38	-7.55
Alberto Iglesias (SCORE, The Room Next Door)	31.18	-9.75
Here (VFX)	29.13	-11.80
Trent Reznor (SCORE-SONG, Challengers — Queer)	27.22	-13.71
Atticus Ross (SCORE-SONG, Challengers — Queer)	25.43	-15.50
Diane Warren (SONG, Diane Warren: Relentless — The Six Triple Eight — Ozi: Voice of the Forest)	23.76	-17.17
The Wild Robot Songwriters (SONG)*	22.20	-18.73

CONCLUSION

Whew! There you have it. Remember, the points are gonna be pretty accurate because each position follows a pretty nice exponential curve. If you can somehow predict the rankings, which is pretty darn tough, you know exactly what to target in your draft.

There is a big caveat with the point curves though. It’s only from last year’s results. Last year didn’t have either the level of uncertainty or top contenders that could also be placed in a below-the-line starting spot. Even so, I hope this post was helpful.

And to appease you chart nerds, here are two more charts. The first is all the categories on one graph with their respective points shares.

And I’ll leave you with this chart which is just points to give you a good idea of the potential points up for grabs. Yes, it’s about MORE points than your opponent, but still….it’s pretty darn satisfying to see a whole bunch of points.

Good luck!