Luckily for Fantasy Premier League players, you have two FPL wildcards to use. It's natural to want what your friends have, right?
Let's go back to basics on how FPL transfers work, though. You're permitted one free transfer per gameweek for your FPL team, which any other additional transfers allowed - but with at a cost: you'll be deducted four points.
A wildcard is a bonus chip, used in the transfer section, however. It allows you to make as many transfers as you like up until that deadline, all within the standard budget of £100.0m. Even if you've made transfers that were going to come with points deductions, use the wildcard and you won't lose any points at all.
The Wildcard chip can be used twice a season. It's only bonus chip that you can use twice – but you can't use any other chip, such as a Bench Boost or a Free Hit on the same week that you employ a Wildcard.
The Wildcard is the only chip that can't be rescinded, either. Once you've chosen to play it, there's no going back: but you don't have to make all your transfers at once and can still move players in and out before the deadline. It's a little like the game state at the start of the season.
When playing a wildcard, any saved free transfers that you made will be lost. You will be back to the usual one free transfer the following gameweek.
Fantasy Premier League: When should I use my Wildcard in FPL?
There's no perfect time to use the Wildcard. Some users find it useful to have a gameweek of unlimited transfers when they've got a number of injuries; others find they've totally misjudged players and want to play their hand early on in the season.
It's worth seeing what happens with international breaks, too. If an international break is only a week away, it doesn't make much sense to make wholesale changes to your teams based on injuries – you might well find that the injured players simply picked up knocks and were kept out of international squads as a precaution.
One thing that might tempt you, however, is a change in manager. If, for example, a team switches their boss midseason, it could give a new manager bounce to some of their attackers and allow them to flourish.
Remember, there's no need to use the Wildcard at all, should you feel you don't need to. Don't feel pressured to employ a bonus chip, just because it's there.
More Fantasy Premier League stories
You can play Fantasy Premier League online on the Premier League website, or on the Premier League app, which is available on iOS and Android. Still missing something? Here's everything you need to know about FPL, including FourFourTwo's guides on the game. Enjoy!
