A comprehensive guide to Fantasy Anime League

Mar 25, 2023 12:11 PM

Go read Medalist

Offline

Apr 2007

285

This has been in the works for nearly half a year, and it's still not finished, but at least it's come to a state I can release.

> FAL Guide — Read on Notion <

* It's long. But hopefully it'll answer all of your questions. If it doesn't, or if some of the wording is too complex or ambiguous, or if you need more illustrations, tell me about it here, and I'll fix it.
* It will be continuously updated over the next few weeks. I still need to populate case studies and polish some other things here and there.
* It's on Notion because it's much easier for me to work with than a forum post, the navigation is much more convenient, and there are more formatting options to make it look and read better.

You'll find links to all of my tools and other cool things inside the guide. Here's a PDF version for offline reading.

Have fun!

Last update: 2024/10/07.

moozoohOct 8, 5:48 AM

FAL Enthusiast :: Reviewer :: Interest Stack Creator

Mar 25, 2023 12:38 PM

NMx13

Offline

Jul 2012

"Get free MAL supporter with this one simple trick"

Really good guide. It is pretty much what I do every season with great success but now that secrets are available for everyone I need to figure out new ways to beat other players.

Mar 25, 2023 12:52 PM

CutieZia

Lily Flower

Offline

Dec 2020

Very well written guide!

I definitely recommend to anyone who wants to do better in FAL to read it, when I began to do the things explained in it Fall 2022 my performance increased significantly compared to Spring 2022~. Although I do agree with NMx13, now I need to try and find more new tricks for future seasons, Moozooh outed the secrets!

Mar 25, 2023 1:21 PM

Valentijn

Phantom Thief

Offline

Apr 2020

Vouch to read the guide!

Moozooh does a great job at explaining how FAL works and the risk and rewards that come with certain picks and actions. The knowledge will definitely help to improve your FAL-picks and might even get you a top 100 placement for a sweet reward!

Mar 26, 2023 12:23 AM

Naruleach

Anime Moderator

Grammar Queen

Offline

Jun 2008

3879

Wow, major props. Thank you for making this!

p r o f i l e 👀

Mar 26, 2023 8:55 AM

Mira

Offline

May 2020

317

I really like how you wrote this! Nice one :) This deserves more attention!

Mar 26, 2023 12:40 PM

moozooh

Go read Medalist

Offline

Apr 2007

285

Thank you for the kind words, everyone!

I've updated the guide with a new section and remade the team composition table. Links to updated sections are in the version history. Also made a bunch of small fixes. Data dump will be updated with this week's numbers in a bit as well. Edit: And done. Also fixed an embarrassing mistake there that affected a small part of the source rating column, oof.

Case studies take a while to conceptualize and build, so I'm not sure if I'll have them ready in time for the season, but in principle, they don't contain any new information that isn't mentioned elsewhere in the guide, so it should be fine for now.

moozoohMar 26, 2023 2:27 PM

FAL Enthusiast :: Reviewer :: Interest Stack Creator

Apr 11, 2023 12:01 PM

rubedesu

Offline

Dec 2016

258

Wow, what an amazing work!
Thank you so much, it is truly an excellent guide.

Apr 15, 2023 12:23 PM

moozooh

Go read Medalist

Offline

Apr 2007

285

I made two updates over the past couple days.

The first is relatively insignificant and adds two minor sections to the guide: one discusses fast season strategy and the other is another introductory passage for completeness' sake. I've also hidden some less-important lists under toggles to reduce visual clutter.

The second is probably more significant because it's an update to my API scraper linked in the tool section. The output Excel files now display extra information that you might find useful and are much better formatted. If you've been using my script for data collection, now's a great time to update.

My personal wishlist for the script (that may or may not materialize because I'm still a total beginner at Python and all of these changes are exponentially more difficult to write than what it already contains):

Forum post data collection for discussion weeks.
A pre-compiled application (no Python install necessary).
Running as a background service (no system task scheduler necessary) with automatic updates.
Graphical interface with ability to quickly add/remove anime IDs, configure sampling intervals, and maybe do some other stuff (ace reminder?).

FAL Enthusiast :: Reviewer :: Interest Stack Creator

Nov 26, 2023 6:45 PM

#10

moozooh

Go read Medalist

Offline

Apr 2007

285

Okay, so I teased working on the quality-of-life improvements to my scraper script in the Discord channel and decided to release the version I have right now so that people could start using it immediately in preparation for the next season.

It's still missing any sort of forum post counting or other time-aware features because doing so in a manner sensible for a data snapshot script like this takes quite a bit of effort. But this is a high-priority task and I will get it done, hopefully before January.

The guide is updated with the new tools.

FAL Enthusiast :: Reviewer :: Interest Stack Creator

Nov 27, 2023 11:00 AM

#11

Zoopiez

Offline

May 2022

556

Wow impressive didn't even know this guide existed. You put a lot of work into this, which should be helpful to anyone who is new. I think going forward including something mentioning netflix as a major driver for viewers, as some of the strongest shows get a big audience boost from how widely used it is. Kusuriya no Hitorigoto was a underdog this season, but is definitely on its way to getting 2nd highest points this season. Starting much later then most of the shows, which I also think is important to see how fast it has grown. Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon probably would not have done as well if it wasn't on netflix also getting second last season.

Nov 30, 2023 10:34 AM

#12

Imi_wakannai

Offline

Aug 2019

Reply to Zoopiez

@Zoopiez ive also realized anime get a good uptick of points when good anime's dub episodes come out. An anime with a dub vs without a dub is a noticeable difference

Oct 8, 6:04 AM

#13

moozooh

Go read Medalist

Offline

Apr 2007

285

Suddenly, an update!

Added a season speed table.
Added a chapter on streaming platforms.
Updated the list of tools at the beginning of the guide.
Went through the entire guide and updated everything that looked wrong or outdated, as well as minor wording and so on.

And lastly, but not least importantly, I've officially released version 2.0 of my API scraper. It took me a year of on-and-off work to make it happen, mostly because the feature creep and the challenges behind making the post counter as fast, robust, and accurate as I wanted it to be made it way too challenging for my (slightly above zero) level of programming expertise. You can tell by the fact version 2.0's code is about 6 times longer than the previous release, 1.4. It's borderline a miracle that I've managed to finish it and that it works as well as it does. Making it a standalone application is the obvious next step, but for now I'll take a break from it.

You can find the changelog in the release notes. Have fun, and see you at the top of the leaderboard.

FAL Enthusiast :: Reviewer :: Interest Stack Creator

See All Discussions

» Fall 2024 Registrations Now Open! Kineta - Sep 15	26	by Hattyson »» Oct 29, 2:33 AM
» Ideas for solving the discussion points problem moozooh - Jul 21, 2023	31	by Samii »» Aug 18, 8:21 AM
Sticky: » Comments and Suggestions ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Naruleach - Mar 25, 2012	214	by Samii »» Aug 9, 7:10 AM
» Spring 2024 Week 13: Ace/Swap Reminder & Discussion (final week) eplipswich - Jun 23	3	by badabass »» Jul 1, 6:52 AM
» Spring 2024 Week 12: Ace/Swap Reminder & Discussion eplipswich - Jun 16	6	by kernel99 »» Jun 27, 5:33 AM

A comprehensive guide to Fantasy Anime League

More topics from this board

» Fall 2024 Registrations Now Open!

» Ideas for solving the discussion points problem

Sticky: » Comments and Suggestions ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

» Spring 2024 Week 13: Ace/Swap Reminder & Discussion (final week)

» Spring 2024 Week 12: Ace/Swap Reminder & Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters