FPL wildcard tips: how and when to use in 2022/23 Fantasy Premier League season - is Gameweek 2 the time?

Fantasy Premier League is well underway again after a dramatic opening weekend that saw the likes of Erling Haaland, Edouard Mendy and Mohamed Salah bag you this all important points to get your season going.

Most of your FPL season is spent deciding on transfers or who to put on the bench, but there is also the wildcard to worry about.

The wildcard is a good way of freshening your team up and earning a lot of points if you have been struggling in previous weeks - though you have to be very tactical about it.

Here’s everything you need to know about using your wildcard...

What is a wildcard?

A wildcard allows you to make unlimited free transfers in a gameweek - while you usually only have one free transfer leading up to a matchday.

While you can chop and change your team as much as you like, there is no unlimited budget and you still have to stay within the £100 million budget.

While the wildcard is a great way for you to bring in players that have started to do well and can guarantee you a lot of points, you can’t just use it whenever you want.

You are only able to use the chip twice a season - with the first wildcard available from the start of the season until Saturday 12th November, before the second wildcard becomes active on Boxing Day until the end of the season.

Usually when playing FPL you can save up your free transfers if you haven’t used it one week, however once you use your wildcard you will lose any saved frees that you originally had and revert back to the usual one.

Once you have confirmed your wildcard, it is final and can’t be reversed under any circumstances.

When to use your wildcard

Only use your wildcard when you want to make multiple changes rather than just a couple.

For example, it gets to a point for most players when your injuries/suspensions are adding up and you could do with changing things up - or perhaps there’s a few players that aren’t playing that week so aren’t going to get you any points.

Make sure to use your first wildcard in plenty of time before you can’t use it anymore - don’t think you will have two wildcards to use after the November deadline.

Meanwhile, the second wildcard is a good opportunity to wait until plenty of transfers have been made in the January window so you can bring in any exciting new faces to freshen things up.

Other FPL chips

As well as a wildcard, FPL players can also use the ‘bench boost’, ‘free hit’ and ‘triple captain’ chips.

The bench boost is pretty self explanatory and allows your benched players to also add to your points tally.

For example, if you have a few players that are guaranteed to get you points one weekend but they won’t all fit in the starting line-up, use your bench boost to make sure they don’t miss out.

You can only use the bench boost once so probably the best time to use it is around a double gameweek.

Your free hit is similar to your wildcard and allows unlimited transfers for a week, however your team will return to how it was at the start of the gameweek forthe next deadline.

There was previously only one free hit chip, however from last season you can use it twice.

Finally, your triple captain allows you to select one player for one gameweek to receive triple points.

This doesn’t take a genius to work out you should use this on a player that scores a lot of goals and is playing an easier opponent!