How to Lock Teams Into Specific Draft Spots

Sometimes a fair lottery is not purely random. Maybe a keeper rule forces a team into a certain slot. Maybe your league voted to guarantee the cellar-dweller a top-three pick. Maybe everyone agreed that last year's champ should never land at number one again. Until now, a weighted lottery could nudge those odds but never promise an outcome. That changes today.

We just shipped pick constraints on /generate, including a brand-new way to lock teams into specific draft spots. You can now tell the lottery exactly which positions a team is allowed to land on, and the weighted draw will respect those rules every single time while still feeling random within the spots you permit.

What Pick Constraints Actually Do

Every team on the generate form now has its own pick setting with a Range or Specific toggle. Pick constraints sit on top of your normal odds. You still choose a weight mode (Equal Odds, NBA-Style, Linear, or Custom), and the lottery still draws by those odds. The constraint simply fences in where each team can end up.

Range Mode

Range mode gives each team a slider with a floor and a ceiling. Set a team to land somewhere from pick 1 to 4, or from 5 to 8, and the lottery will only ever place it inside that window. This is perfect for broad guarantees like "the worst team finishes in the top three" without nailing down the exact spot.

Specific Mode (New)

Specific mode is the new capability, and it does something a slider never could. Instead of a continuous window, you get a grid of checkboxes for every draft slot in your league. Tick the exact spots a team may land on, including non-contiguous ones. Want a team to be eligible for pick 1, 5, or 7 only, and nothing in between? A slider cannot express that. A checkbox grid can.

The weighted lottery still runs by your odds, but it will only ever place a team on a spot you allowed. You can mix range teams and specific-spot teams in the same lottery, so part of your league can stay loose while another part follows hard rules.

How to Set It Up

Setting up pick constraints takes about a minute on the generate form. Here is the full flow.

• Open the generator: Head to /generate and fill in your league name, reveal date, and team names as usual.
• Pick your weight mode: Choose Equal Odds, NBA-Style, Linear, or Custom. This controls the underlying odds before any constraints apply.
• Find a team's pick setting: Each team row has a per-team pick control with a Range or Specific toggle.
• For a window, use Range: Flip to Range and drag the slider to set the floor and ceiling, for example pick 1 to 4.
• For exact spots, use Specific: Flip to Specific and tick the checkboxes for every slot that team may land on, such as 1, 5, and 7.
• Watch the odds table: The live Full Odds Breakdown updates as you tick, so you can see each team's chance at every pick before you run anything.
• Clear any warning: If your selections cannot all be satisfied at once, the app warns you before you run, so adjust until the warning clears.
• Run and share: Generate the lottery, then share the single reveal link. Results stay sealed until your reveal date, even from you.

Because the odds table and the warning are live, you are never guessing. You can dial in a compromise order, confirm it is mathematically possible, and lock it before anyone sees a single pick.

The App Stops You From Building an Impossible Draft

Constraints are powerful, which means it is easy to ask for something that cannot happen. If two teams are both restricted to only pick 1, there is no valid order that satisfies both. Instead of letting the draft get stuck, the app checks your selections and warns you before you run. You will know the moment a set of rules conflicts, and you can loosen one of them on the spot. The lottery only fires when a real, valid order exists.

Range vs Specific, Which to Use

Both modes live side by side, so reach for whichever matches the rule you are enforcing.

• Use Range when the rule is a band: "top four," "bottom half," or "somewhere in picks 5 to 8." It is faster to set and reads cleanly.
• Use Specific when the allowed spots are exact or scattered: honoring keeper slots, recreating an agreed compromise order, or letting a team land on 2, 4, or 6 but never the odd picks.
• Mix them when only a few teams have hard rules. Leave the rest on a simple range or no constraint at all, and constrain just the teams that need it.

Real Reasons Commissioners Use This

Pick constraints exist to encode the deals your league already made. A few common ones:

• Guarantee a rebuild: Lock the worst team into the top three so a brutal season pays off.
• Protect the field: Keep last year's champion out of the number one slot.
• Honor keeper rules: Force the exact slots that keeper or trade agreements require.
• Recreate a compromise: Turn a hashed-out, group-chat-approved order into a sealed reveal everyone trusts.

Constraints pair naturally with the trust-building practices in our guide on how to run a fair fantasy draft lottery. The rules are visible in the odds table, the result is sealed until reveal day, and nobody, not even you, sees the order early.

What It Costs and What Is Free

Pick constraints are a Pro feature, alongside the 3D reveal shows and the rest of the commissioner toolkit. To get a feel for it first, a single simple range within picks 5 to 8 is available to try for free on the generate form. When you are ready to lock exact spots and mix modes across your whole league, see /pricing. You can also follow what shipped recently on our updates page.

Lock In Your Draft Order Today

Whether you need a loose top-four band or three exact slots, your league's rules can now live inside the lottery itself. Build it, confirm it is valid, seal it, and share one link.