The Bench Boost chip has been a part of FPL for quite a while, being one of the selection of chips at your disposal that can help you gain a lot of ground at any point throughout the season. It’s also the namesake of this lovely website; its most noteworthy accolade.
Stemming from this general guide to FPL, here’s an overview of the Bench Boost chip. This’ll include exactly what it is, how to use it, and the best strategies for using the chip during the FPL season.
What is the Bench Boost Chip?
The Bench Boost chip, when played, gives you the ability to earn the points scored by the players on your bench for a single gameweek. Points scored by players on your bench regularly only count towards your total if one of your starting eleven hasn’t played that week.
This can always be a pain – having points left on your bench when they’ve outperformed a member of your starting eleven is always a huge “what if?”
Playing the Bench Boost chip ensures that you’ll gain all the points that each of your 15 players have scored that week.
Considering factors such as double gameweeks and weeks when your bench is rather strong, this can be a great way to pick up 15+ extra points in a gameweek.
Here’s an example of an extremely strong bench, though the Bench Boost chip wasn’t played. Imagine that eh? Who would do that?
…yes, it’s from my team.
When Can You Play the Bench Boost Chip?
Similar to the Free Hit chip, you’ll be able to play your Bench Boost at any time during the season. It’ll last for just one gameweek, and that’ll be your only chance to play it. This all differs from the Wildcard, which you’ll get 2 of during the season.
When Should I Play My Bench Boost?
This is the core part of this guide, considering that in terms of activating the chip… you just press the button. There is one core time to play your Bench Boost – when you have an extremely strong bench. This can come during a regular ol’ gameweek, but there is a primary tactic when it comes to using this chip.
Double Gameweeks
As highlighted in the general guide to FPL, double gameweeks are a hugely important part of FPL. These are where, due to fixtures being rearranged, teams will end up with two fixtures in a single gameweek. What happens, generally once a season, is a big double gameweek, where a number of teams have multiple fixtures.
This is usually where people will play one of their chips. With the Bench boost chip, you can build a team that has a bench full of players who have a double gameweek, while popping the Bench boost that week. Having the points of players from 8 matches sounds pretty handy, doesn’t it?
Building for this usually involves Wildcarding just before the double gameweek and playing either the Bench Boost or the Triple Captain chip during the DGW. This is most common towards the end of the season, where we’ve traditionally had the bigger sets of doubles.
It’s also simply possible to build your team over the prior weeks to include the players you want to include in your Bench Boost. That can be an issue when it comes to having, well, a very strong bench; causing headaches when choosing your starting eleven.
This also ties into having these players after the DGW. Ideally, these players should be great options that are guaranteed a healthy number of minutes throughout the double, though without there being too much value tied into your bench.
Another potential issue of playing this chip in a packed double gameweek would be rotation. Teams that are have a congested fixture list might rotate a fair bit, and matches in double gameweeks are very close together. Making sure that you’ve got very solid options, ones very likely to start every game, is key. If you’re bench boosting with, say, Marcos Alonso in your team – there’s a strong chance he gets rotated for one of the games, weakening the effect of the chip.
A key way of planning out any double gameweek strategy is to follow Ben Crellin on Twitter. He’s canonically the guy for this stuff.
Strong Single Gameweeks
Of course, you can play your Bench Boost outside of a double gameweek when you feel like your bench is too strong and you want to avoid any headaches when it comes to choosing your starting team.
Having a lot of points on your bench can be massively annoying – as showcased in the example towards the start of this page – so playing this chip in a week like this can be massively helpful.
This will be a week when the players on your bench have strong fixtures, and you’re certain that they’ll all start their respective matches.