The AFL will keep its revamped priority pick formula secret from clubs in a bid to rid the perception of tanking once and for all.
The league on Tuesday invented a 'much stricter criteria' to give underperforming clubs a boost after abolishing the former system where teams that won less than four matches were given an extra draft selection.
The new formula will make it more unlikely a club will be granted a priority pick after just one poor season or that a pick will be given before the first round of a draft.
Operations manager Adrian Anderson said the exact details of the new scheme would be kept within the walls of AFL headquarters.
"There's a very legitimate policy reason not to make the precise workings of the formula public," Anderson told reporters.
"We will make the factors known but the precise workings we will not. It's to protect them (the clubs) really from that speculation that would otherwise exist."
Even clubs who are given draft concessions won't be told why.
Anderson said the changes, which received unanimous support from the clubs, were part of a move towards a totally uncompromised draft where even the father-son system would be removed.
The league maintained teams have never tanked but conceded the perception of an incentive to lose was damaging.
"There will inevitably be some speculation around poor performance but by removing (easy access to) priority picks you remove an overly powerful, perverse incentive (to deliberately lose)," he said.
"There is no doubt it will be tougher to receive priority picks now especially any pick before the first (draft) round. It's a more sophisticated approach which will make it tougher."
Anderson said the league had considered adopting the NBA's lottery draft system but believed it was flawed.
"We don't like it because we think often it results in a team that really needs a lower pick not getting it and also there becomes speculation that teams are performing poorly to get more balls in the lottery," he said.
The change could cost Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney. The expansion clubs are tipped to finish at the bottom of the table and possibly within the former priority pick guidelines.
But Anderson hinted the Suns and Giants, under the AFL's new powers, would be denied extra selections if they failed to win more than four matches because they had already benefitted from compromised drafts over the past three years.
Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast would all have qualified for picks at the start of the first round if they'd had poor seasons this year.