The first selection is Michael Van Gerwen who has made this event his own over the previous eleven stages. He’s won it a record five times, winning it each year between 2015 and 2019.

Mighty Mike has been in the fortunate position of having received plenty of match practice so far in 2024 having appeared in the Bahrain Darts Masters, Dutch Darts Masters and playing in the Premier League and I think this is a huge positive when you consider three of the four Semi Finalists last year had appeared in the early World Series events.

Looking into this a bit further, Michael Smith and Peter Wright had won an event each and Rob Cross had reached a Semi-Final so all these three had already demonstrated their wellbeing. MVG may have been a bit sub-par in the Premier League last night, losing to Michael Smith 6-5 on the opening night but he reached the final of both the Bahrain and Dutch events the previous two weekends, winning one – the latter – and finishing runner-up to Luke Littler in the former.

MVG remains one of the most feared players on the planet and many of the players still name him as the one to beat in most tournaments. That certainly seems the case in this event and after reaching the Quarter-Final of this event the last two years, he could be back in the winners enclosure this year and claim his sixth Masters title.

Voltage is another player who has played both the World Series events and is also in the Premier League this year. Whilst he hasn’t been close to winning one of these tournaments yet, he’s been very consistent.

He’s played five matches so far in this campaign and has averaged mid-90’s upwards in all of them. It has also required an excellent performance to beat him. Michael Van Gerwen averaged nigh on 106 in Bahrain and Gerwyn Price almost 102 in Cardiff last night. Although Raymond Van Barneveld averaged just 93.25 his finishing was very good and he did the right thing at the right time. Cross was the better player throughout that match, but RVB just took that chance he needed late on to pinch the victory.

Cross was runner-up in this event last year where he defeated Gary Anderson, Michael Van Gerwen and Peter Wright to reach the final. He ended last season on a high reaching the Grand Slam of Darts final and the World Championship Semi-Finals. He’s a contender to win every event he’s in but always seems to be overpriced. He represents a bit of value, especially for those seeking someone at double digit odds.

Heavy Metal concludes our trio of players to follow this weekend in Milton Keynes and this is the type of event where a surprise winner often surfaces. Since the field was expanded to a field of 24 three years ago it has been the lower end of the seedings that have emerged victorious. In 2021 it was the number 18 seed, in 2022 the eleventh seed and last year it was the twenty-first seed.

Those seeded from nine upwards get us underway on Friday night and the winners of those eight games join the top 8 seeds in the draw on Saturday. Searle has got the perfect first round draw as faces a very much out of sorts Dirk Van Duijvenbode.

Dirk has lost seven of his eight matches since suffering an injury late in 2023 and the standard he is playing has dropped some 12 points from mid-90’s to low 80’s. At this level, that’s not good enough to compete. He featured in the Dutch Darts Masters last week and averaged around this lower figure and was readily defeated by Luke Littler.

Despite the short format Ryan should be able to advance here, he would then face Nathan Aspinall in the second round, a game he is more than capable of advancing through. We’ve seen before he can mix it with the best as he has previously reached a major final. For those looking at a player at juicier odds to follow the trend of the last three winners, there are a lot worse options than our final selection to give you a run for your money.