ICT 2022 Mentorship Model

What is the ICT 2022 Model?

The 2022 Model is the flagship setup from ICT's 2022 Mentorship series. It was designed to be mechanical enough to backtest and precise enough to trade a single instrument on a single session — specifically NQ futures during the New York AM Killzone (09:30–11:00 ET).

Every element of the model exists to answer one question: where is the day's draw on liquidity, and what is the highest-probability entry into that move?

The four ingredients

1. Draw on liquidity (DOL). Before the session, decide the target — a prior day high/low, weekly high/low, or an obvious equal-highs/lows pool.
2. Liquidity sweep. Wait for price to run the opposite pool (Asian range, London high/low, or PDH/PDL) in the first hour of NY.
3. Market Structure Shift (MSS). A displacement candle that closes back through the most recent short-term high or low on the 5-minute — the confirmation the sweep is real.
4. Fair Value Gap entry. The FVG left behind by the MSS candle is the entry. Fill at the CE (50%) of that gap. Stop beyond the swept extreme. Target the draw on liquidity or a −2 / −2.5 standard-deviation projection.

The daily workflow

1. Pre-market (before 09:30 ET). Mark PDH, PDL, weekly open, Asian high and low, London high and low. Decide bias: is price in premium or discount of the daily dealing range? Which pool is the obvious target?
2. 09:30–10:00 ET. Watch for the Judas swing — the false move that sweeps liquidity opposite your intended direction.
3. Confirmation. On the 5-minute, wait for a strong displacement candle that closes through the last swing point. That candle is your MSS and leaves the FVG behind.
4. Entry. Drop to the 1-minute. Enter at the CE of the FVG left by the MSS. Stop 1–2 ticks beyond the sweep wick.
5. Target. The draw on liquidity marked pre-market, or a standard-deviation projection of the impulse leg (−2 SD is the classic 2022 Model target).

Standard deviation projections

A key 2022 Model tool: after the MSS, measure the impulse leg (swing low to swing high, or vice versa). Project −2 and −2.5 standard deviations in the direction of the trade. Those are the primary targets.

Most lightweight-charting tools support this — anchor the fib from the sweep to the MSS high/low, then plot negative extensions. The −2 SD is the sweet spot for partials; −2.5 SD is the full runner target.

What makes it different from a generic ICT setup

• Session-locked. The 2022 Model is a NY AM setup. Outside 09:30–11:00 ET it doesn't apply.
• One shot per session. ICT teaches this as a single, high-quality trade — not a scalp loop. If the sweep + MSS + FVG sequence doesn't print cleanly, you stand down.
• Objective invalidation. A close beyond the swept extreme kills the trade. No management, no averaging, no hoping.
• SD-based targeting. Removes the temptation to scale out early. The target is fixed before entry.

Common mistakes

• No pre-marked draw on liquidity. Without a target, you'll exit on noise.
• Entering before the MSS. The sweep alone is not the trade. The MSS is the signal.
• Using a 15m FVG on a 1m trigger. Keep the MSS and FVG on the same timeframe — 5m MSS + 5m FVG, or 1m MSS + 1m FVG.
• Trading it outside NY AM. The model relies on NY AM's liquidity influx. Applying it to Asia or London is a different setup and needs its own testing.

How to backtest the 2022 Model on NQ

The 2022 Model is unusually well-suited to backtesting because every element is objective. Open NQ Replay, jump to any weekday, and freeze the chart at 09:29 ET. Mark PDH, PDL, Asian high and low. Reveal candle by candle. When a sweep prints, wait for the 5m MSS. Note whether the FVG entry hit the −2 SD target, invalidated, or stalled at −1 SD.

Fifty NY AM sessions is enough to see the model's real hit rate and average R. That data — not YouTube confidence — is what tells you whether to trade it live.

Related concepts

The 2022 Model chains three other ICT ideas together. If any of them are fuzzy, read them first: liquidity sweep, market structure shift, and fair value gap. For the session context, see Killzones and the Silver Bullet — a tighter cousin of the 2022 Model that lives inside a single hour.