Lachie McAndrew and Toby Murray have both been locked in to feature for the club for the first time against Collingwood.
The club confirmed the news on Wednesday evening, with McAndrew having played two games for Sydney in 2023, while Murray has yet to feature at AFL level.
It comes after a pre-season where McAndrew has been preferred as the starting ruck to leadership group member Lachie O'Brien, with his athleticism better suited to the new ruck rules.
"'Rob' (O'Brien) has been challenged this year with a rule change - and it's a big one, it's a huge rule change," Nicks said.
"Talking with Rob ... he hadn't practised the run and jump for a long time, for a number of years. As a lot of rucks had, they worked on a different craft.
"We've seen him transform that in a really short period of time ... don't write Rob off at all.
"But in the same breath, Lachie, he's unique that he's 210 (centimetres tall), he's got a big jump on him, so from a centre-bounce point of view, he's in a good position.”
Toby Murray gets his chance after featuring in the AAMI Community Series, and is entering his third year on the list.
"He's very similar to his brother (Nick) in that there's nothing left to chance, he's a pro," Nicks said.
"(I'm not) surprised because of how hard he works, we saw something there, but really pleased with how fast he has developed ... he's done well to get to this point."
Despite his 41-disposal Opening Round performance, Nicks indicated that the Crows would not start with a hard tag on Collingwood star Nick Daicos.
“We'll hold on to that one and that could change mid-game to be honest,” Nicks said.
“I saw (Isaac) Quaynor describe him as a teleporter - he's a fantastic player, and there's a lot of opinions around tagging, and what you should or shouldn't do.
“There's certain players who are very, very hard to tag - especially someone who can teleport.
“He's elite speed, elite endurance - it's hard to lock down just one player, so there's a system that can look after that and then there's the other option of ‘have you got a player who can do it (tag)?'
“We might look at both, we'll see how the game pans out.”
Nicks also confirmed Riley Thilthorpe would play after missing the AAMI Community Series game.
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