Best Ball Tournament Strategy Guide (For Underdog, DraftKings, Etc.)

Best Ball tournaments are popular thanks to huge prize pools on Underdog and DraftKings. Here are some strategy tips to win these contests.

August 18, 2022 - by Jason Lisk

Bengals WR Ja'Marr Chase was a key player in wining Best Balls (Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire)

Fantasy football best ball tournaments have taken off in the last few years. Sites like DraftKings and Underdog have large-field tournaments with total prize pools in the millions of dollars.

Best ball tournaments are far different than your local friends-and-family fantasy league, though. Here, we’ll break down the strategies you need to consider before jumping into one.

What Is Best Ball?

In best ball, you participate in a traditional snake draft, but you don’t set weekly lineups. You automatically get the best fantasy scores each week from the players on your roster.

Let’s say you drafted Tom Brady, Joe Burrow, and Mac Jones as your quarterbacks in a best ball tournament last season. They posted the following scores in Week 1:

Brady: 27.2 points
Burrow: 18.6 points
Jones: 15.2 points

Brady’s 27.2 points would have counted as your starting QB score that week, while Burrow and Jones would have counted for 0.

Every site has slightly different rules, so you’ll want to read the roster and scoring rules wherever you’re playing. For example, on Underdog, you draft 18 players total, and each week’s score is comprised of:

1 QB
2 RBs
3 WRs
1 TE
1 Flex (highest remaining RB/WR/TE)

You do not specify which players are in your starting lineup ahead of time. You just automatically get the highest-scores your players post at each position, which creates different dynamics than a league where you set your starters.

Best Ball Tournaments

In best ball tournaments, you aren’t just competing against the other people drafting with you. You’re competing against thousands upon thousands of other entries. Those other entries are drafting from the same player pool as you, but against a different set of drafters.

The Underdog “Best Ball Mania III” tournament structure is as follows:

451,200 entries across 37,600 initial leagues.
$25 entry fee.
After the first 14 weeks, the two highest-scoring entries from each individual league (75,200 total) advance to the playoff rounds.
Those 75,200 entries are then organized into 7,520 different 10-entry groups. Each group’s highest-scoring entry in Week 15 advances to the semifinals.
The 7,520 entries that reach the semifinals are organized into 470 different 16-entry groups for Week 16. Each group’s highest-scoring entry in Week 16 advances to the Week 17 finals.
The final 470 entries compete for the grand prize in Week 17. First place gets $2 million, second place gets $1 million, while the entries that finish between 401st to 470th get $1,000. The full prize breakdown is here.

Best Ball Prize Structure

What should stand out to you about Underdog’s prize structure is just how much of a long shot it is to get a big payday. A large percentage of the total prize pool is tied up in the top few finishers.

30% of the total prize pool goes to the top two finishers in Week 17.
43.4% of the total prize pool goes to the top 50 finishers in Week 17.
Just over 50% of the total prize pool will go to the top 214 entries, out of over 450,000 that start the contest.

So, let’s discuss some things you should think about for these best ball contests. We hit all of the following below:

Think of Best Ball Tournaments Like a Huge March Madness Bracket Contest

The single worst thing you could do in a large-field best ball tournament is treat it like you’re drafting in a 12-team league with your buddies.

Yes, you initially have to compete against the 11 other entries you draft with, and none will have the same players as you. But being one of the two entries that gets out of the first 14 weeks is only the first stage of the battle.

Most of the contest equity is earned in weeks where you will face rosters that could have some of the same players as you, particularly the best players over the first two-thirds of the NFL season. That’s similar to a large March Madness bracket contest, where you have to pick all of the games before the tournament tips off, have to battle through luck and close calls, and likely need your champion pick and highest-value deep runs to hit.

We’ve been giving advice on how to win March Madness bracket contests for years, and we have the track record of winning those types of pools. A lot of the advice for best ball tournaments here is adapted from the types of strategies you would use to win such a March Madness contest.

Balancing Risk and Reward, and Concentrating Them

In a large March Madness bracket, you should not start by picking round-of-64 games individually. That haphazard approach can lead to picking too many upsets or unusual teams late. That’s the equivalent of just doing a fantasy draft without a plan for the playoff weeks.

What you should do instead is focus on some concentrated bets on teams to win the title or reach the final that you think provide value.

In a large-field tournament, you also might take a champion pick that is less likely to happen, but one where you will have a value edge. For example, you might increase your chances of winning the pool by picking a champion with a 2% chance of winning that’s being picked by only 0.5% of entries rather than a team with a 10% chance that’s being picked by 20% of the pool.

Who Are The Popular Picks in a Best Ball Tournament?

You might be asking how to know who the popular picks are in best ball. After all, every player can be drafted only once in a best ball league.

Unlike a standard DFS tournament, where we can project popularity and usage, or a March Madness tournament where we can see public data on pick rates, there aren’t more Cooper Kupps than other players.

While some players will appear more frequently on playoff rosters than others (namely, those that overperformed expectations), we don’t know the identity of those players yet.

The popular picks aren’t the individual players themselves, though. They are the combinations of players, particularly among the highest-leverage or most important picks.

Using Average Draft Position (ADP) Data to Guess at Popularity

Most of these sites make the average draft position (ADP) data from the tournament available. From that, you can get a sense of player combinations that are going to be more or less common.

Think of ADP numbers as the center of a bell-shaped curve. Players are likely going within a few spots of their ADP in most drafts, while they’ll show up on teams farther away from that draft position in far fewer drafts.

For example, Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey are going in the first few picks in most drafts. In a 12-team draft, that means players that tend to go between picks 23 and 26 will end up on the same roster as those two at a higher rate.

We should thus expect that players with the following ADPs will be on the same roster as Taylor and McCaffrey at a higher rate than other players:

WR Tyreek Hill (22.6)
RB Leonard Fournette (24.5)
RB Nick Chubb (25.3)
WR Tee Higgins (26.4)
WR A.J. Brown (26.5)

Meanwhile, it’s extremely unlikely that Travis Kelce (ADP of 12.6) is showing up on any rosters with Taylor or McCaffrey. Similarly, players going a little later in the third round, like WRs D.J. Moore (33.6) and Courtland Sutton (34.6), are also less likely to end up on Taylor/McCaffrey teams.

An Example of ADP Value in Action

We’ll get to teammate stacks in the next section, but here’s a real-life example of using ADP data to identify teammate stacks that may be value plays.

Three Denver Broncos players are going in the first five rounds of most drafts by ADP: RB Javonte Williams (21.2), WR Courtland Sutton (34.1) and WR Jerry Jeudy (44.2).

If you overlay those ADPs on a 12-team draft grid, Williams and Jeudy are both going most commonly to teams drafting out of the fourth or fifth slots, about two rounds apart. Sutton is going in between the two, but he’s more typically being drafted by teams at the other end of the draft, at around the 10th slot on average.

If the popularity of player pairings can be predicted by ADP, we should expect teams with a Williams-Jeudy pairing to be more prevalent than those with a Williams-Sutton pairing.

To test that, I looked at actual drafts in which I participated to see how frequently the two different teammate RB-WR pairings were showing up. Here were the results:

Williams-Jeudy: 18% of leagues and 1.5% of rosters (18% divided by 12 teams per league)
Williams-Sutton: 4% of leagues and 0.3% of rosters

So, the Williams-Jeudy combo is roughly 4.5 times more common than Williams-Sutton, even though you would project them to have roughly equal chances of being the duo you need in the playoff weeks. The Williams-Sutton pairing is happening about half as often as you would expect any random two-player pairing to occur. (Your chances are roughly 1-in-12 of having one randomly drawn player on your roster if you already have the other.)

If you are fortunate enough to reach the final week of 470 entries, you would expect about 7-8 of them to have both Williams and Jeudy, and maybe one or two of them to have Williams and Sutton. That may not seem like a big deal, but that could be the difference between thousands upon thousands of dollars. It may also determine whether you need other outcomes to differentiate or whether you have a unique and valuable combo.

Correlate Your Roster by Stacking

In fantasy football parlance, “stacking” refers to having multiple players from the same team on your roster.

For example, drafting a starting QB and WR from the same team gives the power of a correlated outcome. If the QB passes for more yards and throws more touchdowns in a given season, the WR is more likely to score as well.

The most common stacks involve a QB with his best pass-catchers at WR and TE. But advanced best ball players will also correlate teammates even without the QB (since optimally, you don’t want to draft too many QBs).

For example, if you had Dallas RB Tony Pollard along with WR CeeDee Lamb and TE Dalton Schultz, you don’t necessarily need Dak Prescott at QB. You are getting multiple scorers in weeks that the Dallas passing game does well.

Stacking has benefits both in advancing out of the first 14 weeks and if you reach the playoff rounds. It gives you some insurance (when one top receiving option has an off day or is out injured, the others probably had better stats), and it also gives you a concentrated bet where you advance if the overall offense outperforms expectations.

You shouldn’t be afraid to stack players if they’re good enough, even if you think it will be relatively popular to do so. Plenty of entries are using stacking, but you should search for stacks that both provide excellent correlation and may not be quite as popular.

Focus on Playoff Week Matchups, Particularly Week 17

Stacking is one way to create correlated outcomes in the playoff weeks. Another is by pairing opponents during the final weeks of the season, especially in Week 17.

Some games will produce more real points and fantasy points than others. Teams could get into a shootout, or one team might jump out to a huge lead, forcing the other to throw a bunch to close the gap.

Here is a look at the highest scorers from Week 16 of last season, for example:

Position	Player	Team	Opponent	Points
QB1	Burrow	CIN	BAL	38.1
QB2	Prescott	DAL	WAS	31.3
QB3	Allen	BUF	NE	31.0
RB1	Jackson	LAC	HOU	30.2
RB2	Mixon	CIN	BAL	28.5
RB3	Harris	NE	BUF	28.3
RB4	Burkhead	HOU	LAC	27.9
RB5	Chubb	CLE	GB	25.9
RB6	Edmonds	ARI	IND	22.7
WR1	Higgins	CIN	BAL	37.4
WR2	Adams	GB	CLE	28.4
WR3	Brown	TEN	SF	26.0
WR4	McKenzie	BUF	NE	23.9
WR5	Samuel	SF	TEN	23.6
WR6	Pringle	KC	PIT	22.5
WR7	St. Brown	DET	ATL	21.5
WR8	Waddle	MIA	NO	20.2
WR9	Cooper	DAL	WAS	18.0
TE1	Andrews	BAL	CIN	22.5
TE2	Schultz	DAL	WAS	18.2
TE3	Everett	SEA	CHI	14.8

The top QB, top WR, top TE and second-highest-scoring RB all came from the same game (Bengals-Ravens). Five games featured a player from each team finishing among the top scorers in Week 16.

Some were stars facing off, like when Cleveland RB Nick Chubb and Green Bay WR Davante Adams both had big games. Others were players that were backups or less notable when the season began.

You can increase your chances of creating an edge in the playoff weeks by trying to concentrate your picks on games where teammates and opponents could all benefit from a shootout.

Don’t Overreach for Stacks and Correlations

There is a limit to how much you should stack and how much projected value you should give up to make a stack or correlated game happen.

For example, taking Chargers WRs Keenan Allen and Mike Williams in the first two rounds and then QB Justin Herbert in the third round is giving up too much value for the sake of getting a stack. You’d be taking Allen and Williams far earlier than they typically go while passing up top-six players at RB and WR.

The same applies to taking a particular QB 2-3 rounds earlier than expected based on ADP.

It makes sense to reach for some players, but it needs to be in certain key spots where there isn’t much of a tier drop in value. Reaching too far to make team and game stacks negates much of the benefit of stacking in the first place.

Hunt for Values

The opposite of reaching for players is scooping up values when players slide well past their ADP. If a player with an ADP of 15 is still available at 25, that’s a pretty big value.

Drafting players who fall well past their ADP has a lot of strategic benefits in a large-field best ball tournament. Those include:

Getting players at a relatively cheaper cost based on what the market thinks of the player. If you do that consistently, you will have the equivalent of good closing-line value with your roster.
Getting players in spots or pockets of the draft where they normally aren’t selected, increasing your uniqueness and value-pick combinations.
Diversifying your portfolio of players drafted by letting the rest of the draft room provide the values for you.

We just discussed how it might make sense to reach for some players (if you don’t reach too far) to complete stacks. But it’s even better if you get values that fall and also provide correlation.

Even if they don’t correlate now, gobbling up value picks also can force you into being more creative with your roster construction. You might decide to add your stacks and correlations to those value picks later.

An Example of Early Values

Here is how an actual draft went through the first four rounds out of the fifth slot (with ADP at time of draft):

RD	Pick	POS	Player	Team	ADP
1	5	WR	Ja'Marr Chase	CIN	5.2
2	20	WR	Tyreek Hill	MIA	21.9
3	29	TE	Mark Andrews	BAL	21.1
4	44	RB	Travis Etienne	JAC	37.0

The first two picks were largely at or near ADP. In the third round, TE Mark Andrews slipped until the 29th pick. That might not seem like a huge drop, but it’s pretty rare to see Andrews, with an ADP near 21, go outside a narrow band of picks between the middle of the second round and early in the third round.

While grabbing a top tight end at this spot may not have been the initial plan, and Andrews’ schedule doesn’t pair up with either Cincinnati or Miami in the playoff rounds of the contest, it does provide something else: value and a unique trio to start a draft.

Not many other teams will have three different players with an ADP at or above 21 out of the fifth slot.

While the first four picks aren’t correlated or stacked, those factors can be built in over the remaining 14 picks. For example, New England plays Cincinnati in Week 16 and Miami in Week 17, so New England players were added later to provide those correlations with the top picks.

Don’t Build Bad Structural Rosters

The quickest way to burn money in a best ball contest is to build a bad structural team.

If you use four of your 18 roster spots on QBs—a position that can only count one score each week—you will probably be at a disadvantage. Other teams spend too much draft capital on RBs by taking them both early and often.

There is no golden rule on how many QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs you should draft, but here are some reasonable ranges:

QB: 2-3
RB: 4-7
WR: 6-10
TE: 2-4

How those specifically break down depends on how you allocate your draft picks. If you start by taking two star RBs in the first two rounds, you probably don’t want to take seven RBs in total. You might be fine with four.

A roster with two QBs, six RBs, eight WRs, and two TEs could be well-constructed if it went light on RB early, took several star WRs, and got a top QB and TE in the first eight rounds. It could be poorly constructed if it didn’t take any WRs early or waited to draft the two QBs until late.

If you’re interested in which roster structures performed the best in past tournaments, our friends at Establish the Run have some data on how various roster construction combinations performed.

Go for Reward Over Risk

It’s important to remember that in best ball, you are not playing for median outcomes. You don’t want to come in sixth place in your 12-team league.

You have to strongly orient yourself toward value and reward over downside risk.

If you take Christian McCaffrey in the first round, you can’t be obsessed with his injury risk. Don’t draft extra running backs because you think he will get hurt again. You are relying on him to be a high scorer most of the season.

That also makes certain players more attractive in best ball than in standard fantasy leagues, since you don’t have to decide who starts for your team. These include:

Rookies, who can be much higher-variance, with some busting badly and others emerging as stars. They are generally drafted with downside risk as part of the equation.
Ambiguous or uncertain starting situations where you might be getting a discount while others take safer picks.
Injured players who fall because they may be out to start the season but could provide a boost later in the year.

Play Multiple Entries and Be Adaptable

We preach playing multiple entries in several different types of pools, from survivor pools to March Madness contests, to increase your chances of cashing. The same is true of best ball formats, but there are even more reasons to commit to playing multiple entries.

You don’t have to max out—150 entries is the max in several Underdog contests—but you should be willing to enter enough entries so you can get some of them through to the playoffs rounds. After all, only 16.7% of entries will even advance to Week 15 and start getting paid out.

Another reason to play multiple entries is because of the barrier to entry. In most pools, you just make your picks and are done. That isn’t the case in best ball. You have to draft against multiple other entrants.

Some will do smart things, and some will do crazy things that frustrate you. You may think you want a certain player or combination of players, but others may have different ideas. Draft slots are randomly assigned, so if you only do a few drafts, you may not even have the chance to draft certain players. If you don’t draw one of the top draft slots, for example, you aren’t getting Colts RB Jonathan Taylor on your team.

Experience Is the Best Teacher

There’s no better teacher than experience to learn how the flow of best ball drafts goes and where you need to take certain players. There’s also no better way to learn how to be adaptable than to practice it.

You may want to stack and correlate players. You may want to get great values and get unique. But doing those things often requires making value judgments on what is more important, what is still available to you, and what contingencies you can fall back on while still making a good roster.

To give yourself the best chance to win, you need to practice by putting in multiple entries. Some will be better than others, and experience is a great teacher.