Basic Strategies for Best Ball Fantasy Football Tournaments Part 1 of 4 – Rules

by Primetime Playaz · Published August 10, 2023 · Updated August 15, 2023

Do you want to get better at best ball and don’t know where to start? You’re in the right place! I listened to the podcasts, read articles, and looked at charts so you don’t have to.

The two most common sites for best ball are DraftKings (DK) and Underdog Fantasy (UD) so those are the two I focus on in the article. DK and UD are also the home of the milly-makers, so yeah, let’s help you win one of those. Other sites such as Sleeper, FFPC, Drafters, and Fantrax offer best ball contests as well but not to the magnitude of DK and UD.

TLDR: Pay attention to the rules so you don’t get caught with your pants down.

Where To Start…The Rules & Setting

As with any game, one of the most important things to do is look at the rules and settings. Not everyone does it, so this will give you a slight edge. Pay close attention to what contest you are entering because they are not all created equal. There are so many it can get confusing. You may enter three different contents that have the same settings and then you’ll assume the fourth has the same as well, but nope! I know this sounds silly and rudimentary, but I’ve been caught with my pants down. I rushed into a contest without knowing there were only six participants drafting, not twelve. Stacks look very different in six-team leagues.

You need to know the answers to all these questions:

What is the scoring? Ex. 0.0 points per reception (PPR), 0.5 PPR, or 1 PPR. 4 or 5 points for a throwing TD?
How long does the season last and are there playoffs, if so, how do you advance?
What is the payout structure? Is it top-heavy or more evenly spread out?
Is it a tournament or sit-and-go (single league)?
What is the roster size and how many flex spots are there? Can you start 2 QBs?
Is the draft fast (30-second picks) or slow (8-hour picks), or do you have an option?

The answers to all these questions are critical for your strategy. For instance, if you are only entering a single league (not a tournament) with 10 players, and there are no playoffs, it’s just total points through the season. In this case, your players’ matchups at the end of the season won’t matter as much as they would for a tournament where you need to advance through a gauntlet of weeks 15, 16, and 17. Those matchups are key, which is what I’ll be going over and why we’re all here; how to win big money in tournaments.

The two largest, most popular contests in best ball are Underdog’s Best Ball Mania, which has a $25 entry fee and $3 million first place prize, and DraftKing’s $10M Millionaire, which has a $10 entry fee and $1 million first place prize. Both of these tournaments have 12 team snake drafts.

Roster structure:

Underdog Fantasy best ball leagues have the following line-up structure: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex(RB/WR/TE) and 10 bench spots for a total of 18 roster spots. Scoring is 0.5 points per reception (PPR), which is a distinct difference from DraftKings 1 PPR.

DraftKings has the same starting spots as Underdog, with an additional 2 bench sports for a total of 20 roster spots: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex(RB/WR/TE) and 12 bench spots. Scoring is 1 PPR.

An important rule to note for DraftKings’ Tournaments is you must do one of the following to be eligible to win money (this is where you don’t want to be caught with your pants down):

1. Edit the pre-draft rankings.
2. Make a manual draft pick
3. Add a player to your draft queue.

I couldn’t find this rule in the fine print of Underdog Fantasy, but to be safe, I always do one of the items each time anyway.

Schedule, Playoffs, and Payouts:

Knowing how the schedule and playoffs work is paramount in building your strategy and winning some dough. Unlike Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) contests, you don’t play against everyone at once. There is a “regular season” and playoffs. When you enter the contest, you are randomly assigned to a 12-team league, and all 12 of you draft together. You play through the first 14 weeks of the season (this is what I consider the regular season) against each other and the top teams from the regular season advance. Note,

For both Underdog (UD) and DraftKings (DK), there are 3 rounds of playoffs that happen after the “regular season” which I’ll break down. Please note for clarification, both sites consider the “regular season” as round 1 (weeks 1 – 14) of the playoffs. Technically they consider there to be 4 rounds of playoffs. This is why I keep putting “regular season” in quotes because technically it’s all a playoff. For those who are playing for the first time, I wanted to make the distinction that there are 3 playoff rounds after the first 14 weeks. Moving forward, I will stay consistent with these sites’ terminology and consider what I consider the “regular season” as round 1, so there will be a total of 4 rounds.

For UD Best Ball Mania IV, the top two contestants in each group advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs. If you advance to the 2nd round (week 15), you’ll be randomly placed into a league of 16 people, and then only one winner moves on to round 3 (week 16). Round 3 will be another grouping of 16, and only the winner moves on again, but this time to the finals (week 17). In week 17, the final rounds of the playoffs, whoever is left all plays each other. The Underdog site says there will be 440 total teams in the final round for week 17 of the Best Ball Mania. This is where the big cash is and what you’ll need to prepare for if you want to win big money.

The DK’s $10M fine print isn’t as clear as to how many people make each round of playoffs, but the structure will be very similar to Underdog. Historically, it’s the same as UD where two people advance to round 2 of playoffs (week 15) from the original groupings, then only the winner of each round 2 grouping advances to round 3 (week 16). The same happens in round 3, only one advances to the finals from each group. Here is what DK’s site says, “At the end of each round, a specified number of entrants from each contest advances to the next round based on their placement in the contest standings. Each tournament will have specified contest sizes for each round, number of advancing entries per contest for each round, and maximum number of round contests you can enter.” From our research, it looks like the finals will have 1364 contestants, which is over 3x the size of Underdog’s finals. Historically rounds 2 and 3 are groupings of 12, not 16 like underdog. You have a better chance to advance but a tougher chance of placing in the finals.

For more details on playoff advancement for various tournaments, visit Spike Week, they have some cool data!

I’d like to throw out a little disclaimer before I end part 1…WHAT HAPPENS ONE YEAR DOES NOT MEAN IT WILL HAPPEN THE NEXT. There are outliers from year to year. Maybe Travis Kelce will have a down-season in 2023. I mean, c’mon, I remember when a TE didn’t get drafted before round 5. I also walked 20 miles to school in the snow, barefoot. Anyway, maybe last year the NFL had an uptick in RB usage (it did, but only slightly), but this year it could be down. Maybe drafters are all keen on taking WRs early in 2023 and that offers too good of an RB value this year to pass up in rounds two and three. The point is, use caution, none of this is a “rule”, it’s a guide to help you make informed decisions.

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) players know you need to get different from the crowd to win a tournament. In bets ball, I think you need to get a little different but not so much so that you’re shooting yourself in the foot. I’ll try and help you not shoot your foot!

What’s Next?

An element that is sometimes overlooked by the average player is knowing the tournament history and analytics such as advance rates to the playoffs. In other words, what type of teams advanced to the playoffs and championships in previous years? Were they loaded with WR or RBs, or how many QBs did they have? Taking that all into account, I’ll be going over three areas to focus on that will give you an edge in tournaments in our next three articles: Draft Value, Roster Construction, and Stacking.

You’re now ready to move on to part two of our four-part series, Draft Value.