Battle Royale is a DFS Draft that pays out $30,000 to First in Week 1 of the NFL Season.
You're Drafting against 5 others and filling out 6 roster spots (1QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, & 1 Flex.) to compete against almost 68,000 entries for the Grand Prize of $30,000. It's only a $5 Entry Fee, The Draft takes about 5 minutes to complete, and you can submit up to 150 entries.
I took a look at Winning Lineups from the 2023 Season to build this Strategy Guide on how to Attack this Contest.
Stacking
For those people who are seasoned DFS and/or Best Ball Players, Stacking is pretty straight Forward. A Primary stack means a QB + one of his Pass Catchers - a WR/TE & sometimes an RB who gets a lot of receiving work.
A Secondary Stack could be two or more players from the same team or two or more players from the same game. Like Tyreek Hill and Raheem Mostert or let's say the Bills are facing the Jets, it could be Khalil Shakir and Garrett Wilson. Also known as Team Stacks or Game Stacks.
When you stack, you're basically correlating for a high-end outcome and playing to have to predict less things, right. For example, to win the tournament, you're basically hoping to hit a 6-leg parlay, let's say you have Dak Prescott and Ceedee Lamb stacked together, well now you've tied two players into a single bet, so if that stack hits, you only need the other 4 to get right. If that game goes Nuclear, and you have a Bring Back player on the other side, you've just tied 3 of the 6 players into one leg of the parlay. Now you need the other 3 to go right.
Correlation is how you win big in DFS and 99% of the Winners in a Large Field DFS Contest, have some sort of stack.
Of the 15 Battle Royale Winners I looked at in 2023, 100% of those teams had some sort of Stack - Primary or Secondary.
If you miss out on stacking your QB, make sure you have some sort of stack in your lineup; Like two players from the same team; Isaiah Pacheco and Rashee Rice, for example. You could also get a ping pong stack of 2 players from the same game - say the Bears and Packers are playing each other so you draft DJ Moore and Romeo Doubs.
Of the 15 Battle Royale Winners I looked at in 2023, 80% of those teams had a Primary Stack.
Way more times than not, it made sense to stack a QB with his Pass Catcher. This requires you to plan your stacks and maybe reach a bit above ADP if you want to ensure you get the right guy. Or you start the Draft Double WR and know you'll have a solid chance stacking one of those Stud Wide Receivers with their QB if they're both going in a similar range.
Of the 15 Battle Royale Winners I looked at in 2023, 40% of those teams had a Secondary Stack.
This hits at a high enough rate that you want to try and get one if the game environment lines up for your secondary stack, but it's not something I would chase if you already had a Primary Stack. Getting a Secondary Stack is imperative to your build if you weren't able to draft a Primary Stack of a QB and one of his pass catchers because 100% of the winning lineups had some sort of correlation.
Stacking is a must.
Half-PPR influences Roster Construction
Having wrote an article covering the 2023 Weekly Winners on Underdog Fantasy, and doing Fanduel Content for DFS Army in 2023, I wasn't too surprised to see RB dominate the Flex in the Battle Royal contest. The Half-PPR Format favors Touchdowns and Running Backs, on average, get more opportunities to score touchdowns in the Redzone than Pass Catchers. 2/3 of the Battle Royale Winners had RB in the Flex.
That means I'm drafting RB in the Flex in the majority of my Drafts.
Starting Pick
For Roster Construction, it's very important to get an Elite WR in your build as you need that 30–45-point ceiling that those types of Wide Receivers bring - this is evident by the number of Winning Teams that went Wide Receiver with their first pick.
2/3 of the Battle Royale Winners drafted a WR with their First Pick.
1/3 of the Battle Royale Winners drafted a RB with their First Pick.
I'm definitely leaning Wide Receiver with my First Pick, but the elite of elite Running Backs like Christian Mccaffrey would be the exception as to where I would zag with my first Pick.
Average Draft Position
I expected to see a lot of Winning Lineups with great ADP Value, but that wasn't really the case. Sure, there times when a player was taken 8 spots past ADP, but it was more of an outlier of the winning builds than within the normal distribution. If great value is there, definitely look at it as an opportunity because it creates a unique build with upside when you get Breece Hall some 8 spots past ADP, but sometimes that player may be falling for a reason so be mindful of that.
Go Get Your Guys
What I did see when reviewing the Winning Lineups, was winners with the mentality of "Go Get Your Guys." There were a lot of teams with Players taken above ADP... also known as' reaching for Players'. We have to differentiate from Best Ball because this is a single slate and it's important to take a stand on the way you see the slate playing out and going to get those players you love.
For Example, in Week 4 Justin Fields was taken at pick 25 - 10.5 Spots before his ADP. In fact, Fields and Moore were 'stacked' and taken back-to-back - both 10+ spots before their ADP.
What I did find was often times it was the Quarterback who was taken most frequently ahead of ADP which makes sense as Drafters are trying to get their stacks solidified.
The key is drafting the way you see the slate playing out, instead of being too restrictive of ADP Drafting.
Drafting Early in the Week Vs. Late
While there is more risk involved in drafting early in the week vs late - value with injury replacements and not diving deep into the slate - I think there is an edge in drafting before Drafters have had time to consume NFL Content all week, look at the game lines, projections, see average draft position of players, etc.
As a content creator, I personally like to draft once I have a really good feel of the slate, but I do think there is a big advantage to drafting before the weekly content can be consumed, and it's something I will incorporate into my Draft portfolio this Season.
Drafting based on Projections
I think this is one of the most important parts of drafting teams with a legit shot to win the 30K in these Battle Royale Contests. Having consistently good player projections like the Domination Station does at DFS Army does is a great way to attack the slate and plan out your Draft.
Does Tyreek Hill project better than Justin Jefferson this week? Does that game environment have a high total and looks to be back and forth? Which Running Back projects well that I could target if I start with Jefferson or Hill? Last, if we know that if Kyren Williams is in a smash spot against the 28th ranked Run Defense, has a top 3 fantasy points projection, and is projecting for 30% ownership on Fan Duel's Half-PPR contests, we can take into account that he's going earlier than he does most weeks and the direct leverage play may be taking Cooper Kupp later in the Draft and passing on Kyren.
Leveraging Ownership
One of the best ways to leverage the field in these large field contests is by looking for leverage spots. For example, If Tyreek has an ADP of 3 and we know he's in a fantastic spot this week as the game total is over 50 points and has a spread of 3.5 points, we know that this game environment could be a back-and-forth shootout. Knowing that, let's say you're at the 3 spot and Hill is there, but you opt to go for Chase, Jefferson, or Amon-Ra. You're not only Drafting in the event that one of those players will outscore Hill, but you can also get direct leverage on those Tyreek Hill builds by drafting either Achane or Waddle. Maybe Hill has a decent game but he only scores 20 and Waddle gets the Touchdowns and scores 30.
Chase got 28, Waddle got 30, and you're in a much better spot to win the tournament because you looked for leverage spots and drafted accordingly. So much of winning in DFS is taking those hard stands and playing enough hands that you eventually win the tournament when variance is on your side.
Make sure You're Subscribed to Fantasy Fling - Daily Fantasy Sports - YouTube as I'll be producing Battle Royale Strategy all season long and have a Live Draft each Week on the Channel!
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