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Chasing the League a New Way to MME

Finding a New Way to MME

A new look at an age-old problem. Cash vs GPP.  For many people playing DFS, the idea is to have fun while playing for a chance to win money.  I totally understand that as it is one of the largest reasons I have been playing DFS for the last 3 years.  I personally love the sweat that chasing first-place finish gives.  Whether it is a 20-man 100-man or even a 3500-man contest.  It is for these reasons that I tend to avoid the large field GPPs.  I do not often put together a perfect lineup, and that means to enjoy a sweat I need to focus on contests that can be won without hitting the Nuts.  

This article is going to explore the way I started in DFS and the way I found fun without having to chase for the stars. Before I get you too excited about this great new strategy, I want to take the time to point out that this new strategy is not going to bring you a lot of safety.  If you want safety I suggest first focusing on cash play.  If you want to add a little more excitement you should focus on using the ladder system.  Both of which you can find postings for by clicking the links provided.  This is going to be a way for you to chase the sweat, without having to break your bankroll completely.

The Know –

Now I say completely, but unless you manage to build some solid lineups at least a few times each week you could quickly find yourself on the losing end.  I personally have always found that if you give me a chance at 20 lineups, odds are I will put something together good enough to get a high place finish in a smaller contest.  That is why I want us to focus on League play.  This strategy will now be known and ‘Chasing the League’. Your mission if you choose to accept it will be to find the fun of the sweat without the need to MME a larger contest.  

I am sure you are asking me, how on earth will you ever be able to MME a league as they are only 100-person and are Single Entry.  That answer is actually simple, you MME by selecting 20 different 100 man leagues.   What is a 100 man league you ask? That is simple, on Fanduel they are actually 100 people where the top 12 people are paid out with first being worth $25.00.  On Draftkings they make things harder by not giving us anything good to focus on for 100-man.  They do offer a 237 man contest that maxes out at 7 entries and does pay $40 to first.  For DK I would use these and enter 2 of them with the max of 14 lineups (7 in each).  Draftkings has never been my preferred site to play so unless you are forced to play there, FD is better for this style.

The Goal –

The goal of this is to build multiple lineups.  Set your limit that fits your bankroll and do not go over it.  Then get ready to build your lineups.  For this I suggest building a player pool.  You often hear the Coaches in Slack talk about their player pool.  Back when I had a lot of time on my hands I had a notebook and each week got a few pages where I would put all the names I liked into it.  Later I built a spreadsheet in Excel where I would put my players.  You could even just keep the list in your head.  If you are not sure how to pick out some great options on your own check out Geeks VIP picks each week and grab a few names from there.

Final Warning –

It does not matter how you build your list, all that matters is you put players on it who you like for that week.  Don’t feel like you have to play only the smart play, and don’t feel like you cannot get   a little too freaky in a few of these lineups.  If they go bust, that’s okay as long as some of your safer 100-mans hit. The goal here is to have at least a few of your 100 mans cash, and hopefully 1 win.  If you only win 1 you come out $5.00 in the green If you can only cash a few in the top 5 you can also save your week.  Again this style of play will come with a lot more risk, but that is kind of the point.  If you have the funds to support these with cash you could do $80 in cash and then run $20 Chasing the League.  If you are tight on bankroll and want to preserve that safety look to the Ladder.  

Building Your Pool –

Step One –

There enough warnings out of the way.  If you are still with me then I am going to take it as a sign that you want to play some risk and chase that sweat with me.  So after a long wall of text I was talking about a player pool.  The first thing to do is select 2-5 defenses that you like for the week.  You want at least 2 and you want to try and spread out the cost of those defenses.  For me I look for the lowest cost defense I am willing to use, and then the highest priced. Once I know those I look to see if there is anything in the middle I really like.  

Step Two –

Once we have defense (as we are on fanduel) we will pick a few kickers as well.  Again I normally shoot for 2-6 as kickers can be all over the place.  If you need help on how to pick a kicker check out my strategy guide on How to Pick a Kicker.  You can also use my kicker list as each week I will give you 4-6 names that are safe and 3 that can be punted (ha we are punting a kicker).  

Why Start on DST/Kicker First –

Defense and kickers are set on our sheet, so we can kind of forget them for a little bit.  The main reason you want to start your list on these plays is 2 fold.  First you will spend a lot more time researching QB, RB and WR than you ever will kickers or defense.  So do not leave that research till the end when you are drained from reading about all those other stats.  Second when you pick out defense and kickers you like, you help reduce offenses you are going to focus on.  Sure you might still use a player or two from a team that is going to be facing one of your defense, but you probably are not picking their QB/RB/TE.  That just narrowed your list for research reasons.  Now instead of reading about 100 QB/RB/TE you are down to 70, and that will save you time and headache.  Again there are exceptions to the rule, as you might want a RB who is a pass catcher and likely to see an increased role in the offense due to the team falling behind.  

Step Three –

We are not shooting for die hard rules here however.  We are focused on building a list of players we like.  That means we need to cut out anyone we don’t need.  Information overload can kill, so keep it simple.  Now that we have our brains clear start with QB.  Take your time and find 4-6 QB that you like, love, or feel must be started.  Then find one more you just really think could out perform.  This list is going to be your core of building.  If you are using paper you will want to give each QB space above and below so you can add in names next to them in a stack.

Step Four –

We are going to start grabbing our WR from those who we will play with our QB.  Stacking is king in GPP and Hybrid.  Even though these 100 mans can be won by playing cash, we need to increase the chances of that happening.  We need more cash finishes and more 1st place finishes to make this work.  I am going to give you an image of what this might look like.  I did this in Word in a few minutes, but honestly, it would be easier in Excel or on paper.

Now that we have a starting list of who we will want to play at QB and which WR we want to play with them we can move on to the next step.  We want to pick those WR who would be good for coming back. Note this list was left much shorter for example purposes to save space.

Step Five –

You may not find anyone that you like to come back.  In the example above, I used almost no Hilton in any of my Dalton LUs.  I did have him in one of them just in case, but if you think it will be one-sided leave it empty. You could even use underline to mark the players you love.  You could use CAPs to show which players you want in more lineups.  There is no right or wrong answer to how you make the list so that it works for you.

Step Six –

Now we have our core group of Def, Kickers, QB, and WR.  With very little time spent we know most of our building blocks.  If we love a QB, who will they throw too?  The research is basically doing itself for us.  We can take it further and use the Research Station to check the WR/CB charts to help us narrow that list down further if we want.  It is an easy way to find your core.  Now we need to expand our core to include TE.  For this, you can make a separate listing, but I personally just make them the bottom option in my tree.

Tight End is probably the one position where you get the most freedom when it comes to not stacking them with your QB.  If you have one that you really like with your QB make sure you put him in the tree. If you like anyone not paired with your QB leave them on a separate list like your Def/Kickers.  You could even make a DST tree with RB you like and kickers you like to help boost correlation play.  

Step Seven –

The last core we want to build a list of RB for us to use.  I normally look for a few stud RBs as well as some Value.  Like everything here, we can get a little risky or play it smart when it comes to running backs.  My core was pretty basic when it came to RB.

Starting to Build –

Now that I have a core, I am going to start to build a lineup based on some kind of theme.  Geek talks about building to a theme a lot, and the reason for that is because it’s smart thing to do.  I will start by picking my favorite defense.  For me in this example it was Buffalo.  Their price was nice and even though they were facing Oakland they had been solid all season.  So Buffalo went into the def spot.  Once defense was selected, I selected my RB that would pair well with them, McCoy.  Now that I had that planned I went with a QB/WR stack.  I used this first theme several times, and do not have all of my QB/WR stacks shown in the image, but you get the idea.

Selecting a Different Theme –

For my second build, I focused on Value RBs.  The reason being, what if the stud RBs all have a bad week?  It happens from time to time so why not? I grabbed Mixon/Howard or Mixon and someone not from my core but that I liked.  Just because someone is not in the core does not mean they cannot be used.  The core is just the top choice, so for this example along with Mixon I also used Karma as a splash.  When it came to studs I splashed in 3 Gordons even though he was not in my main core.  

The Why –

The reason I did all of this was I was able to build myself 20 lineups mixing and matching different players from my core to build some solid lineups.  

I did not actually end up doing 20 in the leagues, but instead did 7 leagues and followed those up with these plus 8 more entered into a small GPP.  If I had only done the seven this is what my results would have looked like.  With my best lineup being:

Dissecting the Build –

Hogan was actually a player I had listed with Brady if I was going to use Brady I liked him with Hogan.  ASJ was someone I had listed with McCown which was one of my 15 GPP LUs and not a league.  The rest of the players simply were options off my list.  I also had a lineup that did very well that is not listed, that had Wilson/Baldwin/Hopkins.  The reason I put Richardson as the come back with Watson was that I already was using Baldwin and this gave me something different.

Why Only Seven Leagues –

I was building lineups late into the night Saturday.  Which is normal but I did start to get a little lazy with entering them.  Instead of using all 100 man leagues, I was also playing in an NFL Small Drive on Fanduel.  The contest has 4761 entries and costs $1.00 per lineup.  The contest maxes out at 100 entries and pays $400 to first.  Originally I was using a GPP ladder where I build for the 100-man and then entered into a GPP in case it really went off (chasing the $25 and the $400).  The first Seven lineups I built I did this, but the last eight I modified the GPP lineup and then did not go and enter it into a league.

The Difference in Results –

If you want to know why I strongly urge you to play 100-man leagues over the NFL Small Drive which is where I put most of my lineups its simple.  My 177 lineup above was only good for 10th for $30, which was only $5.00 more than I won playing a 100-man league for the same buy-in.  My 138 and 144 would have been good for $8.00 and $10.00 if entered into a $1.00 League and not $2.00.  Each lineup only won me $2.50 and $3.00 in the Small Drive.  My ROI was much better and I would have taken home $18.00 instead of $5.50.

Even More Proof

Of the eight I did not put into Leagues, I had a 153 which only return $6.00 and it was actually high enough to take 1st in several of the leagues I did play.  That $5.00 profit would have been $24 if I simply didn’t get lazy with my last 8 lineups and just enter them in the 100 man Leagues.  

Now I am sure you will have a lot of questions.  I look forward to answering any questions you might have. If you do hit me up in Slack and we can go over them.  Good luck out there DFS Army and hopefully you find that sweat in no time.