Welcome back to the Shark Autopsy Report! Typically lineup deconstruction articles focus on NFL and NBA contests. If this is your first time reading the Shark Autopsy Report, Welcome! You may access the 2018 – 2019 NFL Shark Autopsy reports here. Over the course of the MMA season this article will deconstruct winning DraftKings lineups in contests where the dark waters of Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP) contests that are ripe with sharks. Navigating these waters where the sharks smell blood in the water is not easy, but the DFSArmy has you covered, providing you with the essential daily tools to help our VIPs turn into sharks!
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Little Bit about the DFSArmy
For those of you who are new to Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and are looking for a top notch, second to none DFS site that can provide you with the tools to construct quality DFS lineups like the pros use, then look no further, the DFSArmy has you covered. At DFSArmy, we don’t just focus on the major sports, we also look at the niche sports and place as much of a focus on dominating the competition as the major sports. DFSArmy’s coaches are truly amazing at their crafts, and the MMA coaches are no different, with each coach spending hours upon hours researching each fight card to the nth degree. DFSArmy prides ourselves on the ability of our coaches to teach and provide our members with the methodologies, processes, tools and thought processes to become an equitable DFS player, who can grow their bankroll with proper bankroll management and turn your everyday DFS Joe into a DFS Pro. DFSArmy covers all of the DFS sports from the main 4 (MLB, NBA, NFL & NHL) to PGA, MMA, Soccer and College FB and BB. Additionally, DFSArmy has its own Sportsbook team to help you with sports betting. The DFSArmy is an all-in one Fantasy Sports and Sportsbook site that you can’t afford to not be a member! Our members get the opportunity to learn from the top MMA DFS players that are all highly ranked by RotoGrinders.
Synopsis of the Shark Autopsy Report
The Shark Autopsy Report is different from the other DFS site’s lineup breakdown articles that you can read online, as there are a multitude of these types of articles. The Shark Autopsy Report provides you with a breakdown of the top ranked DFS pros lineups construction, from the total number of lineups they utilized each fighter in the Uppercut contest, their percentage of that fighter drafted overall in the Uppercut contest, the percentage the tourney field drafted the fighter, and the variance between the DFS Pros’ percentage drafted of a particular fighter as compared with the tourney field. Note: with the Shark Autopsy Report, you will see negative and positive variance percentages. The positive variance values showcase the DFS Pros were overweight on a particular fighter as compared to the tourney field and negative variance values showcase the DFS Pros were underweight on a particular fighter as compared to the tourney field.
Are You Performing Weekly Lineup Deconstruction?
No matter the sport you determine to invest your bankroll, you should as a DFS player be analyzing the contests you enter winning lineups and DFS Pros’ lineups within those contests. Don’t just look at the lineup of who won the contests you entered, but familiarize yourself with how the top 20 constructed their lineup and the DFS Pros’ lineups. If you are new to Daily Fantasy Sports and are not familiar with the DFS Pros that compete (not participate) in the respective sport you are playing, then go to RotoGrinders and look at each sport’s leaderboards. The top guys are there and familiarize yourself with their screen names. Lineup deconstruction in some way, shape or form should be part of your repertoire as a DFS player to revisit the prior week’s winning lineups, not just for the top heavy payout contests (think NFL Milly Maker, MMA Upper Cut), but all of the contests you entered to see how the winning lineups were constructed. Additionally, you should be looking at your own lineups to determine WHY certain plays in your lineups went off and WHY other plays did not. This will ultimately make you a better player, but it will help you determine lineup construction trends you may not have otherwise noticed if you were not reviewing over past week’s lineups. If you don’t think that lineup construction is as much an art as it is a science, then you are simply kidding yourself and you need to rethink your methodology of lineup construction.
DraftKings $75K Uppercut Contest – February 23rd UFC Slate
Unlike NFL Milly Maker and Sunday Million contests, MMA doesn’t offer tourney top prize payouts that your ordinary DFS player will flock to. In fact, similar to other niche sports, MMA has smaller contest pools and smaller contest payouts, though the payouts in the Uppercut are really good. As compared to NFL, the Uppercut is MMA’s Milly Maker. Like any other sport you intend to enter lineups, make sure that you are researching the contests and strategizing the right contests to enter for you and know that not every contest is created equal to another.
Analyzing Uppercut Tourney’s Top 20 Lineups
Lineups tying throughout the entire Uppercut tourney is not uncommon in MMA, actually it is a very commonality. Within the top 20 lineups, the highest owned fighter was Chris Fishgold who was owned in 100% of the top 20 lineups. As compared to the field, the top 20 lineups were 63.36% overweight on Fishgold as compared to the Upper Cut tourney field. The other fighters that the top 20 field were overweight as compared to the Upper Cut tourney field were Thiago Santos (42.03% overweight variance), Damir Hadzovic (56.85% overweight variance), Gillian Robertson (51.87% overweight variance), and Michal Oleksiejczuk (57.3% overweight variance). Oleksiejczuk was THE top play that separated the top 20 lineups from the rest of the field, the field owned Oleksiejczuk at 17.7%.
We see a very similar dynamic across all DFS sports, no matter which sport it is, that picking your spots on one or two players or fighters to be contrarian on is THE most optimal lineup construction methodology. Going full contrarian at more than that will lead to the least optimal lineup construction. If you read my NFL Shark Autopsy Report articles, you were able to see over the course of the 2018 – 2019 NFL season that this ideology held true at a very high percentage of the time within the top 10 scoring lineups in the Milly Maker contest.
Analyzing DFS Pros Fighter Usage
The DFS Pros’ lineups the Shark Autopsy Report will be analyzing over the course of the MMA season are BDHolla89 and Moklovin. BDHolla89 is the number 1 ranked overall MMA player per RotoGrinders and Moklovin is 3rd ranked overall MMA player.
Looking at BDHolla89 and Moklovin fighter usage and lineups, we can get an idea of the fighters they used as shown below. Let’s see their ownership of the Uppercut field’s highest owned fighters (Prazeres and Blachowicz) to get a sense of how much valuation they place on those two fighters.
As you can see in the diagrams above, BDHolla89, utilized Michal Prazeres in 60% of his lineups which he was overweight on the tourney field by 12%. BDHolla89 was overweight on the field by 15% utilizing Jan Blachowicz in 60% of his lineups. Additionally, BDHolla89 also owned Diego Ferreira in 60% of his lineups. Though the field owned Prazeres and Blachowicz at 48% and 45% respectively, by being overweight on the field, BDHolla89 would have surpassed the field on his respective ownership as compared to the field had Prazeres and Blachowicz fights went differently.
Moklovin’s ownership of Michal Prazeres was underweight to the Uppercut tourney field ownership at 1%. Moklovin went underweight as compared to the field on Jan Blachowicz by 3%. Moklovin pivoted his Prazeres ownership to Fishgold and Magomed Ankalaev, and pivoted his ownership of Jan Blachowicz to Carlo Pedersoli.
Side-by-Side Comparison of DFS Pros Fighter Usage
To conclude this installment of the Shark Autopsy Report, the DFS Army was started based on the concept that brings high-level tools, projections, and information to average players would allow them to compete on a level playing field with the DFS pros that have been dominating the industry for years. Check out our full Wall of Wins to see countless other screenshots from regular players utilizing DFS Army tools and advice to take down 6 figure prizes on a regular basis. Sign up as a DFS Army VIP today to take your game to the next level and start competing like a pro.