If you’re looking for a new way to play fantasy football this year beyond ESPN and Yahoo, then DraftKings might be the ideal place for you! With their Best Ball system, you won’t have to fuss around with the waiver wire, trades, or even lineups. The only thing you need to focus on is landing a stellar team in the draft. We’ll walk you through some of the best strategies, and tips for new players. Check out our link below if you’re interested in signing up!
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If you’re familiar with fantasy football, you’ll find yourself at home with the Best Ball system. The leagues can vary in size but range from 72 to nearly a million, however, you’re not playing against everyone all at once. For Best Ball, you’ll be broken into subgroups during the contest. Most of the time you'll be competing against 11 others players weekly in a 12-person group. The rules can change between contests, but most run for 17 weeks. At the end of week 14, the top 2 players from the original group of 12 move on, and the rest are eliminated.
The 2 who advance will then play in another group of 12 with the top 2 advancing to the next round at the end of the week. This repeats for a 3rd round in week 16. The contest ends in week 17 with the remaining players all competing in a final group, with the winners being selected at the end of week 17.
It’s a fairly standard tournament system, but if you’re new, it can be a bit confusing the first time through. To be honest, though, your involvement in your team after the draft isn’t required. One of the biggest selling points of Best Ball is the lack of team management compared to traditional fantasy football. There are no trades, waiver wire adds, or lineup adjustments. So if your team turns out to be garbage, no worries.
When it comes to teams you’ll be building a 20-man roster with Tight Ends, Quarter Backs, Running Backs, and Wide Receivers. This makes for a very deep league with 240 players selected. You don’t have to select every player though, you can create a draft list, use auto-draft, or upload a CVS file of your draft preferences.
Post-draft, your team will basically go on autopilot. The game will create your lineup each week out of your top-scoring QB, top 2 RBs, top 3 WRs, best TE, and best remaining TE, WR, or RB for your flex. The rest of your 20-man group is benched. So you’ll never regret leaving a player benched.
Since Best Ball is all about the draft that is all you need to focus on. With it being a PPR league, you’ll want to prioritize wide receivers first, but explosive players are also highly sought after. Best Ball has a bonus system you’ll want to be aware of before you draft. Players will get 3 bonus points if they hit a certain target:
100 Yards Receiving
100 Yards Rushing
300 Yards Passing
So, aiming for players who can have breakout games is always ideal. Other than that, it’s just a normal fantasy draft. You’ll get sorted into your group, be given a draft position, and then start the draft. All drafts are in snake format, so if you’re looking to do an auction draft, you may want to stick to ESPN or Yahoo.
When entering a contest you’ll want to select the draft process that works best for you, slow or fast. If you select slow that will give you 8hrs per pick, but this will take much longer to get through the draft. Quick is far more popular with selectors being made in 30 seconds or less. This does make the draft much more intense, however, with players leaving the board rapidly. You’ll want to have some idea of the players you want well ahead of your pick. Don’t worry about sticking around to pick 20 though, you can set your draft and forget it if you want.
When it comes to drafting for Best Ball, you’ll always want to focus on elite talent like normal. Players like Christian McCaffrey who are a running and receiving threat have massive value. Meanwhile, players who are more possession-based or don’t rack up yards tend to fall. Since the scoring system is PPR, you’ll want to focus early on WRs. In a typical draft you’ll see players draft an RB or WR first, then grab maybe 2 or 3 more WRs in the next 4 rounds. Of course, it’s all about pick value, so if there is someone you like falling, don’t hesitate to grab them.
QBs can be one of the most challenging decisions in the draft. Do you take an elite QB early, or wait, but risk getting subpar talent? Well in our experience, elite QBs can be a bit overrated in Best Ball. Since your highest-scoring player in that position is used, you can stack up on multiple QBs. So, you can take a few lower-tier QBs and hope one has a great game each week. It’s not perfect, but if it allows you to take another RB or WR high it’s a worthwhile gamble.
TE is in the same boat as QBs. The top-end talent can be great, but stacking up on 2 maybe 3 then hoping one grabs a touchdown can work. We recommend you take at least 2 TE. Try to focus on TEs that get action in the passing game, Kittle, Kelce, or LaPorta. If those guys are going too high, try to snag a 3rd TE near the end of the draft, preferably a backup on a heavy passing team.
Overall, each draft is going to be different. Focusing on getting quality at different levels is always the goal. Don’t get trapped in biases about players either, if you hate the Bears but Keenan Allen is falling, just take him. The goal is to win, so use all your NFL knowledge, and with a bit of luck you may come out in the winner's circle!
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