DFS Strategy Guide

Cash games, tournaments, and how to set the builder for each

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Cash Games

50/50s, double-ups, head-to-heads

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Tournaments

Large-field GPPs and multi-entry

Read
Showdown

Single-game Captain Mode

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Pruning

Trimming a build to what you enter

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Cash Game Strategy

Overview

Cash games pay the top half of the field roughly the same amount. You are not trying to win the contest, only to beat the median lineup, so floor matters more than ceiling and being popular costs you nothing.

Key principles
  • Prioritize floor: guaranteed volume (touches, targets, snaps) beats big-play upside.
  • Pay for certainty: the expensive players with a locked-in role are worth their salary here.
  • Avoid coin flips: committee backfields, questionable tags, weather, and thin roles are the risks to trash.
  • Use the game environment: sort the player table by ITT and lean on the teams the market expects to score.
  • Roster the chalk: if a player is a strong play, it does not matter that everyone else has him too.
Position notes
Quarterback
  • Proven passers in games with high totals
  • Rushing ability raises the floor
  • Skip backups and bad-weather games
Running back
  • Three-down backs who catch passes
  • Volume over explosiveness
  • Committees only when the price is a clear discount
Wide receiver
  • Target share first, then matchup
  • Slot receivers give a steady PPR floor
  • Check the opponent's pass defense
Tight end
  • Either pay for a tight end with a wide receiver's target share or go cheap
  • Mid-priced tight ends are where cash lineups leak salary
Defense
  • Home favorites facing backup quarterbacks or weak offensive lines
  • Do not overspend; the salary is better used at the skill positions
Builder settings for cash
  • Lineups: 1 to 3. Build a few and pick the one you like.
  • Volatility: the Cash preset (0%), so every lineup is built straight off your FPPG numbers.
  • FPPG: this is where the work is. The number starts as the season average; trash the coin flips, dock players you doubt, bump the ones you trust.
  • Exposure: set Min Exp to 100 on the players you want in every lineup.
  • Stacks: none, or SINGLE at most. Correlation adds variance you do not need here.
  • Min salary: raise it toward $48,000 or more so the lineup uses the cap.
  • Pruning: Top FPPG if you built more than you need.

Tournament Strategy

Overview

Tournaments pay top-heavy. A lineup that finishes in the top 20% makes a little; a lineup that finishes first makes a lot. That means chasing ceiling, accepting variance, and building lineups that look different from the field's.

Key principles
  • Maximize ceiling: players whose best game wins you the contest, even if their median game is ordinary.
  • Correlate: when a quarterback throws for 350 yards, his receivers ate. Stack them so your lineup rises together.
  • Differentiate: the field crowds onto the same players. A lineup nobody else has does not share the prize.
  • Accept uncertainty: weather, injuries, and unclear roles scare the field off players who still score.
  • Enter many lineups: spread a bankroll across a diverse set instead of one hero lineup.
Stack shapes
QB + pass catchers (SINGLE to QUAD)

A quarterback with one to four of his own receivers and tight ends.

The core tournament stack. DOUBLE and TRIPLE are the common shapes; QUAD is a high-variance play for a game you expect to be a shootout.

Include RBs in QB stacks

Lets a pass-catching back count as a stack partner.

Useful when a team's backfield is a big part of its passing game.

RB & DST

A running back with his own defense.

Both profit when their team leads. Pair it with a heavy favorite.

Bring-back and game stacks

A pass catcher from the opposing team alongside your QB stack.

Bring-back (Season Pass) puts one to four of the opposing team's skill players in every lineup alongside your stack. Turn on QB vs DST as well so the build never rosters the defense your quarterback is facing.

Finding leverage

Tournaments pay for being right where the field is wrong. Places to look:

  • Overlooked games: a mid-total game the field ignores can still produce the slate's best stack. Sort the table by ITT to find teams the market likes more than the crowd does.
  • Salary pivots: a similar player at a similar price with a fraction of the popularity.
  • Crowded positions: when one quarterback or one defense is everywhere, the alternative carries leverage even if it projects a little lower.
  • Bad recent box scores: a good player coming off a dud is cheaper and less popular than his role deserves.
Builder settings for tournaments
  • Lineups: 20 to 150, up to the contest's entry limit.
  • Volatility: the GPP preset (20%). Go higher, up to 30%, when you want the build to reach deeper into the pool.
  • Stacks: enable DOUBLE and TRIPLE and put a cap of 40% to 60% on each so no single game dominates the build.
  • Exposure: Max Exp of 50% to 70% on core plays, 20% to 40% on pivots. Trash anyone you do not want at all.
  • Team exposure: 50% to 70% to keep the build spread across games.
  • Unique players: 3 or 4. Higher values push diversity but cost total FPPG in a big build.
  • QB vs DST: on. A quarterback and the defense trying to sack him cannot both have a big day.
  • Pruning: build more than you will enter, then Most Different or Stack Variety down to the entry count.
Multi-entry planning

For a 50 to 150 lineup build:

  • Pick 3 to 5 core players and set their Max Exp to 50% to 80%.
  • Pick 5 to 8 secondary plays at 20% to 40%.
  • Enable two stack shapes and cap them so the build spreads across 2 or 3 games.
  • Open Build Results after the run and check Player Usage. If one player or one game took over, tighten his cap or the team cap and build again.
  • Compare the new build with the old one and copy the lineups you want to keep into the final set.

Showdown (Captain Mode)

Showdown slates cover one game. The Captain slot scores 1.5x points at 1.5x salary; the five FLEX slots take any player from either team, including kickers and defenses.

What changes
  • The captain is the decision. Everything else follows from who you pay 1.5x for. In cash, captain the highest-floor player. In tournaments, captain someone the field will not, and let the FLEX slots hold the obvious plays.
  • Correlation is built in. With six players from two teams, most lineups are already game stacks, which is why the stack tabs are inactive in Captain Mode. Think about game script instead: a blowout favors the favorite's running back and defense; a shootout favors both passing games.
  • Every cheap player matters. Kickers and defenses are often the way to afford a second star. The FP/$1K column shows who is priced well.
  • Exposure is per row. A player appears in the table twice, as CPT and as FLEX, with separate salaries and FPPG. Set Min and Max on the row you mean; capping his FLEX row at 30% does not cap his CPT row.
Builder settings for Showdown
  • Cash: a few lineups at 0% volatility. Trash players with no clear role, then set Min Exp to 100 on your captain's CPT row.
  • Tournaments: 20 or more lineups at 10% to 20% volatility with unique players at 2 or 3. Cap the obvious captain's CPT row at 30% to 40% so the build tries other captains.

Pruning a Build

Pruning trims a build you have already made down to a target count without rebuilding. Open a build in the Lineup Editor, enter the number of lineups to keep, pick a strategy, and Preview before you Apply.

When to prune
  • Entry limits: you built 150 but the contest allows 20.
  • Too much overlap: the build leans on the same core and you want the most different lineups from it.
  • One player everywhere: a player landed in far more lineups than you meant.
  • Final polish: drop the weakest tail of a build before exporting.
The four strategies
Strategy Keeps Best for
Top FPPG The highest-FPPG lineups Cash games, or trimming a tournament build's tail
Most Different Starting from the top lineup, the lineup that shares the fewest players with those already kept, with FPPG breaking near-ties so a weak lineup is never kept just for being odd Large-field tournaments
Spread Exposure Drops the lowest-projected lineup containing the most-used player, again and again, so top exposure falls with every cut Multi-entry builds where one player took over, or rebalancing after another cut
Stack Variety The best lineup from every QB stack (team, stack size, bring-back), then the second best from every stack, and so on. Showdown groups by captain Stacked tournament builds where you want every game represented
Good habits
  • Preview first. The lineups that would go are highlighted in the grid, and Clear preview puts everything back.
  • Prune in steps. Two lighter cuts with different strategies (Most Different, then Stack Variety) keep more of the build's shape than one deep cut.
  • Check usage after. Open Build Results and confirm the core players and stacks you wanted are still there. If one player is everywhere, Spread Exposure is the fix.
  • Remove duplicates. Duplicate Selected and Copy to Current can leave exact copies in a build; the Remove Duplicates button drops them.
  • Do not over-prune. Cutting 150 to 100 is normal. Cutting 50 to 10 throws away most of the diversity you built.
Two workflows
Cash
  1. Build 5 to 10 lineups at 0% volatility with unique players at 2
  2. Top FPPG down to 3
  3. Read the three and enter the one you believe in
Tournament
  1. Build 150 lineups with stacks on and the GPP volatility preset
  2. Most Different down to 100
  3. Stack Variety down to the entry limit
  4. Check Player Usage, then export
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