JMToWin is a high-stakes tournament champion (Thunderdome, Luxury Box, Game Changer, Wildcat, King of the Hill/Beach, Spy, etc.) who focuses on the DraftKings Main Slate
This is, instead, a look at the player pool I’ll be fishing
:: covered in-depth in the Angles Pod (it’s highly recommended that you listen to the breakdown of the roster in order to see the thinking behind it, and in order to understand what we’re talking about when we look at a “bottom-up build”)
:: my “Tier 1” plays: the plays I feel confident leaning into across different types of builds; these players have a high ceiling and a low likelihood of price-considered failure
:: games, offenses, situations, or scenarios I’ll be looking to build around across my rosters
:: unique player pairings that can be used as foundational building blocks for tournament rosters
:: players who don’t fit into the categories above — either Upside pieces who don’t have the floor to be Blue Chips (and are not being focused on within my game-focused builds) or players who may not have a strong shot at ceiling, but are worth keeping in mind from a “role” perspective
:: a new category for 2024! — these are players who are not going to be “featured” on my tighter builds (i.e., one could show up on a tighter build, but they are not being prioritized as such), but who I will be mixing and matching across some portion of my MME builds
Full breakdown (of what this is, and what the thinking is behind these players) can (and should) be found in the Angles Pod (on the One Week Season podcast feed).
Jameis Winston
Christian McCaffrey
De’Von Achane
Cedric Tillman
Elijah Moore
Kayshon Boutte
Davis Allen
Rashod Bateman
Jets
Free
Build with a salary cap of $44k or below!
1st Place = 150 Edge Points + Rare Blue Name Tag in Discord
2nd Place = 75 Edge Points
3rd Place = 40 Edge Points
*1 Edge Point = $1 in DFS courses on OWS
In 16 games last year, CMC hit 28+ DK points in 37.5% of his games, while hitting 19.3+ in 81.3% of his games. To put that in context :: Alvin Kamara has hit 28+ in 20% of his games this year, and has hit 19.3+ in 40%. CMC is healthy and back in his normal role, which makes him one of the sharpest plays on the slate. Can he miss? Yes. But he’ll miss less often than any other player on the slate, his ceiling is as high as any player on the slate, and his floor when he “misses” is usually not all that low. CMC shapes up as a Blue Chip play for me this week.
“Both guys hit”
These are two of the highest-ceiling plays on this slate, and both are currently expected to be below 10% owned. This means that even fewer rosters will be playing these two together…which means that if this combo happens to hit for high-end outcomes from both players, you could be way ahead of the field. Said differently :: simply pairing two lower-owned players who each have potential to be genuinely “had to have it” pieces is a unique way to open pathways to a first-place finish, and this is one of those pairings.
The likeliest outcome, of course, is that we get something in the range of “both of these guys scoring 13+” and “both of these guys scoring 25+.” That lower end may not kill you, and that upper end will be really useful, but won’t win you a tourney on its own. There is, however, a “realistic outlier” scenario in which each of these guys goes for 35. Without this happening, this is just a random combo of two good, somewhat overlooked plays; but if each guy were to score 35+, you would be well on your way to a first-place finish. With that in mind, this doesn’t have to be “the only unique thing you do” on a roster; but it certainly can be.
The story plays out differently, and you don’t get first place — which is really all that matters.
A look at some of the rules I’ll be applying in the Bink Machine this week.
As explored in my DFS Interpretations this week :: the clearest path to a tourney-winning game from Puka is for the Patriots to keep this game competitive. This rule says, “On 100% of Puka rosters, include one to two of these Patriots.”
I will NOT have the Patriots set to allow two FLEX players (i.e., the only way I’ll play two Patriots skill position players on a roster together is if Drake Maye is included), so this rule allows me to have a Patriots one-off opposite Puka if I don’t have Maye, and allows me to have a Patriots double-stack where I do have Maye.
As we’ve explored in recent weeks :: when the Patriots are keeping games close, Rhamondre Stevenson is producing. In the game environment in which Puka is hitting, the Patriots are probably keeping things close; and as such, I want to prioritize Rhamondre on my Puka builds. This rule says, “On 70% of Puka rosters, include Rhamondre.”
This is my narrowest pool, which means it’s the pool likeliest to change a bit as I move deeper into builds. If it changes throughout Saturday night, I’ll add an update in this space.
If I were building for single-entry // three-entry Max, my tightened-up player pool would be:
Josh Allen || Brock Purdy || Russell Wilson || Drake Maye || Jameis Winston
I’ll see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend!
-JM