3 Early Strategies to Help Build the Perfect DraftKings Reignmakers Lineup
The start of the 2022 NFL season is right around the corner, and with it, the first week of contests for DraftKings’ latest fantasy sports product, Reignmakers. Reignmakers uses digital collectibles, or NFTs, to build lineups and offers contests where players can compete for $1 million in total weekly prizes (cash and NFTs).
To learn more about DraftKings Reignmakers, see Lucky Trader's complete guide here.
New gaming ecosystems bring new strategies and game theory. In this article, we'll take a look at three helpful ways to build a successful weekly NFL fantasy sports lineup.
1. Pay Attention to Superstar Attributes
If you don’t know what the Reignmakers’ Superstar property is, you should. Superstars are select athletes chosen at the beginning of the season (and subject to change, according to DraftKings’ official website) that cannot be played together in a single lineup with other Superstars.
Each lineup can only include one Superstar player card, regardless of the athlete’s position. And most importantly, Superstars must be the same rarity tier as their contest rarity tier. This means you can’t play a Rare tier Superstar in an Elite tier contest (Elite is one step above Rare in rarity). Only Elite tier Superstars can be played in Elite tier contests.
Superstars make lineup construction more difficult. And because of how impactful they can be when building weekly fantasy teams, their market values are different from non-Superstars.
For example, at the time of writing this article, a Legendary Jonathan Taylor cost $3,333 compared to a Legendary Alvin Kamara at $4,499. But isn’t Taylor the better running back; what’s the deal?
Taylor is a Superstar, which actually devalues him in Reignmakers contests. The only way to play Taylor in a Reignmakers contest is to own a Reignmakers tier Jonathan Taylor player card, which is currently $110,000.
Kamara, however, is not a Superstar. And because he is not a Superstar, he can be played as one of the three required Legendary cards required in Reignmakers contests. This gives him added value as the highest-projected running back in the non-Superstar category.
The Superstar attribute is essential to lineup construction and will be important all season long. If Superstar attributes are changed in the middle of the season, expect massive value swings to follow.
2. Take a Look at Schedules
There are two teams – the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers – that play seven total NFL primetime games this season, and five teams – the Houston Texans, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panther, Detroit Lions, and New York Jets – that only play one total NFL primetime game this season. DraftKings’ Reignmakers released upcoming games and prize pools for the first week of the season already, and the list includes a handful of Showdown contest types.
Showdown contests require four player cards, one captain and three flex positions. They must be from the primetime games that week, which means that select player cards have added value for participating in more primetime games throughout the season.
While the full list of contests for the entire 2022-23 NFL season has not yet been released, it is a semi-safe bet to assume that Showdown contests will continue throughout the year. And if that is the case, certain players on more popular teams will have added opportunities to enter contests and win prizes, increasing those player cards’ expected value, or EV.
If the market overreacts to this information each week, there is an opportunity to profit by selling those same player cards each week to users looking to get in on the Showdown fun. But be careful – there is a 10 percent secondary marketplace fee for each sale.
3. Be Active on the Secondary Marketplace
New games bring early market inefficiencies. Taking advantage of these inefficiencies is hard work, but when $1 million in total prizes is on the line each week, the juice could be worth the squeeze.
A plethora of data points are going to impact market prices: injuries, Superstar statuses, matchups, primetime games, weeks left in the season, bye weeks, on-field performances, prize pool fluctuations, contest entry sizes, and more. If you fundamentally understand the game and how it works, you can take advantage of massive over or underreactions in the marketplace.
Will player cards decline in value each week due to less overall available prize pool money? Will certain contest types or contest rarities see too many or too few entries and create +EV opportunities? Will new Superstar statuses be introduced? How will the Superstar attribute influence stacking quarterbacks and wide receivers on the same team? Will contest prize pools change weekly? How will new packs and new player cards influence the marketplace? Will users get frustrated and market dump player cards for too cheap? We’ll see.
These are impossible questions to answer today, but reacting quickly to news and announcements – both from NFL teams and the Reignmakers team – will be essential to profitability.
Good luck, and have fun.
