DraftKings Reignmakers | Full Slate, Deep Roster Thoughts & Strategy

DraftKings recently announced a new roster format for its Reignmakers fantasy football platform. Below, Chris Koch breaks down some potential strategies and key takeaways to think about.

Week 4 Contest Strategy Key Takeaways

• Thursday full slate deep roster contests use 9 player cards versus the regular 5
• Lineup cost needs to be factored into deep vs regular contest selection
• Lineup cost is ~30-50% more for deep roster lineups
• Keep an eye on the number of entries with Thursday vs Sunday contests to determine which will have the highest expected value
• Players in showdown games will carry added value in the Thursday full slate contests
• Thursday deep roster contests could cause lower entry counts in Sunday contests compared to Week 3

Thursday Deep Roster Strategy

Like a traditional season-long fantasy league, the deep roster contests require player card NFT to fill a lineup in all of the following lineup spots:

• QB
• RB
• RB
• WR
• WR
• TE
• K
• DEF
• FLEX

However, through three weeks the typical Reignmaker contests have not required a tight end, kicker, or defense to be used. 

With the kicker and defense positions having a high amount of variance, I’m not breaking the bank to get the top-ranked kicker or defense for the week. If you’re in need of a kicker or defense head over to the LuckyTrader Price and Projections tool to find the best values on the secondary market.

Tight end and quarterback are the two positions where I’m looking to use my one lower rarity card for rare and above contests. To keep your lineup projection versus cost ratio as favorable as possible, I find it’s the most cost-effective to use your lower rarity slot on a top-tier non-superstar player like Jalen Hurts or Mark Andrews.

I usually do this with Hurts in the regular five-card contests, but with the tight end being required for deep roster contests, I think using your lower rarity slot on Kelce or Andrews makes a lot of sense. It may also in give you a bit of an edge over the field while keeping your lineup cost to a minimum.

Showdown vs Full Slate Player Strategy

Another interesting factor with the full slate contests is the ability to use players in the showdown games.

These games are not included in the Sunday main slate. You can use this to your advantage by using players from the showdown games in your Thursday deep roster contests as these players are probably going to be much lower-owned compared to players in the games on the main slate.

For example, Justin Jefferson plays in the morning London game that has its own showdown contests for just that game. I would assume most of the Justin Jefferson cards in circulation are going to be used towards the showdown contests rather than the Thursday full slate contests.

If Jefferson happens to go nuclear for 40 fantasy points again, you’ll have a huge advantage having him in the deep roster contests where he’ll be extra low owned compared to the showdown contests where a large percentage of lineups will have him.

While there is a lot more to factor into where which contests you would play Jefferson in this scenario, it is at least something to think about and consider in your strategy.

Thursday vs Sunday Contest Selection Game Theory

A new factor to consider with these deep roster contests is your lineup cost. I estimate a lineup cost is about 30-50% more for a 9-player deep roster vs the normal 5-player roster.

Knowing this, how does one factor it into contest selection? Well, the answer can get a bit complicated and involves some “guesstimating” as to how the Thursday full slate deep roster contests will affect the number of entries in the Sunday main slate contests compared to last week.

To do this we can compare the contests for week four, and the expected value of an entry in each.  At the time of writing, it looks like the Sunday main slate will be the better “bang for your buck” (at least when it comes to the Core Fiat Frenzy). However, there is a lot of time between now and Sunday for those contests to get a lot more entries.

In reality, I think the market is going to be pretty efficient and it will come out extremely close with only a slight percentage of value to gain on the Thursday deep roster full slate or the Sunday main slate.