DraftKings Diary | Buys, Sells, and What to Look for on DraftKings Reignmakers for Week 11

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In the DraftKings Diary, each week Lucky Trader's Jason Rouslin will walk through his buys, sells, and team lookahead to give you insights from an experienced DraftKings Reignmakers player.

Check out Jason's full portfolio with the Lucky Trader Reignmakers Portfolio Tool.

The inaugural season of DraftKings Reignmakers was sure to have some unexpected surprises...and this week, the most significant surprise yet was introduced when DraftKings announced the first Reignmakers Millionaire Maker. Below I'll cover some of the unique Millionaire Maker details, at least of what we know now, and prepare for Week 11!

Week 10 Diary

If you missed last week's article, where I discussed my strategy up to this point in the season, check it out here. Interested in seeing what makes up the 1,300+ NFT card collection? Check it out here!

Week 10 Top Lineup Strategy/Tier & Contest

Contest: ELITE | Main Slate, $250 Fiat Frenzy, $100K to First

Lineup:

QB: Justin Fields
RB: D'Andre Swift
WR: Justin Jefferson
WR: Jerry Jeudy
Flex: Aaron Jones

Total Points: 116.53

Having plenty of Justin Fields shares heading into the week, I wasn't concerned about him ruining the slate. That's at least until Jerry Jeudy went down with an injury early in the first quarter, and it was clear D'Andre Swift wasn't going to get a ton of touches; my excitement waned rather quickly. Had I put Tony Pollard and Amon-Ra St. Brown with this squad over Jeudy and Swift, I would have finished 5th with 157 points in the ELITE Fiat Frenzy. It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but given Swift and Jeudy's performance this year, and very few ceiling games, they shouldn't have been paired with Fields as hot as he is. On top of that, Fields and St. Brown played against each other. As the coach of this portfolio, I let my team down this week. I take full responsibility.

On the whole, the slate was a very positive one. The Thursday night game presented an opportunity to move some pieces around and generate solid yield for a less-than-appealing slate. More on that in the next section. Also, with a decent amount of Drake London cards, I finally saw some return on them.

Then came the Sunday morning game in Germany. Having many Tampa Bay cards in my portfolio, I was especially psyched for this slate. Right before lock, a decision was made to switch my Captain from Kenneth Walker to Tom Brady in the ELITE Showdown contest. That was a solid swap, as my team ended up finishing 19th.

Then, as Leonard Fournette went down with an injury and Rachaad White took over, my prospects for a "winning" slate increased dramatically. I had been buying White's cards for some time, especially when he was part of the "wired" set offered by DraftKings. I had an excellent Showdown team with Geno Smith as Captain and all it needed was four more points from White.

But, late in the game, he broke through the line and instead of scoring decided to go down and run out the clock...taking down my chances of winning the contest with him. Having the only team in the top 15 with White, I would have jumped from 7th to 1st in the RARE Showdown contest had he decided to score. So goes fantasy football, right? Still, my finishes were something to be happy about.

The bad luck carried over into Sunday Night Football. I entered the slate with one of the highest projected lineups, only to have George Kittle get one catch and Deebo Samuel two catches, preventing my ELITE team from cashing by 0.4 points. Tough beat there.

The week finished with solid ELITE cash during the Monday night Showdown. Interestingly, each of my last two Showdown ELITE lineups ranked 5th in the tie-breaker, with a value of less than 165 for both of them. It signals a growing trend of near-optimal projected lineups in Showdown formats needing lower serial numbers to have the best lineup.

Lastly, while I didn't earn the top 5 I had hoped for in the main slate, I still cashed four of five ELITE lineups, six of 13 RARE lineups, and 13 of 21 CORE lineups.

These results are only for the Fiat Freznie contests. For the week, the portfolio yielded a return of around $1,500 or about 12 percent, a very solid week and just above projections on the path to profitability before the regular season ends.

Week 10 Buys & Sells

The week started with a decision for the Thursday Showdown slate. I had the option of keeping a Marcus Mariota ELITE card and playing the D'Onta Foreman RARE card in the ELITE contest, but with a rather weak finishing card, I opted against filling a lineup. The lineup didn't project out well and would have finished in a minimum cash position for $75. Therefore, the decision to sell the Mariota card ended up being the right one, netting $195.

I turned around and bought a George Kittle ELITE card and a Terry McLaurin RARE card to help fill out lineups in the last two Showdown slates. That was the plan going into the week, and while McLaurin was a great investment, Kittle was poor. But, given the prospects of San Fransisco's season and making the playoffs, Kittle's card should retain its value for quite some time.

Another sell this week was with the ELITE Philadelphia Defense and Brandon Graham. After making lineups, I was unlikely to use the card for the Showdown slate, so the option was to use him on a deep roster contest. That deep roster lineup was way out of the cash on Monday night though, so I opted to sell the card and take a zero in the lineup.

The other big buys this week outside of Kittle and McLaurin were DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert. Washington played a fantastic game against Philly on Monday night, but that doesn't change the trajectory of this team much, and both of their prices still represent solid values.

Week 11 Lookahead

Week 11 has four notable Reignmakers slates:

Slate #1: Green Bay vs. Tennessee
Slate #2: Main Slate
Slate #3: Kansas City vs. Los Angeles Chargers
Slate #4: San Francisco vs. Arizona

Green Bay is coming off their best win of the season after traveling to Dallas and getting a win in overtime. Plus, Tennessee has won six of their last seven games, setting up for a solid start to the week. It'll present some decisions for the portfolio though, as I do not own any Derrick Henry ELITE cards. That makes it difficult to produce an optimal lineup, because his likelihood of being the optimal scorer for Tennessee is quite high, and if not him, then Ryan Tannehill (and I don't own any of his ELITES either). However, Aaron Jones is in my arsenal, and with a decent serial Aaron Rodgers RARE, along with a defensive card for each team, I could field an interesting lineup in ELITE contests.

But, after this game with Tennesee, Green Bay goes to Philadelphia for another Showdown slate and then is on a bye, so this might not be a bad spot to sell the Jones ELITE card, buy a low-serial RARE and use it in the same spot I would use the ELITE card. It would mean I wouldn't be able to use Rodgers at the ELITE level, but with the lineup featuring each defense, it's a good hedge. The next time I'd have to decide about Jones wouldn't be until Week 14 when he returns to the main slate.

Now, onto the main slate, where most of us that play Reignmakers will find it the hardest to make high-quality lineups. Since Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and Seattle are not on the slate, so many non-SuperStar, optimally projected players are not part of the slate. Instead, it should pave the way for players like Amon-Ra St. Brown and Michael Pittman Jr. to be the best available wide receivers without SuperStar designations.

Week 11 Targets

Onto a few targets for the week. This is a great time to bring up the newly announced DraftKings Holiday Reignmaker Contest. Find the full details here, but it will be the first-ever Reignmaker Millionaire Maker contest. The contest will be made up of teams playing on Thanksgiving and will be played with a new "flannel" CORE card from the "Holiday" set of playing cards.

Each pack starts at $199 and will feature one of the "Flannel" cards, along with four additional cards from the Holiday set. The four other cards are one RARE or better, and three CORE cards from the set. I bring this up because instead of targeting specific players, the goal will be to build around players received from the packs bought from this set.

However, for those of you not participating in that drop and would like to add a few players for this upcoming week, here are a few to target.

First up is Michael Pittman Jr. against Philadelphia this week. The Colts will need to score and with Matt Ryan back into the lineup off a solid win against Las Vegas, coach Jeff Saturday should remain aggressive. It's plausible the Colts could still win their division, and Pittman's values are near all-time lows.

Staying at wide receiver, a much more risky option is New York's Darius Slayton. Investing in New York receivers this year hasn't paid off at all, well, at least not until last week when Kadarius Toney had a solid outing… with his new team! But Slayton has had three straight games with more than 11 fantasy points. While it's unlikely he will help you win a main slate contest, he's a viable low-priced option for the deep roster, or other smaller field contests, including next week's Thanksgiving slate. He could also be a solid flier option to add to the secondary market of Holiday cards.

Lastly, a check on those teams that have a bye this week. One player that will benefit from any decrease in workload from Leonard Fournette will be the aforementioned Rachaad White. If you have yet to buy any of his cards, it would be a good time to add them now. Other bye-week targets include Jaylen Waddle, Kenneth Walker, Christan Kirk and Travis Etienne.

That's all for now, good Luck with all your DraftKings Reignmaker Week 11 Lineups!

Looking for a few more additional tips for Week 8, check out the rest of the Lucky Trader Reignmakers content!

Author Bio

Jason Rouslin

Hailing from the great, but little, state of Rhode Island, Jason decided that year-round golf was too hard to pass up. So, after 29 years of bitter cold, and only being able to play golf 4 months a year (comfortably), upended those roots and moved to the sunshine state, Florida. 5 years later Jason is the proud Dad of two young boys and a black lab Bella. . In his professional time he can be found diving into the DraftKings Reignmaker game, researching PGA Tour stats, and investing, with a heavy focus on equity markets. In his spare time, playing golf is likely on the docket. If not that, then it's likely something to do with Disney, as he enjoys just about everything, from the theme parks to the Marvel movies. Shoot him a message on Twitter @dfsgolfer23, he'd love to chat!

Disclaimer: The author or members of the Lucky Trader staff may own NFTs discussed in this post. Furthermore, the information contained on this website or the Lucky Trader mobile application is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as financial advice. AI may have assisted in the creation of this content.