DraftKings Diary | Buys, Sells, and What to Look for on DraftKings Reignmakers for Week 10
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.
We turned back the clocks and the leaves are changing color as the NFL season speeds ahead to Week 10. The SuperStar status update and NFL trade deadline created huge impacts on player performance, adding layers of strategy to the evolving DraftKings Reignmakers game moving forward.
Week 9 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 700 + NFT card collection? Check it out here!
Week 9 Top Lineup Strategy/Tier & Contest
Contest: ELITE | Main Slate, $250 Fiat Frenzy, $100K to First
Lineup:
- QB: Tua Tagovailoa
- RB: Dalvin Cook
- WR: Jakobi Meyers
- WR: Chris Godwin
- Flex: Davante Adams
Total Points: 99.38
I invested early this season on Ja’Marr Chase RARE cards, and faded the Bengals at ELITE, leaving my portfolio with only Joe Mixon CORE cards. Up until this point, it wasn’t all that important, especially at the ELITE level. But this week changed that.
Mixon decided to put up the highest daily fantasy point total of the season scoring more than 55 points! That was not ideal for my portfolio.
Mixon ownership hovered around six percent in most contests making it clear that the winning lineup would need to have him. However, despite being underweight on Mixon, all four of my ELITE lineups cashed (the best of which is shown above).
The portfolio could have yielded a high score of 116 this week for the main slate, as most of the top scorers for my portfolio were SuperStars. At the same time, the secondary players outside of Tua Tagovailoa didn’t perform well at all. Jaylen Waddle was the top non-SuperStar scorer, and he failed to hit 20 points.
In addition to cashing all main slate ELITE lineups, I also cashed all of my ELITE Showdown lineups this week. It was the best cash rate for my portfolio since early on in the season, but I'm still in search of a big score.
This week I yielded just over $1,000, providing a weekly return on investment of about eight percent.
Week 9 Buys & Sells
Justin Fields' breakout game shot his prices up dramatically at almost all rarity tiers. I had been buying quite a few RARE cards of his, but, unfortunately, decided two weeks ago to add Daniel Jones instead of Fields, given they were around the same price at ELITE. Furthering my decision was the expectation that the Giants would make the playoffs and the Bears would not, and the longer-term investment pointed to Jones. Obviously, that hasn’t panned out well yet.
Also, on the buy side, Chris Godwin’s cards still seem to hold decent value. After another week of buying, he is the single largest holding in my portfolio by number of cards (16).
Amon-Ra St. Brown and Waddle are just behind Godwin, but I'm holding two ELITE cards of each, to just one of Godwin’s.
Back to Tampa Bay and Godwin now. After a come-from-behind last-second victory over Los Angeles last week, this week they travel to Germany to try and carry some momentum into the second half of the season. As bad as the Bucs have been, they are still in first place in their division with an easy schedule the rest of the way. Look for Godwin to have his best game of the season against a relatively easy secondary from Seattle.
On the sell side there is not much to report. Even though some of the bigger cards in my portfolio are on bye - instead of selling at low points, keeping them and playing them throughout the rest of the season seems to be a better option.
Week 10 Lookahead
Week 10 has five notable Reignmakers slates:
- Slate #1: Atlanta vs. Carolina
- Slate #2: Tampa Bay vs. Seattle
- Slate #3: Main Slate
- Slate #4: Los Angeles vs. San Fransisco
- Slate #5: Philadelphia vs. Washington
On paper, the week starts with a bit of a dud. But with a bit more focus on Thursday's Showdown, it could be a good one. The last time these two teams met, it was a thrilling game that went into overtime, only to have Atlanta prevail. Now they meet again a few weeks later, and not much has changed.
They are both still very alive in the division and this being a divisional game makes it all the more important. My portfolio does have a few solid ELITE cards with Marcus Mariota and DJ Moore. However, with uncertainty at the quarterback position for Carolina, and the inconsistency of both teams...it may be a spot to just liquidate those positions.
Tampa Bay versus Seattle is the start of three great Showdown games. Kenneth Walker III is blossoming into a star, and the revamped Geno Smith sets up a matchup between division leaders in Germany. Tom Brady should be feeling the best he’s felt since early this season after offering up some Brady magic yet again, going 65 yards in 30 seconds with no timeouts. With so many options to choose from and no SuperStars, the combinations will be endless and should make for a great slate.
My portfolio's most challenging slate this week is definitely the main one. My portfolio SuperStars Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Jefferson and Davante Adams are all on the main slate this week. The choice is either running five main slate ELITE lineups, which stretches the portfolio relatively thin at that tier, and produces two “not-so” optimal lineups, or condense them and try and build a few strong Deep Roster lineups mixing in some high-quality RARE cards.
Although stacking both St. Brown and Waddle ELITE cards hasn’t worked since Week 2, it’s bound to strike again. And when it does my portfolio will have two solid chances at a big hit. If it’s this week, the Kansas City and Jacksonville game becomes very important.
Now onto the second of three solid Showdown slates this week as Los Angeles plays San Fransisco. It’ll be the first time that we have three SuperStars playing in a Showdown format, and it should put quite the wrinkle in lineup building. If Deebo Samuel is going to play, then the decision for my portfolio is easier, as starting a lineup with Austin Ekeler and Samuel is one of a few optimal ways to start in this slate and is easy to build around.
If he doesn’t play, Ekeler’s ELITE card could be liquidated instead of adding three other pieces around him. The other thing I could do with the Ekeler card is build a Deep Roster lineup around him, and if it performs well, leave him in it to try and win that contest and subsequently liquidate the Samuel card if he does play.
Last up is a divisional matchup featuring Philadelphia and Washington. Last week Philly was on a Showdown slate as well, and instead of pairing up the best cards from that team, I split up Sanders and Hurts. It didn’t work out, so I won’t make the same mistake again. I'll likely be pairing up Sanders, Brown and Hurts with a player to be named later from the Washington team. Right now I'm leaning toward Terry McLaurin, but I will have to check serial numbers as that lineup construction is likely duplicated in some capacity.
Week 10 Targets
As the season winds on and the playoff picture becomes more clear each week, targeting players with extended seasons becomes a bit easier. Additionally, I'm adding players with strong matchups, good value or injury-related boosts.
This week a few stick out to me. For those that play in the Deep Roster format, T.J. Hockenson is a must-add. Minnesota continues to roll on and given their prospects of making the playoffs, Hockenson will be extremely valuable as one of the top tight ends from now until the playoffs. He received nine targets in his first game with the team, catching all of them for 70 yards. His values look very appealing if that’s his floor with this team.
There is one week left before Deshaun Watson makes his awaited return to Cleveland’s lineup. His ELITE pricing is still reasonable, coming in about half of what Justin Field’s price is at now. If Watson is going to match and or beat Field’s production for the last seven games of the season, he looks to be a very solid add.
Rhamondre Stevenson is a focus of mine on bye this week. Even when Damien Harris was healthy, it was the Stevenson show for most of the game. He has asserted himself as the No.1 back in New England at this time, and his prices have risen with it.
That price is likely to decrease as the week rolls on and people liquidate the position given his bye. The same can be said for Ja’Marr Chase, Lamar Jackson, and Garrett Wilson of New York.
A few injury situations this week to monitor are Aaron Jones of Green Bay and Evan Engram of Jacksonville. If Jones can’t play, A.J. Dillon will be in for his first full workload of the year against the best defense in the NFL. If Engram can’t go due to his back injury, expect Christian Kirk to see a few more targets after finally busting out of a slump with a solid performance in Week 9.
Lastly, I'm focusing on a few players that I want to add as the playoffs come nearer. Dallas Goedert’s price has seen little to no appreciation even after he dropped 27 fantasy points last Thursday. With Philly all but guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, his cards will only become more valuable as the slates get thinner.
His ceiling is capped, as is Hockenson’s, but having these tight ends in shorter slates, Showdown slates, or using them in Deep Roster format should provide the necessary utility to validate their values until the playoffs do arrive.
That's all for now. Good luck with all your DraftKings Reignmakers Week 10 lineups!
Looking for a few more additional tips for Week 8, check out the rest of the Lucky Trader Reignmakers content!
