LineStar NFL Takeaway - Week 7: Secret Settings

📝 @zeroinDenver 🎯

Welcome back, everyone. Again, it's your dude, ZeroInDenver, here to try and bring some insight into NFL DFS contests. If you're new, this is where I do some analysis on NFL DFS contests and do analysis on what might work and what might not in terms of strategy and lineup construction.

This week, I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going to dig into how I use the LineStar app. It's great to see new members in chat and I'm going to go over settings and compare different builds.

About the Contest

We're using the DraftKings Milly Maker as our target. I'm going to look at what our lineups would have done and how close we can get to that top score. If you're playing a smaller field contest, it's likely that the top score will be lower (sometimes significantly) than the Milly Maker. If that's the case, use that as your target.

In week 7, the top score in this contest was 237.06 points and the score needed to min-cash was 152.10.

Strategy

There were a few people that asked how to build a lineup or what a solid lineup looked like. This is just my opinion (and please tell me if you think I'm wrong) but overall, I want my lineups to check as many of these boxes as possible:

✅ QB stacked with at least one WR

✅ QB stacked with no more than 2 WR/TE/RB

✅ QB stacked with a WR/TE from the opposite team

✅ DST under $3500

✅ At least 2 position players from the afternoon games

✅ No more than 2 position players owned higher than 20%

Optimizer Settings

I need you to read this part out loud at least 3 times so it will sink in:

• An optimizer is just a tool to make multiple lineups quickly.

• An optimizer is not a crystal ball.

• An optimizer does not know who any of these players are.

So when I use an optimizer, I spend time going over the lineups that I get back from the optimizer. It's important to ask yourself the following:

• Am I getting the teams/players that I want?

• Am I getting teams/players that I don't want?

• How many of the boxes I listed above do these lineups check?

By the nature of optimizers, you're going to get bad lineups. I don't care what optimizer you use. Successful DFS players are good at determining good lineups from bad lineups and playing the lineups that have the best chance to do well.

All that said, let me go over MY settings to see how I get there (Stack settings are OFF, by the way) .

• No Opposing Player: OFF

• No Injured Players: OFF - Sometimes I turn this on if I know I won't be around closer to lock and will miss inactive news.

• Flex Override: WR - WR tend to have the best upside on DK, but on FD, I'll typically set this to WR/TE/RB.

• Confirmed or expected starters: On

• Max Players from Team: 3 - I don't like to have this many players from a team, but I like to see what lineups I get back.

• Max Exposure: 100% - I start at 100% to see who the projections favor. If I'm getting too much of a player, I lower that player's projection and run another build. Repeat as necessary

• Multiplier Slots Max Exposure - This doesn't apply to classic contests

• Max Exposure Quarterbacks: 30% - This tends to give me solid variety if I'm building 150 lineups. If I'm running only 3 or 20 lineups, I let it ride at 100%

• Loved Exposure: Off - This helps ensure that I get more of the players I "love".

• Min Budget Use: $49500 - On large slates, I want to use as much salary as possible. On small slates, like the afternoon slate, I lower this all the way.

• Max Budget Use: $50000 - Again, on large slates, I want to use as much salary as possible. On small slates, I like to leave at least $1000 on the table to get more unique lineups

• Safe Matchup: On - I only turn this off for small slates or showdowns.

• NFL Tournament Mode: On - Always.

• FanSense (Top 10 Loved): Off

• Minimum Salary: $2000 - I don't know why you'd want to raise this. I leave this all the way down.

• Min Projected Points: 1 - I leave this all the way down because I take the time to go through lineups and switch out scrubs that make no sense. I would prefer to keep it around 7 or 8, but that won't work with most DST as they're projected much lower.

• Generated Lineup Count: 150 - Run however many you want.

• Variance Level: 2 - Lots of confusion around this setting. The higher the number, the more that player projections are rounded. So it adds a degree of randomness. I haven't had much success in testing with higher numbers so I leave it at 2 for almost all sports.

Models

I've done a lot of testing. Each of these models has the potential to put out a top score, but my favorites are:

• Daily Matchup

• High Ceiling

• Tournament

• Stars and Scrubs

Building/Backtesting

If you've made it this far, I want to show you how I build and modify my lineups. I'm going to run an initial build of 150 lineups using the High Ceiling model:

My top score in that build was 184.6. Not terrible, but not a milly winner either. Let's look at exposures though:

Now I really liked Henderson. Was almost 90% too much? Maybe. Instead of getting caught up in percentages, I would recommend hand-building 10 lineups. If you don't have him in 9 of those 10 lineups, then yes, 90% is probably too much.

If you don't want (or don't have the time) to hand build, I'd recommend going through the lineups and seeing what they look like. Take this example. I liked this lineup a lot. It checked a lot of my boxes. The only one it didn't check was running it back with a player opposite my QB. However, I didn't really like anyone for Detroit so I didn't force it.

Of course, we can use a little hindsight and say that I could have scored more with a different RB combo, but overall I liked this lineup.

I go through this process again and again. I'll try builds with the different builders (usually limiting it to 10-20 lineups since that's more manageable to review. Still, it's a time-consuming process, but I've had more success putting more intention in my lineups and playing who I like than just spraying and praying with 150 random lineups from the optimizer.

Remember, an optimizer is a tool to build lineups quickly. Take the time to go through and review them. Also, Sunday is a long way away. I like to take a few days to review my lineups and test different settings and models.

I know this was a long one, but, thanks for taking the time to read. If you find this useful, please let me know.

Also, I don't have all the DFS answers. I'm trying to learn, just like you. So if something looks off, doesn't make sense, or you have a better idea, please let me know.

Thanks again for reading and I'll be back next week!