2018 Indoors Recap: Draftkings

Happy Thursday, boys and girls. The Blog has been on GO mode for the past week due to Indoors, and we’re almost ready to get back to regular season content. Monday we had our Players of the Week and a tournament Exit Survey. Tuesday D3AS brought you his tournament recap, and I had the pleasure of interviewing our DraftKings champion, Greg Janssen. I highly recommend you read that interview, if only for the stories about Coach Rodgers and Coach Gastonguay. Greg won with a team of Mohanad Alhouni, Adrien Bouchet, Patrick Whaling, Scott Rubinstein, Chase Johnson and Brysl Libao, and set a new high score in the process. Here are some other notable things we learned from this year and previous DK tournaments. NOTE: There is a bit of DK controversy about the box score from the Wash U/Chicago 3rd place match. We are looking into it and will update you once it has been resolved.

5 THINGS TO REMEMBER

1. 

   Finding value is more important than finding THE stud. There were 9 players this year who scored at least 10 points in our contest. Of those 9 players, 7 were priced above $7,000, and only 1 fell below $5,750. Our mystery value man was Chase Johnson from GAC, who scored 10 points while only costing fantasy owners $3,125. All of the top-5 teams had Chase on their roster. Similarly, 2 players tagged under $3,000 scored at least 5 points, really bringing in great value while allowing you to pay for more expensive players. Brysl Libao ended a game short of 8 points, but still earned 5 points, while Avinash Vemuri garnered 6 points at the cheap price of $1,750 (cheers to Coach Settles for his roster tip on the podcast!) All of the top-9 teams this year had at least one of those three players, and six of those top-9 fantasy squads had at least two of those players.

2. You do need to pick studs to win. This really is 1a and 1b. While picking the best value is required in order to score well, this year proves once again that you need to take some high priced guys in order to win. As I said, there were 9 players who scored double digit points, and 7 were priced above $7,000 (props to whomever came up with the pricing system). Each of the teams that finished in the top-8 had at least one player who scored 13 points, and each of the top-6 teams either had two 13 point scorers, or the lone 15 point scorer (AKA Reflection Perfection a.k.a. Vixen a.k.a. Jack Katzman).

3. 

   Try to use at least one contrarian play. This is the play that will separate you from the pack. Sure, Greg Janssen won the tournament because his value plays of Scott Rubinstein, Chase Johnson and Brysl Libao totaled 23 points, but those players were owned a total of 37 times throughout the tournament. The real difference between Greg and the other top teams was Patrick Whaling. The GAC #3 went 5/6 on the week, totaling 13 points, the 2nd highest total possible. Not only that, but Greg was THE ONLY owner who rostered Whaling, meaning that when Whaling won, Greg picked up points on THE ENTIRE REST OF THE FIELD. In last year’s contest, Chas Mayer from Trinity TX scored 12 points, behind only Bouchet who led the tournament with 13, and was owned BY ZERO TEAMS. Similarly, Kenny Zheng from CMU was one of 7 players to hit double digits last year, and was only owned by two teams. It’s not a coincidence one of those teams finished tied for 2nd place.

4. Picking a bunch of guys from one team is not a great strategy if there is no clear front runner. This year, there was no one dominant team at Indoors, as evidenced by ALL OF the close matches throughout the tournament. Nobody in the top-15 this year had more than three players from one team. I know that’s hard, given that most of you are fans of at least one team out there. Don’t worry, you can still load up, just be smart about it. Greg took 3 GAC players because he liked their projected backdraw matchups against CMU and either Redlands or Trinity TX. AVZ had 3 CMS guys because he thought they would walk to the finals over Trinity TX and Wash U, and those guys would win the most matches along the way. Use the projected schedule, just don’t go crazy!
5. Try to avoid picking people who will play each other, you’re playing to win, not score in the top 50%. This is not some 50/50 tournament where you just want to score in the top 1/2. If you’re playing our game, you’re playing to win. I know just how much you all crave a Blog interview. This might seem like a DUHHHHH situation, but if you pick two people at the same singles lineup spot, there is a chance that they will end up playing each other. Now, you can be smart about this. For example our 2nd place finisher, Matt, took Bouchet and Kroot at #3, AND Neves and Johnson at #5 singles. However, given that EU/Wash U and GAC/Wash U were on opposite sides of the draw, it was unlikely that they would end up facing off, thus giving Matt a guaranteed 3 points, but capping his team’s overall ceiling. You play to win the game. Not to mix movie metaphors, but in D3AS’ world, if you ain’t first, you’re last.

2018 TOP 10 SCORES — PLAYERS

1) Jack Katzman – $9,750 – CMS – #2 singles/#2 doubles – 15 points/16.67% owned
T-2) Niko Parodi – $10,000 – CMS – #1 singles/#1 doubles – 13 points/18.52% owned
T-2) Mohanad Alhouni – $9,250 – GAC – #1 singles/#1 doubles – 13 points/16.67% owned
T-2) Hayden Cassone – $8,750 – Emory – #4 singles/#3 doubles -13 points/12.96%
T-2) Patrick Whaling – $7,500 – GAC – #3 singles/#1 doubles – 13 points/1.85% owned
T-2) Bernardo Neves – $7,125 – Wash U – #5 singles/#2 doubles – 13 points/22.22% owned
T-7) Zach Ekstein – $5,750 – GAC – #2 singles/#3 doubles – 10 points/3.70% owned
T-7) Chase Johnson – $3,125 – GAC – #4 singles/#2 doubles – 10 points/31.48% owned
T-9) Oscar Burney – $8,625 – CMS – #3 singles/#2 doubles – 9 points/14.81% owned
T-9) Luke Tsai – $7,875 – Chicago – #2 singles/NO DOUBLES – 9 points/1.85% owned
T-9) Charlie Pei – $7,000 – #6 singles/NO DOUBLES – 9 points/7.41% owned
T-9) Andrew Harrington – $3,375 – #5 singles/NO DOUBLES – 9 points/9.26% owned

2018 TOP 10 VALUE — PLAYERS

1) Koki Takabatake – $500 – Wash U – #6 singles (1 match) – 3 points/7.41% owned — 6x VALUE
T-2) Tommy Cheng – $500 – CMU – #3 doubles (1 match) – 2 points/1.85% owned — 4x VALUE
T-2) Mason Bultje – $500 – GAC – #3 doubles (1 match) – 2 points/0% owned — 4x VALUE
4) Avinash Vemuri – $1,750 – CMS – #6 singles – 6 points/22.22% owned — 3.429x VALUE
5) Chase Johnson – $3,125 – GAC – #4 singles/#2 doubles – 10 points/31.48% owned — 3.2x VALUE
6) Andrew Harrington – $3,375 – Emory – #5 singles – 9 points/9.26% owned — 2.667x VALUE
T-7) Tommy Entwistle – $3,500 – GAC – #6 singles/#2 doubles – 7 points/12.96% owned — 2x VALUE
T-7) Mark Wu – $2,000 – Wash U – #6 singles (1 match)/#2 doubles – 4 points/5.56% owned — 2x VALUE
9) Scott Rubinstein – $4,125 – Emory – #6 singles/#1 doubles – 8 points/22.22% owned — 1.939x VALUE
10) Brysl Libao – $2,625 – Redlands – #5 singles/#2 doubles – 5 points/14.81% owned — 1.905x VALUE

2018 TOP SCORES — OWNERS

1) Greg Janssen – 56 points
2) Matt – 55 points
3) D3AS – 54 points
4) AVZ – 53 points
5) D3NE – 51  points
T-6) Gap Year – 50 points
T-6) The Real Ben Bogard – 50 points
T-6) Indoors @ GAC Every Year – 50 points
9) Purple Cardinal – 49 points
T-10) I’ll Be Back – 48 points
T-10) Your Team Name – 48 points

2018 TOP SCORES — BLOGGERS

3) D3AS – 54 points
4) AVZ – 53 points
5) D3NE – 51 points
T-14) Regional – 46 points
T-17) CHB – 44 points
T-21) RegNE/C – 42 points
T-33) The Guru – 39 points
T-33) DIIIWest – 39 points
T-40) NewD3Central – 37 points
T-42) RegAS – 36 points

2018 PERFECT LINEUP

1) Jack Katzman – $9,750 – 15 points
2) Patrick Whaling – $7,500 – 13 points
3) Bernardo Neves – $7,125 – 13 points
4) Scott Rubinstein – $4,125 – 8 points
5) Andrew Harrington – $3,375 – 9 points
6) Chase Johnson – $3,125 – 10 points

TOTAL: $35,000 – 68 points

Can you make a better lineup? I did this by hand so it very well might not be “perfect.” Anything else you want to know about this year’s game? Suggestions for next year’s version? Want us to do something similar for the Stag-Hen?? Comment below or email/tweet any of your friendly neighborhood bloggers.