Underdog’s weekly Battle Royale tournaments are a relatively new and growing contest format that blends everything I love about DFS and best ball. The flagship contest is essentially a large field DFS tournament where you draft against others in an Underdog lobby.
As there’s very little content aimed at this format, I believe there is a big edge to be had for those willing to put in the work. Luckily, I’ve done all of that for you below.
The basic tenets of Battle Royale strategy are quite similar to DFS. Generally, you want to put together at least one stack of a QB, one or more of his pass catchers, and possibly a player from the opposing team (a “bring-back”). Making these correlated bets will raise the ceiling of your team and increase your chances of placing near the top of a field that includes thousands of entries.
Also, like DFS, it benefits you to select players in Battle Royale that few other entrants will have on their roster — as long as they have the ceiling to outscore the more popular players. It’s comparatively easier to “get unique” in Battle Royale, as simply scrolling down to players with ADPs beyond 34.0 or so gives you access to options who will be selected in very few draft lobbies, while players with an ADP above 30.0 will be selected in close to 100% of drafts.
In this article, I aim to accomplish both of these objectives together. Here’s how to build correlated, unique cores that I believe stand the best chance of taking down the Week 12 Battle Royale.
Format, Scoring, and Things To Know For Beginners
Each Battle Royale draft contains six people and lasts six rounds, for a total of 36 picks. On Sunday, you compete against all of the thousands of people who have entered a draft. Each pick has a 30-second clock, so drafts take only a few minutes. It is very easy to bang out many in one sitting.
Each roster has space for 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WRs, 1 TE, and 1 FLEX. The scoring is a pretty normal half-point per reception format, similar to what you would find on Fanduel or in Underdog’s season-long best-ball contests.
Somewhat like a DFS tournament, 10% of the total prize pool is paid out to the top scorer, with the rest distributed to the top ~18% of finishers in gradually declining payouts based on placement. This means it is critical to draft for upside, as you only win something if you place very highly.
Like a DFS main slate, only players from the early afternoon and late afternoon Sunday games are included in the pool.
Unlike in season-long best ball drafts, “reaching” a little is usually OK in these lobbies, especially if it’s to put together a stack that won’t be available to you at your next pick, and especially in the final two rounds (where you get a massive ownership advantage from reaching). On the other hand, taking a player falling far past their ADP from the early rounds is also a good way to naturally create a unique team.
The biggest exception to this comes at the beginning of Round 1, where frequently reaching across multiple drafts is probably a bad idea. Your draft slot is random each time, and especially on shorter slates with fewer elite options, you’ll have a hard time getting the top 1-3 players by ADP (who are often in a tier of their own) if you don’t happen to get a top pick. That means if you want any of the best plays to be included in your portfolio of rosters, you have to take advantage of the opportunity whenever you get an early draft slot.
There are no hard-and-fast rules on which positions to draft when — the optimal early selections will be different on every slate. Refer to the “Macro-Level Slate Notes” section below to get an idea of how I’m viewing the tiers at each position, and how I’m generally playing the first round.
From there, pay attention to who you can stack, which positions your roster still needs, and which positions your opponents have already filled for guidance (e.g., if all five other drafters have already selected a QB, you can wait until the final round to select whichever remaining QB you want).
Key Game-Stacks
Buffalo Bills at Philadelphia Eagles
There are a couple of quirks to this week’s short 10-game slate in the Battle Royale format. There are two games with an over/under above 47.0 points, while every other game is below 45.0 points (with multiple below 40.0 as well). This means it can be incredibly advantageous to go all-in on stacking around one of these two elite games, especially because you can easily make your roster unique while sticking to them.
This raises the point that the best-projected stack of the week (Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown) is very difficult to put together, due to both players being selected in the first round of nearly every draft. If this stack happens to fall to you, immediately select it and start counting your money — it will be among the lowest-owned in the contest.
Josh Allen, QB, Buffalo Bills (ADP: 10.6, QB3)
This leaves Josh Allen as the most viable QB to build around, as he can easily be paired with A.J. Brown, Stefon Diggs, and/or other less popular pieces from this game to create unique rosters. Allen’s QB3 price tag is perplexing, as he draws the best matchup of any slate-eligible QB. The Eagles have allowed the 3rd-most schedule-adjusted FPG to opposing QBs this season.
This game boasts the highest total of the slate (48.5), and Allen has averaged an NFL-best 26.4 FPG in games with a total of at least 45.0. He has also averaged +2.1 FPG more as an underdog than as a favorite this season. While he has run the ball less overall this year, he still takes off where it matters most — Allen trails only Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson in rushing attempts inside the 10-yard line.
Stefon Diggs, WR, Buffalo Bills (ADP: 3.4, WR2)
No team has allowed more schedule-adjusted FPG to opposing WRs than the Eagles over the past five weeks. Among slate-eligible WRs this season, Diggs is averaging the 2nd-most Underdog FPG (15.5) and 5th-most receiving YPG (81.4). His aDOT and target share have declined somewhat in recent weeks, leading his brother to post snarky tweets about Josh Allen. There are enough holes one can poke here to prefer A.J. Brown straight up (especially if unstacked) but make no mistake – Diggs has finished top-five at the position in Underdog’s scoring three times this year, and he can absolutely do it again.
Gabriel Davis, WR, Buffalo Bills (ADP: 35.3, WR17)
Davis is a notoriously inconsistent fantasy performer, but a wide weekly range of outcomes like his is perfect for a tournament like Battle Royale — especially given that his low ADP implies he will be on very few teams.
Davis has as many end zone targets as Diggs this season (9) and only one fewer game with 18.0+ Underdog fantasy points, suggesting their ceiling outcomes are not as different as one might expect. In fact, since Week 8 (when Dawson Knox went on IR and Diggs took on more shallow routes), Davis has led the team in air yards share while posting nearly double Diggs’ aDOT (5.8 to 11.0). Including Davis in a double stack or even as the only piece alongside Allen in a single stack is a great way to get correlated leverage on the likely popular Allen-Diggs stack.
Khalil Shakir, WR, Buffalo Bills (ADP: 35.8, WR24)
Over the past five weeks, the Eagles have allowed the most schedule-adjusted FPG in the NFL to the slot, where Shakir runs 77.2% of his routes. Since he first began running a full-time route share in Week 8, Shakir has led the Bills in receiving YPG (72.0) and Underdog FPG. His schematic matchup is also excellent — the Eagles predominantly play Cover 1 and Cover 3, both of which Shakir shines against. He’s worth considering if you’re drafting a lot of volume and tons of Bills stacks, but I consider him a slightly worse play than Davis, especially given that he’s unlikely to afford you a much bigger ownership advantage.
Notes on Eagles bring-backs: A.J. Brown, Travis Kelce, and Stefon Diggs make up a clear tier at the top of every draft. On a slate that also includes Dalton Kincaid (ADP: 18.0, TE2), Trey McBride (22.8, TE3), and Dalton Schultz (25.7, TE4), I’m not sure Kelce is an enticing enough reason to get off of Brown as the potential bring-back when attempting to stack the Bills. Selecting Diggs does preclude you from using Brown, but as I argue above, other Bills pass-catchers are also viable and will be more unique.
If you bring back an Eagles player other than Brown, I slightly prefer DeVonta Smith (ADP: 13.7, WR5) — who just led the team with a 36.4% target share and 64.8% air yards share in their first game without Dallas Goedert — over D’Andre Swift (ADP: 20.2, RB5), who draws a top-5 schedule-adjusted matchup but has evenly split carries with Hurts inside the 5-yard line this year (10-10). Swift and Brown have both been limited in practice this week, but it doesn’t sound like either is in danger of missing.
Jacksonville Jaguars @ Houston Texans
C.J. Stroud, QB, Houston Texans (ADP: 14.6, QB4)
Stroud has averaged an excellent 23.9 FPG when playing at home this year, 3rd-best among QBs on this slate behind only Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts. This game’s 47.5-point total is second to only Eagles/Bills on the slate. And the Texans have finally been letting Stroud air it out — the team’s +7.3% pass rate over expectation over their past three games would rank 4th-best in the NFL over the full season.
Stroud and the Texans lend themselves especially well to stacking in Battle Royale, as three of his WRs have multiple top-7 weekly finishes this year. Tank Dell (ADP: 5.0, WR3) will be selected in every draft, but that won’t be the case for Nico Collins (31.2, WR13) or especially Noah Brown (35.8, WR22) if he suits up. The latter two are likely viable as unique, high-upside plays even outside of stacks.
That means this is an excellent spot to double stack, especially considering Dell’s stranglehold as the WR1 is not yet clear — Collins earned a 33.3% first-read target share to Dell’s 23.3% last week, while Brown has led the Texans in receiving yards in each of his last three games, and ranked top-3 among all receivers in each of his last two games.
Calvin Ridley, WR, Jacksonville Jaguars (ADP: 25.3, WR10)
Ridley averages 17.3 Underdog FPG in games Zay Jones has played this season, compared to only 6.0 Underdog FPG without Jones in the lineup. The most plausible explanation I’ve seen is here, but in short, Ridley was frequently forced to absorb press coverage and act as a decoy in Jones’ absence with no other viable outside WRs on the roster.
Now that Jones is back, Ridley’s ceiling is incredibly enticing, as we saw when he finished as the overall WR1 in Underdog scoring last week. Ridley now has an excellent schematic matchup into the Texans’ Cover 3-heavy defense, earning him the best coverage grade of any WR this week in our new coverage matchup tool.
Aside from Travis Etienne (ADP: 7.1, RB1), Ridley is the only Jaguars bring-back I’m interested in. Christian Kirk, Evan Engram, and Zay Jones have combined for zero games this season above 17.0 Underdog FPG.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Indianapolis Colts
The Colts enter the week with a 23.25-point implied total, the 5th-highest among teams on this slate. They draw a matchup with a Buccaneers secondary that had bled production through the air over the past five weeks, allowing the 3rd-most schedule-adjusted FPG to opposing QBs and the 4th-most to opposing WRs. This Buccaneers defense is also the 2nd-most extreme pass funnel in the NFL this season, allowing a +6.7% pass rate over expectation.
Despite this nearly perfect environment for passing game production, only one member of the Colts’ passing attack has an ADP high enough to suggest he will be selected in every draft. That leaves us with a couple of excellent ways to create unique lineups while accessing this game’s ceiling, the most palatable being a mini-stack of the following two players.
Rachaad White, RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (ADP: 28.5, RB9)
White is one of the best stand-alone values on the slate. His 19.1 XFP/G and 18.0 Underdog FPG over the past month are the most of any slate-eligible RB. Over that span, he has played on 96.9% of the team’s red zone snaps (RB3). The Buccaneers’ status as 2.5-point road underdogs is of no concern, as White’s healthy 63.8% route share (RB5) has allowed him to average 0.6 more Underdog FPG in losses than in wins this season. To top it off, the Colts are the NFL’s 2nd-biggest run funnel (-2.5% pass rate over expectation allowed) and have ceded the 3rd-most schedule-adjusted FPG to RBs over the past five weeks.
Josh Downs, WR, Indianapolis Colts (ADP: 35.4, WR18)
Downs is the most accessible and unique way to tap into the excellent game environment discussed above. He has produced on par with Michael Pittman (13.0 to 13.3 FPG) in Gardner Minshew’s starts, excluding his two most recent games in which he ran less than a 50% route share while playing through a knee injury. If he’s healed up coming out of the bye, Downs arguably has an even better matchup than Pittman due to how much time he spends in the slot — the Buccaneers have allowed the 2nd-most schedule-adjusted FPG to opposing slot WRs over the past five games.
The low collective ADP of the Downs/White mini-stack means adding it to almost any lineup will immediately make it relatively unique, but it is possible (though maybe not necessary) to go even further if you want to get really weird.
Gardner Minshew, QB, Indianapolis Colts (ADP: 35.8, QB9)
Minshew has been an up-and-down producer for most of his career, though he’s shown off a ceiling at times, clearing 20.0+ fantasy points in five of his previous 18 starts. It’s also worth noting that four of his six starts this season have come against defenses ranking among the six toughest schedule-adjusted matchups for opposing QBs — which could be unfairly shading our view of his pedestrian production.
To be clear, Minshew is by no means a perfect play. I would not enter a lobby planning to take him, as I think it’s very likely one of the top-6 QBs will end up as optimal on this short slate. But if you get caught in the last two rounds as the only person without a QB, and without a good way to stack with whichever top QB remains, I think selecting Minshew and Downs (or Michael Pittman) as a “break glass in case of emergency” button is a good out. (If you’re drafting closer to Sunday and know that Cooper Kupp will play, taking him and Matthew Stafford is another option in such a situation.)
The argument for doing this is that the field will rarely deviate from the top six signal-callers. If Minshew goes off and outscores the top options, yours will be one of the very few rosters with a shot of winning the contest. Still, it’s easy enough to get unique within the above higher-scoring games, or with the Downs/White mini-stack from this game, that I don’t think it’s necessary to plan on being overweight on Minshew.
Macro-Level Slate Notes
As I alluded to above, the top-6 QBs on this slate (Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, C.J. Stroud, Kyler Murray, and Trevor Lawrence — who I would personally rank in that order) will be very hard to get away from. The field will overwhelmingly be playing these QBs.
Minshew (above) and Matthew Stafford (ADP: 35.6, QB7) are the best pivots (and will be very sparsely owned), but QB does not have to be where you get unique. There will be future slates where targeting later QBs will be more desirable.
RB is incredibly deep on this slate — Kyren Williams (RB7), Derrick Henry as a 4.0-point favorite (RB8), and Rachaad White (RB9) will all likely dominate their respective backfields and not project too far off of the top players. This incentivizes waiting at the position, and leaning even more toward RB when filling the FLEX.
This slate has four great options at TE, but if you find yourself missing out on the top tier, give David Njoku (ADP: 32.6, TE6) a look. He’s led the Browns in targets during both of Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s starts this year, including an eye-popping 15 looks last week.
Round 1 Strategy
If I get a top-3 pick in Round 1, I’m prioritizing A.J. Brown, Stefon Diggs, and Travis Kelce in that order. I’m not super interested in stacking the Chiefs this week, given that their games have gone under the total 80% of the time this year (tied 2nd-most) and that there are multiple other good TEs on this slate aside from Kelce. Drafting Brown lets you hold out hope for a miraculous fall from Jalen Hurts before beginning to stack the Bills. Taking Diggs also allows you to stack the Bills fairly easily.
If drafting in the back end of Round 1, I’ll sometimes select Tank Dell if I’m planning to stack the Texans. He’s not technically a great value here (especially compared to where you can get Nico Collins), but it’s also the only place you can get Dell. This means it’s also viable to select Travis Etienne in Round 1 before going on to pair C.J. Stroud with Collins, Dalton Schultz, and/or Noah Brown (pending health).
I should also note that Jonathan Taylor is projected as the best RB on this slate across the industry, so he’s a totally defensible pick in the back end of Round 1 if you do not have a particular stack in mind. That’s a valid way to play things if you’d like to punt and see how the board falls. We won’t always have to be so instantly concerned with which game we want to stack on bigger slates with more options.
I am generally not taking Hurts in Round 1 unless he and Brown are both somehow available for me at the turn. Maybe this is irrational, but the fact that he can’t be stacked well with anyone else outside of DeVonta Smith makes me fearful of holding very-easy-to-make and popular Hurts-Smith stacks, and getting annihilated by the much lower-owned and much better Hurts-Brown stacks that I’m sure will sneak into the contest occasionally. You could argue that this would be too rare to worry about, but I just much prefer the flexibility afforded by stacking Bills and Texans on this shorter slate that lacks as many good one-off “get different” players.
