Best Ball 101 for DraftKings

🏈 DraftKings Best Ball 101: The Complete Beginner's Guide to Dominating the $20M Tournament

Never played DraftKings Best Ball before? This is everything you need — from how it works, to how you score, to how you draft — to stop leaving money on the table and start competing for life-changing prize pools.

What Is DraftKings Best Ball, and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?

Forget everything you know about traditional fantasy football. The waiver wire? Gone. The Sunday night lineup panic? Irrelevant. The trades you regret three days later? Not a problem here.

DraftKings Best Ball is the purest form of fantasy football ever created. You draft a team once. You never touch it again. DraftKings automatically plays your best possible lineup every single week — and at the end of the season, the highest-scoring teams walk away with cash.

Best Ball on DraftKings is one of the simplest ways to play fantasy football. Instead of spending the entire season setting lineups, making waiver claims, and managing injuries, Best Ball puts the focus entirely on the draft. Once you draft your 20-player roster,

DraftKings automatically sets your highest-scoring lineup each week for the rest of the NFL season.

One draft. Zero management. Maximum entertainment for 18 weeks.

DraftKings offers the broadest range of buy-in amounts and tournament sizes across every platform, with multiple leagues varying in sizes of up to and beyond 800,000 entrants and entry fees as low as $1 and as high as $5,000+.

Whether you want to dip a toe in for a dollar or fire bullets at a life-changing prize pool, the door is wide open.

How Best Ball Actually Works: The Three Core Concepts

1. The Draft Is Everything

When you join a Best Ball contest, the draft does not begin until the league fills. Once the draft ends, your roster is locked for the season.

You're picking 20 players in a snake draft against 11 other managers. The draft is your one and only moment of control. Every pick matters. Every position allocation matters. Your draft is your season.

The good news: if a player is injured, slumping, or not in the lineup, you get someone from your bench to play in his place. The automatic lineup optimization handles all of that for you.

2. Your Best Lineup Plays Automatically

Best Ball works by having your best possible lineup automatically set every week. In standard re-draft leagues with roster management, fantasy managers could get stuck with a dud performance from one of their highest-drafted players — which would hurt their overall score. In Best Ball, if that player underperforms, someone from your depth steps in.

This is the magical mechanic that makes Best Ball so addictive. You're not punished for a running back having a zero on a bye week. You're not stuck starting a WR2 with a tough matchup. The algorithm does the work — always finding your optimal lineup.

3. Tournaments Have Multiple Rounds

There are four rounds of the tournament: the fantasy football regular season (Weeks 1–14) and then three playoff rounds (Weeks 15, 16, and 17. To advance to the playoff round, you must finish in the top two of your league.

Your highest-scoring players are automatically placed into your lineup each week from Weeks 1–14, so you play the majority of the season against the people you drafted with, hoping to finish with the most (or second most) points in your pod. In Week 15, the playoffs start. Most DK tournaments advance the top two highest-scoring teams. Those teams are placed in pods with 11 other advancing lineups where they compete for a single week. The field narrows all the way to Week 17, the final, where the worst you can walk away with is $1,250.

Think of it like March Madness for fantasy football. Every round, the field gets smaller and the stakes get bigger.

The DraftKings Scoring System, Explained

This is where DraftKings Best Ball separates itself from the competition — and where your draft strategy has to adapt.

DraftKings awards four points for a passing touchdown and six points for a rushing or receiving touchdown. They also award 0.04 points per passing yard and 0.1 points per rushing or receiving yard. Players are also dinged -1.0 points for an interception.

Standard stuff. Here's where it gets interesting:

DraftKings NFL Best Ball uses full point per reception (PPR) scoring, with 3-point bonuses for 300 passing yards, 100 rushing yards, and 100 receiving yards.

That last part — the bonus system — changes everything about how you draft. Let's break down why:

Full PPR means every catch counts for a full point. Pass-catching running backs and high-target wide receivers get a massive boost compared to half-PPR platforms like Underdog. If a player runs a route, catches the ball, and gains yards — he's racking up points from three different categories simultaneously.

The 100-Yard Bonus means a running back who rips off 103 rushing yards doesn't just get 10.3 points for the yards — he gets 13.3 points. That extra 3-point bonus turns a good week into a great week, and a great week into a tournament-winning spike. Wide receivers will be the most-rostered position given the full-PPR and bonus-incentive structure.

No Kickers. No Defense. You read that right. The DraftKings Best Ball starting lineup is QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, and FLEX — and there is no D/ST or K. Every roster spot goes toward skill positions. Every draft pick is an offensive weapon.

Your 20-Roster Spots: How to Allocate Them

You have 20 picks. How you distribute them across positions is the foundation of your entire strategy.

Normal best ball rosters have 2–3 quarterbacks, 4–6 running backs, 6–8 wide receivers, and 2–3 tight ends.

Here's the thinking behind each position:

Quarterback (2–3 Roster Spots)

QB is the trickiest allocation decision in DraftKings Best Ball — and most beginners get it wrong by drafting a QB too early.

Quarterbacks make up a lower percentage of team points compared to other platforms due to the full-PPR scoring. The QB is the only position that does not benefit from the extra half-point per reception — while RBs, WRs, and TEs all do.

The verdict: don't reach for a QB in the first four rounds unless you're pairing an elite QB with his top wide receiver in a deliberate stack. Grab a QB in the mid rounds and pair him with a target-hog on his team for correlated upside.

A 22-point QB week keeps you alive. A 38-point WR week can win the pod. Prioritize accordingly.

Running Back (5–6 Roster Spots)

The RB landscape rewards one of two approaches: either anchor your team with an elite workhorse early (the Hero RB build), or skip the position entirely in the early rounds and stock up on cheaper upside backs late (Zero RB). The extra two DK roster spots mean potentially grabbing a late RB as an additional dart throw.

What you want at RB: pass-catching ability and goal-line access. In a full-PPR world with a 100-yard bonus, a back who touches the ball 20 times and catches 5–6 passes a game is basically a weekly points machine.

Wide Receiver (6–8 Roster Spots)

WR is the backbone of your DraftKings Best Ball team. Full stop. WR should be the backbone of most builds. It's the deepest position, but it also creates the most weekly separation.

The scoring format — full PPR plus 100-yard bonuses — makes wide receivers the single most efficient use of draft capital. A WR1 on a high-volume passing offense is printing fantasy points from receptions, yards, and periodic bonuses every single week. Prioritize WRs in the middle rounds above almost everything else.

You'll need four WRs in the first seven rounds to maintain a strong enough lineup to win a pod. T

Tight End (2–3 Roster Spots)

TE is the "pay up or punt" position. In 2026, we are seeing the return of elite TEs with Brock Bowers and Trey McBride, who provide a median projection not far behind peak Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski years.

If Bowers or McBride falls to you at a reasonable price, take them without hesitation — elite TEs are weekly difference-makers. If they're gone early, wait until the mid-to-late rounds and grab two TEs with high-ceiling upside rather than one average bridge option.

The Two Draft Formats You Need to Know

DraftKings offers two distinct Best Ball formats. Knowing the difference matters before you enter a single contest.

Sit & Go (S&G)

DraftKings has a choice of slow or fast draft settings in their Sit & Go's and some of their tournaments. You will have up to 30 seconds to make each pick. Fast drafts typically take 30 minutes to a few hours to complete.

Sit & Go's are smaller, quicker contests — perfect for grinding volume or learning the format. You're playing against a smaller pool, and payouts are scaled accordingly. Great for beginners who want to practice drafting without the pressure of a massive tournament field.

Tournaments

All best ball tournaments boast 12 teams, draft via a 20-round snake format, and feature larger prize pools with a four-round structure. After each round, a varying number of top teams advance and will compete against other winners from their respective 12-team leagues.

Tournaments are where the real money lives. DraftKings' flagship Best Ball tournament regularly guarantees $15+ million in prize pools. The trade-off: you need to survive multiple rounds against thousands of other advancing teams. High variance. High reward.

The Draft Strategy Cheat Sheet for Beginners

You've got 20 picks, a 30-second clock, and the entire season riding on your decisions. Here's the simplified framework to get you started:

Rounds 1–3: Establish Your Identity

Set your build here. You're either anchoring with an elite RB (Hero RB build) or going WR-heavy from the jump (Zero RB build). Don't mix strategies without a plan. Your two smart early-round options are WR/WR/WR or WR/WR/RB — alpha wide receivers are high-volume difference-makers and, barring injury, their roles aren't disappearing anytime soon.

Rounds 4–8: Load at Wide Receiver

This is your WR window. Hammer it. Grab WRs on high-powered passing offenses with clear target share. Don't get cute by reaching for a running back here unless he's exceptional value for the range. Target hogs are more valuable on DK than TD-dependent sites — a reception is worth a full point here.

Rounds 9–14: Stack and Diversify

Start building correlations. Pair a QB with one or two of his wide receivers for correlated spike potential. The goal is to give your roster a path to a unique ceiling. Last year, a Chicago stack won first with Caleb Williams + Luther Burden + D'Andre Swift. Stacking teammates means when your QB has a 350-yard day, multiple players on your roster benefit simultaneously.

Rounds 15–20: Swing for Fences

These final picks cost you almost nothing in draft capital. This is where you take upside swings — rookie running backs with starter potential, high-ceiling WRs battling for a starting role, second-year players on the verge of breaking out. In Best Ball, backup RBs are more valuable when their role can change dramatically with one injury. Contingent upside is free in the late rounds. Take as much as you can carry.

The #1 Mistake Every Beginner Makes

New to Best Ball? You're going to be tempted to do one thing above all else: draft safe.

Safe players. Safe positions. Safe, known quantities in every round.

This is the fastest way to lose.

To win on DraftKings in 2026, you'll battle 940,900+ lineups shooting the same shot. For context, Charlotte, NC, has a population of 943,000+. You're not competing against 11 league mates — you're aiming to beat a field the size of a major city.

Safe rosters get average scores. Average scores lose pods in the regular season. And even if they advance, they get destroyed in the finals.

In DraftKings' flagship Millionaire tourney, we get nothing for finishing third place in our initial 12-man group and should not be worried about taking on risk if it means our chances of an extremely strong team are improved.

The mindset shift is everything. In Best Ball, upside is the only currency that matters. You're not building a roster to finish 6th place every week. You're building a roster capable of going nuclear in Weeks 15, 16, and 17 — when it counts.

Best Ball vs. Traditional Redraft: A Quick Comparison

	Traditional Redraft	DraftKings Best Ball
Weekly lineup decisions	✅ Required	❌ Automatic
Waiver wire	✅ Active	❌ None
Trades	✅ Available	❌ None
Draft commitment	One draft	One draft
Time commitment	Weekly	Draft only
Injury impact	Major	Cushioned by depth
Prize pool	League pot	Up to $15M+

In-season management — waivers, lineup decisions, trades — is central to re-draft, whereas best ball is draft-only, with zero roster management once the draft finishes.

Five Quick Rules to Live By

1. Wide receivers win Best Ball tournaments. The full-PPR plus 100-yard bonus format makes WR the most valuable position to load up at. Never leave a draft without at least six.

2. Your backup RBs should be other team's starters. The ceiling for two backs from the same team is one workhorse RB. The ceiling for drafting somebody else's handcuff is two workhorses for the same draft capital.

3. Stack your QB with his weapons. When your quarterback has a monster game, you want two or three of the beneficiaries on your roster. Correlated game environments are how Best Ball championships are won.

4. Draft for the playoffs, not the regular season. The regular season (Weeks 1–14) just gets you there. Week 17 is primetime. This is where dreams come true. Build a roster with explosive upside for late-season spike weeks, not a roster built to grind out 130-point weeks in October.

5. Enter multiple teams. The best players in Best Ball aren't putting one entry into the Millionaire — they're running diversified portfolios of builds: some Hero RB, some Zero RB, different stacks, different late-round swings. More entries equals more paths to a payday.

The Bottom Line: Why You Should Start Today

DraftKings Best Ball is the most accessible high-stakes fantasy competition ever built. One draft. No management. The rest is the NFL doing what it does best: creating chaos, generating heroes, and rewarding the people bold enough to trust the process.

That low-maintenance format has made DraftKings Best Ball increasingly popular for both beginners and experienced fantasy football players.

You don't need to be a fantasy football genius to win. You need to understand the scoring You need to trust the roster construction principles. And you need to draft with upside on your mind at every single turn.

The $20 million prize pool isn't going to spend itself. Go get your share. 🏆