Don’t tell my wife, but I plan on ATTACKING Underdog’s Best Ball Mania II Tournament this summer. I’ll let her know when I take home the $1,000,001 grand prize.
You can check out the full rules here -- and you definitely should because it’s important to understand all the intricacies of the contest. But here’s the gist:
Check out our updated best ball rankings.
Here are some strategies and philosophies to keep in mind when drafting Best Ball Mania II teams.
It’s a top-heavy payout structure. Nearly 30% of the money goes to 1st place. Come in 11th place and you win “just” $7,500.
So upside is important. But not as important as you might think.
If this was 1 giant 155,520-team best-ball contest where the team with the most total points over 17 weeks won, upside would be all that mattered. But it’s not. It’s actually 4 separate contests.
Our 1st job is to finish top 2 in a 12-team league. You don’t need a Super Team to do that. Then we need to finish top 2 out of 18 teams in Week 15. That’s a little tougher. Then we need to beat out 17 teams in Week 16. Tougher -- but still not a herculean task.
It’s not until that final round when we really need a top percentile outcome to finish 1st among 160 teams.
So ceiling should definitely be on your mind during these drafts. But just snatching up value -- and even (gasp!) taking a “floor” player or 2 -- can work.
We’re really just looking to win those first 3 mini contests and then, to be frank, get lucky with a big Week 17. (There are ways that we can increase our chances of getting lucky, which I’ll get into below.)