The Eliminator contest is an exciting new format on Underdog Fantasy. Today, Pete explains how to attack it…

I love drafting best ball teams, but the sweat doesn't really kick in until the final weeks of the regular season. That's when we start to agonize about how many teams we can squeak into the fantasy playoff sprint and chase down life-changing money.

But that's not the case with The Eliminator, Underdog Fantasy's new best ball format, which first hit the scene in 2023. With the Eliminator, you still get the same enjoyment of drafting a best ball team, but you also get a weekly "cutline" sweat. 

In this piece, I'm going to walk through the Eliminator's unique contest structure and how it differs from traditional best ball formats. I'll also explain why drafters need to prioritize floor over ceiling in this contest, why bye weeks are a critical piece of the puzzle, and how, shockingly, Week 17 is still all that matters.

The Eliminator's unique contest structure

Even though The Eliminator shares many similarities to a typical best ball contest on Underdog – same number of teams (12), number of rounds (18), scoring settings, and starting lineup requirements (1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1 FLEX, 1 TE) – it couldn't be more different than most of Underdog's other contests.

As opposed to the structure of a tournament like Best Ball Mania V or The Puppy, where the top two teams advance out of the regular season (Weeks 1 to 14), the Eliminator removes teams after each week. Here's how the structure of this contest is broken down by week:

The Eliminator structure

In a typical best ball contest, you're trying to field one of the top two teams in your 12-team draft group through 14 weeks in order to advance into the fantasy playoffs. 

In The Eliminator, you're instead just trying to avoid being one of the worst teams each and every week. 

Rather than trying to build a juggernaut, all you need to do is survive week by week. Because of that massive difference in elimination rules, we need to approach our drafts with an entirely different mindset to win The Eliminator.

Chase floor, not ceiling

In a contest like Best Ball Mania, we're almost exclusively attacking "ceiling" because the payout structure demands it. We do this in a variety of ways:

But in The Eliminator, we want to attack "floor" and embrace balance rather than variance. It's not that we don't want to still target players with upside, but it's more important to hit singles and doubles as opposed to swinging for the fences.

It's a similar mentality to playing a cash game "double-up" contest in daily fantasy sports (DFS) compared to a tournament. In a large-field DFS tournament, all of the prizes go to a handful of top teams, so it's savvy to embrace risk knowing that's where all of the money is won.

Patrick Mahomes

Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (15) celebrates a play against the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

But in a double-up contest with 100 entries where half the players double their money, there's no difference between finishing first or 49th. In that scenario, you aren't looking to take on risk. You simply want to try and avoid mistakes and put together a team that scores in the top half of the field rather than the absolute most possible points.

In a lot of ways, the Eliminator is a "keep it simple, stupid" contest. Here are a few ways to achieve balance and draft optimal teams for this format.

Lean into 3-QB and 3-TE builds

While I love rolling with 2-QB and 2-TE teams in typical best ball contests and utilizing the extra bullets on RBs or WRs, I prefer to go the opposite direction in the Eliminator. Having trios at the onesie positions gives you the best opportunity to avoid zeros in any given week. This build also helps cover any bye week issues that could sink your team (more on byes in a second down below).

Because of this, I recommend not paying premium prices for the elite QBs in The Eliminator. One of the biggest selling points of elite QBs is only needing two total, but I think that's a sub-optimal build in this format.

"Boring" players are back on the menu

If you're like me, you're hard-wired to chase upside and breakout profiles. But that kind of drafting isn't rewarded in this format.

I rarely take Diontae Johnson in BBM because I have concerns about his lack of ceiling, but Johnson jumps off the page in this format because he projects to be a steady target-earner in Carolina. 

Be wary of boom-or-bust players

On the flip side, we want to be wary of players with boom-or-bust profiles with expensive ADPs. A player like George Pickens, who can have monster games but can also disappear for stretches, is far less valuable than he is in BBM.

In that type of tournament, Pickens's massive weekly ceiling can single-handedly win you a week. But in a contest like The Eliminator, we care more about consistent median outcomes than ceiling outcomes that rely on variance.

Bye weeks are big

Bye weeks play a crucial role in this format. In tournaments like BBM, it would be very justifiable to load up on Ravens and Texans while optimizing for their Week 17 matchup and a potential shootout with two high-flying offenses in a dome.

But if you take the same approach in The Eliminator, you could be facing six or seven zero-point scores in your lineup in Week 14 when five of the remaining nine teams (56%) will be eliminated. In that example, you'd essentially be competing with one hand tied behind your back, as you'd only have 11 or 12 of your players available to score points in that week. 

If you're going to take on bye week risk, it's smarter to do it earlier in the tournament where fewer teams are being eliminated each week. In Weeks 5 and 6 (when the bye weeks first hit), only 25% of teams in each pod will be eliminated (six of eight). But when you get to Weeks 12 through 14, 40 to 45% of teams in each pod will be eliminated.

Of course, if your roster is able to survive a week with a bunch of byes, it means that your team will be much stronger for the rest of the contest. Just make sure you have a very good reason for drafting more than four or five players with the same bye week (great ADP values, stacking purposes, etc.), as doing so could easily sink your team if you aren't careful.

Week 17 is still all that matters?!

Ok, here's the rub. Surviving all the way to Week 17 isn't the only goal. We still need to finish in the top 10 of the 115-team final round to win a five-figure prize:

Tournament prize breakdown

This definitely complicates things because we still need to access ceiling outcomes in Week 17 despite trying to get there with a survivor mentality. While this is a tight needle to thread, it's possible. Here are a few strategies to help a roster finish in first place if it can make it to the finals.

Stack QBs

I still want to embrace stacking in this format. And if your team has three different QB stacks, then it allows for multiple avenues to hitting on a low-rostered stack in the playoff weeks.

Attack rookies late in drafts

I want to avoid taking on too much risk in the early half of drafts (like that Pickens example), but I'm more open to it in the final rounds. We're still going to need some late-season upside, and rookies routinely provide that year after year.

We just don't want to pay a premium for late-season rookie production in this format. This means very little Keon Coleman and Ladd McConkey in the single-digit rounds but plenty of Javon Baker, Devontez Walker, and other super cheap rookie RBs and WRs in the final rounds of drafts.

Consider Week 17 bring-backs

I wouldn't force anything here, but it's worth breaking ties in favor of Week 17 bring-backs, especially if those players are attached to your main stacks.

For example, if you had a QB room of Trevor Lawrence, Baker Mayfield, and Gardner Minshew, I'd be interested in adding a player from their Week 17 opponents (Titans, Panthers, and Saints) in hopes of landing on a game environment that shoots out. That way, your team could possibly vault its way to that $100,000 top prize.

As of now, The Eliminator is still a very young format without much data giving insight into which strategies work best, so the best path to winning might be to just hop into some drafts.

If you're looking for deeper dives on Eliminator strategy, I highly recommend Justin Herzig's piece over at Establish The Run as well as Ben Gretch's article on his Stealing Signals substack.