High Stakes Scene: DraftStreet Heavy Hitters Semi Finals
Editor’s Note: The “High Stakes Scene” is a recurring series giving you an in-depth look into the highest stakes games in the Daily Fantasy world. Our first “High Stakes Scene” featured top-ranked STLCardinals84 providing in-depth analysis into his head-to-head matches vs. BrettFavre444. From there we’ve expanded to cover more of Daily Fantasy’s best across the industry. Full details on the current $100,000 Heavy Hitters Bracket match can be read here. We hope you enjoy the coverage.
What’s up Grinders, we are happy to bring you another edition of the High Stakes Scenes. Notorious and Stevietpfl will be covering DraftStreet’s $100,000 Heavy Hitter Series. This is a 16-man bracket with some of the biggest names in the industry competing. The semi final round consisted of a best of 5 series so we will give a quick recap of each game as well as our take on the series. Each scoreboard is linked below if you want to check out the actual scores.
msidla vs. BirdWings
Game 1: msidla 69 – BirdWings 54
Game 2: msidla 72 – BirdWings 58
Game 3: BirdWings 89 – msidla 73
Game 4: BirdWings 66 – msidla 60
Game 5: BirdWings 61 – msidla 58
Winner: BirdWings 3-2
Thoughts on the Series (by: Notorious)
This was a fantastic series that ended up coming down to a winner-take-all Game 5. Every game in this series was decided by less than 16 points and both BirdWings and msidla had quality lineups throughout. Msidla got off to a hot start in Game 1 with a 15 point victory thanks to the strength of his pitchers. Kershaw, Masterson, and Hernandez combined for a whopping 46 fantasy points which is a pretty good overall score on most nights on DraftStreet. Msida kept it rolling in Game 2 with another 15 point victory. Brandon Moss proved to be the difference and which seems to be a common theme in tournaments these days (Moss hit a Grand Salami yesterday).
Msidla only need 1 of the next 3 games to move on to the finals, but this is where the series shifted. The Birdman bounced back in Game 3 with a huge 89 fantasy point performance which tied for the highest score in this whole tournament. He had 4 players with at least 14 fantasy points each, yeah that will do the trick. With some momentum on his side, BirdWings squeaked out another victor in Game 4. Msidla was burned by Grichuk and Morneau only seeing a combined 1 at-bat.
With the series tied at 2 games a piece, we move on the winner-take-all Game 5 (well technically the loser still won $10,000). This was the closest game of the series and ended up coming down to a final at bat from C.J. Cron. Msidla jumped out to an early lead, but BirdWings slowly climbed his way back into it thanks to 20 FP’s from Tanner Roark. BirdWings took the lead by 1.25, but Msidla still had a chance with C.J. Cron getting one more at bat. Cron lined out to left and that was all folks. This was a terrific series to watch unfold and big props to both of these DFS wizards for making it this far in the Heavy Hitter tournament.
g123 vs. Vegetable_lasagna
Game 1: Vegetable_lasagna 45 – g123 43
Game 2: Vegetable_lasagna 50 – g123 40
Game 3: g123 82 – Vegetable_lasagna 58
Game 4: Vegetable_lasagna 74 – g123 71
Winner: Vegetable_lasagna 3-1
Thoughts on the Series (by: stevietpfl)
Game 1 was everything we were hoping for, and came down to Vegetable_Lasagna’s pitching outscoring g123 by a little more than 3 points. Both players spent over 50% of their salary on pitching, but the extra 5k came up huge for VL. G123 had solid performances from his hitters, but only had 1 guy go off. VL got the same thing from his hitters, but had 2 guys really come up big for him. Game 2 wasn’t as close as the first one, but had a lot of overlap. Vegetable_Lasagna faded Tulo for a cheap Chris Owings, and Owings was by far the deciding factor in this matchup. Owings put up 13.5 for VL, and Tulo for 3x the salary put up 8 for g123. Adam Jones had a good game for g123, but Billy Hamilton matched him for VL. G123 wasn’t going to let VL sweep him, and in game 3 gave VL his first loss of this series. G123’s lineup was a very solid lineup, and he nailed his picks in this matchup. Both players used 53% of their salary on pitching, but g123 outscored VL by 29 points with hitting. Paul Goldschmidt and Miguel Montero scored a combined 31 fantasy points, and were the deciding factor in this game 3 matchup. Vegetable_Lasagna wasn’t able to sweep g123, but he was able to put it away in the game 4 match. Game 4 was all about hitting because both players had the same 3 pitchers. It was really a 4 vs. 4, and g123 made it 4 vs. 3 because he played Didi Gregorious who wasn’t in the lineup this night. VL played Andrus at shortstop and got 6 points out of him, and even though they weren’t the same price, this could have cost g123 a deciding game 5 matchup. Both players put up really nice scores, but having a 0 really hurt g123 in this game.
Vegetable_Lasagna and G123 are two of the best players over on DraftStreet, and this was one of the closest matchups we’ve had so far. VL was able to take home the matchup, and will now take on Birdwings, another top DraftStreet player. I’m really looking forward to the finals of this high stakes bracket, and we will be bringing you game by game break downs of the final round. Vegetable_Lasagna has been very dominate in this series, and has to be a slight favorite going into this finals matchup.