A Noob's Guide to Rocket League DFS - Daily Fantasy Sports Tips
The global coronavirus pandemic sent most sports to the bench, but eSports are doing their best to fill the void. DraftKings and FanDuel have had eSports DFS contests for League of Legends, but DraftKings has taken the opportunity to add Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Rocket League contests to their DFS offerings.
If you’re eager for daily fantasy sports but find LoL and CS:GO a bit intimidating, then let me assure you, Rocket League DFS is the game you’ve been waiting for.
What is Rocket League?
Put simply, Rocket League is a 3v3 (usually) soccer game inside a cage with flying cars and a giant ball. I’m not kidding.
Rocket League is about as straight forward of an eSports game as you’ll find, making the learning curve more than manageable for anyone new to eSports. In a Rocket League match, each team consists of three players, all of whom control a car with which they use to try to knock the ball into their opponent’s goal. If you can get past the flying cars, Rocket League is a lot similar to other DFS sports we all love.
Just as you see in the NFL, NBA and soccer, Rocket League teams differ in their strengths and schemes. Some teams/players are more offensively focused, playing aggressive and fast to find more shot-on-goal opportunities. Other teams play slower, using defense to turn saves into offensive counters.
Rocket League is played at its highest level in the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS). The RLCS is divided up by regions — North America, Europe, South America, and Oceania — and teams compete within regions during “league play,” synonymous for their regular season. The top teams advance to the RLCS Regional Championship and battle in a best-of-7 double-elimination format for a chance to compete in the RLCS World Championship. The 9th season Regional Championships concluded last week, crowning team Dignitas champions of the European League as they overcame Renault Vitality in the 7th game. The North American champions were G2 Esports, early-season longshots who swept Spacestation Gaming in the finals for the title. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has precluded a Season 9 RLCS World Championship, originally scheduled to take place in Dallas 4/24-4/26. However, the RLCS Spring Series is kicking off, and DFSers can get in on the action at DraftKings. For a full list of rules and tournament details, you can visit Rocket League Sports.
Liquipedia has historical data from previous RLCS championships, including player breakdowns where you can view past performances and earnings.
Stream live matches and earn in-game rewards for viewing by signing up at Rocketleague.com.
Rocket League DFS Scoring and Roster Format
Rocket League DFS participants use a $50,000 salary cap to select two captains (1.5x) and two flexes as they fill four-player lineups. The scoresheet for Rocket League looks similar to many soccer DFS protocols. One key difference is that Rocket League in-game scores and game MVP will play a factor.
MVP is given to the player with the most in-game points on the winning team. Earned through various forms of contact with the ball, i.e., saves, shots, clears, centering, aerial hits, etc., in-game points typically range from 100-1000 points per player/game. A comprehensive list of in-game points can be found at here.
Here’s DraftKings scoring for Rocket League DFS:
| Statistic | FantasyPoints |
|---|---|
| Shots | +3 |
| Goals | +10 |
| Saves | +5 |
| Assists | +5 |
| In-Game Score | Score/100 |
| Team Clean Sheet | +8 |
| Hat Trick (3 Goals) | +10 |
| Golden Goalie (3 Goals) | +5 |
| Amazing Assistant (3 Assists) | +5 |
| SOG Bonus (6+ Shots in 1 game) | +3 |
| MVP (Highest in-game score on winning team) | +3 |
| Team Clean Sheet | +8 |
Game Length Adjustment note: Game length adjustment is used to ensure that players and teams winning their matches early are not penalized and all players across different matches in a Game Set are valued at equal personal performances. A players’ aggregate score is multiplied by the maximum number of games in the match and then divided by the actual number of games played in the entire match. The final adjustment is rounded to 2 decimal points, per DraftKings.
Selecting Players
The mechanics and general strategy of Rocket League is straightforward, but selecting players for your RL DFS lineup is a bit more complicated.
Though the concept of Rocket League is simple, the game itself is extremely dynamic. As a result, we’ve seen former elites like Kronovi (for any veteran RL fans) replaced by fast-rising RL superstars. Others like GarrettG, fruity, and ferra demonstrate an incredible ability to maintain an elite edge with regards to mechanics mastery, timing and strategy. Squishy Muffinz is likely one of the most prolific YouTube Rocket League sensations, posting instructional videos and high-level play with almost 120 million views on his channel. Rizzo, with 86 million views, is the runner-up when it comes to Rocket League content kings. Rizzo has used different playing styles, in contrast to Squishy, to make a name for himself; both players have impressive professional pedigrees.
The Rocket League community consistently pushes the meta limits of what is possible in-game, creating a fluid and exciting environment within the eSports atmosphere. One draw to Rocket League DFS is that there is no “skill cap” for players. This drives creativity and increases competition among pro players as they adapt to new moves and strategies — even the best players can’t just “solve” the game, per se. A recent example is the evolution and mastery of the flip reset, an advanced Rocket League maneuver that is difficult to defend, allowing offensive players additional opportunities to create plays and ultimately score more goals.
Luckily, some DFS strategies we use for NFL, NBA and soccer are well-suited for RL DFS .
Opportunity: What kind of players do target in other sports? Those that play on fast-paced teams, or are in a matchup that sets up well for high usage and thus fantasy scoring opportunities. The same is true for Rocket League. With 10 points awarded for each goal and a +10-point bonus for a hat trick (three goals), you want to focus on players that tend to score a lot and matchups that set up to be offensive-friendly. .
Stacks: Stacking players from teams you’re confident in is always viable. Like correlating a quarterback and his receiver, if you have two RL players that link up for a goal you will earn 15 points from the play (10 for the goal, 5 for the assist).
Captains: As referenced earlier, RL DFS lineups have two captain spots, each earning 1.5x points and costing 1.5x their non-captain salary. Your ability to select captains that end up game MVPs will likely make or break your Rocket League DFS lineups. There will be duplicate lineups since the RL player pool is small and DFS rosters are only made up of four players. Per usual, it’ll pay to be contrarian, especially with your captains.
Keep in mind, with such young DFS sports, we’re learning more about Rocket League DFS and other games as we go. We’ll continue to update this page in the upcoming weeks.
In the meantime, become a RotoGrinders Premium member to access all of our DFS tools and advice, including LineupHQ for Rocket League.
Image Credit: USA Today Sports Images