Ultimate Fantasy Payout Strategy: Setting Lineups

by Ethan Haskell (Ethan) Last Updated 2013-02-23 00:46:44

There has been some confusion with the Ultimate Fantasy Payout games and roster limits lately in the forums. Truth be told you can actually use the current setup to your own advantage if you can organize your strategy. In this article I’ll explain the confusion and go through a number of ways you can set your rosters to put yourself in the best possible situation to win.

For more details and questions about UltimateFantasyPayout, check out our forum thread here.

The Questions

Ok so here are the basic roster and game limit rules for a 4-day contest at UFP:

1) Max 1 Game Limit Per Position (3 Guards, 3 Forwards, 1 Center, 3 Utility)
2) Max 1 Game Limit Per Individual Player
3) 13 Players Max on Your Roster

So you have 13 players, each of which is eligible to score in only one game. Where strategy comes in is that rather than close out each individual positional spot after it has been used, Ultimate Fantasy Payout waits until every positional slot for each position (G,F,C,UTL) has been used to close out that specific position.

For example, if my roster on the first night of action looked like this:

G: Rajon Rondo
G: Chris Paul
G: EMPTY
F: Earl Clark
F: Tim Duncan
F: Carmelo Anthony
C: EMPTY
UTIL: James Harden
UTIL: Raymond Felton
UTIL: EMPTY

I would have used 7 of my 10 allotted games for the 4-day contest and Rondo, Paul, Clark, Duncan, Anthony, Harden and Felton would no longer be eligible to score points. BUT, the next day when I went to set my roster the available options would look like this:

G:
G:
G:
F: POSITION LIMIT REACHED
F: POSITION LIMIT REACHED
F: POSITION LIMIT REACHED
C:
UTIL:
UTIL:
UTIL:

Even though I filled 2 of my 3 allotted Guard position games and 2 of my 3 utility spots, all 3 are still open to enter players in at each position. Only the Forward position is locked because I filled all of those slots.

Strategy to Take Advantage of This

There are several ways you can take advantage of this process, but first and foremost let me add that you should be looking to exploit match-ups before anything else. Don’t sit a player in a bad match-up just because you want to get the max potential out of your players.

If possible, you want to leave one game open at 1 or 2 positions heading into the final day. UFP will score the highest scoring player at each position if you only have 1 game available at, for example, the guard slot and it will allow you to put up to 3 players into your starting lineup (as long as they haven’t reached their player game limit yet).

So here’s a sample scenario. I draft the following team with the following schedule:

Day One – Tuesday

So I can no longer use Kemba, Duncan, Jameer or Aldridge but based on match-ups it looked to me like those 4 players had their best opponent match-up on Tuesday. I also haven’t closed out any single position yet.

My games limit for each position now looks like this:
GUARDS: 1 REMAINING
FORWARDS: 2 REMAINING
CENTERS: 0 REMAINING – POSITION LOCKED
UTILITY: 3 REMAINING

Day Two – Wednesday

So now Lee, Horford, and Calderon are off the table but I still have only closed out the center position.

GUARDS: 1 REMAINING
FORWARDS: 1 REMAINING
CENTERS: 0 REMAINING – POSITION LOCKED
UTILITY: 1 REMAINING

Day Three – Thursday

I’m punting on a slow Thursday and everything from after Wednesday night remains the same. The only player I have available is Tim Duncan who I have already used.

Day Four – Friday

So heading into Friday I can see that I still have the Guard, Forward and Utility spots where I can enter up to three players who haven’t played yet and the MAX score for each will be counted towards my rotisserie score. I can now work to plug any of the remaining players I have available into my lineup so I can maximize my potential. So my full roster with the remaining players I can still use going into the final day looks like this:

I would recommend using 2 players at each position. So I have 6 unlocked or “free” players left and can fill up to 9 roster spots just based on the fact that I have yet to lock the Guard, Forward or Utility slot. So heading into the last day if I put 2 players at each position I am covering the risk associated with one of my 2 players at each position getting injured, scratched or just having an off night. I would also try to pair a stud with a later draft pick so you don’t waste any output from your star players.

So after the final night I have used all of my players at least once and on the last night I gave myself some nice upside by receiving the highest score out of 2 players at every position with multiple roster openings. All 13 of my players got a chance to play and only 1 at the Guard, Forward and Utility slot on Friday Night will be scored. I assume Carmelo will out score Jamison and Nene will outscore Delfino but I at least leave myself room for error in case something surprising happens. Also, Greivis and Felton could both have big nights so I feel comfortable having both of them as options to add onto my score in the guard position.

Hopefully this makes sense and definitely post any questions in the comments section. There are a few ways you can play this so I encourage you to share if you think you have a better method, I promise I won’t take offense! Most of all I hope this helps you take advantage of the game a little better and maximize your potential winnings with the incredible 15:1 payout structure over at Ultimate Fantasy Payout

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