Suppose you’re familiar with Best Ball, notably the Best Ball Mania Tournament (the flagship best ball tournament in fantasy football circles, brought to you by our beloved sponsors at Underdog). You’ve probably heard the term “stacking” thrown around in that case.
Today, we are going to talk about several forms of stacking strategies.
- Team Stacking – Partnering players on the same offense. This is effectively a bet on an offense performing above expectations and getting multiple pieces of said offense. Preferably, you’ll have two or three stacks that involve the QB and get the added benefit of scoring additional points on big passing plays because you get both the QB and pass-catcher production out of the same play (or game).
- Game Stacking – Partnering players with their opponents in certain weeks. This is a bet that a particular game will shoot out, or at the very least, that these players will perform well against each other. So, you are correlating results and hoping for this scenario to unfold.
- The Omni-Stack – I just coined this term. We’re applying strategies 1 and 2 to all four rounds of BBM but primarily focusing on Rounds 2 – 4 of the tournament (Weeks 15 – 17). To put it as plainly as possible, the Omni-Stack is when you have a team stack and correlating opponents in Rounds 2 – 4 of the tournament. I am going to lay out how to achieve these builds below.
- Pre-Stacking – I just coined this one as well. It involves grabbing a Week 15 – 17 game stack of a player you are already targeting in a later round before you draft said player.
Although I just coined two new terms, I highly doubt I’m the first to consider them. None of this is novel, but the hope is that applying these strategies in unison provides you with novel enough builds to have a shot at taking down BBMV.
Why Stack?
Much has been made of the stacking strategy, particularly regarding Week 17, and for good reason. I’ll spare you a long-winded explanation of why this strategy is so viable and instead direct you to two articles if you are unfamiliar with the concept.
In my opinion, Josh Larkey wrote the definitive article on team stacking in 2021: https://www.playerprofiler.com/article/the-complete-guide-to-stacking-in-best-ball/
Pete Overzet did a great job of concisely explaining the concept and game stacking in this column in 2023: https://www.fantasylife.com/articles/best-ball/stacking-in-best-ball
TL;DR – The correlation created by Team and Game stacking drastically improves your chances of hitting it big and winning tournaments. To win BBM (a 672,672-team tournament), you ostensibly must win four consecutive tournaments:
Round 1: 12 teams. Top 2 advance. Goes from Week 1 – 14.
Round 2: 13 teams. Top 1 advances. Just Week 15 scores play.
Round 3: 16 teams. Top 1 advances. Just Week 16 scores play.
Round 4: 539 teams. First place gets $1.5M, 2 – 20 get six figures. Descending payouts after that. It’s just Week 17 plays.
Why Omni-Stack?
Back to the Omni-Stack… I have a confession. This is my fifth time in BBM, and I’ve never made it to the championship round. I have outperformed the 16.67% chance of advancing out of Round 1 in three out of four years. Last year, I was at 19.67%. In 2021, I was at 29%! (We don’t talk about 2022.) But frankly, I have struggled to get out of Round 2 and never gotten out of Round 3.
I have focused on the Week 17 correlation but never gotten to Week 17. Sure, it’s difficult, and maybe it’s just variance, but I’m not passive. Thus, I have been testing a new strategy, and thus far, I have liked the results.
The theory is simple—we still want to prioritize Team Stacks and game stacks for Week 17, but if we don’t make it to Week 17, the stacks we created won’t matter. Thus, our strategy will be to game-stack Weeks 15 and 16 to increase our chances of making it to Week 17.
This is the best year to deploy such a strategy because Underdog has drastically flattened the payout structure. Just getting to Week 17 guarantees a $3,750 payout. If you max enter with 150 teams, you will break even by advancing one of those teams to Week 17. This will be the first year I will be max entering (last year, I made it to 122 entries).
So we have our goal: Win the tournament. At the very least, get to Week 17.
We have our plan: Use stacking Strategies 1 & 2, but apply it to Rounds 2 – 4 of BBM to create Omni-Stacks.
Simple enough, but how do we do this? At the time of this writing, I have completed 50 drafts and 30 slow drafts. It’s hard enough trying to get your team and Week 17 stacks, let alone prioritizing additional weeks. We need a system, and for that, I’m going to give you some algebra PTSD:
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Remember PEMDAS? It’s the order of operations for breaking down a math equation—parenthesis, exponents, multiplication and division, and addition and subtraction. We will borrow and apply that concept to BBM team building to help you get that sweet Omni-Stack.
By Any Legal Avenues, This Stack’s Gonna Super Freaking Qualify (17 > 15 & 16)
I admit, it doesn’t have the same ring as dear Aunt Sally, but it’s the best I could come up with. BALATS GSFQ (17 >15 & 16). You can substitute the F word if you’d like, but this is a family website. This is our BBM order of operations. Use it before making every pick. Here is what you should consider, in order:
Best Available
Look Ahead
Team Stack
Game Stack
Fill Queue: with opponents from Weeks 15 – 17, but remember 17 > 15 & 16
Let’s break these steps down.
Best Available
It seems self-explanatory, but it can be subjective. In short, in BBM, you don’t want to reach, especially early. ADP is a good guide because the BBM market is pretty efficient. It’s easy to take the best available player by ADP in round 1, and if you’re going to have multiple entries, I suggest you do just that. It will lead you to a healthy variety of builds.
But as you follow this order of operations, you will be faced with tough calls as soon as round 2. As a rule of thumb, in Rounds 1 – 8, I try not to reach by more than six spots. For Rounds 9 – 14, I try not to reach more than 12 spots. From Round 15 on, I disregard reaching and focus on team needs that align with team/game stack needs.
You do not want to reach, particularly early in best ball season, because ADPs move, and once training camps start, they can move quite a bit. The unique start that is hard to get by ADP now may be easy to achieve in August, and your competitors may be able to get the same combination of players with another premium asset in between. So, try to stay relatively close to ADP early.
Look Ahead
This is the most crucial step in the Omni-Stack. Look ahead before you push the draft button, even in round 1. Ask yourself these questions:
- Where can I draft this player’s teammates?
- Where can I draft this player’s Week 17 opponents?
- Where can I draft this player’s Week 15 & 16 opponents?
- Do their ADPs align with my upcoming picks?
To answer these questions, I refer to this chart before every pick. Below is every team’s opponent for Weeks 15 – 17. I suggest you take a screenshot to keep it handy.
Your very first pick is going to dictate the rest of your draft. Once you select, I want you to fill your Queue with their teammates and opponents for Weeks 15 – 17. You only need to go as far as a 215 ADP on this step—no point in spamming your Queue with irrelevant players.
Team Stack
You might wonder why team stacks come before game stacks. It’s simple: the correlation you get from a team stack helps you through every tournament phase (the first is weeks 1 – 14). The correlation you get from game stacks only helps you in a single week. It’s all about advancing. The only way to get into Rounds 2 – 4 of the tournament is by finishing the top 2 in your Round 1 group. Thus, the team stack takes priority.
Game Stack
As we mentioned earlier, this is simply a bet that a game involving players you’ve drafted will shoot out. In grabbing an opponent, the hope is that you will get players scoring lots of points on both sides of said shootout. In Week 17, you might have Ceedee Lamb and Dak Prescott, and they may go nuclear, but the odds are someone else will have those two as well, so it’s a wash compared to the teams that also have that combo. But if you have Devonta Smith and Dallas Goedert on the other side of the ball, and they’re the recipients of the Eagles’ TD passes, you’ve differentiated yourself from the teams with the same Cowboy stack.
This is most important in Week 17 because you compete against 539 teams instead of just 13 in Round 2 and 16 in Round 3. Hence, the next section.
Fill Queue: 17 > 16 & 15
The Queue is your friend. Depending on the type of draft you’re doing, it can serve different purposes. In a fast draft with 30 seconds per pick, you want to fill it with the best available as it serves as a firewall if you time out due to indecision (or momentarily poor internet).
In slow drafts, though, where each pick can take 8 hours, it could be days before you pick again. If you’re doing 30 at a time, like me, it can be challenging to recall what your game plan was the last time you made a pick. Luckily, you have some time to retrace your steps, and in slow drafts, I use the Queue in an entirely different way because it is doubtful that I will time out.
In slow drafts, I arrange the Queue with the teammates and Week 17 opponents of the players I’ve selected thus far toward the top, and then the Week 15 and 16 opponents below. This is to serve as a reminder of who my priority targets are.
I weigh Week 15 and 16 stacks relatively equally. If you’re faced with a tough call between Week 15 or 16 stacks, err on the side of the best available and team need.
The other, perhaps more important, benefit of using the Queue is that even when you’re not in the queue tab, the players in the player pool get a little star next to their name.
You’ll notice that if you add each player’s teammates you select and Week 15 – 17 opponents (again, up to a 215 ADP), your Queue will be 20 – 60 players deep for most of the draft.
This naturally gives you a menu of options with a star next to their name every time you pick. Not always, and we’ll address how to handle dead spots momentarily, but for the most part, this practice helps you correlate most picks naturally without feeling the need to reach on them. Before you hit the draft button, check the week 15 – 17 chart and make sure you’re correlating. Tie breakers go to players close in ADP, but the one correlates more with the players you’ve drafted thus far.
There you have it. That’s how to achieve the Omni Stack using BALATS GSFQ (17 > 15 & 16).
Let’s troubleshoot, if you’re still with me, as no team-building system is perfect.
What do I do if there’s no stack in range?
This will happen early in the draft when your Queue isn’t as full.
The most straightforward answer is to go back to steps 1 and 2.
- Best Available.
- Look ahead.
Can you grab someone you can also stack with at a reasonable value on your next handful of picks or further down the board?
I like to deploy the more nuanced answer, though. Warning: It can get messy and confusing, but if executed correctly, it really helps you optimize value in pursuit of Omni-Stack. Here’s the other term I coined above.
The Pre-Stack
As a refresher, pre-stacking is simply grabbing a Week 15 – 17 game stack of a player you are targeting in a later round before you draft the player.
You want to be careful with pre-stacking because what if an incredible value falls to you at the pick where your target was? What if your target gets sniped way before your pick (this happens constantly with QBs)?
If your pre-stack target is a non-QB, make sure there’s another viable player on that team to pivot to later.
This is a much more dangerous game due to the lack of certainty (because you can get sniped on the later target and end up with a stack to nowhere), but in certain circumstances, it’s a very viable tool in the pursuit of the Omni-Stack.
Let’s say you take Bijan Robinson at pick 6. You then filled your Queue with Falcons (team stack) and Bijan’s Game Stacks in the Commanders (Week 17), Raiders (Week 15), and Giants (Week 16). Your next picks are at 19 and 30. Ideally, London falls to you for the team stack, but that’s highly unlikely, given his ADP. It’s too early to take a Commander (Week 17), as McLaurin has their highest ADP at 48. You’re hoping Devonte Adams (Week 15) falls to you at 19, but you get sniped by the guy picking at 18. You have my blessing to take Malik Nabers (Week 16) here, but that’s more than a 6-pick reach (his ADP is currently 26). So what do you do? Again, back to steps 1 and 2, but through a different lens.
You’ve already looked ahead and know you’re targeting McLaurin in Round 4. If you take him (or some other Commanders later on), as that’s the Week 17 game stack for Bijan, is there an option at your current pick that also serves as a Commanders game stack?
Bust out the chart you screenshotted earlier. Look at that! The Commanders play the Saints in Week 15 and the Eagles in Week 16. Olave’s probably gone by now, but Saquon (ADP 20) and DeVonta Smith (ADP 25) are still available and in line with value. You nab one of them, and now you’ve locked up McLaurin’s Week 16 and 17 opponents. Need to grab a Saint and Jayden Daniels, and you’ve got yourself a Commanders Omni-Stack. You did it via the Pre-Stack! When in doubt, return to 1) Best Available and 2) Look Ahead.
So, we’ve coined two terms and created a tortured acronym. But does this work?
It sure does, and here are my favorite ways to do it. Green highlights represent corresponding opponents.
- 1. Seahawks/Vikings/Packers/Bears – Look at this thing of beauty. If you stack these four teams, you’re a Lion and a Saint away from 4 team Omni-Stack! The ADPs and multiple viable options on these squads make this NFL scheduling gift highly achievable.
- 2. Cowboys/Bucs/Panthers – If I land Ceedee, I’m going for this one every time. If you can snag Mike Evans and DeVonta Smith at the 2/3 turn, you’ve got the Cowboys Omni-Stack all but secured.
- 3. Cowboys/Bucs/Panthers + Cards/Chargers/Pats – Since #2 is easily achievable as of this writing, perhaps you’ll try your hand at a bit more. If McBride falls to the 4/5 turn… why not? Obviously, the more teams you add, the harder this gets to pull off. You don’t want to reach, and you don’t want to build stacks to nowhere. But this one is still doable at value.
- 4. Commanders/Falcons/Raiders/Saints—I call this one the doughnut because there’s nothing in the middle. When the right opportunity presents itself, you can remedy that with an Eagle, Giant, Jag, or Packer (recall our Pre-Stacked example).
- 5. Broncos/Bengals/Colts/Titans – Perfect for your Ja’Marr Chase starts. Don’t forget to use BALATS GSFQ (17 > 15 & 16) to get more week 17 correlation.
- 6. Browns/Chiefs/Dolphins/Ravens/Texans/Steelers — Due to the cost of the primary Dolphins, Texans, and Ravens pass catchers, this one is difficult to pull off. But a Tyreek and Collins/Diggs/Tank and Zay/Andrews start is achievable, and viable Browns, Chiefs, and Steelers can be found in later rounds.
- 7. Bills/Cards/49ers/Jets/Lions/Pats/Rams – Hear me out… If #6 was hard, this one is Dr. Strange-level drafting. I don’t recommend trying, but… say you started with the Sun God, came back around with Deebo, and snagged Cooper Kupp in round 3, and then maybe McBride in Round 4… no, no, forget I said anything.
Here’s a cluster of all seven groupings for you to screenshot.
I want to be clear: There are several other ways to achieve Omni-Stacks. They can be larger or smaller, and as long as you follow BALATS GSFQ (17 > 15 & 16), you can find them.
Crumby acronyms and new stacking terminology aside, the more significant point here is that we can optimize our BBMV teams for Week 17 and increase our chances of getting there, at or near ADP, if we target the right groups of teams, fill our queues with the right players, and grab them at the correct values. It starts with your first-round pick. Look ahead and take the best available in that context. I hope I see you in the finals. Happy Best Ball SZN!
