Fanvest Fantasy — Conference Championship Movers and Strategy
How to attack the Fanvest player markets for the Conference Championships
With the recent launch of Fanvest Wagering Exchange’s new player based markets, the roster construction opportunities are endless. With so many options available, navigating this new market can be a challenge but certainly worthwhile for anybody who enjoys fantasy football.
The Biggest Movers in the FWX Markets
Very similar to Wild Card Weekend, the players who constitute a large quantity of their team’s fantasy production immediately saw a drastic rise in price. Getting in on these types of players early will be crucial to sustained trading success, as the market clearly can’t get enough of these guys. With that being said, there are a few outliers that are worth mentioning.
Leonard Fournette played 48/70 snaps on Sunday and saw 23 total touches, but it’s key to remember that backup RB Ronald Jones has been dealing with a broken finger and it was clear the coaches didn’t want to risk a potential reaggravation. Expect Jones to catch and potentially exceed Fournette in snaps and touches as the playoffs continue.
Coming off of knee and ankle injuries is never good, but it appears Kansas City RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire will be playing on championship Sunday. At this point, the concern for Clyde isn’t necessarily the injury, it’s how much the KC coaching staff will trust him in the Chiefs biggest game of the year. Assuming Darrell Williams and Le’Veon Bell stay involved, CEH could see anywhere from 45–80% of the Chiefs’ snaps at RB. If he lands closer to that 80% mark, the chances he posts one of the best fantasy scores of the weekend is incredibly high. Fanvesting into ambiguous situations is a fantastic high-risk, high-reward strategy — something all users should at least consider.
Learning From The Last Two Playoff Weekends
Both of the previous weeks have provided valuable insights into how fanvestors can attack the FWX player markets going forward.
Unlike the previous weekends that offered 6 and 4 game slates, championship Sunday only provides two games, leading to rather large gaps in positional pricing in some spots.
The most notable of those spots is the WR position, where the 3rd-most expensive WR, Tyreek Hill, outpaces the 4th-most expensive WR by $FBX 9 per share. That may come as no surprise given the massive target shares of those three top players, but it also opens up the opportunity to grab some very talented athletes who may just need a few extra targets to have the best fantasy outing of any WR.
Targeting the most expensive and reliable fantasy commodities may seem like a strong way to compete for 1st place, but it’s important to remember: those players still need to outscore their $FBX price per share in PPR points to pay off. Divisional Weekend, we saw dirt-cheap Darrell Williams wind up on quite a few of the top-performing rosters with a PPR score of 13.4. He was far from the highest-scoring player that weekend, but he was still the most valuable because he was the highest-scoring player relative to his price per share. That will be crucial for fanvestors this weekend.
Championship Sunday Strategy
Like we’ve already discussed, focusing on star players and injury news can help fanvestors capture an edge prior to kickoff, but what else can users do to take down 1st place?
Just like standard DFS, stacking a pass-catcher with your lineup’s QB is a fantastic way to maximize that lineup’s ceiling. With the added element of a SuperFlex position that enables users to roster multiple QBs, the stacking possibilities are truly endless.
Another difficult decision users will be faced with is how many shares of a specific player to buy. The unfortunate reality is there is no ‘one size fits all’ strategy and what’s optimal will depend greatly on the specific week in question. Arguably the best advice that could be given is to use shares as a sort of confidence interval. If a user is very confident Aaron Rodgers will be the highest scoring QB, it’s likely wise to roster 50 shares. Somewhat confident Leonard Fournette will be a top-3 RB? 10–20 shares may be the right choice.
Personally, I’ll be taking a special interest in players that are under 10% owned by the field. Why? The fewer competing lineups a player is on, the higher the chance that a strong fantasy performance will lead to a 1st place finish. If I roster an RB who’s only on 2% of teams and he ends up being the highest-scoring RB that day, I’ve effectively surpassed 98% of the field. Unlike traditional DFS, FWX makes ownership numbers public all throughout the week, so users can be acutely aware of how many competing rosters have a piece of their favorite player.
With so many options available what are you waiting for? It’s time to start fanvesting!
