I tried out FantasyDraft throughout the month of January and I have a few thoughts and takeaways
No Late Swap
One of the main complaints about FanDuel is also the way FantasyDraft locks their contests. It isn’t a huge deal, it really sucks when you get hit with a late scratch but it doesn’t happen enough for me to question whether it’s worth using the site. As long as you keep in mind the risk with GTD’s the late swap shouldn’t give you too many headaches.
Drafting
I love the drafting structure on this site. FanDuel is the most restricted when it comes to drafting. Each player only gets one position, you can only draft 2 PG,SG,SF,PF and 1 C and there is no late swap. DraftKings gives you more options. I really like that a player can have two positions they can be drafted at and, of course, the late swap is always appreciated. FantasyDraft is my favourite lineup structure of the three sites. It is 8 spots, like DraftKings, but each player only has 1 position, like FanDuel. There are 3 categories, Guards/Forwards&Centers/Utility, you draft 3 Guards and 3 Forwards and you round out the lineup with 2 utility players. If you wanted, you could have a lineup with 5 of any position on the court. Use all 3 Guard slots and the 2 utility slots with 5 PGs or 5 SGs, same with the Forward/Center slots. FanDuel and DraftKings both have a cap of 4 players from one team, FantasyDraft lets you have 5 players from the same team. You are given $100,000 to build your lineup with. That is double DraftKings salary and is quite a bit more than FanDuel and their $60,000 cap. Player salaries are adjusted to reflect the cap. Here is Giannis’ salary on the 3 sites tonight.
DraftKings – $10,600
FanDuel – $11,500
FantasyDraft – $18,800
Scoring
FantasyDraft uses the same scoring breakdown as DraftKings. There is one small difference. DraftKings gives point for a double double and triple double, FantasyDraft has points for a double double or triple double. You lose 1.5 points compared to DraftKings, everything else is the same between the 2 sites are the same.
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Contests
If you have played DraftKings or FanDuel before you will be familiar with the different contest formats they have. I would usually play a $5 GPP and a few cash games. They are smaller contests compared to FD or DK, I didn’t come across a contest that had more than 1200 player max. With the smaller contest sizes comes smaller payouts. A $4 GPP contest on Draftkings has 35,000 entrants and a $115,000 prize pool with $5,000 going to first place. FantasyDraft’s 5 dollar GPP contests caps at 402 players and first place is only $250. This is the one big difference between FantasyDraft and the other 2 DFS sites. I know that FD and DK are the Coke and Pepsi of the DFS industry and they have a bigger community than FantasyDraft, but it is hard to pump money into a site when you can see the dramatic difference in payout.
Overall
Overall, FantasyDraft is a very easy site to use and it feels familiar without being a complete FD or DK clone. They made some good choices with exclusive features, picked some good things from both FD and DK but they dropped the ball with not having the late swap option. Playing Cash contest has the same feel as the other 2 sites, I would focus on cash games if you plan on adding FantasyDraft to you DFS rotation. Add a small GPP or 2 but you will want to build up your bankroll with the cash contests
Make sure to follow me on Twitter, @DFSBBallGuy
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