The Daily Data - 5/25/21 - MomentRanks Play Strategy
Using game theory to gain an edge in the new Top Shot fantasy format
Last week, MomentRanks, one of the leaders in the Top Shot data world announced an exciting new fantasy game called “Play”. Simply explained, you select 5 of your moments to create a daily lineup, and you compete with your lineup against thousands of others for Top Shot moments or packs.
Before I stumbled across Top Shot in late January, I was grinding the NBA daily fantasy sports (DFS) streets every night, so when I heard about the new Play feature from MR, I was extremely excited to dive in! Before I get into some of the strategy points below, it’s important to understand the basics of MR Play.
Breaking down the MR Score
Each player has two components that make up their score every day. Similar to many other sites, there is a “Base Score” which correlates directly to their stats.
Points - 1 Rebounds - 1 Assists - 1.5 Steals - 2 Blocks - 2
Then, the “Moment Boost” is added which is based on whether the player outperforms their rolling 10-day avg. in the play category of the specific moment.
Here is how Boost points are awarded for every stat over the player’s 10-day avg.
Points - 0.5 Assists - 5 3 Pointers - 7 Steals - 12 Blocks - 16
Additionally, if a player hits their boost they automatically receive a floor score based on the rarity of the moment. Common = 5, Rare = 8, Legendary = 12.
It seems like a pretty complicated scoring system, but it gets pretty easy to grasp after you play a few days and get the hang of it. The FAQ page on the MR site has a few different examples of player scoring if you want to check that out.
Current Game Styles in Play
Similar to DraftKings or FanDuel, MR Play has a couple of different ways to play. Commonly referred to as “Cash Games”, MR Play offers both public and private head-to-head matchups. Currently, the public matchups are the only ones which count in their H2H leaderboard standings. When you play the H2Hs, you only have to beat one other lineup, so you will likely find yourself picking players with the safest floor.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Daily Contest which is a large tournament (roughly 3k-5k participants per day) with a “Guaranteed Prize Pool” (GPP) of moments or packs to the Top 5 finishers. Because of the EXTREMELY top heavy payout structure, you will want to swing for the fences with upside players and moments who have the potential to hit a high ceiling.
When it comes to strategy in DFS, there are three different types of data categories that I like to use: Projections, Ownership, and Range of Outcomes. I am going to dig deeper on all three in order to help set everyone up with a good foundation and process for picking your lineups everyday!
Base Projections - Less Valuable Than You Think
I guess now is a good time to introduce the projections tool I have recently added to my Google Sheet. This is still a work in progress, but I anticipate this tab of the spreadsheet being dedicated to all things MomentRanks Play! (Click to enlarge)
I’ll be super straightforward and let everyone know that I take the easy way out by simply grabbing the raw projections from Establish The Run (my go-to DFS site) and catering them each day towards the specific MR Play scoring. This makes up the “Base Projection” shown on the left side of the sheet. You can easily find these kind of statistical projections on a number of different sites, but I want to overstate just how UNIMPORTANT these projections are to doing well in DFS.
Projections help us understand the ballpark range that a player is expected to land in, however they shouldn’t be treated as gospel. In other words, just because LeBron James is projected for 48.6 base points while Kevin Durant is projected for 47.7 base points, doesn’t mean that you should play Lebron over KD no matter what. Treat these players as equals, and move on to the next aspect of DFS data.
Ownership - Leveraging the Popularity Contest
For me, one of the most critical aspects of DFS is understanding and properly using ownership projections. As ETR’s Drew Dinkmeyer says, you want to win tournaments by scoring the least amount of points possible. This is an extremely counterintuitive statement, and I am sure that I will get in a few Twitter battles over it, but it’s true!
Scenario A: You pick a player who is in 50% of lineups and is projected to score the most points that day. They go out and score the most points that day, but now you have just rose the level of perfection that the rest of your lineup needs to hit. Since you are battling 50% of other lineups, you have a very slim margin for error with your other 4 picks.
Scenario B: You fade the chalky player above and instead pick a player who is only 10% owned. They end up being the highest scoring player on the night, and now the other 4 players have a bigger margin for error since you only have to beat 10% of other lineups. You may not even have to have the next 4 highest scorers to win, if you got the low owned guy right!
The trick with MR Play, is that ownership is currently hard to project as the historical data is just not widely available (aka there’s not much history yet). However, we can look at the price & circulation of a moment to help give us some navigational buoys for assumptions.
In reviewing today’s projections the disparity between the star players Points moments and 3 Pointer moments really stood out to me. Based on the price alone, I would expect that A LOT more MR Play GMs are going to use Points moments in their lineups. Now we can leverage this information based on the contest we are playing in.
Since points are obviously a more consistent statistic than 3-pointers, it would make sense to capitalize on the safer floor aspect of the points moments in your H2Hs. Since a lot of players will likely be utilizing the $7 Kawhi moment, then its probably best to just match this and not take a risk with his $19 3-pointer moment. By assuming the chalk plays correcty, you can easily turn your H2H matchups into 2v2 or 1v1 battles instead of the full 5v5.
On the flipside, it makes a lot of sense to play some 3-pointer moments in the daily contest tournament lineup. Since a lot less people own these lower circulation moments, you are setting yourself up for more shots at Scenario B from the above example. Additionally, 3-pointers have a higher Range of Outcomes than points.
Range of Outcomes - Embracing the Volatility
When thinking about Range of Outcomes in relation to the large tournaments, we really want to assume outlier performances will happen and major boost scores will be gained. Just to re-iterate on the types of moments available in each boost category, here’s a quick breakdown:
Points Boost - Dunk, Layup, Jump Shot
Assists Boost - Assist, Handles
3 Pointer, Steal, Block Boosts - Self-Explanatory
In order to help show the potential boost scores that are available in these outlier games, I did a quick exercise with Luka Doncic. I made a base projection using his season averages in each category, but then one-by-one I substituted his season high in each category. Using the boost thresholds from tonight, here’s how Luka would have scored in each of those season-high games.
2/12 vs. NO - 46 Points - 80.3 MR Score
5/1 vs. WAS - 20 Assists - 129.1 MR Score
3/21 @ POR - 8 3PMs - 88.1 MR Score
1/7 @ DEN - 5 Steals - 108.2 MR Score
1/13 @ CHA - 4 Blocks - 117.8 MR Score
Since this example keeps all things equal except the one statistical category he set a season-high in each game, it really highlights Luka’s high range of outcomes in Assists, Steals, and Blocks. When it comes to the large tournaments, we want to assume the performances that lead to the high MR scores will happen so that when they do, we can capitalize on these outlier scores.
Play it safe in the H2Hs. Swing for the fences in the tournaments!
A Word of Caution
By implementing some of the above principles into your daily MR Play process, you will likely be setting your lineups up well for a shot at the top prizes. However, in the famous words of Ricky Bobby:
Speaking only about the tournament strategies listed above, targeting lower ownership and high range of outcome players will make it so you finish last a lot more than you finish first. However, when things go right, your lineups will bubble up to the top pretty quickly, and you’ll have a nice shot at a takedown. The flip side is that you can play it safe in the tourneys and finish middle of the pack every night for mehhhhhhh?! Not as much fun.
Since the MR Play userbase and game styles are still SO NEW, I would also caution against getting too contrarian with your lineups. Simple strategies like playing a superstar’s Block moment instead of his Dunk moment can go a long way on the scorecard!
Good luck as we all continue to tackle this exciting new MR Play game. I’ll hopefully see you up at the top of the leaderboards! If you send me a Private H2H link in my Twitter DMs, I will gladly accept and we can have some back and forth on game theory while we are at it.
As always, excellent job ;)
Do you think that implementing a "budget" would bring an even better experience? Especially for people with smaller portfolios.
Also, this might actually boost the value of the cheap moments