Sport & Slate Type
The first two toggles define what kind of contest you are building lineups for. Getting this right is the foundation of everything else.
NBA vs NFL
Switches the optimizer between basketball and football. Each sport has a completely different lineup structure, salary cap logic, and position requirements. NBA Classic uses 8 slots (PG, SG, SF, PF, C, G, F, UTIL). NFL Classic uses 9 slots (QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, FLEX, DST). Switching sport also swaps the sample player pool to the appropriate game.
Always confirm your sport before importing a DraftKings CSV. If you import an NFL file while NBA is selected, the position matching will fail silently and produce invalid lineups.
Classic Mode
Classic contests draw from a full multi-game slate — typically 4 to 12 games on a given night. You build lineups using players from any of those games. The optimizer fills each positional slot (PG, SG, SF, etc.) with the best available player who fits within the salary cap.
A typical NBA Main Slate might have 8 games — you can use Donovan Mitchell from CLE and Paolo Banchero from ORL in the same lineup because they play in different games.
Classic GPP strategy is about finding the right balance between chalk (high-ownership popular plays) and contrarian value. The optimizer handles this through the Anti-Dupe buffer and exposure limits.
Showdown Captain Mode
Showdown contests are single-game slates. You pick 6 players from just the 2 teams playing that night. The lineup structure is: 1 Captain (CPT) + 5 FLEX. The Captain earns 1.5× points but costs 1.5× salary. Choosing the right captain is the single most important decision in a Showdown lineup — it is the highest-leverage play you make.
When you select Showdown, the player pool automatically shrinks to only the players from that single game. The optimizer rotates through a captain pool of the top projected players to give you diverse CPT selections across your lineup set.
KC @ BAL Showdown: CPT Patrick Mahomes ($14,400 = $9,600 × 1.5) scores 1.5× his actual fantasy points. If he scores 40 pts, your CPT slot scores 60 pts.
In Showdown GPP, the winning lineup almost always has a contrarian captain — not the most popular player. If 40% of the field has Mahomes as CPT, consider Kelce or Henry as your CPT to differentiate. The optimizer's rotating captain pool helps you explore these alternatives.
Every Showdown lineup must include players from BOTH teams. An all-one-team lineup is invalid on DraftKings and will be rejected at upload.