DFS Optimizer FAQs
General Overview
What does the Lineup Generator do?
Quite simply, it allows you to create up to 150 lineups for any slate that are the best possible combinations of players based on the settings and projections that are available.
What players appear in the pool?
By default, all players that have a projection of at least zero points and have a salary for that slate appear. By default, the players who are listed as injured are hidden but that can be changed with a simple click.
What is the “Main” tab?
As the word main suggests, this is the primary tab for generating lineups. It houses the player pool sections in three tabs (Included, Excluded, Locked), as well as the DFS Site indicator, player search box, position filter, number of lineups box, and the all important generate button. This will be the tab that you make most of you player decision in; whether to lock players, exclude them from the player pool, adjust their projections, and exposure percentages.
What is the “DFS Site” tab?
This tab is where you select your slates and DFS provider. Aside from selecting DFS sites and slates, it also allows you to set the maximum and minimum lineup salary to be used for your builds.
What is the “Construction” tab?
We have to be able to customize our lineup build settings somewhere right? This is that tab. It’s also the only tab with several sub-tabs. Setting everything from team and position preferences to player preferences and even stacks are handled in this tab. Further down in the FAQs is a complete list of questions pertaining to this tab.
How do I generate lineups?
The Lineup Generator is designed to be as simple or complex as you’d like.
● FanDuel: Simply type in the number of lineups you’d like to generate and then click the “Generate” button.
● Yahoo: Same as FanDuel, simply type in the number of lineups you’d like and then click “Generate”.
● DraftKings: In order to generate lineups for DraftKings slates, you must change at least four things before the “Generate” button is clickable. Those four things are counted as including/excluding a player in/from the player pool.
How do I see the lineups that were generated?
Below the player pool box, you’ll see a blank lineup, in the roster setup for that slate. Once the lineup(s) is/are generated, they will populate in that section. On the left hand side you can see all of the players, and how many/what % of lineups, those players were used and can sort by position. You can also sort the lineups based on projected total points (either high to low or low to high) or salary remaining (high to low or low to high).
Can the lineups be exported to DFS sites?
Yes. The lineups are designed to be exported on to whichever site you have generated the lineups for. Each site handles the upload differently and you’ll have to check with the respective sites as to the best way to upload them.
Do I have click “Save” each time I make a change?
Yes. It’s always a good idea to hit the save button to make sure the changes are reflected in the generator.
How do I get a the tab overlay to close if it’s not closing?
Sometimes, like when selecting a DFS site and slate, clicking save will close the overlay automatically. However other tabs clicking save only saves the settings. You’ll have to click the “X” in the red box in the top right corner to close the overlay and return to the player pool.
Using The Main Tab
What does each column mean?
Here is the meaning of each column in the player pool section:
● Incl: Means Include. Each player that is checked in that column will be included in the player pool that lineups are made from.
● Player: This column shows not only the player name but also the logo of their team, their position, and the Heart, Skull, and Lock buttons (explained further down).
● Match: Shows the two teams who are playing in that player’s game. The player’s team is highlighted. Teams on the left are the road team while teams on the right are the home team.
● Game: Shows the date and time of the game based on the Eastern Time Zone.
● FPPG: Stands for Fantasy Points Per Game and is taken from the DFS site you are currently building lineups for.
● Sal: Means Salary. This that player’s salary for the slate and site you have selected.
● Draft%: This column will fill in once projected ownership/draft percentage/rostership has come in for that slate and DFS site.
● Projections: This column shows the projection for each player for that site’s scoring.
● Exposure%: Shows the percentage of lineups a player could appear in when generating. It defaults to 100% but can be changed in a few ways (see further down).
● Value: In DFS, the term value is derived by this formula Value=(Proj. Pts./(Salary/1000)). I.e. a player projected for 20 points at $8,000 has a value of 2.5 20/8=2.5.
Clicking at the top of any of the columns with arrows next to their name will sort the player pool by that column either ascending or descending.
How do I see players from only one position?
Just below the “Main” tab button, you’ll see a box with “All Positions” showing. Clicking on the dropdown will allow you to select QB, RB, WR, TE, Flex, or DST as a filter.
How do I search for either a certain player?
Next to the DFS site icon, you’ll see a search bar. Typing in the player’s name will start a string search. For example, typing “Pat” will show not only every player on the slate who’s name starts Pat but also any player/DST that has pat as part of their name, i.e. Cordarrelle Patterson or New England Patriots DST.
How do I see only players from one team?
Using the search bar, next to the DFS site icon, you can type in the team abbreviation shown in the Match column and the player pool will show only players/DST for that one team. Certain team abbreviations will also show players whose name has that combo of letters who are on the slate i.e. ARI also shows Marcus Mariota and Kadarius Toney.
How do I lock a player into lineups?
Next to each player in the player pool is a lock icon. By clicking on the lock icon a pop-up will come up with a few options on it.
● If a player is only eligible for one spot: The pop-up will only have that position as an option. It will default to locking that player into 100% of lineups. You can adjust that by either clicking the up or down arrow or by highlighting the number and typing in the percentage you want.
● If a player is eligible for more than one spot: The pop-up will have two options showing. One will have the percentage of lineups for their main position while the other option will show the percentage of lineups for the flex position. The total between the two CAN’T exceed 100%. This allows you the ability to lock a player into specific positions in your lineups if you’d like.
● For Showdown slates: The pop-up will show Captain and Flex position options, based on the provider and slate selected. This allows you to lock a player in as a captain or just a flex a certain amount of times in your builds. Just like the two-position pop-up the total between the two CAN’T exceed 100%.
One thing to keep in mind, if a player is locked in 100% of lineups, it will be 100% of lineups up until the exposure cap. If you set the exposure cap (under “Construction” tab) is set at 70% so that one player can’t appear in more than 70% of lineups, a player locked at 100% of lineups will still show in no more than 70% of builds. If you have the exposure cap set at 70% and have a player locked at 50% of lineups, they’ll appear in 35% of your lineups.
How do I remove a player from the player pool?
To the left of each player’s name is a check box. The check box is filled in by default. Click the box and the player will be removed from the player pool. If you want to re-add the player to the pool, click on the “Excluded” tab then the check box to the left of their name.
What do the Heart and Skull icons do?
Next to the lock icon, you’ll see a Heart and Skull next to each player. The heart means that you like the player on that slate while the skull symbolizes dislike of that player. Clicking on them will either upgrade them slightly (Heart) or downgrade them slightly (Skull) in terms of how many lineups they appear in when generating lineups.
Can I change a player’s projection?
Yes. By clicking in the box showing the projection you can type a new projection in for any number of players you want to. Once a new projection is typed in, a yellow box with a curved arrow will appear. Clicking that icon will revert the player back to their original projection.
Can I change a player’s exposure cap?
Yes. This can be done a couple of different ways. The first way to do it is to change every player to the same number. This is done under the “Construction” tab and the “Player Preferences” tab by changing the Exposure Cap slider. The second way to change the exposure is by clicking into the box next to a player and either clicking the up or down arrow or simply typing in the percent you want that player capped at.
Can I see more players at one time?
Yes, some. Below the player pool box on the left-hand side you can change the “Showing:” box from 15 to 25.
How do I see more than the first 15/25 players?
Below the player pool box on the right-hand side there are page numbers. It shows a double arrow facing left, a single arrow facing left, both of those facing right on either side of the page numbers. Clicking the next page number shows the next 15 or 25 players sorted by whichever column is sorted. The pagination of the pool helps it load faster.
What does the “Value” column help with?
A lot of times we’ll see multiple players at the same position, or for flex spots, be projected for the same number of points. The value column helps to show that while they might be projected for the same number of points, the less expensive player might be the better way to go to give you more value in your lineup and more money for other players.
Using The DFS Site Tab
How do I change to a different DFS site?
Clicking either the DFS Site logo in the top left corner of the player pool area or the DFS Site tab will bring up the tab to change the site and/or slates. Click the radio button next to the site you want to play and the slates which switch. Then click the slate you want and then save. A pop-up will tell you that the settings will go back to the defaults, click “Ok” and the player pool will load the new slate.
How do I change how much salary my lineups use?
The salary used section under this tab shows Minimum and Maximum salary to be used. They’re set at 0 and the site maximum by default. If you want your lineups to use less than the maximum amount allowable, either click the up or down arrow or type in a lower number than the maximum. For example, if you want to max out at $45,000 on DraftKings, thus leaving $5,000 on the table, type in $45,000 into the maximum box and the save button.
How do I tell if it’s a single game slate or not?
Next to the name of each slate is the number of games on that slate in parentheses.
● On DraftKings: Single-game slates are known as Showdown slates
● On FanDuel: Single-game slates are shown as team vs. team (1)
● On Yahoo: Single-game slates are shown as NFL SG team vs. team (1)
What is the Default DFS Provider dropdown?
If you have a preferred site that you play DFS on, you can set the default DFS provider as that site and the Lineup Generator will load the main slate for that site when it first loads.
Using The Construction Tab
What does each tab on the Construction tab do?
The construction tab is the main tab we use for setting the roster perimeters before generating lineups.
● Team Preferences: This section allows you to determine the number of players from each team, and the teams in general to be used in building lineups.
● Position Preferences: This section is what allows you to determine what percentage of your overall salary budget will be allocated to each position on the roster.
● Player Preferences: This section is what sets the overall settings for players from exposure cap to what factors you want to to take into consideration over others to flex preferences.
● Team Stacks: This section allows you to setup stacks of players on one team in a few ways.
● Game Stacks: This section allows you to setup stacks of players in one game to get exposure to both teams.
Team Preferences Section
What are the Min and Max boxes?
Each site allows you to use up to a certain number of players from one team in a single lineup. The Min box is defaulted to zero while the Max is defaulted to that site’s max number. If you want fewer players on any given team, you can lower the Max number. If you want to guarantee that a player from certain teams appear in lineups, raise the Min number to at least 1 for those teams.
What does the Hide box in the Team Preferences section do?
Don’t want players from a certain or some teams to show up in the player pool and not be in your lineups? Simply click the checkbox in the Hide column next to that team’s logo and every player from that team will be taken out of the player pool.
Can I set all teams to the same maximum number of players?
Yes. Clicking the up or down arrow or typing in a number in the box at the top of this section will set every team to that max number.
I see a Gm or letter next to a team in the hide column. What is that? If you’ve used a team in either a team stack (the letter) or a game stack (the Gm), those icons will appear in that column. It blocks you from hiding the team from the player pool unless you remove the stack that team used in.
Player Preferences Section
That’s a lot of sliders, what do they all do?
Let’s take a look at these sliders based on each grouping of them starting with the top then the bottom.
The top section of sliders changes players available in the player pool BEFORE generating lineups.
● Value Pts./$: This slider will narrow the player pool based on the value min and max that you set. The default values of the sliders are the min and max values in the whole player pool.
● Salary: This parameter refers to the min and max individual player salaries in the pool. If you want to exclude players below or above a certain threshold you can adjust the min and max values of the slider to remove them.
● Projected Pts.: This slider will remove players from the pool who are below the min set here or above the max set here.
● Draft %: The slider here can help remove players who are projected to be low rostered or highly rostered, or chalk, players. Doing this can help you build lineups for tournaments or cash games depending on the way you set the min and max.
● Exposure Cap: This is where the Exposure column in the player pool comes from. If you want ALL players to be capped at lower percentage of potential lineups, move the slider to the percentage you want. I.e. if you want an individual player to appear in no more than 65% of lineups, move this slider to 65% and all players will show 65 in the Exposure column.
The bottom section of sliders changes how the players are used WHILE the generator is generating lineups.
● Weather Factors: Moving the slider up or down weighs weather factors (wind, rain, snow) higher or lower for players in games with weather concerns.
● Projections: Moving the slider up or down weighs how heavily or not the projected points total is taken into account. Projections are just a part of the algorithm that is used when the generator is building lineups.
● Likes/Dislikes: Moving this slider up heavily weights positively (players with Hearts) or negatively (players with skulls) when building lineups. Moving the slider down down plays the weight given to those same players.
● Player Usage: This slider controls the uniqueness of lineups. Moving the slider lower shrinks the total number of players being used in the lineups. Moving the slider higher increases the number of players being used in the lineups.
● Variance: There is built in variance into the generator algorithm. That is to say that sometimes projections are increased or decreased as lineups are generated. This slider will increase or decrease the effect of the variance as lineups are generated.
The bottom sliders can also be changed by moving the points of the spider web to the right.
Will it generate lineups with offensive players facing defenses?
No. The default setting is to keep offensive players away from the opposing defense. If you check the box in the Player Preference section you can allow offensive players vs. opposing defenses.
Can I set a position preference for the flex spot?
Yes. Simply make one position higher than the others in the Flex Preferences section and it will put more of that position in the flex spots when generating lineups.
Can I change all of the settings and still get all of the lineups I want? While changing all of the settings on this tab is possible, setting too narrow of constraints on the generator will likely cause it to not be able to produce all of the wanted lineups. Changing a few settings or keeping the ranges broad for several settings will help the generator produce as many lineups as possible.
Team Stacks Section
What is a team stack?
Stacking a team means that you want between 2-5 players from one team in a lineup together. Stacking a team is a way to maximize fantasy points from a team you expect to have a big scoring day.
How do I set a team stack?
Click the “Add Stack” button then select the team you want to stack from the drop down and select the size of the stack you want.
How do I control the players in the stack?
There are a few ways of doing this. If you don’t have a preference, you can use the default, Basic, option which simply selects the number of desired from the team and puts them in a lineup together. If you want more specific ways:
● Use Positional Settings: You can select the specific position(s) for each number of player in the stack. I.e. if it’s a 3-player stack you can make Player 1 a QB, Player 2 a WR or TE, and Player 3 a RB or DST or any combination you want.
● Use Per-Player Settings: You can specify exactly what percentage of the stacks you want each player to appear in. I.e. if it’s a 3-player stack you have 300 total percentage points to allot so you could say you want the QB in 100% and then spread the rest out amongst RBs, WRs, and/or TEs.
Do I have to fill out all positions or percentages if using those methods? Yes. Each player row for the position option has to have at least one check in it and all of hte percentage allotment must be accounted for. If they’re not the stack won’t be valid or used in lineups when generating.
What does the Min % box mean?
Each stack (including Game stacks) will be given an equal share of the overall number of lineups requested. An individual stack's "Min. %" is relative to that share. If you have 2 stacks, set Stack A's "Min. %" to 80%, and request 100 lineups, that stack will appear in 40% of total lineups because 80% of 100 lineups evenly distributed across 100 lineups (100/2) = 40.
How many team stacks can I add?
You can add several, depending on the slate size, but each stack makes building the lineups more complex and thus might not give you as many lineups as requested.
Are there slates that team stacks don’t work with?
Yes. Single-game slates don’t allow for stacking. Simply put, each lineup is automatically a team stack in a single-game slate.
Why isn’t a team that’s on the slate showing in the dropdown?
If you have a team hidden in the “Team Preferences” section they won’t show in the drop down to be selected for a stack. If you want the team to show up again, simply uncheck the checkbox next to them in the “Team Preferences” section.
How do I remove a team stack from the list?
If you’ve created too many stacks or decide you don’t want to use stacks for this run, simply click the “Remove Stack” button and the most recently created stack will be removed. If you want to clear all of the stacks, click the remove button as many times as there are stacks.
Game Stacks Section
What is a Game Stack?
Similar to a team stack, a game stack is grouping 3-8 players from the same NFL game in a lineup together. The idea is to maximize the scoring potential of the lineup from a projected high-scoring game on the slate.
How do I create a game stack?
Just like with team stacks, click the “Add Stack” button and then select a game from the dropdown. All games on the slate will appear in order of start time. Once a game is selected, you will be able to select the team you want as the main team, aka Team 1, and the size of each team’s stack. Lastly select the percentage of lineups where Team 1 is used as the main team.
Can I control what players appear for each team in a game stack? The short answer is yes. If this isn’t something you care about, simply check the Use Basic radio button and the generator will decide for you which players to use in the stacks that fit the other constraints, aka number of players for each team as well as how often each team is the main team. If you want to set the positions that are used for each team when it’s the main team and when each team is the comeback (or second team), select the Use Position Settings option.
Just like in the team stacks section, you can select the position(s) you want each player to be able to be. This time though, you make selections twice for each team, once as the main team and once as the comeback. For example if you select a game and set Team 1 to have 3 players and Team 2 to have 2 players, when you’re selecting the positions you’ll see Team 1 showing 3 players in the top section and Team 2 showing 2 players in the next section. After that they’ll flip so Team 2 will have 3 players and Team 1 will have two players.
Do I have to fill out all positions if using that method?
Yes. If you don’t have at least one check at a position for every player number it won’t count the stack when generating lineups.
How do I remove a stack?
If you’ve added too many game stacks or simply don’t want to use them anymore or for this run, click the “Remove Stack” button as many times as you'd like to remove a stack. It will remove the most recent one made first.
What does the Min % box mean?
Each stack (including Game stacks) will be given an equal share of the overall number of lineups requested. An individual stack's "Min. %" is relative to that share. If you have 2 stacks, set Stack A's "Min. %" to 80%, and request 100 lineups, that stack will appear in 40% of total lineups because 80% of 100 lineups evenly distributed across 100 lineups (100/2) = 40.
Why isn’t a team that’s on the slate showing in the dropdown?
If you have a team hidden in the “Team Preferences” section they won’t show in the drop down to be selected for a stack. If you want the team to show up again, simply uncheck the checkbox next to them in the “Team Preferences” section.
Are there slates that game stacks can’t be used?
Yes, single-game slates or showdowns don’t allow for game stacks since the entire slate is a game stack.
How many game stacks can I add?
You can add several, depending on the slate size, but each stack makes building the lineups more complex and thus might not give you as many lineups as requested.
Why isn’t a game that’s on the slate showing in the dropdown?
If you have a team hidden in the “Team Preferences” section the game with that team won’t show in the drop down to be selected for a stack. If you want the game to show up again, simply uncheck the checkbox next to them in the “Team Preferences” section.
What To Do After Generating Lineups
So I’ve generated a lineup or lineups. What next?
The lineups will have populated below the player pool box and be sorted in the way you’ve chosen to sort them as listed in the General Overview section.
Aside from exporting lineups, what else is there to do?
While the main purpose is to export the builds, we can still tweak them at this stage. There are a few ways to do that. The main way to tweak them is to swap players out of individual lineups for others. The other way to do it is to save specific lineups by clicking the “Save” button at the top of each and then if/when you rerun the lineups for that slate, you can still have the saved lineups as part of the export.
How do I swap a player out of a lineup?
If you like most of a lineup but want one or two players to be different than ones generated, click the crossing arrows next to a player’s name. A list of the three highest projected players for that position, who fit under the total salary cap, will appear as will a search bar. If you don’t like any of the three players suggested, you can start typing a player’s name you’d like to swap in and it will appear, provided he’s not already in that specific lineup.
How can I see all of the lineups with a particular player(s) in them?
In the the list on the left side of the screen each player that appears in at least one lineup is shown sorted from most lineups to the fewest. To the left of each player is a magnifying glass icon, clicking it for a player will automatically bring the lineups with that player to the top of lineup area (sorted how you have the lineups sorted) with the player’s name highlighted.
If you want to see lineups with a combo of certain players, you can click the magnifying glass icon for two or more players and those lineups will show up at the top of the lineup area with each player highlighted.
What happens to the lineup count after swapping players?
If you swap out players from the lineups that are generated, each time a player is swapped the count on the left hand side will update automatically. If a player gets added for the first time, they will get added to the bottom of the list after being swapped in.
Is there a late-swap feature or mass player replace feature?
Currently the best way to do this if a player is ruled out or inactive is one of three ways. Firstly, you can search for the player name and uncheck the include column to exclude them from the player pool. Secondly, you can change their projected points to 0 and then they won’t be put into any lineups. Or thirdly, you can click the magnifying glass icon to bring up the lineups that player is in and then click the swap button to swap them out for another player.
I am ready to export the lineup(s) from the Generator. How do I do that? Great! If you’re all done running the lineups and have them set the way you want, there are two ways to export the lineups. The quickest way to export them is to click in the green “Export All” button above the lineup section. That will export all generated and saved lineups. The second way to exporting them is, at the top of the first lineup and click the “Export All Lineups (#)” option. These will generate a .csv (excel) file that can then be uploaded to any of the DFS sites for that specific slate.
What if I don’t like many of the lineups that were generated?
Well, that does happen sometimes. The first thing you should do is to save the lineup(s) that you do like. Then click the “Clear All” button above the lineup section. This button will clear all generated lineups, but not saved ones, and all settings that you’d previously set including stacks.
What if I don’t like how players have been used in lineups?
You can do a few things to adjust this. Firstly, you can swap a player in for ones who are used too often. Secondly, you can adjust the global exposure cap or individual player exposures in the Player Preferences section and/or the player pool. Thirdly, you can change
the players who are locked, liked, disliked, and/or excluded, or their projections. Options two and three require the lineups to be rerun once the settings are changed.
What does the checkbox above each lineup do?
Unchecking that checkbox keeps that lineup from being exported with the others. If you like most of or almost all of the run of lineups, you can uncheck the lineups you don’t like and export the rest to save time and not have to rerun them again.
Troubleshooting
What do I do if I don’t get the amount of lineups I wanted?
Well this is a bit of an open-ended question. If you get close to the number but not all, you can slightly tweak some of the settings you put in like raising the exposure cap or the salary constraints. If there are far fewer generated than requested, bigger changes are required. Perhaps the stacks or percentages for locks are too restrictive or too many teams are hidden.
What do I do if players are showing in too many lineups?
This will happen sometimes. The exposure caps and/or lock percentages are not exact. The Generator will try and keep as close to those as possible but ultimately trying to generate as close to the number of lineups as requested is the goal. If you’re needing the exposures to be as exact as possible, you can swap players in or out to achieve the desired percentages.
What does “No players fit the chosen constraints” mean?
If you are getting this error, it means that there aren’t any players for that slate yet or the filters/settings are too constraining. The most likely time seeing this message is if you’re trying to build lineups too early in the week and the projections haven’t been read in yet, likely overnight on a Tuesday. The other most likely time to see it is if you’ve gone to the last page of the player pool and no players are on the page.
I’ve asked for several stacks and didn’t get them all?
This too can happen sometimes. If you’ve created complex stacks, numerous ones, team stacks and game stacks overlap, or if a stack you’ve chosen is high in salary. If you’ve made adjustments to the stacks requested and still aren’t getting all of the ones requested, try running fewer lineups and a portion of the wanted stacks in order to make two runs of lineups with the other part of the stacks in the second run.
Why won’t a player show up in the player pool?
There are a few reasons a player may not show up in the pool. The most common reason is that they don’t have a projection. This happens if a player is far down on the depth chart or if it’s a single-game slate and they are low on the depth chart. The second reason is that they
don’t have a salary on that site. It’s possible that a player isn’t on the slate on the DFS provider either because they’d been injured/out or the game isn’t on the slate you’ve selected. Contact support if you believe a player should be appearing and isn’t.
When to contact support?
If a feature or function doesn’t appear to be working as advertised and you’ve tried a few different times to use it and have consulted the FAQs. Contact support to make them aware of the issue(s) you are seeing. Be aware that some issues can’t be reproduced but when contacting support, be as specific as possible about what settings are set and/or stacks are picked and what the issue is on which DFS site. That will speed up the troubleshooting as well as make it easier to reproduce the issue.
What does the Lineup Generator do?
Quite simply, it allows you to create up to 150 lineups for any slate that are the best possible combinations of players based on the settings and projections that are available.
What players appear in the pool?
By default, all players that have a projection of at least zero points and have a salary for that slate appear. By default, the players who are listed as injured are hidden but that can be changed with a simple click.
What is the “Main” tab?
As the word main suggests, this is the primary tab for generating lineups. It houses the player pool sections in three tabs (Included, Excluded, Locked), as well as the DFS Site indicator, player search box, position filter, number of lineups box, and the all important generate button. This will be the tab that you make most of you player decision in; whether to lock players, exclude them from the player pool, adjust their projections, and exposure percentages.
What is the “DFS Site” tab?
This tab is where you select your slates and DFS provider. Aside from selecting DFS sites and slates, it also allows you to set the maximum and minimum lineup salary to be used for your builds.
What is the “Construction” tab?
We have to be able to customize our lineup build settings somewhere right? This is that tab. It’s also the only tab with several sub-tabs. Setting everything from team and position preferences to player preferences and even stacks are handled in this tab. Further down in the FAQs is a complete list of questions pertaining to this tab.
How do I generate lineups?
The Lineup Generator is designed to be as simple or complex as you’d like.
● FanDuel: Simply type in the number of lineups you’d like to generate and then click the “Generate” button.
● Yahoo: Same as FanDuel, simply type in the number of lineups you’d like and then click “Generate”.
● DraftKings: In order to generate lineups for DraftKings slates, you must change at least four things before the “Generate” button is clickable. Those four things are counted as including/excluding a player in/from the player pool.
How do I see the lineups that were generated?
Below the player pool box, you’ll see a blank lineup, in the roster setup for that slate. Once the lineup(s) is/are generated, they will populate in that section. On the left hand side you can see all of the players, and how many/what % of lineups, those players were used and can sort by position. You can also sort the lineups based on projected total points (either high to low or low to high) or salary remaining (high to low or low to high).
Can the lineups be exported to DFS sites?
Yes. The lineups are designed to be exported on to whichever site you have generated the lineups for. Each site handles the upload differently and you’ll have to check with the respective sites as to the best way to upload them.
Do I have click “Save” each time I make a change?
Yes. It’s always a good idea to hit the save button to make sure the changes are reflected in the generator.
How do I get a the tab overlay to close if it’s not closing?
Sometimes, like when selecting a DFS site and slate, clicking save will close the overlay automatically. However other tabs clicking save only saves the settings. You’ll have to click the “X” in the red box in the top right corner to close the overlay and return to the player pool.
Using The Main Tab
What does each column mean?
Here is the meaning of each column in the player pool section:
● Incl: Means Include. Each player that is checked in that column will be included in the player pool that lineups are made from.
● Player: This column shows not only the player name but also the logo of their team, their position, and the Heart, Skull, and Lock buttons (explained further down).
● Match: Shows the two teams who are playing in that player’s game. The player’s team is highlighted. Teams on the left are the road team while teams on the right are the home team.
● Game: Shows the date and time of the game based on the Eastern Time Zone.
● FPPG: Stands for Fantasy Points Per Game and is taken from the DFS site you are currently building lineups for.
● Sal: Means Salary. This that player’s salary for the slate and site you have selected.
● Draft%: This column will fill in once projected ownership/draft percentage/rostership has come in for that slate and DFS site.
● Projections: This column shows the projection for each player for that site’s scoring.
● Exposure%: Shows the percentage of lineups a player could appear in when generating. It defaults to 100% but can be changed in a few ways (see further down).
● Value: In DFS, the term value is derived by this formula Value=(Proj. Pts./(Salary/1000)). I.e. a player projected for 20 points at $8,000 has a value of 2.5 20/8=2.5.
Clicking at the top of any of the columns with arrows next to their name will sort the player pool by that column either ascending or descending.
How do I see players from only one position?
Just below the “Main” tab button, you’ll see a box with “All Positions” showing. Clicking on the dropdown will allow you to select QB, RB, WR, TE, Flex, or DST as a filter.
How do I search for either a certain player?
Next to the DFS site icon, you’ll see a search bar. Typing in the player’s name will start a string search. For example, typing “Pat” will show not only every player on the slate who’s name starts Pat but also any player/DST that has pat as part of their name, i.e. Cordarrelle Patterson or New England Patriots DST.
How do I see only players from one team?
Using the search bar, next to the DFS site icon, you can type in the team abbreviation shown in the Match column and the player pool will show only players/DST for that one team. Certain team abbreviations will also show players whose name has that combo of letters who are on the slate i.e. ARI also shows Marcus Mariota and Kadarius Toney.
How do I lock a player into lineups?
Next to each player in the player pool is a lock icon. By clicking on the lock icon a pop-up will come up with a few options on it.
● If a player is only eligible for one spot: The pop-up will only have that position as an option. It will default to locking that player into 100% of lineups. You can adjust that by either clicking the up or down arrow or by highlighting the number and typing in the percentage you want.
● If a player is eligible for more than one spot: The pop-up will have two options showing. One will have the percentage of lineups for their main position while the other option will show the percentage of lineups for the flex position. The total between the two CAN’T exceed 100%. This allows you the ability to lock a player into specific positions in your lineups if you’d like.
● For Showdown slates: The pop-up will show Captain and Flex position options, based on the provider and slate selected. This allows you to lock a player in as a captain or just a flex a certain amount of times in your builds. Just like the two-position pop-up the total between the two CAN’T exceed 100%.
One thing to keep in mind, if a player is locked in 100% of lineups, it will be 100% of lineups up until the exposure cap. If you set the exposure cap (under “Construction” tab) is set at 70% so that one player can’t appear in more than 70% of lineups, a player locked at 100% of lineups will still show in no more than 70% of builds. If you have the exposure cap set at 70% and have a player locked at 50% of lineups, they’ll appear in 35% of your lineups.
How do I remove a player from the player pool?
To the left of each player’s name is a check box. The check box is filled in by default. Click the box and the player will be removed from the player pool. If you want to re-add the player to the pool, click on the “Excluded” tab then the check box to the left of their name.
What do the Heart and Skull icons do?
Next to the lock icon, you’ll see a Heart and Skull next to each player. The heart means that you like the player on that slate while the skull symbolizes dislike of that player. Clicking on them will either upgrade them slightly (Heart) or downgrade them slightly (Skull) in terms of how many lineups they appear in when generating lineups.
Can I change a player’s projection?
Yes. By clicking in the box showing the projection you can type a new projection in for any number of players you want to. Once a new projection is typed in, a yellow box with a curved arrow will appear. Clicking that icon will revert the player back to their original projection.
Can I change a player’s exposure cap?
Yes. This can be done a couple of different ways. The first way to do it is to change every player to the same number. This is done under the “Construction” tab and the “Player Preferences” tab by changing the Exposure Cap slider. The second way to change the exposure is by clicking into the box next to a player and either clicking the up or down arrow or simply typing in the percent you want that player capped at.
Can I see more players at one time?
Yes, some. Below the player pool box on the left-hand side you can change the “Showing:” box from 15 to 25.
How do I see more than the first 15/25 players?
Below the player pool box on the right-hand side there are page numbers. It shows a double arrow facing left, a single arrow facing left, both of those facing right on either side of the page numbers. Clicking the next page number shows the next 15 or 25 players sorted by whichever column is sorted. The pagination of the pool helps it load faster.
What does the “Value” column help with?
A lot of times we’ll see multiple players at the same position, or for flex spots, be projected for the same number of points. The value column helps to show that while they might be projected for the same number of points, the less expensive player might be the better way to go to give you more value in your lineup and more money for other players.
Using The DFS Site Tab
How do I change to a different DFS site?
Clicking either the DFS Site logo in the top left corner of the player pool area or the DFS Site tab will bring up the tab to change the site and/or slates. Click the radio button next to the site you want to play and the slates which switch. Then click the slate you want and then save. A pop-up will tell you that the settings will go back to the defaults, click “Ok” and the player pool will load the new slate.
How do I change how much salary my lineups use?
The salary used section under this tab shows Minimum and Maximum salary to be used. They’re set at 0 and the site maximum by default. If you want your lineups to use less than the maximum amount allowable, either click the up or down arrow or type in a lower number than the maximum. For example, if you want to max out at $45,000 on DraftKings, thus leaving $5,000 on the table, type in $45,000 into the maximum box and the save button.
How do I tell if it’s a single game slate or not?
Next to the name of each slate is the number of games on that slate in parentheses.
● On DraftKings: Single-game slates are known as Showdown slates
● On FanDuel: Single-game slates are shown as team vs. team (1)
● On Yahoo: Single-game slates are shown as NFL SG team vs. team (1)
What is the Default DFS Provider dropdown?
If you have a preferred site that you play DFS on, you can set the default DFS provider as that site and the Lineup Generator will load the main slate for that site when it first loads.
Using The Construction Tab
What does each tab on the Construction tab do?
The construction tab is the main tab we use for setting the roster perimeters before generating lineups.
● Team Preferences: This section allows you to determine the number of players from each team, and the teams in general to be used in building lineups.
● Position Preferences: This section is what allows you to determine what percentage of your overall salary budget will be allocated to each position on the roster.
● Player Preferences: This section is what sets the overall settings for players from exposure cap to what factors you want to to take into consideration over others to flex preferences.
● Team Stacks: This section allows you to setup stacks of players on one team in a few ways.
● Game Stacks: This section allows you to setup stacks of players in one game to get exposure to both teams.
Team Preferences Section
What are the Min and Max boxes?
Each site allows you to use up to a certain number of players from one team in a single lineup. The Min box is defaulted to zero while the Max is defaulted to that site’s max number. If you want fewer players on any given team, you can lower the Max number. If you want to guarantee that a player from certain teams appear in lineups, raise the Min number to at least 1 for those teams.
What does the Hide box in the Team Preferences section do?
Don’t want players from a certain or some teams to show up in the player pool and not be in your lineups? Simply click the checkbox in the Hide column next to that team’s logo and every player from that team will be taken out of the player pool.
Can I set all teams to the same maximum number of players?
Yes. Clicking the up or down arrow or typing in a number in the box at the top of this section will set every team to that max number.
I see a Gm or letter next to a team in the hide column. What is that? If you’ve used a team in either a team stack (the letter) or a game stack (the Gm), those icons will appear in that column. It blocks you from hiding the team from the player pool unless you remove the stack that team used in.
Player Preferences Section
That’s a lot of sliders, what do they all do?
Let’s take a look at these sliders based on each grouping of them starting with the top then the bottom.
The top section of sliders changes players available in the player pool BEFORE generating lineups.
● Value Pts./$: This slider will narrow the player pool based on the value min and max that you set. The default values of the sliders are the min and max values in the whole player pool.
● Salary: This parameter refers to the min and max individual player salaries in the pool. If you want to exclude players below or above a certain threshold you can adjust the min and max values of the slider to remove them.
● Projected Pts.: This slider will remove players from the pool who are below the min set here or above the max set here.
● Draft %: The slider here can help remove players who are projected to be low rostered or highly rostered, or chalk, players. Doing this can help you build lineups for tournaments or cash games depending on the way you set the min and max.
● Exposure Cap: This is where the Exposure column in the player pool comes from. If you want ALL players to be capped at lower percentage of potential lineups, move the slider to the percentage you want. I.e. if you want an individual player to appear in no more than 65% of lineups, move this slider to 65% and all players will show 65 in the Exposure column.
The bottom section of sliders changes how the players are used WHILE the generator is generating lineups.
● Weather Factors: Moving the slider up or down weighs weather factors (wind, rain, snow) higher or lower for players in games with weather concerns.
● Projections: Moving the slider up or down weighs how heavily or not the projected points total is taken into account. Projections are just a part of the algorithm that is used when the generator is building lineups.
● Likes/Dislikes: Moving this slider up heavily weights positively (players with Hearts) or negatively (players with skulls) when building lineups. Moving the slider down down plays the weight given to those same players.
● Player Usage: This slider controls the uniqueness of lineups. Moving the slider lower shrinks the total number of players being used in the lineups. Moving the slider higher increases the number of players being used in the lineups.
● Variance: There is built in variance into the generator algorithm. That is to say that sometimes projections are increased or decreased as lineups are generated. This slider will increase or decrease the effect of the variance as lineups are generated.
The bottom sliders can also be changed by moving the points of the spider web to the right.
Will it generate lineups with offensive players facing defenses?
No. The default setting is to keep offensive players away from the opposing defense. If you check the box in the Player Preference section you can allow offensive players vs. opposing defenses.
Can I set a position preference for the flex spot?
Yes. Simply make one position higher than the others in the Flex Preferences section and it will put more of that position in the flex spots when generating lineups.
Can I change all of the settings and still get all of the lineups I want? While changing all of the settings on this tab is possible, setting too narrow of constraints on the generator will likely cause it to not be able to produce all of the wanted lineups. Changing a few settings or keeping the ranges broad for several settings will help the generator produce as many lineups as possible.
Team Stacks Section
What is a team stack?
Stacking a team means that you want between 2-5 players from one team in a lineup together. Stacking a team is a way to maximize fantasy points from a team you expect to have a big scoring day.
How do I set a team stack?
Click the “Add Stack” button then select the team you want to stack from the drop down and select the size of the stack you want.
How do I control the players in the stack?
There are a few ways of doing this. If you don’t have a preference, you can use the default, Basic, option which simply selects the number of desired from the team and puts them in a lineup together. If you want more specific ways:
● Use Positional Settings: You can select the specific position(s) for each number of player in the stack. I.e. if it’s a 3-player stack you can make Player 1 a QB, Player 2 a WR or TE, and Player 3 a RB or DST or any combination you want.
● Use Per-Player Settings: You can specify exactly what percentage of the stacks you want each player to appear in. I.e. if it’s a 3-player stack you have 300 total percentage points to allot so you could say you want the QB in 100% and then spread the rest out amongst RBs, WRs, and/or TEs.
Do I have to fill out all positions or percentages if using those methods? Yes. Each player row for the position option has to have at least one check in it and all of hte percentage allotment must be accounted for. If they’re not the stack won’t be valid or used in lineups when generating.
What does the Min % box mean?
Each stack (including Game stacks) will be given an equal share of the overall number of lineups requested. An individual stack's "Min. %" is relative to that share. If you have 2 stacks, set Stack A's "Min. %" to 80%, and request 100 lineups, that stack will appear in 40% of total lineups because 80% of 100 lineups evenly distributed across 100 lineups (100/2) = 40.
How many team stacks can I add?
You can add several, depending on the slate size, but each stack makes building the lineups more complex and thus might not give you as many lineups as requested.
Are there slates that team stacks don’t work with?
Yes. Single-game slates don’t allow for stacking. Simply put, each lineup is automatically a team stack in a single-game slate.
Why isn’t a team that’s on the slate showing in the dropdown?
If you have a team hidden in the “Team Preferences” section they won’t show in the drop down to be selected for a stack. If you want the team to show up again, simply uncheck the checkbox next to them in the “Team Preferences” section.
How do I remove a team stack from the list?
If you’ve created too many stacks or decide you don’t want to use stacks for this run, simply click the “Remove Stack” button and the most recently created stack will be removed. If you want to clear all of the stacks, click the remove button as many times as there are stacks.
Game Stacks Section
What is a Game Stack?
Similar to a team stack, a game stack is grouping 3-8 players from the same NFL game in a lineup together. The idea is to maximize the scoring potential of the lineup from a projected high-scoring game on the slate.
How do I create a game stack?
Just like with team stacks, click the “Add Stack” button and then select a game from the dropdown. All games on the slate will appear in order of start time. Once a game is selected, you will be able to select the team you want as the main team, aka Team 1, and the size of each team’s stack. Lastly select the percentage of lineups where Team 1 is used as the main team.
Can I control what players appear for each team in a game stack? The short answer is yes. If this isn’t something you care about, simply check the Use Basic radio button and the generator will decide for you which players to use in the stacks that fit the other constraints, aka number of players for each team as well as how often each team is the main team. If you want to set the positions that are used for each team when it’s the main team and when each team is the comeback (or second team), select the Use Position Settings option.
Just like in the team stacks section, you can select the position(s) you want each player to be able to be. This time though, you make selections twice for each team, once as the main team and once as the comeback. For example if you select a game and set Team 1 to have 3 players and Team 2 to have 2 players, when you’re selecting the positions you’ll see Team 1 showing 3 players in the top section and Team 2 showing 2 players in the next section. After that they’ll flip so Team 2 will have 3 players and Team 1 will have two players.
Do I have to fill out all positions if using that method?
Yes. If you don’t have at least one check at a position for every player number it won’t count the stack when generating lineups.
How do I remove a stack?
If you’ve added too many game stacks or simply don’t want to use them anymore or for this run, click the “Remove Stack” button as many times as you'd like to remove a stack. It will remove the most recent one made first.
What does the Min % box mean?
Each stack (including Game stacks) will be given an equal share of the overall number of lineups requested. An individual stack's "Min. %" is relative to that share. If you have 2 stacks, set Stack A's "Min. %" to 80%, and request 100 lineups, that stack will appear in 40% of total lineups because 80% of 100 lineups evenly distributed across 100 lineups (100/2) = 40.
Why isn’t a team that’s on the slate showing in the dropdown?
If you have a team hidden in the “Team Preferences” section they won’t show in the drop down to be selected for a stack. If you want the team to show up again, simply uncheck the checkbox next to them in the “Team Preferences” section.
Are there slates that game stacks can’t be used?
Yes, single-game slates or showdowns don’t allow for game stacks since the entire slate is a game stack.
How many game stacks can I add?
You can add several, depending on the slate size, but each stack makes building the lineups more complex and thus might not give you as many lineups as requested.
Why isn’t a game that’s on the slate showing in the dropdown?
If you have a team hidden in the “Team Preferences” section the game with that team won’t show in the drop down to be selected for a stack. If you want the game to show up again, simply uncheck the checkbox next to them in the “Team Preferences” section.
What To Do After Generating Lineups
So I’ve generated a lineup or lineups. What next?
The lineups will have populated below the player pool box and be sorted in the way you’ve chosen to sort them as listed in the General Overview section.
Aside from exporting lineups, what else is there to do?
While the main purpose is to export the builds, we can still tweak them at this stage. There are a few ways to do that. The main way to tweak them is to swap players out of individual lineups for others. The other way to do it is to save specific lineups by clicking the “Save” button at the top of each and then if/when you rerun the lineups for that slate, you can still have the saved lineups as part of the export.
How do I swap a player out of a lineup?
If you like most of a lineup but want one or two players to be different than ones generated, click the crossing arrows next to a player’s name. A list of the three highest projected players for that position, who fit under the total salary cap, will appear as will a search bar. If you don’t like any of the three players suggested, you can start typing a player’s name you’d like to swap in and it will appear, provided he’s not already in that specific lineup.
How can I see all of the lineups with a particular player(s) in them?
In the the list on the left side of the screen each player that appears in at least one lineup is shown sorted from most lineups to the fewest. To the left of each player is a magnifying glass icon, clicking it for a player will automatically bring the lineups with that player to the top of lineup area (sorted how you have the lineups sorted) with the player’s name highlighted.
If you want to see lineups with a combo of certain players, you can click the magnifying glass icon for two or more players and those lineups will show up at the top of the lineup area with each player highlighted.
What happens to the lineup count after swapping players?
If you swap out players from the lineups that are generated, each time a player is swapped the count on the left hand side will update automatically. If a player gets added for the first time, they will get added to the bottom of the list after being swapped in.
Is there a late-swap feature or mass player replace feature?
Currently the best way to do this if a player is ruled out or inactive is one of three ways. Firstly, you can search for the player name and uncheck the include column to exclude them from the player pool. Secondly, you can change their projected points to 0 and then they won’t be put into any lineups. Or thirdly, you can click the magnifying glass icon to bring up the lineups that player is in and then click the swap button to swap them out for another player.
I am ready to export the lineup(s) from the Generator. How do I do that? Great! If you’re all done running the lineups and have them set the way you want, there are two ways to export the lineups. The quickest way to export them is to click in the green “Export All” button above the lineup section. That will export all generated and saved lineups. The second way to exporting them is, at the top of the first lineup and click the “Export All Lineups (#)” option. These will generate a .csv (excel) file that can then be uploaded to any of the DFS sites for that specific slate.
What if I don’t like many of the lineups that were generated?
Well, that does happen sometimes. The first thing you should do is to save the lineup(s) that you do like. Then click the “Clear All” button above the lineup section. This button will clear all generated lineups, but not saved ones, and all settings that you’d previously set including stacks.
What if I don’t like how players have been used in lineups?
You can do a few things to adjust this. Firstly, you can swap a player in for ones who are used too often. Secondly, you can adjust the global exposure cap or individual player exposures in the Player Preferences section and/or the player pool. Thirdly, you can change
the players who are locked, liked, disliked, and/or excluded, or their projections. Options two and three require the lineups to be rerun once the settings are changed.
What does the checkbox above each lineup do?
Unchecking that checkbox keeps that lineup from being exported with the others. If you like most of or almost all of the run of lineups, you can uncheck the lineups you don’t like and export the rest to save time and not have to rerun them again.
Troubleshooting
What do I do if I don’t get the amount of lineups I wanted?
Well this is a bit of an open-ended question. If you get close to the number but not all, you can slightly tweak some of the settings you put in like raising the exposure cap or the salary constraints. If there are far fewer generated than requested, bigger changes are required. Perhaps the stacks or percentages for locks are too restrictive or too many teams are hidden.
What do I do if players are showing in too many lineups?
This will happen sometimes. The exposure caps and/or lock percentages are not exact. The Generator will try and keep as close to those as possible but ultimately trying to generate as close to the number of lineups as requested is the goal. If you’re needing the exposures to be as exact as possible, you can swap players in or out to achieve the desired percentages.
What does “No players fit the chosen constraints” mean?
If you are getting this error, it means that there aren’t any players for that slate yet or the filters/settings are too constraining. The most likely time seeing this message is if you’re trying to build lineups too early in the week and the projections haven’t been read in yet, likely overnight on a Tuesday. The other most likely time to see it is if you’ve gone to the last page of the player pool and no players are on the page.
I’ve asked for several stacks and didn’t get them all?
This too can happen sometimes. If you’ve created complex stacks, numerous ones, team stacks and game stacks overlap, or if a stack you’ve chosen is high in salary. If you’ve made adjustments to the stacks requested and still aren’t getting all of the ones requested, try running fewer lineups and a portion of the wanted stacks in order to make two runs of lineups with the other part of the stacks in the second run.
Why won’t a player show up in the player pool?
There are a few reasons a player may not show up in the pool. The most common reason is that they don’t have a projection. This happens if a player is far down on the depth chart or if it’s a single-game slate and they are low on the depth chart. The second reason is that they
don’t have a salary on that site. It’s possible that a player isn’t on the slate on the DFS provider either because they’d been injured/out or the game isn’t on the slate you’ve selected. Contact support if you believe a player should be appearing and isn’t.
When to contact support?
If a feature or function doesn’t appear to be working as advertised and you’ve tried a few different times to use it and have consulted the FAQs. Contact support to make them aware of the issue(s) you are seeing. Be aware that some issues can’t be reproduced but when contacting support, be as specific as possible about what settings are set and/or stacks are picked and what the issue is on which DFS site. That will speed up the troubleshooting as well as make it easier to reproduce the issue.
Updated on: 09/23/2022
Thank you!