Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
We are getting into one of the last Majors of the year ,with the IEM Fall event which starts on Wednesday with best-of-one series. We get a four-game slate on DraftKings which locks at 1:00 p.m. EST on Friday.
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the new edition of my CS:GO articles. I will be breaking down my approach to the slate and the way I want to construct the majority of my lineups. I will also cover my favorite captain and flex plays for each team plus the series overall with any game stacks that I believe may give you the upper hand. For CS:GO, it is very similar to League of Legends when it comes to DFS. While they are two completely different Esports, we want to take the same approach here as LoL with hedging. I will identify which series I want to hedge and which ones I do not.
With CS:GO, the contest selection varies day-to-day, and we may never see the same contests daily. If you are more of a one lineup player, please stick with the “Single Entry” contests because a single bullet for the MME contest will be difficult to win with. If you MME, hedging is very, very important, and we do not want to be overly exposed to many players unless they are s1mple, ZywOo, device and even sh1ro at times. With those names, close to 100% exposure may be just fine, but we will talk about that when the slate arrives.
Below is the way scoring works for DraftKings and it’s very straightforward:
For lineup construction, we mainly want to stick to the following builds: 3×3, 3x2x1, 2x3x1, and the rare case that has been happening recently is 1x3x2. For 3×3, we stack three players from two teams that we believe will dominate and mainly sweep their opponents. For 3x2x1, your three-man stack has your captain in from your larger team stack. For 2x3x1, we have a two-man main stack that your captain is in and the three-man stack is all flex players. For the rare build of 1x3x2, you one-off your captain position and your three-man and two-man stack are flex players only.
Slate breakdown
We are on Day 3 of the IEM Fall Event Major which happens to be a slate full of best-of-one series. With that, there’s a little bit of a different construction build to do with lineups. While the usual is 3x2x1 or 3×3, with it being just one map we won’t want to be over exposed to a team. Two players maximum will be optimal. 2x2x1x1 or 2x2x2 would be ideal since we have two teams that have a more favorable matchup, while the others could go thirty rounds or into overtime. I will go over my two favorite stacks and then pinpoint some other potential plays.
We have another slate of best-of-one series with a couple that can go either way, but two are straightforward, and that’s where the top stacks will come from. The first main stack that I want is NiP, as they face DBL Poney. NiP has had just one series that was relatively close versus SKADE, but they have dominated in the other three. While DBL Poney did start off with two back-to-back wins, they have now lost two straight with one being an ugly loss to Fiend. The main two players to target will be device and hampus in the NiP stacks. We usually like having REZ, and even though he isn’t playing badly, LNZ is having a good event run. I want to follow the hot hands, and this NiP stack will be one of my top ones.
For the second main stack, I want FaZe over Fiend. I think they will be pretty similar to the NiP series and have a strong win. Now, Fiend has found a rhythm after a slow start, but this is a tier-one team they are facing, and by the looks of it they may struggle. They struggled versus NiP and lost 16-4, and I can see that happening here. FaZe’s form is levels ahead of Fiend, and that’s with Twistzz having a less stellar performance here at IEM Fall, unlike his performance at IEM Cologne. I will still stick with mainly broky and Twistzz, but rain is performing consistently, and that will be the main third target in FaZe stacks. For Fiend, I most likely will have no exposure to them or mainly just one-offs from h4rn and dream3r.
The G2 and mousesports series is an intriguing one to me, and I will most likely just play two-man or one-offs from this series. While G2 has had a pretty dominant showing so far (besides an OT loss to Copenhagen), mousesports can compete with them. Everything leans to G2 in this series, every stat on paper and form ratings. Overall, every member of G2 is playing at a higher rate than their average, while bymas and acoR have been the only two for mouz. I will most likely lean 70/30 to G2, but it will most likely go thirty rounds and be a bloodbath series.
Insert “Here we go again” gif as we get BIG versus Copenhagen Flames, and I want to trust BIG here. They have finally found a rhythm (against non-tier 1 teams) with two solid wins versus FunPlus Phoenix and AURA. For Copenhagen Flames, they have now put together four straight victories at IEM Fall, so it’s hard to counter them out. Similar to the G2 and mouz series, I will most likely just look for one-offs from this series and keep my exposure to two-man stacks very low. BIG may actually pull in more ownership on this slate, and falling to Copenhagen and the hot hand could be the key to success, but it’s risky. I’d rather go elsewhere with a series I have more confidence in like the FaZe or NiP series.
Player pool
- Fiend (+345 versus FaZe)
- Captain Options: h4rn
- Flex Options: dream3r, REDSTAR
- FaZe (-527 versus Fiend)
- Captain Options: broky, Twistzz
- Flex Options: rain, Karrigan (RISK)
- NiP (-358 versus DBL Poney)
- Captain Options: device, hampus
- Flex Options: LNZ, REZ
- DBL Poney (+252 versus NiP)
- Captain Options: djoko, afro
- Flex Options: body, Lucky
- Mousesports (+104 versus G2)
- Captain Options: ropz, bymas (RISK)
- Flex Options: frozen, acoR
- G2 (-136 versus mousesports)
- Captain Options: huNter-, NiKo
- Flex Options: JaCkz, AmaNEk
- Copenhagen Flames (+116 versus BIG)
- Captain Options: jabbi, nicoodoz
- Flex Options: HooXi, roej
- BIG (-152 versus Copenhagen)
- Captain Options: tabseN
- Flex Options: syrsoN, k1to
Top stacks (in order)
- NiP
- FaZe
- G2
- mouz
