We have another slate for Valorant on DraftKings for Thursday, a four-gamer starting at 3 p.m. ET. I’m here to break down my top DFS builds as well as my strategy for this slate. The building itself is especially important. If you haven’t had a chance, read up on the Valorant 101 article.
I want to stress the importance of #hedgelife. Dive into this, as it is very important to my success in Esports.
As previously mentioned, my focus for this article is my plan for these slates. I have gone into this plenty in the past, but I want to discuss #hedgelife and what this means. When I say hedge, I really mean that we want to have action on both sides of the match. I will provide a ranking of my favorite stacks, but just because a stack is ranked last doesn’t mean I’ll have them in just one of my lineups. A few people have been lucky with game stacking in some of these slates, which means having both teams playing each other as your lineup. I do not recommend this approach, as it doesn’t often hit. Make sure to follow my Twitter for updates on starting lineups and any changes that I will be making as I research throughout the day.
Lastly, I want to touch on contest selection. It’s the most important thing to me, and it’s the reason I hit big more often than not. A lot of DFS players focus on playing in contests with 35,000 people because it’s only $10 to enter and they feel it’s easy to win money. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a takedown and it barely cashed in the big GPP. Focus on contests with around 250-300 people, where you can max 7-10 entries. Use the #hedgelife strategy and max enter this contest and use the strategy in this article to profit. Trust me on this one.
Something else I want to touch on is the process. I’ve mentioned this quite a few times, but I thought I’d break it down further.
- Contest selection: If you don’t follow me on Twitter, please make sure you do. On a nightly basis, I’ve been tweeting my favorite contests. Find a way to do 10 lineups and focus on contests with under 500 people.
- #HedgeLife: I took a deep dive into this above, but here’s what I mean. If you do a 4-3 BLG-SB line, make sure you also do a 4-3 SB-BLG line. Do one line of four-man SB with SB CPT, then in your next line, do a four-man BLG with BLG CPT. Covers you on both grounds.
- #HedgeLife part deux: If you’re doing 10 lineups with five BLG stacks, make sure to do 2-3 DMO stacks to hedge that game.
Feel free to reach out with any questions if you have them. It seems like a lot, but it’s important to see what has made me successful in Esports.
Valorant
We start the slate off with two games. We have Just Breathe vs. CLG Red, and DIG vs. Shopify Rebellion.
Just Breathe's last game was actually against the same CLG Red Team in which they won 2-1. Just Breathe is 3-2 in their last five games, with two sweeps and one 2-1 victory while being swept once and lost 2-1 to Nothing2Lose. CLG Red is a team coming in with a 4-1 record in their last five games, in which they swept three of the four wins and had a narrow 3-2 win over TSM Females in the Grand Finals of Sakura Cup. Their 1 loss comes to Just Breathe in the Game Changers Qualifiers. CLG has a hard carry in bENITA, who will be a lock for me. In the last five games, she has not gone negative KD once and sports an average of +15 Kills to deaths. I believe despite Just Breathe recent victory, CLG Red will win this game.
The next game we have is Shopify Rebellion against Dignitas. These two teams have played three times in their life spans, and Shopify Rebellion owns a 2-1 lead, with one coming via sweep and the other a 2-1 victory. In the past five games, Shopify sports a 3-2 record with one of those losses coming to the hands of the best team in C9 White, and the other is a grand finals lost to Dignitas. For Shopify Rebellionm they are led by the Kayla. Shopify has six players. They haven't played Diana yet, however, she shows as starting for Lorri on VLR, so Diana and Lorrie are sub-risk plays. As for Dignitas, they come in this match sporting a 5-0 record over their last five games, with wins over open qualifier teams and a win over Nothing2Lose. Dignitas is spearheaded by Emuhleet. She is the hard carry of this team. Dignitas does struggle against non-open qualifier teams, such as Just Breath, CLG Red and C9 white. Despite Dignitas recent form of 5-0 against open qualifier teams, I have Shopify winning this series 2-1.
The second set of games features the juggernaut known as Cloud9 White vs. Nothing2Lose and TSM Females vs GX3.
Cloud9 White is the heavy favorite of this tournament and rightly so, as they are the team with the most experience and are former champions of this same exact tournament. They have yet to lose a game to any of these teams in the tournament. This team is led by jazzykins, and kat. This team will also be heavily owned and very chalky, I will, however, eat that chalk. Nothing2Lose comes in sporting a 4-1 record in their previous five matches, however, their wins were against open qualifier teams, and their loss was to Shopify Rebellion. They have only managed to beat Just Breathe and GX3 of the teams in this tournament. They have been swept by every other team in this tournament. I will have none of Nothing2Lose. C9 White wins this pretty convincingly, 2-0.
The second game of this set is TSM Females vs. GX3. TSM Females comes into this tournament scorching hot, coming in 8-0 and only losing one map in those eight matches. They beat GX3 previously and Nothing2Lose, and also just won the Sakura Cup No. 2 Grand Finals. For TSM Females, the main carry is athxna. She is the main duelist for this team and will have a bunch of their kills. As for GX3, who is by far the worst team in this tournament, they have yet to beat any of these teams. The only person I would touch on this team is Maddie, as she does decently well, but she should be outscored by most other players. I have TSM Females taking this one 2-0 in a pretty easy fashion.
Just Breathe
- CPT – Natty
- Flex – Milk, karra
CLG Red
- CPT – bENITA, clawdia
- Flex – rise, Naomi
Dignitas
- CPT – EMUHLEET, rain
- Flex – showliana
SR (Shopify Rebellions)
- CPT – Kayle
- Flex – Han, KP, (Diana and Lorrie) are at risk of not playing or being subbed.
TSM Females
- CPT – athxna, cath
- Flex – mleqt
GX3
- CPT – None
- Flex – Maddie
Cloud9 White (C9 White) – CHALK
- CPT – Jazzyk1ns, kat
- Flex – any players
Nothing2Lose
- CPT – None
- Flex – arianarchrist
Standout players
bENITA – Hard carry for CLG Red, with an astounding KDA and plus-minus score.
Athxna – Duelist for TSM, racks up lots of kills for TSM.
kayle – Favorite value on slate and best cheap cpt to fit in all studs.
I will update everyone in Discord if anything changes on my exposures and predictions. Remember to only do 3-3, 3-2-1 or 2-2-2 stacks.