Underdog Fantasy Battle Royale Guide: Week 1 Roster Strategy & Cheat Sheets

Learn the best strategies, roster construction tips, and player targets to maximize your chances of winning Underdog Fantasy’s Battle Royale and its $50,000 Week 1 prize.

Houston Texans wide receiver Nico Collins (12) celebrates a first down after the catch against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the first quarter at EverBank Stadium. | Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images

With the season-long drafts ending over the next few days and BestBall contests about wrapped up, the fantasy market has an added bonus of drafting six-man rosters in Underdog Fantasy’s Battle Royale weekly. For a $7 entry fee in Week 1, the winning roster has a chance to take home $50,000, with a runner-up prize of $25,000.

To fill the event, this event needs 55,992 teams or 9,332 leagues. Underdog Fantasy pays 9,500 spots in this contest, with each cashing team winning a minimum of 142% of their initial investment. Ultimately, if you win your league (beat five other drafters), your team has a higher percentage of cashing. Here’s a look at the top 500 payouts:

Underdog Fantasy

Each team consists of six roster slots – QB (1), RB (1), WR (2), TE (1), and Flex (1 – RB, WR, or TE). Here’s a look at their scoring:

Underdog Fantasy

Heading into Week 1, the top players drafted in the season-long contests over the first few rounds will comprise much of the top 36 ADPs. Each week, I expect an outlier quarterback to be in the mix, along with his top-scoring receiver. 

How to approach the Underdog Fantasy contest?

I expect the weekly winners in the Battle Royale to have one or more players drafted outside their top 36. I would review last year's winners in DraftKings Millionaire Maker to get a feel for some high scores each week. The top lineups at Underdog Fantasy have more star power due to not having a salary cap.

I’m going to review the top 15 to 20 players projected each week and develop a rotation of players based on their matchups. I don’t want to be a chalk player in this contest due to a short roster, which leads to many overlapping lineups.

I plan to feature one or two quarterbacks each week for the entire year, with the hope that one comes in over an 18-game schedule. One of these quarterbacks will certainly rank outside the top six projected QBs. 

I would then focus on getting their best wide receiver hookup as much as possible.

For the tight end position, I would narrow my rotation down to four options (Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are musts for me). I would take one of the top two choices every week over the first two rounds based on their expected ADP and in-season success. The goal is to lock in an edge in scoring at tight end in many weeks while also buying a high floor at the position.

Each league's draft position will dictate how you build your team with elite running backs and tight ends. 

Week 1 Underdog Fantasy Cheat Sheets

To help your backend decision-making and highlight players outside the top rankings at each position, I will provide a weekly cheat sheet for Underdogs drafts that will be released on Wednesday and updated later in the week. Here’s a glance at the top projected players at each position in their scoring system:

Shawn Childs

Shawn Childs

My goal is to enter at least one team each week in Underdog Fantasy Battle Royale to help analyze what it takes to win $50,000. Here’s my first draft in this format:

Shawn Childs

Next week, I will post my results and start tracking the winning rosters every week.