Best ball is not one game. It is a portfolio game. You are not drafting one team, you are drafting 20 or 50 or 100 teams, and your goal is to have enough shots on goal that the outlier weeks land in your bag. If you approach it like redraft, you will bleed slowly.
What best ball actually rewards
Best ball optimises your lineup automatically each week from your bench. That single rule changes everything. It rewards:
Ceiling over consistency. A player who scores 3, 25, 5, 24 outscores a player who goes 12 every week if you also drafted enough guys who spike.
Correlation. If your QB and WR both explode in the same game, they double up in your scoring. Stacking matters more here than anywhere else.
Position exposure. Best ball tournaments pay out the top few percent. You need boom-bust rosters to win, not boring good ones.
Structure first, players second
Before I look at any player, I decide how many I want at each position. My defaults for a 20-round Underdog draft:
Position
Target
Reasoning
QB
3
Bye-week coverage plus stacking flexibility. Sometimes 2 if I loaded early WR.
RB
5-6
Injury attrition is brutal. Under 5 you will get weeks where you start a zero.
WR
7-9
Where the ceilings live. This is my anchor position.
TE
2-3
2 is fine if one is elite. 3 if you punted TE in rounds 5-10.
The two archetypes I draft
Archetype A — Robust RB
Take an RB at 1.01-3.05, then keep taking WRs. The RB position is the injury lottery, so if you get the year-long workload horse you have a huge structural edge because most other rosters do not have one. Pair with 7-9 upside WRs. This one wins when your RB1 stays healthy.
Archetype B — Zero RB / Modified Zero RB
Punt RB until round 6 or later. Load WR/TE at the top. Grab volume-based RBs (target share receiving backs are ideal) plus late-round handcuffs and lottery tickets. This one wins when the RB you skipped busts, which happens more often than the industry pretends. In 2024 and 2025, Zero RB was neutral to slightly positive. It is not the dominant strategy people claim it is, but it is not the trap people claim either.
I run both in my portfolio. Never 100 percent one strategy. Diversifying construction diversifies your outcomes.
Stacking, and specifically what to stack
Stack your QB with a WR (or TE) from the same team. When your QB has a 4-TD game, you get his passing yards + TD points AND your stacked WR's receiving yards + TD points. That is one game contributing double.
Best correlations to hunt:
QB + WR1 — the classic. Highest correlation.
QB + TE (in TE-premium formats) — TEs get more points per catch so the stack multiplier is bigger.
QB + WR + opposing WR — the game stack. Hunts shootouts. If you think a game will go 34-31, both offenses feed you.
What NOT to stack: RBs. RB correlation with QB is weak. If your team scores a rushing TD it hurts your passing volume.
Late-round targets that actually matter
Rounds 14-20 are where tournaments are won. This is not the spot for boring high-floor plays. You are looking for lottery tickets. Concretely:
Backup RBs on offenses that would run a lot if the starter goes down. The Detroit backup is worth 4 rounds more than the Cardinals backup even if their ADP is the same.
Rookie WRs in ambiguous depth charts. They either break out and win you the week, or they never see the field. Both outcomes are fine.
QB2s with rushing profile. A backup QB with 40+ rushing attempts as a starter has a top-5 QB week ceiling. That is what you are hunting.
The mistakes I still see everywhere
Drafting like it is redraft. Playing it safe with high-floor plays. Floor does not matter in best ball. You need spikes.
Zero exposure. Drafting 40 teams and having Justin Jefferson on 39 of them. If Jefferson busts, your entire portfolio busts.
Reaching for stacks. Do not take a WR three rounds early just to stack your QB. Take the value. If the stacking piece is not there, do not force it.
Ignoring bye weeks on your one-of shootout WRs. If both your Bengals WRs bye in week 10, you are auto-losing that week.
Playing on autodraft. Do not. Even one bad autodraft team drags your portfolio.
Site-specific edges
Underdog — 18 rounds, half PPR, 12-team. Ceiling matters most. Late-round rookie WRs are especially valuable.
DraftKings — 20 rounds, full PPR, 12-team. WRs get an even bigger bump. Stacking is more valuable here than any other site.
Sleeper — Variable format depending on which tournament. Read the scoring before you draft. Their SFB satellites are a completely different game.
FFPC — TE premium (+0.5 PPR for TEs). Push TEs up 6-8 spots in your rankings vs standard. See To Stack Or Not for the correlation math.