RADIO
Hello there eSports DFS enthusiasts, and welcome back to RotoBaller's coverage of Call of Duty DFS contests for DraftKings! My Name is Koby and I'll be here all season long to help guide you through the COD DFS world.
This is easily one of my favorite sports to cover here at Rotoballer because I play a ton of COD myself and I like to think I'm pretty good at it as well. I have been following the COD League for about five years now and I finally get to put all this knowledge to the test!
Today I'll be bringing you my COD DFS advice, analysis, and lineup picks for eSports DFS contests on DraftKings and FanDuel for Thursday and Friday, February 11-12, 2021, at 3:00 PM. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @DFSKoby or find me in the slack as I am happy to engage with readers and try to answer your questions!
Call of Duty: Paris Legion Home Series Semifinals
Best of 5
- Minnesota Rokkr (-230) vs. Los Angeles Thieves (+170)
- Seattle Surge (+425) vs. Dallas Empire (-750)
- Paris Legion (+305) vs Optic Chicago (-500)
- LA Guerrillas (+400) vs Atlanta Faze (-750)
Slate Overview
This year with Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, they have gone back to the traditional 4v4 style gameplay. With there being one less person on each team, this is going to affect Kill totals quite a bit, therefore we can't compare to last year too much. We had a lot of roster changes over the last few months creating so many more teams that could be in contention with the defending champs in Dallas. Minnesota did a full roster overhaul and added 2 players from Faze and 2 players from the NY Subliners that makes them a very improved team from the disappointment they were last season. Seattle did basically the same thing in an attempt to bring in some new help for their god-tier player in Octane but in the end, probably won't make much of a change. Chicago Huntsmen are now Optic Chicago as Optic bought the team and transferred there and a new LA team in the Thieves now exists with the old Optic players with the addition of Temp from NY.
We have quite a few heavy favorites on this slate so it's going to be critical to find the matchups that allow us the most possible points. This first weekend is going to be a big test run for DFS as it's a bit of a change and a lot of new players on teams and new scoring rules are in place so I do recommend playing a little lighter this first slate of games. DK did us the honor of making this a 4 game slate over the next 2 days instead of 2 games each day. Saturday and Sunday though we will have 6 games total as they have three each day. Sweeps are going to be crucial this year, other than that. Finding teams that are going to a game 4 or 5 are still going to be great especially if they manage a sweep in Control. Hardpoint is always a great game to make up a sweep bonus as there is a lot of killing and getting that extra .1 points for every second in the hardpoint can be a real game-changer for players who play heavy on the objective.
COD DFS Basics
- Like in CSGO, players receive two points for a kill and are penalized -1 for dying. Therefore, the simplest stat to look at here is K/D ratio. However, players can also earn fantasy points for planting or defusing bombs (three points each) in Search and Destroy rounds, so there are some players who we can target for other skills besides their ability to kill the opponent.
- You need to roster a team slot on both sites. Teams accrue fantasy points for games won (+4), matches won (+10), and Search and Destroy rounds won (+.5).
- Teams will be playing best-of-five matches on a rotation of various game modes. Those modes and the order in which they are played is as follows: Hardpoint, Search & Destroy, Control, Hardpoint, Search & Destroy.
- In hardpoint rounds, players with positive K/D ratios are usually the highest scorers and these rounds are often the bloodiest.
- They also have changed a gamemode from Domination to Control for League play. This is going to be a lot different in gameplay as it's round-based and not the first one to 200. They play first one to 3 round wins, Draft Kings has also added a 20 point per round not played for Control as well which is a huge bonus if a team sweeps in their control game as this adds an extra 40 points! There are not as many kills in this game mode as each team has lives in this game mode and it's the first team to kill the other team until they have no lives or capture both points to win the round.
- There is a sweep bonus this year as teams and players both can get a 20 point player sweep and a 5 point team sweep.
COD DFS Captain Considerations
Simp and Shottzy: I put these guys together because you seriously can't go wrong with either of them. They have fantastic matchups and are easily the best players in the world right now along with Octane. I would include him as well in this but going up against Dallas is rough and he is more of a complete GPP shot in the dark. Anyways, Simp and Shottzy were putting up 100+ DKP games all year long, and I don't expect this to change that much. The number of kills will decrease slightly as the game modes and it being 4v4 this year but in the preseason, Shottzy still dropped 30+ kills in both Hardpoint and Control games. These guys are insane and should be looked at heavily to top the captain spot.
Formal: Formal was insanely dominant this year and if it weren't for the rest of the team struggling so much Chicago could have easily won the Championship. The duo of Envoy and Formal are lethal and have a great matchup against Paris who downgraded in the offseason. Formal went positive in all but one game last year and was averaging 91 DKP. They looked very good with the addition of Dashy to the team and smoked the LA Thieves in the Preseason, winning very confidently 3-0. This is a team to watch out for as they could make a run at Dallas to prevent the back to back.
Other captain plays: Octane(GPP), Attach, Envoy, Huke, Slasher(GPP)
COD DFS Value Plays
Cellium: This is more of a mid-tier play rather than a value play but I put him in here because he is insanely too cheap for his upside. He was scoring 90+ DKP per game last year and was one of the top plays on FaZe all year long. We now get him at an insane discount of 8,600, his upside is high and the matchup is great. Get on Cellium now before he is priced up where he should be at the top. LA Guerrillas managed to somehow get worse in the offseason as they really only brought in Assault which is an upgrade but also brought in Apathy and SiLLY which are downgrades. FaZe should be able to take them out pretty quickly and Cellium is a great place to start.
C6: I normally don't like rostering C6 because he is very inconsistent with his scoring which makes sense with his pricing being what it is, but with the matchup against Seattle being so favorable it's hard to look over someone being 6,600 with the possibility of having a large sweep bonus in the realm of possibilities. He also looked very rejuvenated in the preseason where Dallas swept NY Subliners very quickly. C6 also did go positive on the day which is reassuring as he was consistently at the bottom of the leaderboard last year. With it being 4v4 this is plays to C6's advantage as this is what he began his career playing.
Other value plays: Scump, Tjhaly, Temp, Accuracy, Arcitys, Illey
COD DFS Stacks
Atlanta-Dallas: I'm combing these two teams because both of them are such large favorites and their matchups are really good ones as I think they both end in sweeps, you really can't go wrong with picking anyone from either of these teams. Shottzy and Simp are clearly the top plays but I also like Illey and Huke from Dallas as well as Cellium and Abezy from FaZe. With the scoring being different this year I think that sweeps are going to be a lot more necessary, unlike last year where we actually wanted to look for teams that would win in 4 or even 5 games as these teams would score better.
Optic: Not much changed from last year to this year's team other than the addition of Dashy to the team which is a huge upgrade from Arcitys(FaZe) and Prestinni (Seattle). This team is going to be Dangerous and they have an extremely favorable matchup against Paris which did a complete overhaul from last year's team and no longer have Louqa who carried that team. I really like Optic to make a run and for them to win this one in either a sweep or a very close 4 game win. All players here are viable and I love Envoy and Formal as they were great last year, both averaging over 80 DKP per game. Scump is very cheap on this slate as well and a nice value play on this slate.
Minnesota: This is my sleeper pick for the day. They are favorites but most people are going to look at the very large favorites first. Minnesota is a brand new team and has half FaZe in Priestahh and MajorManiak and half of NY Subliners from last year in Attach and Accuracy. All these players were averaging over 80 DKP per game last year. Attach is by far my favorite play from Minnesota but I also like Priestahh and their mid-tier price tags we get with them. In the preseason challenge event a couple of weeks ago Minnesota swept Toronto in the Control Gamemode and that's a big bonus when it comes to draft kings scoring but also took it to 5 games. They scored big time and with the matchup against LA Thieves being the closest on the slate, I like Minnesota to score very well and fly under the radar.
Other Team Plays: LA Thieves, Seattle Surge(Deep GPP)
RotoBaller Testimonials
Readers of RotoBaller's eSports DFS articles have been winning money on DraftKings and FanDuel regularly. Some of them are winning contests daily and bringing in some serious cheddar. Check one out below and more here!
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Another profitable night after a few break even or off nights due to trying to get too cute with lineup construction. @RotoBaller free articles remain ? as they have been. @mr_malmanger @ThunderDanDFS @grownfool pic.twitter.com/l015HO49GX
— John Deacon (@Jdeacdfs) April 24, 2020
More eSports DFS Analysis
RotoBaller Testimonials
Readers of RotoBaller's eSports DFS articles have been winning money on DraftKings and FanDuel regularly. Some of them are winning contests daily and bringing in some serious cheddar. Check one out below and lots more here!
Did you read a RotoBaller article and win too? Send us your screenshots on Twitter @RotoBaller and we'll add it to our winners Hall Of Fame!
Had a member of slack take down the Insomnia Special last night. Pretty cool seeing that @RotoBaller logo up at the top! #Esports #LOL #Draftkings pic.twitter.com/S5FFRSUNB1
— "Thunder Dan" Palyo (@ThunderDanDFS) April 16, 2020
