We devote most of our time around here to the traditional best ball contests on Underdog that feature 18 rounds and a pod-based gauntlet playoff structure in Weeks 15, 16, and 17.

But Underdog has really stepped up its game over the past couple of years with regards to contest offerings. The lobby is currently packed full of contests that offer fun and unique twists on the traditional best ball format.

Not only do these games keep things fresh, but they also present +EV (expected value) opportunities for savvy drafters who are able to make the necessary strategic adjustments for each format. Each of these contests has its own set of ADP, which means there are both positional and player-specific edges that we can exploit across the different contests.

I know it can be intimidating to tackle a new format, but none of these new contests require seismic shifts in how you approach a draft.

In this piece, I'm going to take you on a tour of all the different contests in the lobby and give you a quick overview of what you need to know so you can hop in and start drafting ...

The Eliminator: A survival-style contest with a H2H twist

  • Buy-In: $10
  • Prize Pool: $1.75 million total, $200k to 1st place
  • Advance Structure: Week 1: 6/12; Weeks 2-16: 1/2; Week 17: 3 Seat Final

This might be the most unique contest Underdog has ever dropped. Last year's Eliminator contest—which I wrote about here—eliminated a small percentage of the worst teams each week before 115 teams arrived at a Week 17 final.

This year, however, the majority of weeks (2-16) involve a single head-to-head matchup until three final teams battle it out in Week 17. This format introduces more variance than last year's, but it also inarguably introduces way more fun via a mano-y-mano sweat each week. 

Strategy shifts:

  • Bye weeks are incredibly important in this format. If you overload yourself with too many players with the same bye weeks, you run the risk of getting bounced when your bye-mageddon hits.
     
  • Focus on balanced builds in this roster, ideally 3-QB and 3-TEs (fortunately, this lines up with my favorite traditional strategy right now, as well). We need our rosters to minimize weaknesses that could lead to getting eliminated. Let your opponents make the fancy structural mistakes.
     
  • Rookies are less valuable in this format. Because it generally takes until later in the season for rookies to fully break out, they can serve as a costly anchor to your team in the early weeks of this contest.
     
  • Still, this is not a "floor" contest like it was last year, or how you'd approach one of our Guillotine leagues. It's also not a "ceiling" contest like BBM or some of the other contests we'll discuss below. It's more of a "median" contest where you need to balance both safety and upside.

Watch me draft an Eliminator team.

The Marathon: A cumulative points contest with no playoffs

  • Buy-In: $15
  • Prize Pool: $1 million total; $100k to 1st place
  • Advance  Structure: Cumulative scoring, Weeks 1-17

The Marathon is for the purists out there who believe the best team should win. There is no fantasy playoff gauntlet here that introduces variance and rewards the teams who peak later in the season. In this format, every week matters equally. The downside to this format is that there isn't much of a sweat compared to traditional best ball contests, as the top teams in the contest tend to run away with things by the midpoint of the year. Still, this is a very fun change of pace to draft. Make sure you keep an eye out for promos like this, as well.

Strategy shifts:

  • This contest is all about hitting on the league winners. The winning team last year had Joe Burrow, Derrick Henry, Alvin Kamara, Chase Brown, Chuba Hubbard, Ja'Marr Chase, Terry McLaurin, Jerry Jeudy, Darnell Mooney, and Trey McBride—just to name a few of their home run selections.
     
  • Because you are trying to draft the perfect team, this contest allows for more flexible builds. The team that won last year had only two QBs and two TEs.
     
  • Try to prioritize at least one upside selection at each position. Late-round QB or late-round TE builds are less viable in this format because you are less likely to find a player with a monster ceiling at those positions in the double-digit rounds. 

Watch me draft a Marathon team.

Weekly Winners: Best ball drafting with DFS-style weekly payouts

  • Buy-In: $10
  • Prize Pool: $1.7 million total; $20k to 1st place each week
  • Advance  Structure: Top 4,000 teams each week receive prizes

Weekly Winners is arguably the wildest game type on Underdog. Because there are weekly payouts, drafters have many different ways they can attack this contest.

Do you want to go heavy on rookies and try to win your prizes late? Do you want to go RB-heavy early when projectable volume is most valuable and win your prizes early? Do you want to try to win a specific week and correlate around it? Do you want to draft just a single QB and TE—say Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews—and build your team around them for the one to two weeks they are the highest scoring QB/TE duo?

The viable angles are nearly endless, but your lineup must tell a cohesive story.

Strategy shifts:

  • This contest requires perfection, so ceiling is all that matters. Draft like you are right, target players with the highest potential for spike weeks, and embrace volatility.
     
  • Stack carefully. Early-round stacks should maximize weekly ceilings, whereas late-round stacks can focus on correlated team bets. You still want to stack your QBs with a pass catcher, but you don't want to overstack—especially in the earlier rounds. Chase and Tee Higgins might positively correlate with Burrow over the course of the season, but their ceiling games are going to be inversely correlated (every time Chase catches a TD, that's a TD Higgins can't score). I don't mind correlating more in the double-digit rounds, but I actively avoid overstacking in the first half of the draft.
     
  • For more tips, check out my Weekly Winners article from last year. The format is the exact same in 2025, so all of these nuggets still apply.

Watch me draft a Weekly Winners team.

The Sprint: Like BBM, but no pods in Weeks 15-17

  • Buy-In: $20
  • Prize Pool: $1 million total; $150,000 to 1st place
  • Advance  Structure: Weeks 1-14: 2/12, Weeks 15-17: 9,300 Playoff Sprint 

This contest is very similar to BBM, except there are no individual pods for Weeks 15, 16, and 17. The top two teams from each regular season pod advance to the playoffs, where the contest then functions like the Marathon for the final three weeks.

This contest is the one that is easiest to draft if you are BBM-pilled because the only difference is that specific correlations—like for Week 17—don't matter. Each of the three playoff weeks matters equally. 

Strategy shifts:

  • Focus your draft heavily on players who project to peak late-season (Weeks 15–17), including potential breakout rookies and players returning from injury.
     
  • Target teams who play each other multiple times in the playoffs, especially ones with favorable game environments (high totals, dome and/or warm weather games, etc.).
     
  • Minimize concerns about early-season production, as the goal is exclusively to capitalize on late-season surges.

Watch me draft a Sprint team.

The Superflex Puppy: Start up to 2 QBs

  • Buy-In: $5
  • Prize Pool: $1 million total; $100,000 to 1st place
  • Advance  Structure: Weeks 1: 2/12; Week 15: 1/10; Week 16: 1/10; WWeek 17: 375 Seat Final

There are two big differences between this contest and the traditional format. First, a WR spot has been replaced with a Superflex (QB/RB/WR/TE) spot. Second, there are 20 roster spots instead of 18. It shouldn't shock you to learn that QBs go at a heavy premium in this contest. For example, Geno Smith's traditional ADP is 165, but his Superflex ADP is 53. You need to prioritize at least 2 QBs in the first five rounds, or you've likely already lost.

Strategy shifts:

  • In addition to QBs being way more valuable, WRs are less valuable because you are only required to start 2, as opposed to 3 in the traditional format. The ADPs do not reflect this shift enough (i.e., Jonathan Taylor is still going after Drake London), so make sure to prioritize both QBs and RBs more than usual.
     
  • My preferred QB strategy is to get at least two before pick 60, but then wait on a third. Some of my favorite "cheap" QBs include Daniel Jones and Jaxson Dart, who can both be had after pick 90 and offer significant rushing upside if/when they get the starting nod.
     
  • This contest has a 375-person final, which means we still need to be prioritizing stacking and Week 17 correlation. 

Watch me draft a Superflex Puppy team.

***

And there you have it—a quick and dirty guide to drafting every contest in the Underdog lobby. Good luck out there.