The RotoViz tools and Best Ball Workshop provide subscribers a prohibitive advantage in their leagues. Or at least that’s what Shawn claims in his articles. Was he able to keep up the best-ball win streak in 2021?

With Week 13 concluding the regular season portion of the FFPC $100k best ball tournament, it’s time to check in on teams and concepts that we featured in the Best Ball Workshop.

I drafted four tournament teams this season. That’s a $500 investment, a fraction of the investment in dynasty and redraft, but still a cost I want to recoup by cashing at the league level and creating an opportunity for a deep tournament run.

Two of the leagues were with RotoViz best ball guru Zachary Krueger, who also brings you the Red Zone Report in-season. I also had a chance to draft a tournament team with Blair and Colm for OT.

The results? Two of those teams advanced, allowing us to make money on the project and giving us a chance at the big money in a few weeks. How about the teams drafted at the $35 level across FFPC Classic, Slim, and Superflex formats? Those teams are currently in first place at a 25% clip.

Zero RB and the FFPC Best Ball Tournament

Let’s start with a look at the advancing team with Zach. You probably don’t have to guess which team is ours.

It’s always interesting and valuable to go back and analyze your drafts. I’m both happy and surprised (in a mildly negative way) with this draft. Obviously a lot changes in-season, but midsummer drafts offer a reminder of just how much changes between June and August. In the other advancing draft, Colm, Blair, and I selected Davante Adams at the turn (before Aaron Rodgers confirmed his return), so you can guess that I’m a little disappointed to have passed on him here. That would be less of an issue if not for the injuries to DeAndre Hopkins. Of course, we also had Justin Jefferson above Hopkins for most of the offseason, so our decision to take the veteran rankles a bit.

A.J. Brown hasn’t panned out either, even though he was a half-round value at his June ADP. Chris Godwin and Tee Higgins were both priority targets, and while Higgins has been a buy-low instead of a fantasy MVP for most of the year, he ranks No. 2 at the WR position over the last two weeks. If you managed to pry him away in dynasty, you have an ascending talent and second-round startup asset for the long term.

How Are You Going to Get All of Those WRs in the Lineup?

This is the question consistently asked of Zero RB advocates. In both redraft and best ball, the answer is always the same, although it manifests slightly differently – if you can’t get all of those WRs in your lineup, then you’ve crushed your league. If you need them, you have them, and maybe that’ll be enough to get you through.

In best ball, it’s imperative to annihilate your league at both the WR and Flex positions. The more firepower you have for this, the better your chances. Optimized scoring allows you to supercharge your results when players stay healthy. Of course, when you hit the byes, you’re going to need everyone you can get. And if you want to withstand any injuries, you’ll need impressive depth.

Zero RB is dominant in both redraft and best ball, although the benefits are slightly different in each format. In redraft, you often have the option to add league-winning players like Cordarrelle Patterson and Elijah Mitchell through free agency. In best ball, you have to play the hand you deal yourself, but the lack of free-agent acquisitions positions you to fully take advantage of the chaos. For example, in this league we had the WR depth to withstand injuries to Hopkins, Brown, and Jerry Jeudy, while we were able to benefit from the injury-related emergence of James Conner and Darrell Henderson.

Even though the particulars are different, the antifragile nature of Zero RB allows it to thrive in all formats. For new readers, we’ll dive into this topic in more depth during the offseason.

Tight Ends Dominate the FFPC

One of the biggest advantages of the Best Ball Workshop comes at the TE position where the tools consistently recommend either a 2-TE approach with an elite TE or a 3-TE approach where the tight ends are all drafted in the TE window. One of the strengths of our team is the Mike Gesicki–Rob Gronkowski–Zach Ertz trio, and this group is now healthier and more potent than at any time this season.

The Jonathan Taylor Team

When we drew the 1.12, Colm, Blair, and I were mildly disappointed. Although recent years had actually mirrored what was about to happen in 2021 – rampant injuries across the first couple of picks – win rates have been sky-high in the middle of Round 1 and fall-of-the-cliff terrible in the back third of drafts. These poor win rates are the result of two elements:

• You have a much weaker pool of talent to choose from.
• When confronted with that issue, best ball drafters have deployed extremely poor tactics.

The second of the two elements is within your control, which is why we recommended an Evidence-Based Plan to Flip the Script and Create Silly Win Rates.

Not surprisingly, part of the plan was to follow historical trends for landing league winners, and Jonathan Taylor has been the highest-scoring RB by a wide margin. Only four backs are within 100 points of his 308. He was the RB7 and a clear first-round pick in June, but that plummeted to RB9 and a second-round pick in August. Now his managers face the first round of the tournament without fantasy’s most dominant player.

Fortunately for us, we have the NFL’s best receiver (Davante Adams) and Week 13’s top RB to give us an outside shot at advancement. Hopefully our 12-team mini-tournament will be full of Taylor squads with less remaining firepower.

The Buy-Lows Come Through With Epic Performances

If you’ve been reading Corbin Young’s Advanced RB Stats articles, Bjorn Yang-Vaernet’s excellent weekly breakdowns of the WR position (everything from advanced air yards numbers to all of the key route-based results), and Conor O’Driscoll’s Buy Low Report, which focuses on a combination of advanced schedule metrics and volume-based buy-low options . . . well, then Week 13 was a jackpot that hit just at the right time.