RADIO
Koby Hanson's DraftKings DFS lineup picks for Call of Duty on 3/25/21. He analyzes the COD slates and top lineup targets for eSports DFS contests.
Hello there eSports DFS enthusiasts, and welcome back to RotoBaller's coverage of Call of Duty DFS contests for DraftKings! Welcome everyone to Stage 2 of COD League! What a wild end to Sunday. I did not see London coming out of the works like that and smoking LAG. That was crazy and quite disheartening for my lineups considering I had way too much LAG for my own good. FaZe do what they do and swept Toronto under the rug. Last but not least the Subliners almost blew it but were able to make quite the comeback as they completed the reverse sweep on LA Thieves causing them to make some roster changes.
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! My Name is Koby and I'll be here all season long to help guide you through the COD DFS world. Welcome back to another great weekend of COD DFS! For this slate we Paris Legion taking on Dallas Empire, Minnesota Rokkr taking on the hot Optic Chicago team, LA Thieves get a shot at redemption as they take on the new and improved London Ravens team, and last but not least we have Subliners taking on the LA Guerrillas!
Today I'll be bringing you my COD DFS advice, analysis, and lineup picks for eSports DFS contests on DraftKings for Thursday and Friday, March 25th-26th, 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!
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Call of Duty: Toronto Home Series
Best of 5
- Paris Legion (+260) vs. Dallas Empire (-385)
- Minnesota Rokkr (+385) vs. Optic Chicago (-600)
- LA Thieves (-250) vs. London Royal Ravens (+180)
- New York Subliners (-310) vs. LA Guerrillas (+220)
Slate Overview
Dallas had a close call against Seattle last week to start the stage, and Huke had his worst game on the season only dropping a poor 60 kills and going -8 on the day. Dallas gets another lower-level team to start off against Paris Legion who has struggled consistently to close out games. And trust me this is one of the last teams you don't want to close out games. They will come and bite you in the ass and take the win right from your hands. Illey really came out and played well in this game along with C6 who looks to have adjusted to the new meta quite well. The odds are spread pretty far apart on this one but I'm not going to count Legion out of this.
Minnesota Rokkr has looked horrible, I thought it was just one bad game against Paris but man they got punished by Florida as well. They are going to need to make major improvements, they did drop MajorManiak and signed on Standy but I can't imagine that this is going to solve all of Minnesota's struggles it might help but there is a lot this team needs and this weekend has games against Optic and Dallas and that's a rough weekend to start your career. Optic on the other hand has been nothing but dominant this year. Only taking losses to Dallas, NYSL, Atlanta but managed to be one of few teams to take Atlanta to a Game 5. Optic has been one of my favorite teams to stack this year but they are going to be tough to get them in as they got quite the price hike...
LA Thieves made a big roster move in grabbing Venom from the Challengers scene, he has been regarded as one of the best players in the Challengers NA region and could be a big upgrade here from Temp. He is a slayer who can apply pressure and position himself to make plays and is known for his movement. This is a great addition to the Thieves and a perfect match to start against London. London on the other hand made a great add-in Paulehx who made a name for himself as he helped lead London to its first win of the season. This is going to be a great game and should be an interesting game to see if London can make a run at this stage.
New York Subliners made me almost punch a hole in the monitor watching them lose the first two maps to LA Thieves. But they were able to make quite the comeback and complete only the second reverse sweep on the season. They get quite an easier match here against LA Guerrillas who just got swept by London and gave them their first win on the season. Clayster, Diamondcon, and Asim are all playing very well and Mack hasn't been too bad himself. We saw the Clayster of old in this last game as he went crazy and dropped 145 DKP. The Subliners are going to need to keep up this pace if they want to keep up with Atlanta and the rest of the teams in Group A.
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 are 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 game mode 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. You win by capturing both points or killing the enemy team until they run out of their lives. One team defends and the other attacks.
- 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. In the chance, they do sweep they also get granted a bonus of 20 points for not playing hardpoint and a bonus of 5 points for not playing the final Search and Destroy map. So that adds up in a sweep to a total of 45 extra points which are going to be very crucial this year.
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COD DFS Captain Considerations
Dashy: Dashy at this point is a free 100 DKP. He has been elite so far this season dropping only sub 100 once this season but has also exceeded 177 DKP in one game as well. The only reason I could see behind not rostering him is his price. Both him and Huke are plus 10k this week and that's a hefty price to pay. But we are getting a floor of almost 100 DKP from Dashy and there are not many players out there that can offer that. He is great in the captain spot as well if you can get him there. He is 2nd overall in the league in K/D and is Top 10 in both Hardpoint and SnD K/D, as well as first in Control K/D. This is one of the best plays on the slate and should be looked at heavily as an option at Captain.
DiamondCon: I like the consistency we have got out of DiamondCon in recent games. When Subliners arent getting swept DiamondCon has been playing very well including 5 performances over 100 DKP and two more over 90+. He has had a couple of rough performances here and there but if we can get a 90+ DKP from Diamond that would be great. He has a 1.03 overall K/D, a 1.03 K/D in hardpoint, 1.07 K/d in SnD, and a 1.00 K/D in Control. He has been pretty good in all game modes and I especially like how aggressive he has been in hardpoint as he is Top 5 in the league in Hardpoint Kills per 10 minutes. He dies quite a bit at times but he almost always is getting more kills in the process. Clayster is also very viable here as they're close to the same price, but Clay brings more of a boom or bust type of play vs. DiamondCon who has played consistently for his rookie year. If you are looking for someone who can boom Clay might be the way to go but DiamondCon is the safer play from NYSL.
Other captain plays: Envoy, Huke, Clayster, Slasher
COD DFS Value Plays
Venom: Now Venom here is a risk, but 6,200 is just so cheap. We saw last time what Insight did and dropped 140 DKP on his first game in the pros. I want to be ahead of the curve as I was on Neptune. Venom has been crazy good in the Challengers scene so far and I really like what I have seen so far. He had a 1.25 K/D while he played in Challengers and has been killing it in every game mode. He has been one of the most sought-after players in Challengers so far as he has the highest Slayer rating in the Challengers Series. He is definitely a risk as we don't know how he adapts to the new competition but I like the chances we have here with picking Venom and the matchup is a great one to start off against London. He is definitely worth a shot on at that price!
Illey: Illey looks like he adapted to the new meta well. As for the first time this season he leads his team to a win over Seattle that was insanely close. We are once again getting him at a cheap price coming into this one as well. 7k and a great match against Paris, sign me up! He is averaging 90 DKP per game this season and it's only that low because of a really low game in which they lost to NYS and he only scores 65 DKP. He is a safer option than Venom above as we have a level of consistency we have seen so far from Illey. He can go big at times and can exceed his value quite easily. I do think this match goes to 4 games and if we can get around 75+ kills that would be great out of Illey. He currently has a .93 K/D but has struggled in SnD which has brought his ratio down quite a bit, he averages a 1.0 or better in both hardpoint and control though and that's where we are going to see a majority of our kills from Illey. Let's just hope we don't get a floor game out of him.
Other value plays: TJHaly, Scump, Mack, Preistahh(PUNT)
COD DFS Stacks
Optic Chicago: Minnesota has been bad, like absolutely terrible, losing to Paris and Florida last weekend. That's, not a good look to start Stage 2. Optic on the other hand has looked the complete opposite and I expect that to continue into this one. They have an all-around solid team and everyone is playing very well right now. Envoy and Dashy are playing at insane levels and even FormaL is returning to old form and demolishing the competition. Scump has always been considered one of the greatest COD players and I can't disagree. He may not score insanely high in most games but the way he communicates and plays the game has always been insane. Optic is about the only team I see being able to takedown FaZe. Optic should be able to punish Minnesota and make this one quick.
NY Subliners: Subliners pulled out a close one against LA Thieves on Sunday and they now get LAG who just got swept by London... Yikes... Subliners has been sitting in the area right between the best teams and the middle they aren't quite elite but they also aren't horrible either. I think this match against LAG should end up in a sweep. They have been better in every game mode by quite a bit, the only one that is somewhat close is SnD which is about the only map I could see LAG stealing here as they have been one of the better SnD teams this year. If that happens though that just adds to the number of kills we should see out of Subliners and that's going to be a lot of points. But that sweep bonus can be nice and makes it a lot easier to get a higher-scoring day. I do think they go relatively overlooked with having Optic and Dallas on the slate. Clayster and Diamondcon are the first places I would start. Clayster has been kinda boom or bust for his price but when he booms, he can break a slate. Diamondcon has been pretty consistent and has been the safer play in recent games. Asim has looked pretty good in recent games as well dropping 3, 100+ DKP performances in his last 4 games. Don't love Mack's price but if that's all you have left there are definitely worse plays out there.
Other Team Plays: LA Thieves, Dallas Empire.
Summary
- TLDR: Dallas Empire 3-1, Optic 3-0, LA Thieves 3-1, NYS 3-0
- Optic and Dallas are going to be looked at most and are more than likely our chalk plays.
- Optic is very expensive and I like Subliners as a Pivot to them or if you can fit it, a pair with Optic as well.
- Venom is too cheap and I think Thieves will come out more improved.
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