The Swap sheet changes the open seats of your filled entries after the first games of a slate start. It re-solves only the seats that can still change, shows you every change before it saves anything, and then prepares the entries file you upload to DraftKings or FanDuel again. A swap takes a few minutes from open to upload, so start it well before the next lock.
Before you start
- Upload the entries file and fill the entries from a build. See Upload your entries and Contest Setup and Fill.
- Check that the slate supports Swap. See What Late Swap does.
- Keep the site's upload page ready. See Export and upload to DraftKings or Export and upload to FanDuel.
Step by step
- Open the slate in the workspace.
- Click the Swap button in the toolbar, next to the entries button.
- Read the lock clock at the top. The bold cell is the next lock, and its countdown is your deadline.
- Pick a MODE. Replace outs appears only when DFS Hero detects players who are out. Re-optimize re-solves every open seat. Pivot swaps one player for another.
- Check Build settings. Pick the build tab you built these entries with, or None for entries you built somewhere else.
- Set Maintain stacks, Swap uniqueness, and Randomness. Keep the defaults unless you need specific stack, uniqueness, or randomness behavior.
- Check the ENTRIES count. The sheet selects the right entries for the mode. Click Customize to tick or untick single entries or whole contests.
- Click Preview Swaps · N. Nothing is saved yet.
- Read the results. The summary card shows the average projection gain per entry. One card per changed entry follows.
- Adjust single cards. Exclude keeps that entry as it is. Re-swap asks for the next best lineup for that entry. Click the chevron on a card to see the full before and after lineup.
- Click Apply · N to save the swaps in DFS Hero, or Apply & Download to save and download the entries file in one step.
- Read the green strip. It reads Saved. N entries updated. and shows a SWAP DEADLINE countdown. That is the time by which the file must be on the site.
- Click Download CSV if you did not use Apply & Download.
- Upload the file on the site before the swap deadline. On DraftKings, use the lineup upload page. On FanDuel, upload the file from the contest's entries page. The site keeps your old lineups until this upload succeeds.
Every control
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Undo row | Appears when a previous swap on this slate exists. Restores the lineups from before that swap. | Hidden until a swap was applied |
| N Out Players | Lists every player DFS Hero marks as out, with the count of your entries that hold him. | Shown only when outs exist |
| Replace outs | Replaces the out players and keeps every other player. | Selected when outs exist |
| Out slots only / Rebuild the whole lineup | Under Replace outs. The first replaces only the out seats. The second re-solves every open seat of the affected entries. | Out slots only |
| Re-optimize | Re-solves every open seat in every selected entry with current projections. | Selected when no outs exist |
| Pivot | Swaps one named player for another in every entry that holds him. | Off |
| Build settings | The build tab whose settings the swap follows: exposure limits, locks, excludes, salary range, and player groups. None uses only the site's roster rules. The info icon explains when the settings are loosened. | The active build tab |
| Maintain stacks | Keeps each lineup's stack together, on the same team when possible. Shown for NFL, CFB, MLB, NHL, and soccer. Hidden in Pivot. | On |
| Swap uniqueness | The minimum number of players that differ between swapped lineups: 1, 2, or 3. Hidden in Pivot. | 1 |
| Randomness | Off, Minimum, Moderate, or Aggressive. Applies Smart Randomness to the swap. | Off |
| Swap out / Swap in | Pivot only. The player to remove and his replacement. The replacement list holds only players whose games have not started and who fit at least one affected entry. A partial fit shows fits X of Y entries. | Empty |
| All swappable / With outs / None | Selects every entry with an open seat, only the entries that hold an out player, or nothing. | Selection follows the mode |
| Customize | Expands the entry list, grouped by contest, with a checkbox per contest and per entry. | Collapsed |
| Preview Swaps · N | Solves the selected entries and opens the results step. | |
| Exclude / Include | Removes a card from Apply, or puts it back. | Included |
| Apply · N | Saves every included swap in DFS Hero. N is the number of player changes. | |
| Apply & Download | Saves, then downloads the entries file. | |
| Undo | After a save. Restores the lineups from before the swap, in DFS Hero only. |
What each entry row shows
In the Customize list, each entry row shows its lock state so you can pick the entries worth swapping: a lock icon when every seat is locked, a stack badge such as 4x PHI, a warning icon when the lineup holds an out player, X/Y open with the countdown to its earliest lock, and the lineup's projection. Expand the row to see every seat. A locked seat shows a lock icon. An out player shows in red.
How it works
DFS Hero treats every entry as a set of fixed seats and open seats. A seat is fixed when the player's game started, or when his start time is unknown. In Replace outs with Out slots only, every player who is not out is also fixed. The open seats are then filled from the slate's player pool, with the same salary cap and roster rules a build uses. The projections and the rules come from the build tab in Build settings, which is the active tab by default. The swap uses its Projection Source, your My Proj and Mins edits, your boosts, locks, excludes, salary range, player groups, and Max Exp and Min Exp. Max Exp and Min Exp count across all your entries on the slate, so one replacement cannot land in more entries than its Max Exp allows. Pivot is the one exception: the player you pick in Swap in goes into every selected entry he fits, past his Max Exp if needed. An entry that breaks one of these settings changes even when the change costs projection, and Adjustments says so. None uses no build tab: the default projections and the site's roster rules only.
In Replace outs and Re-optimize, an entry with an out player gets a new lineup when one fits. When the settings leave no such lineup, the swap loosens them for that entry in steps: first Min Exp, then locks, then the per-lineup rules such as stacks, team limits, and player groups. Each step shows under Adjustments. Your excludes and Max Exp hold on every step. When the only replacements are excluded or at their Max Exp, the entry keeps its original lineup and shows a warning. To free a replacement, raise that player's Max Exp, include him again, or choose None in Build settings.
Entries that hold the same lineup receive the same result, so they stay identical. Entries with different lineups are solved separately, and two entries never collapse into one. Swap uniqueness raises that bar from 1 differing player to 2 or 3.
Maintain stacks tries to keep each lineup's stack. When the same team no longer works, the stack size moves to another team. When no stack fits, the stack is dropped. Two Team Stack rules that build one exact shape (see Stacks tab) keep that shape. The lineup's stack team keeps its part, the larger or the smaller. Each step shows under Adjustments on the results step, and the card shows the stack fate, for example 4x PHI → 3x PHI.
Randomness applies the same per-player Smart Randomness a build uses at that level. A second preview gives the same result until you change the entries or the settings. See Randomness.
Apply checks the game clock again at save time. An entry whose changed players have started is dropped from the save and reported in the strip. The saved entries carry a swap stamp, so a scheduled cloud fill never overwrites them. Undo is available for 48 hours on the device where you applied the swap.
The results step
- N Lines Not Swapped lists the entries that could not be improved. They keep their lineups.
- N Adjustments lists every stack change and every seat that was filled because its player left the pool.
- When the changed entries lock at different times, the cards group under a header per wave, soonest first. A card that lost its deadline reads Deadline passed and is left out of Apply.
- When your entries would break an exposure setting after the swap, an amber line under Apply names the player, his share, and the limit. The usual cause is an excluded card that took a player out, because that entry keeps him. Include the card again, or Re-swap an entry. Apply still works.
- The EXPOSURE table shows every removed and added player with the exposure before and after across all entries. Read it before you apply, so one replacement does not land in every entry.
Tips
- Open the sheet as soon as the first game starts, not at the next lock. The site upload takes a minute.
- Use Re-optimize with Randomness off in cash contests. Use Moderate or Aggressive for large fields where you want the open seats to differ across entries.
- Set Swap uniqueness to 2 or 3 when several entries share the same open seats. Otherwise the same replacement can land in every entry.
- After Apply, upload the file before you start another round. Only the last upload counts on the site.
- Keep Maintain stacks on in MLB and NFL. A dropped stack often costs more correlation than the projection gain is worth.
Troubleshooting
"No filled entries" : fill the entries from a build.
"No swappable entries selected." : every selected entry is fully locked. Click All swappable.
"N entries missed the swap deadline. Preview again to swap their open slots." : a game started after the preview. Click ← Edit setup, then Preview Swaps again.
"The entries changed since this preview. Preview again." : another fill or swap changed the entries. Preview again.
Every other message is listed in Late swap errors.
Related
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