The playbook editor reads top to bottom in the order a run happens. The top card names the playbook and pins its sport, site, and mode. Below it, five stage cards hold the plan: Build & Sim (or Build Only), Select, Fill, Export, and Guardrails.
Power plan. The editor needs an active Power subscription.
Before you start
- Create or open a playbook. See Create a playbook and Manage playbooks.
- Know the Build Settings sheet. Advanced builder settings inside the Build stage is that same sheet. See Build Settings overview.
The top card
Type a Name, then pick the Sport (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Golf, WNBA, CFB, CBB, Soccer, MMA, NASCAR, F1, Tennis, or LoL), the Site (DraftKings or FanDuel), and the Mode (Classic or Showdown). A blank editor starts on NFL, DraftKings, Classic. Save Playbook stays disabled until the name is filled in; Cmd+S or Ctrl+S also saves.
Sport, site, and mode lock after the first save. To move a playbook to another sport, site, or mode, use Duplicate on its card and change the values in the copy.
Stage 1: Build & Sim or Build Only
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Build Mode | Build Only builds a pool you can simulate later from the lineups panel. Build & Sim builds, then simulates. | Build & Sim |
| Lineups per run | Type any count, or click the arrow for a shortcut: 150, 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, or 10,000. Essential builds up to 500 lineups per build, Power up to 10,000. A typed count above your limit becomes the limit, and shortcuts above it are not offered. | Your plan's build limit, or the count you picked in the interview |
| Stacking | How a run stacks. See below. | No stack rule armed; the Correlation dial at Auto |
| Advanced builder settings | The Build Settings sheet inside the stage: the tabs Basic, Exposure, Stacks, and Sim, and a Reset all button. | Collapsed |
Stacking
With no rule armed in the Stacks tab of Advanced builder settings, the Correlation dial on the Basic tab decides. At Auto or at a level, the playbook stacks, and each run picks the stacked teams by projection and salary: the optimizer stacks the teams that give the most projected points under the salary cap and your rules. On an NHL build with randomness on, each lineup first tries the teams whose stacks give the most points for their salary. If none of them fits your rules, it tries every team. With the dial Off, or on a sport with no dial, the playbook does not stack. Arm a rule (for example Team Stack, then Add Rule) and, on NFL, NHL, MLB, and CFB classic playbooks, the block asks which teams to stack:
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Which teams to stack | Teams I picked: each rule stacks the teams it names; a rule that names no team can stack any team. Stack IQ picks: every run rates the slate's teams with Stack IQ and stacks the best ones. Your rules still decide the stack size, positions, and exposure caps. | Teams I picked |
| Teams in the main stack | With Stack IQ picks, how many top-rated teams the run stacks, 1 to 12. On NHL the field is Stacks in the main rule: Stack IQ ranks each team's lines and power-play units together, and the run stacks that many of the best ones your rule can build from the players you did not exclude. Two can come from one team. Player Floors apply after the pick, so a floor can remove the players a picked stack needs; the build then stops with an error that names the stack, for example EDM:pp1. | 3 teams |
| Teams in the second stack | MLB only, for the second stack rule, 2 to 12. Counts from the top-rated team, so the same teams can sit in both stacks. Each lineup seats its two stacks on different teams. | None |
If a slate has no Stack IQ ratings, the run uses your rules as written. On other sports, an armed rule runs as written.
Advanced builder settings
The Basic, Exposure, and Stacks tabs match the workspace sheet, with one addition. The Smart Randomness level offers Auto beside Minimum, Moderate, and Aggressive, and a new playbook starts on Auto. With Auto, each run uses the level for its slate: Aggressive on showdown, Moderate on a classic slate of 1 to 4 games, and Minimum on bigger slates. Pick a fixed level to use it on every slate. See Basic tab, Exposure tab, and Stacks tab. The Sim tab holds one switch, Derive sim scenarios from your entries: on, the run simulates against the contests in the slate's entries file; off, you set the scenarios by hand. See Contest Simulation settings.
Stage 2: Select
The Select stage decides which lineups from the built pool become the working set.
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Mode | How the working set is chosen. See the modes below. | Win Paths on Build & Sim; Balanced Exposure on Build Only |
| Rank by | The metric that orders the pool before the keep count applies. Hidden for Win Paths. | Top 1% on Build & Sim; Projection on Build Only |
| Match my entries | Keeps one lineup per uploaded entry, counted at run time. | On |
| Keep exactly | With Match my entries off, how many lineups to keep, 1 to 10,000. | 150 |
| Min uniques | For Min Uniques with Match my entries off: the minimum number of different players between kept lineups, 1 to 10. | 1 |
Selection modes
| Mode | What it does | Needs a sim |
|---|---|---|
| Highest Ranked | Keeps the top lineups by the rank metric, with no diversity constraint. | No |
| Min Uniques | Walks the ranked pool and keeps lineups that differ by at least the min uniques count. | No |
| Win Paths | Keeps lineups that crack the top 1% in as many different sim outcomes as possible. | Yes |
| Balanced Exposure | Matches each player's exposure to how often your pool uses them. | No |
A Build Only playbook offers Highest Ranked, Min Uniques, and Balanced Exposure only. Switch a Build & Sim playbook to Build Only and a stored Win Paths mode changes to Balanced Exposure. A playbook saved with the retired Win Paths · Large Fields opens on Win Paths.
Rank by options
Build & Sim: ROI, Projection, Cash Prob, Win Prob, Top 1%, Top 0.1%, Top 5%, Leverage, Ceiling, Floor, Geomean, Ownership, Salary. Build Only: Projection, Ownership, Salary. The sim metrics are explained in Read sim results.
Stage 3: Fill
The Fill stage assigns kept lineups to your uploaded entries with the allocation Entries Preview uses. See Contest Setup and Fill and Cloud fill and export.
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Fill my entries | Off keeps the ranked pool for review and fills no entry. | On |
| Contest order | Which contests get filled first: Stake (largest entry fee first), Entry fee, My entries count, or File order. | Stake (largest entry fee first) |
| Unique lineups per contest | Off allows the same lineup to fill more than one entry. | On |
| Empty entries only | Skips entries that already hold a lineup. | Off |
Stage 4: Export
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-download CSV | Downloads the filled entries file as soon as the fill completes. | On |
| Open upload page | Opens the site's contest upload page after the download. | On |
Both apply to browser runs only. Scheduled runs skip export; download those from the Entries page.
Stage 5: Guardrails
Guardrails check the numbers of a run. Click Add guardrail to add a row, up to 10. The minus button removes one.
| Control | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Checkpoint | After build, Before fill | After build |
| Field | Lineup count, Avg projection, Max ownership, Avg salary, Time to lock (min) | Lineup count |
| Operator | >, >=, <, <=, = | >= |
| Value | A number | 1 |
| Action | Stop the run, Skip fill, Notify only | Notify only |
When a guardrail trips, the run notes read "Guardrail failed: <field> <actual> <is not above, is not below, is below, is above, or does not equal> <value>". Stop the run ends the run without a fill; it does not count as a failure. Skip fill keeps the pool and skips only the fill. Notify only records the notice and continues. A playbook Replay runs the same guardrails on each past slate. See Replay.
Leaving the editor
If you leave with unsaved edits, DFS Hero asks "Discard unsaved changes?". Click Keep editing or Discard changes.
Tips
- Set Lineups per run well above your entry count. Win Paths and Balanced Exposure choose better from a big pool.
- Keep Match my entries on for a playbook you schedule. One playbook then serves a 3-entry night and a 20-entry night.
- Add one guardrail with Before fill, Lineup count, >=, your usual entry count, and Stop the run. A short pool then never fills entries with repeats.
- For a cash playbook, choose Build Only, Highest Ranked, and Rank by Projection. The sim adds little for a double-up.
Troubleshooting
"This playbook needs reconfiguration. Its saved settings couldn't be read, so it's showing defaults. Adjust the settings below and save to repair it." : set the stages and click Save Playbook.
"This playbook has a scheduled run, and the new lineup count is over your build limit. Cancel the scheduled run or lower the count." : cancel the run in Scheduled builds, or lower Lineups per run.
Win Paths shows greyed with " · needs sim" : the playbook is Build Only. Switch Build Mode to Build & Sim, or pick another mode.
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