Today, we get our first taste of a bundle purchase contest, available for 10 dollars in the Bunt store. Basically the equivalent of 50k coins, the prizes for this are pretty nice in packs of Black Boost 3x cards. The elite players can sell for a ton, so itsnot a bad idea to consider dropping the money if you have a good lineup to play.

Because the format of the contest isnt the normal stream of switching players, I thought it might be something that is worth talking through on here to give people some tips.

What is a Fantasy Contest?

For the last few years, Bunt has allowed unlimited switches in the contests, meaning you can literally change as many cards as you need to over the course of the day’s games. This allows for maximum points, and is much more forgiving if your lineup doesnt play well. With the right amount of boosts, this could mean hundreds of thousands of points per day.

On the flip side, Fantasy is much more like Draft Kings and Fan Duel, which prevents switching more than one card into the lineup during the course of the day. This is a set it and forget it contest, and it relies on really good information and really good planning to ensure you dont choose duds in your lineup. If your pitchers get rocked, you arent going to do well, because you cant switch them out.

Choosing Your Lineup

There are a few things to consider, and they arent always easy to figure out. If you are going to play and win, you will need to use the following items to make a determination of who will be in your lineup:

1. Boost level of the card – the higher boosted cards should be among your top choices because they can score exponentially higher points. They can also hurt, so dont use a boost just because its there. Make the right choice.
2. Player position – In a fantasy contest, Pitchers are safer, especially high strike out ones. Over the course of the day, they can make up for runs and hits with Ks, and that will help tremendously. Try to pick hitters that are less prone to striking out on the other hand.
3. Player scoring history – flip the card over and scroll back to see how many times they accumulated positive points vs negative. A bad day can end your chances if the boost is high enough.
4. Matchup – check the pitcher vs batter stats on places like BaseballReference.com or see what their last few game splits look like on MLB.com. If the guy is in a slump, try choosing someone else.

There are also DFS guide sites that can help you to make choices as well, as the daily fantasy blogosphere is huge. The difference with DFS and Bunt DFS is that value of the player is more important in DFS. In Bunt, you can play 9 Nolan Arenados if you so desire.

Setting Your Lineup

When you are adding cards to your lineup, make sure to save all at once. You get one opportunity to set your lineup before it locks, and then you will be stuck if you have open slots. Similarly, DO NOT TRADE any of the cards or upgrade any of the cards in your lineup as they will be removed from play. You will not be able to replace them for free.

Using Your 1 Switch

There are a few ways to make this work to your advantage. You can either save it for a bad performance or save it for a big moment. I like having it in case a player just craps out and has a horrible day, but switching in for a big grand slam or something like that can be huge. he issue is  that if you put in a card, you are basically giving up the stats of the player you are taking out. If that player has yet to play or has yet to score, you might only be gaining the difference between their final tally, and the points for the big moment.

As a point of strategy, I would definitely choose at least one guy from the early games and switch them out with someone from the later games. At the very least, that can get you 10 slots in the contest lineup for the price of 9.

Why Play?

Overall, fantasy contests are fun if you cant sit in front of the computer all night. Its just as much luck as it is anything else, so that evens the playing field more than you would expect. If you have better choices than the guy who plays 9 Carlos Correa, you could easily outscore them.

In a 162 game season, every player has a number of bad days. The great thing about contests like this is that with careful consideration, you might be able to beat those big fish who has an issue with recognizing a bad day in the making. To me that is quite an interesting situation.