Best Ball Strategy: Week 17 Stacking Guide (Fantasy Football)

Most best ball tournaments such as Underdog Fantasy’s Best Ball Mania IV and DraftKings’ Milly Maker are extremely top-heavy when it comes to their payout structure. Simply advancing to the playoffs out of your 12-team league won’t result in a big payday. After the top two teams advance, the field is chopped down two more times in Week 15 and Week 16 until a final GPP-style tournament is held in Week 17. Contests like these feature hundreds of teams that even make it to the Championship Round in Week 17. It’s an accomplishment in and of itself to advance a team that far, but if we want to take home one of the top prizes, we’ll need to think about upside and correlation – that means stacking our players and game stacking for specific Week 17 matchups.

If this idea of a game stack is unfamiliar to you, I’d recommend reading my NFL DFS article on optimal roster construction, which highlights the importance of stacking, both on a team level and game level.

In best ball tournaments, Week 17 game stacks are important because it helps us to minimize the number of things we need to get correct. We know that players within the same game are strongly correlated, meaning if one QB has a great day and his pass catchers do very well, it’s likely someone on the other team is having success also.

Want to read the rest of this article?

Get the 2026 Ultimate DFS Pass for instant access. The 2026 Ultimate DFS Pass is currently available as part of the Ultimate Draft Kit+.

Get the 2026 UDK+

Already purchased the DFS Pass? Log in here