Underdog’s Eliminator: Everything You Need to Know About Fantasy Football’s Ultimate Survival Contest
If you've grown tired of the same old season-long fantasy league or want to try something with a bigger prize pool and a different kind of pressure, Underdog's Eliminator tournament might be exactly what you're looking for. It's a best ball format with a twist: instead of grinding through a full regular season and a small playoff bracket, you're fighting for your life in a head-to-head elimination gauntlet that runs all 17 weeks of the NFL season. Miss the cut in any single week, and your tournament, and your entry fee, is done. Survive, and the payouts escalate fast. Click the module below to sign up with our Underdog promo code and get drafting!
Updated on 7/6/26
Here's a full breakdown of how the contest works, the rules you need to know before you draft, and the strategy that gives you the best shot at outlasting a field of nearly 200,000 entries.
What Is The Eliminator?
The Eliminator is a best ball tournament on Underdog, meaning there are no waivers, no trades, and no lineup decisions once your draft is complete. Underdog automatically slots your highest-scoring eligible players into your starting lineup each week based on your roster construction. Your job is simple in theory and brutal in practice: draft a team that can score well enough, week after week, to keep advancing.
Unlike a traditional best ball contest that separates the season into a "regular season" portion and then a "playoffs" bracket at the end, The Eliminator turns every single week into a playoff game from Week 1 on. There's no coasting through a bad week and making it up later; one poor showing relative to your group can send you home.
Entry Details
- Entry fee: $10 per entry
- Entry limit: Up to 150 entries per person
- Entry deadline: Closes prior to the first game of the NFL season (this can shift if the season's start date changes)
- Format: Snake draft, 12 teams per group in Round 1
- Roster construction: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, and 10 bench spots (18 total players)
How the Bracket Works
This is where The Eliminator separates itself from every other best ball product on the market. The tournament runs 17 rounds, one for each week of the NFL regular season, and the number of entries that survive shrinks dramatically as the season goes on.
Round 1 (Week 1): Roughly 196,608 entries are placed into 12-person groups. The top six scorers in each group survive; the bottom six are eliminated immediately.
Round 2 (Week 2) and beyond: Survivors are reshuffled into 2-person, head-to-head groups. From this point forward, it's win-or-go-home: only the top scorer in each 2-person matchup advances, every single week, all the way through Week 17.
Payouts begin after Round 3 (Week 3), and every round from Round 7 (Week 8) onward not only advances the winner but also awards a cash prize just for reaching that round. The last team standing after Week 17 is crowned the Grand Prize Winner.
Prize Breakdown
The pay structure rewards deep survival heavily, with the biggest jumps coming in the season's final stretch:
| Finish | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | $200,000 |
| 2nd | $100,000 |
| 3rd | $76,000 |
| 4th–6th | $50,000 |
| 7th–12th | $20,000 |
| 13th–24th | $10,000 |
| 25th–48th | $5,000 |
| 49th–96th | $2,000 |
| 97th–192nd | $1,000 |
| 193rd–384th | $500 |
| 385th–768th | $200 |
| 769th–1,536th | $102 |
| 1,537th–3,072nd | $52 |
| 3,073rd–6,144th | $31 |
| 6,145th–12,288th | $20 |
| 12,289th–24,576th | $10 |
That means simply surviving through Week 8 or so, clearing that first head-to-head gauntlet a handful of times, is enough to turn a $10 entry into real money, even before you sniff the final table.
The Best Strategy for The Eliminator
Winning a traditional best ball league and winning The Eliminator require two very different mindsets. In a normal season-long best ball contest, finishing third or fourth in your pod is functionally no different than finishing 11th or 12th, so it makes sense to swing for the fences with hyper-fragile builds (a single elite QB, extreme zero-RB, etc.) in pursuit of outlier upside. The Eliminator punishes that thinking. Because you only need to outscore the other people in your group to survive, and because one bad week ends your tournament regardless of how great your other 16 weeks might have been, the smartest approach is to treat each week like its own individual cash game rather than a shootout for the biggest possible score.
1. Prioritize Balance Over Hyper-Fragile Builds
Skip the extreme, top-heavy roster constructions that dominate traditional best ball strategy. A single elite QB/TE build or an extreme zero-RB approach can pay off big in a large-field, single-round tournament, but in The Eliminator that kind of fragility just raises the odds of a disastrous week that gets you knocked out early. A well-rounded roster with depth at every position gives you a better chance of clearing the bar in any given week, which is all that matters here.
2. Prioritize Median Outcomes, Not Ceiling Weeks
This is the single biggest mental shift required for this format. Rather than drafting players and stacks built to produce a 30-point spike week, look for players with a strong, reliable median outcome — consistent volume, a stable role, and a low bust rate. You aren't trying to win a tournament in any one week; you're trying to avoid a disaster that gets you sent home. Across 16-plus weeks of being your season, consistency compounds, while chasing ceiling just increases the odds you eventually post a week that isn't good enough.
3. Map Out Bye Weeks Before You Draft
Because rosters are locked at the draft and there's no way to manage around a bad bye-week alignment, stacking too many key contributors into the same bye week can sink an otherwise strong team in a single round. Use a bye-week chart during your draft to make sure your roster has enough playable, productive depth in every single week of the season, rather than overloading your best players into the same week off.
4. Avoid Over-drafting Correlation and Same-Game Stacks
Traditional best ball tournament strategy often leans on stacking a QB with his pass-catchers to boost ceiling outcomes for large-field tournaments. In The Eliminator, heavy correlation can backfire, since a poor game script or a bad matchup can tank multiple players on your roster in the same week, which is exactly the kind of disastrous, elimination-causing outcome you're trying to avoid. A more diversified roster across teams and game environments tends to smooth out your week-to-week floor.
5. Enter Multiple Lineups if Your Bankroll Allows
With up to 150 entries permitted, volume is a legitimate way to increase your odds in a tournament this large. Rather than trying to build one "perfect" team, diversifying your player exposure across several balanced, high-floor entries increases the chances that at least one of your builds survives the randomness of bye weeks, injuries, and tough matchups long enough to make a real run.
6. Remember The Payout Structure Rewards Strictly Surviving
You don't need to win your matchup by a lot each week, you just need to win it. Since payouts begin after Round 3 and escalate from there, a conservative, high-floor approach that survives to Week 8 or beyond is already a profitable outcome. There's no reward for beating your opponent by 50 points instead of 5, so there's no reason to draft as if bigger margins matter.
Final Thoughts
The Eliminator is unlike any other product in the best ball space: it combines the season-long investment of a traditional draft-and-hold format with the tension of a single-elimination bracket, all for a $10 buy-in with a life-changing top prize. The keys to success are building a balanced, high-floor roster from the start, treating every week like its own cash game rather than a shot at a huge score, and mapping out your bye weeks so no single round catches you off guard. Get that approach right, and you'll have as good a shot as anyone at outlasting a field of nearly 200,000 entries.
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- Use our exclusive BetMGM Bonus Code VIBONUS1600 to unlock BetMGM's welcome offer for new sportsbook users!
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