The Trials and Tribulations of Creating the Perfect Moment Ranks Lineup

@Cryptomeg shares her journey to creating successful MR lineups! Use your Top Shot Moments to set your lineups, compete for prizes, and become the greatest GM in the world on Play, by Collective.xyz, the first Top Shot daily fantasy sports game. Daily Contest: A multiplayer highest points game mode to compete for daily prizes. Winners are reported to Dapper every Monday for the previous week for prize fulfillment.

To begin this story, we must return to the 2020-2021 NBA season, better known as the "The Bubble" season. Towards the end of the regular season, I first heard of Moment Ranks Play through some people in the Top Shot community, which led me to check out the site. It was a simple concept; use the moments you own to create a lineup of 5 different NBA players. You could choose any play type, whether a 3-pointer, assist/handles, block, steal, or a simple point play moment. Easy enough, right? I thought so until I discovered the 'boost.' The boost changed everything, and thus began an extensive journey into the world of fantasy basketball. A journey I wouldn't endure alone.

I had no idea what I was doing the first time I created a lineup on MR Play. I was picking my lineup based on the stars playing, not considering anything else, like the boosts, opponents playing, etc. Each day I would log on, set my lineup and wait for the games to begin. Not going to lie; it was frustrating at first, never getting a win in the top 100. I was discouraged and felt I was doing something wrong when creating my lineups. At this point, I had recently joined a new Top Shot community that was also using MR Play, and it was called Board2Buckets (B2B). I quickly delved into their discord and immediately hit it off with everyone in the discord. B2B, at this point, had created a channel just for those interested in communicating and sharing ideas and strategies for MR lineups. I quickly started to express I was enjoying the MR site, but I wasn't winning and needed to know why or at least get some help. The channel is where I first heard of the "boost." In MR Play, each player you pick will have a base score, no matter the play type. But play type is where the boost matters the most. For your players to hit the boost, they must exceed their last 10-game average in the play type of the moment chosen.

For example, if Jayson Tatum's last 10-game average from the 3-point line is 3.2, he will need four three-pointers to qualify for the boost. Pretty simple math, but the hard part is figuring out, based on statistics and maybe even a little bit of gut feeling, what play to play. This is when I truly started to dedicate time to MR Play. I was determined to place in the top 100 and one day place 1st.

It wasn't until the 2021-2022 season that I started doing my homework and taking MR Play seriously. I signed up for Stats2Cash, a spreadsheet that Dbarri made, who was also part of the B2B discord, to better prepare and determine lineups. Every day I would check the spreadsheet and the last ten game averages for all the players, and I started to place in the top 100. As the regular season went on, I needed to figure out different tactics for hitting big. I began to realize 'time' was an important factor. You may ask, what do you mean by time, Meg? Well, it's simple, the time at which the games start. I realize this isn't the most reliable strategy, but it has worked for me countless times. Let me give you an example: say there is a 7-game slate; one game at 6:00, three games at 6:30, one game at 7:00, one game at 8:00, and one game at 9:00. From here, I am going to pick a player from each of those time slots. Say the Wizards play the Hawks at 6:00; I will likely choose at least one player from that time slot, giving me a head start on MR Play. But, say it's the Magic vs. Pistons, I will likely fade that game. The idea is that you want to try and pick the most consistent players that usually have high base scores, and let's be honest, there are no guys on the Magic and Pistons who are consistent or have high base scores. So, backtrack to what I mentioned before, time. Having a player from each time slot can be significant. So, once you have decided which games you will likely select a player from, you can choose your lineup for the evening.

Here comes the fun part: we finally create our lineup at a shot of placing in the top 100. Before selecting my players, I usually pick about 8-10 players to choose from. This is where the Stats2Cash spreadsheet can come in super handy. You can use this spreadsheet as a guide, but something I started doing differently that, in my opinion, has been a huge game changer is checking each player's stats versus the teams they are going to play. For example: if I want to play James Harden assist and he is playing against the Golden State Warriors, I will look up all his past stats versus the warriors. If he usually averages a significant amount of assists versus the Warriors, I will likely play his assist. Now this method, while it isn't always a reliable method, has worked for me time and time again. I have accumulated more wins in the 2022-23 season using these methods. This method also helped me secure numerous top 100 finishes, top 50, 30, 20, 10, 5, and eventually 1st place. When that day came, I felt I had accomplished what I had set out to do all along, win.

With winning, though, come many days, weeks, and months of losing. I went on a two-month losing streak at the beginning of the 2022-23 season. I started to ask myself what I was doing wrong. I started questioning my methods and ability. I asked myself, "will I even get one win this year?". Getting discouraged and let down repeatedly, I never gave up. Giving up is and never was part of the plan. Just like deep sea free divers swimming towards an underwater cave, once they go under and swim as far as they can, they come to a point where turning back isn't an option. One doesn't stop, so you take the chance, keep swimming, and hopefully, there is an opening at the end. In the end, it's been my community that has kept me going. Those who have supported me and witnessed me achieve my goals have meant more to me than winning. MR Play has brought together many in the Top Shot community and many others who have played fantasy basketball into the realm of web3 fantasy. So tomorrow, we wake up, pick our five players who will go to war on the hardwood floors in highly anticipated venues, and wait. We wait and see what happens; whatever that may be, we know we will wake up the next day and start the process again.