What is Reignmakers Football / NFT games?

The idea behind NFT games for real prizes (cash money!), and specifically Draftkings Reignmakers Football contests, is a novel one. Draftkings, which kicks off the contests for their inaugural season this week, apparently began development of this concept at the start of the year and began promoting it just before summer commenced. The idea is both extremely simple and complex, and many are still trying to fully grasp what NFT games entail, but you’re not alone if they have piqued your interest.

The jury is still out on how it will all play out over the long term, but I specifically like that it is a new beast with some additional game theory aspects that haven’t already been solved by the masses. It’s virgin ground if you will. And we’re ready to dive in.

If you have no idea what NFT games are (don’t worry you are not alone in that) we’ve put together a quick start guide and some FAQ here.

If you continue reading, we’ll assume you understand at least the basics of the game, marketplace, and contest rules and procedures. So we’ll jump in to some of our initial thoughts, first takes building lineups and a little bit of strategy.

First though, I wanted to give a little credit where credit is due: to Draftkings.

They’ve taken a lot of heat (and some of it deservedly so) from some of the diehards in the daily fantasy sports community this week but I’d like to give DK a pat on the back for sticking their necks out on this thing. It certainly is a huge endeavor and something no one else is doing, at least on this scale. It’s yet to be seen if they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, but either way, they made a massive investment in this space and have created a product that has some very unique and entertaining facets.

Let's Get To It

To begin, I really like the multi-dimensional strategy involved in these contests, and the marketplace in general. There are so many things to consider that you wouldn’t have to in a traditional daily or season long fantasy contest:

• Should I stack all my best (non-superstar) players together? Or spread out my players into as many “stacked” lineups as possible?
• Should I play everyone at the highest tier contest possible? Even if it dilutes my better lineups?
• Should I spend earlier in the season because the cards will have the most utility in early contests?
• And even, should I be selling my cards when they are in the highest demand before big contest weeks; or holding them to play in as many contests as possible? Or simply focus on cornering the market on Auden Tate cards?

We’ll give our thoughts and best guesses on these a little bit later, but for now we’ll just appreciate that these are all potential attack points for the new game.

The overall experience on the Reignmakers football contest section of the DK site has been pretty good. There are DEFINITELY user interface features that need improvement but overall. for a completely new set of features rolled out on a large scale, things have been reasonably painless. You can easily purchase packs, search for player cards to buy in the marketplace, and see and enter contests in a separate contest lobby. All pretty much as you would expect.

Is Everything Perfect?

Good, but not great probably sums it up best.

One bump in the road has been the (delayed) release of new packs based on what we can only assume was lower than predicted initial demand. The cards packs, which are broken up into sets and released at different points in the season and in different ways, were originally intended to be released in pretty quick succession.

However, as of this writing, the Momentum series has stalled (pun intended) and will not be released before the season kicks off. That’s not all bad though, as sentiment in the community seems to be that early adopters can enjoy the potential for less competitive contests and even possible overlay on some of the smaller slates.

Draftkings also made an “adjustment” to the distribution of cards contained in the packs between the release of the Genesis and Elevate sets. Based on feedback, they felt the need to remove many of the “backups” which were found in the premium spots of a lot of packs. (There’s no feeling quite like drawing that Chris Carson Reignmaker card a week after he announced his retirement.) The tradeoff there though was that DK raised the pack price by 25%. This resulted in the same value overall as far as we can tell, one that many considered a poor investment, at least initially.

What Else Is Appealing?

The entertainment factor built into “ripping packs” is not inconsequential though. It’s very similar to a pull on a slot machine, but with the potential added benefit of future utility over the full season of contests. To be honest, I’ve heard a lot of chatter about how bad of an investment packs are, but I think what people should be saying is that there is probably more value in building strategic teams through marketplace purchases. Especially in the periods a few days after packs drop. Because no one really knows how much the collectibles are worth, and even an accurate guestimate is pretty tough with so many factors being fluid. It all depends on how much demand there is for cards on the marketplace, and also (conversely) how able you are to take advantage of weaker contest competition if adoption remains slower than DK expected.

The Franchise Score leaderboard was another perk Draftkings added. A lot of the benefit to that was the first snapshot taken last week, but they will continue to payout rewards at regularly scheduled intervals based on each players Franchise Score. FS is calculated based on the number of cards a player holds in their wallet, with higher tiers and older sets being a multiplier. Registered users can see their Franchise score and approximate rank on our calculator on their account panel. Edit: I believe Draftkings has finally published a permanent Franchise score leaderboard, though I’m unsure of how often it is updated; so we will leave our tool accessible for now.

What's the Verdict

Overall, I think a lot of us are excited about getting in on the ground level of a new game type. The only real question seems to be how DraftKings will ensure our initial investments are recouped. And that entry level players aren’t abused in a tiered system where the money will most likely flow up to at least the Elite tier level collectors. There is certainly risk.

Obviously it is important to players that the contest sizes and prizes (which seem to be mostly at the discretion of Draftkings) as well as the player pool expansions from future drops don’t dilute things to the point the game is no longer playable. But I know DK has a long history of taking care of players and game integrity, so I’m not overly concerned with that. It would be nice though if DK laid out a little bit more of a plan since many of us have already invested thousands of dollars.

Our conclusion: Have fun with it and see where it goes. There is certainly the potential for getting more entertainment value out of these card purchases that simply splurging on one weekend of DFS contests (or in Vegas). Though the jury is still out on profitable (or expensive) things will prove to be for the average player.