DraftKings MMA DFS Cheat Sheet: Sims, Projections And Ownership

I open the same free page before every UFC slate I play, and the first thing I look for is never a single number. Stokastic's free MMA DFS cheat sheet is six panels of simulation output, and the edge lives in the disagreements between them: the fighter one panel loves and another panel says the field is ignoring. This weekend's sheet for UFC Fight Night: Medic vs. Rodriguez is a perfect teaching slate, because it has both kinds of fighters on it, the consensus play most panels agree on and a former champion hiding in the leverage column. I will walk you through every panel, and when we get to that leverage row, I will turn it into an actual DraftKings roster decision.

The Quick Answer

An MMA DFS cheat sheet is a one-page summary of a UFC slate's best DraftKings plays: projections, ownership, value, exposure and leverage in ranked tables. Stokastic's version is free and comes out of the Stokastic Sims, which fight out the card tens of thousands of times instead of ranking fighters off a single static projection. Below is a panel-by-panel breakdown using the live Medic vs. Rodriguez sheet, the DraftKings scoring rules that explain why finishes rule this format, and a worked example that turns the slate's biggest leverage number, Jan Blachowicz at +18.2%, into a lineup call.

Where The MMA DFS Cheat Sheet Comes From

Every number on the sheet starts in the Stokastic Sims. Instead of projecting each fighter once and sorting the column, the Sims play the card out again and again across tens of thousands of simulated contests. Fights end in first-round knockouts in some runs and grinding decisions in others, and because two opponents can never both bank a win bonus, the simulations price every fight as the two-sided coin it is. Ownership gets the same treatment: Stokastic's ownership projections feed the simulated contests, so popularity is modeled as a distribution of outcomes rather than one guess.

The Sims then rank the resulting lineup pool by simulated ROI, meaning how much a build returns across all of those simulated tournaments, not how many points it projects for. Two of the six panels below (Exposures and Leverage Plays) are pulled straight from that ROI-ranked lineup pool, which is why they often disagree with the projection column, and why that disagreement is useful. The free page distills that whole engine: final outputs, published for each card, no purchase required.

Keep that distinction in mind as we walk the panels. The sheet hands you conclusions, and knowing which machine produced each one is what lets you read six tables as one argument instead of six top-five lists.

Want the machine, not just the printout? The paid side of Stokastic unlocks the full Sims, so you can run the simulations yourself, control exposures and build from the same ROI-ranked lineup pool the cheat sheet previews. Code ALL15 takes 15% off a Stokastic DFS weekly or monthly package. 21+ only.

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The Six Panels Of The DraftKings MMA DFS Cheat Sheet

Here is the map before we walk each room, with the top of each panel from this weekend's card in Belgrade.

Read the leader column top to bottom and the slate's story is already forming: Medic leads three different panels, while the ownership panel crowns someone else entirely. That split is the whole skill of this page, so let's take the panels one at a time.

Top Projections (Proj FP)

The median projected DraftKings score. Medic's 97.4 leads the card, ahead of Mateusz Rebecki at 90.8 and Vlasto Cepo at 87.3, and in MMA those are enormous numbers relative to a typical slate's midpack, because a projection that high usually means the Sims see both a likely win and a real chance it comes early. A median still cannot tell you the shape around it. A fighter who either scores a first-round finish or loses has the same median as a steadier points machine, and the full Sims side of the product breaks that shape out as Boom/Bust rates. On the free sheet, you read shape indirectly through the exposure and leverage panels.

Highest Ownership (Own%)

Projected field ownership, and the panel most people misread. This is a weather report, never a menu: it tells you where the crowd will be, and on this sheet the crowd is packed tight, with Bogdan Grad at 31.7%, Cepo at 30.9%, Medic and Borislav Nikolic at 30.8% and Noah Gugnon at 30.1%. Five fighters within 1.6 points of each other means the field has settled on a small cluster of obvious plays. High ownership is never a reason to play or avoid anyone on its own; it is the denominator for the leverage math two panels down.

Top Values (Value)

Projected points per $1,000 of salary. On a $50,000 cap with six roster slots, value is what makes the expensive fighters possible. Medic tops this panel too at 10.36, which is rare for a fighter carrying the card's third-highest salary at $9,400; expensive fighters usually cede this column to cheap ones, because a $7,000 fighter clearing his salary bar is easier than a $9,400 fighter clearing his. When the same name leads projections and value at a premium price, the sheet is telling you the price has not caught up to the simulation.

Top Exposures (Exp%)

Top-150 exposure: how often a fighter appears in the 150 highest sim-ROI lineups. Of the six panels, Exp% is the one that answers "who do winning builds actually use," and it regularly disagrees with raw projection. On this sheet, Medic leads at 45.3%, but the next two names are the interesting ones: Robert Valentin at 42.7% and Nikolic at 40.7%, with Jan Blachowicz close behind at 38.7%. Valentin appears in nearly as many elite builds as the slate's consensus best play while sitting outside the top five of the projection, value and ownership panels entirely. When Proj FP and Exp% disagree like that, trust Exp% for tournaments; it is measuring win equity across simulated contests, not averages.

Leverage Plays (Lev%)

The gap between optimal exposure and projected field ownership, and the promised payoff of this page. Blachowicz leads the card at +18.2%, ahead of Medic at +14.2% and Valentin at +13.1%. A positive number means the sim-ROI lineups want a fighter more often than the field will roster him, so every lineup that includes him gets upside most opponents are not holding. GPP edge comes from exactly this gap, and the column can only exist because the Sims model ownership in the first place. A projection-only sheet cannot print it. Our MMA DFS ownership and leverage guide goes deeper on why this number wins tournaments.

Highest Salaries

The card's most expensive fighters: Rebecki at $9,600, Nina Milosevic at $9,500, Medic at $9,400, Aleksandar Rakic at $9,300 and Michael Oliveira at $9,200. A tight salary band at the top like this one changes lineup construction, because dropping from the most expensive fighter to the fifth-most expensive only frees up $400. Note who is missing here: Blachowicz, the leverage leader, is not among the card's five highest salaries.

Why This Cheat Sheet Is Built For DraftKings

A DraftKings MMA classic lineup is six fighters under a $50,000 salary cap, with no positions and no captain multiplier. That sounds simple, and then the scoring turns it into a format unlike any other DFS sport:

The row to sit with is the first-round win. Ninety points for one outcome dwarfs everything else on the table; a fighter would need 450 significant strikes to match it on volume alone. That is why MMA DFS is a format about win probability first and finish probability second, and why roughly half the card, the fighters who lose, score almost nothing. It also explains Medic's 97.4: a median that high only prints when the simulations see a fighter winning most runs and finishing early in many of them. Volume still matters at the margins, since a wrestler stacking takedowns at 5 points each or a striker piling up 0.2s can win rounds on the scorecards and bank the 30-point decision bonus, but the ceiling always lives in the early finish. Our full UFC DFS strategy guide covers how to build around that reality.

That scoring reality is also why reading the cheat sheet beats reading a rankings list. Six independent fighters means no batting orders and no game stacks; the correlation in MMA is negative, one winner per fight, and the Sims bake that in when they build the lineup pool the exposure and leverage panels report on.

A Worked Example: From The Leverage Panel To A Roster Decision

Here is how I actually use the sheet, with the row I keep coming back to on this slate. Jan Blachowicz, a former UFC light heavyweight champion, leads the Leverage Plays panel at +18.2% and appears in 38.7% of the top-150 sim-ROI lineups, yet his name is nowhere in the ownership panel's top five, where the cluster starts at 30.1%. The Sims keep hiring a fighter the field is projected to pass over.

That one row makes three decisions for me:

1. Start the build with the consensus play the sheet actually supports. Medic leads projections, value and exposure at once, and at 30.8% ownership he is popular but not over-owned relative to the 45.3% of elite builds that use him. His +14.2% leverage says the chalk is still underpriced by the field. Eating obvious ownership is fine when the ROI pool eats it too.
2. Make the leverage leader the difference-maker. Rostering Blachowicz keeps my lineup inside what the simulations like while separating me from every entry that stops at the ownership panel. If he wins, especially by finish, a huge chunk of the field is drawing thin against me for one roster spot.
3. Fade the crowd where the Sims already have. Grad tops the ownership panel at 31.7%, but he does not appear in the top five of the exposure or leverage panels. I will not cut him from every build, but when a fighter's strongest panel is popularity, he is the first name I trim when salary gets tight.

One row, read across three panels, and half the roster's logic is set before I have priced a single fighter. A caveat belongs here, because MMA is the highest-variance DFS sport there is: judges produce baffling cards, one punch flips a simulation on its head, and the best sim-ROI lineup loses plenty of nights. Treat the sheet as a process edge, size your entries so a zero from any fighter cannot hurt your bankroll, and grade yourself over months of cards, never one Saturday.

For the full slate context behind a read like that, the UFC DFS projections, ownership and stacks in the DataHub sit one click deeper than the cheat sheet, and you can try the Sims free to see the lineup pool those exposure numbers come from.

MMA DFS Cheat Sheet FAQ

Is The Stokastic MMA DFS Cheat Sheet Free?

Yes. The cheat sheet is free for every card it is published for, including this weekend's edition. The paid Stokastic packages unlock the engine behind it: the full Sims, projections, ownership and the ROI-ranked lineup pool.

What Is Top-150 Exposure On The Cheat Sheet?

Top-150 exposure (Exp%) is how often a fighter appears in the 150 highest sim-ROI lineups from the Stokastic Sims. It measures who the best simulated builds actually use, which is a sharper tournament signal than projection alone.

What Is A Leverage Play In MMA DFS?

A leverage play is a fighter the Sims want more often than the field will roster him, and Lev% is that gap. Playing positive-leverage fighters gives your lineup upside most of your opponents are not holding, which matters enormously in a sport where one finish can decide a tournament.

How Many Fighters Are In A DraftKings MMA Lineup?

Six, under a $50,000 salary cap, with no positional requirements and no captain slot. Every fighter scores the same way, so lineup construction is purely about win probability, finish upside and salary fit.

How Do I Use The Cheat Sheet For Cash Games?

Lean on Top Projections and Top Values and mostly ignore leverage. Cash games pay for beating half the field, so you want the highest-floor fighters your salary allows, which usually means likely winners by decision as much as finishers. The exposure and leverage panels are tournament tools.

Does The Cheat Sheet Change Before A Card Locks?

The sheet reflects the Sims' latest run, so check it again close to lock for the freshest numbers. Our MMA DFS Sims walkthrough shows the same pre-lock process step by step inside the full product.

The Bottom Line On The MMA DFS Cheat Sheet

Six panels, one machine. The cheat sheet is the free printout of a simulation engine that fights out every card tens of thousands of times, models ownership as a distribution and ranks whole lineups by ROI, and the skill of using it is reading across the panels instead of down them. On the Medic vs. Rodriguez sheet, that reading finds the rare fighter every panel agrees on and a former champion the field is about to underweight, which is the disagreement-hunting I opened with. When you are ready to operate the machine instead of reading its printout, with your own exposure controls and the full ROI-ranked pool, that is the paid side of Stokastic. Code ALL15 takes 15% off a Stokastic DFS weekly or monthly package. 21+ only; play responsibly.

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