We’ve reached the final round of double picks, and this is the round where you have the least autonomy over your entry. If a single team you’ve already used wins in this round, you’re screwed. If you pick two teams on the same side of the bracket, you’ll be screwed. So if you’ve got just 2 teams used (your winners from the last round), and they’re on opposite sides of the bracket, then your picks this round are just the teams opposing them. If you aren’t in that situation, then you have some flexibility. You need to create a scenario where if your teams win, you’ve got one team available on each side. The two sides are as follows:
Side A: France, Morocco, Spain, Belgium
Side B: Norway, England, Argentina, Switzerland
You’ve gotta pick one team on each side, and then hope any remaining used teams also lose. I wouldn’t even say there’s an ideal or optimal team to pick because it really just comes down to which teams you already used. One of my favorite entries has no remaining used teams from Rounds 1 or 2, and now I get to pick Norway and Belgium as underdogs in this round. I’m excited about that because that path is so contrarian, and then I’d have the favorites in both games in the semifinals. The one thing I would absolutely not do is take underdog for no reason. If you don’t need the favorite to lose because you already picked them, it’s a horrible round to take an underdog, because it’s less contrarian than ever. People who understand the optimal way to play (which is far from everyone, but it’s enough people to make this a valid argument) and already used the favorite will surely pick the underdog. So you’ll see more ownership on the underdogs than you’ve seen in any round of this contest. That makes it a horrible choice to just pick one for the sake of trying to be contrarian. You need to pick against teams you’ve already used no matter what. The one caveat here is if you’ve already used 3 or even 4 teams, then you need all those matchups to go your way regardless of whether you pick them in this round. In that case, you actually do want to pick your biggest underdogs that you need to win. They have to win regardless, and by picking them now you get rid of them so in the semifinals you can pick against them. If you don’t use a team like Norway but you need them to win, they now become your pick in the semifinals, and now you’ve needed an underdog Norway to win two games instead of just one.
Feel free to ask in Discord if you’re unclear about who you should be using. I think it’s pretty straightforward and can be summed up like this: Take the two biggest underdogs against the teams you’ve already used, as long as they are on opposite sides of the bracket.
Below is the R16 update for reference
That Germany loss was brutal, but after that things settled down in the Round of 32. Most favorites got the job done, so we were rewarded for using smaller favorites and saving the powerhouses. You may not have many entries remaining, but the ones you do have are probably in a favorable position compared to the field. Our top first round picks like Ecuador and Ivory Coast both got knocked out right away, which sets us up well for the rest of the contest.
From this point on, your entry is determined by what you’ve already done. We’re no longer just picking games, we’re following paths. Ideally you’ll follow a path in two regions and leave the other two untouched. Your optimal path is determined by picking against the teams you’ve already used. This will allow you to have as few needed outcomes as possible, because your winning picks will be eliminating the teams you already used. If you go pick games all over the place instead of picking against your used teams, you may find yourself needing a 4-leg parlay in the quarterfinals to stay alive.
So this breakdown will go by region. We’ll explain what the optimal choices are in each region, and then get into all the viable paths. We’ll start with the regions that would be most ideal to have an available path.
The optimal path right now is in France’s region, and that’s to take Morocco against Canada if you’ve already used them, because then France will be sizable favorites against Morocco in the next round. If you haven’t used anyone in that region, that’s a very unique situation that can work in your favor, so you’ll just want to avoid making a pick in this region. Canada winning would be amazing for you because very few people still have them available, and tons of people will be using Morocco. Then you’ll avoid it again next round and whoever emerges (presumably France but maybe Morocco or Canada) will be one of your options in the semifinals.
The next best region to target right now is Brazil’s region. We like them to beat Norway, and then we think both Mexico and England matchup pretty well against them, so even if Brazil is slightly favored we like the unique path of picking against them next. We think the combined odds of Brazil beating Norway and losing next game are better than the combined odds of choosing England now and then Brazil next round. That said, if your only used team in that region is Mexico or England, then it makes more sense to pick the other one. You have a free game and a team that needs to lose, so there’s no reason to pick from the free game in this round.
In the USA region, unfortunately the best path is if you’ve already used USA or Belgium. Then you’d pick the other team now, and Spain or Portugal next. If you used Portugal last round, then you get to take the bigger favorite now and the underdog next round, which will be a more unique path and potentially very fun if you get to pick USA to upset Spain. If you haven’t used anyone, then you’d rather just skip using this region. This isn’t an ideal region to be picking at random, but it does setup some good paths if you already have a used team.
In the last region, we don’t know the matchups as of posting this, but we’ll have time to set our entries because these games are played last. Switzerland vs Colombia is the expected matchup, with Egypt vs Argentina expected on the other side. We’ll come back and update this once the games are done.
Below is the R32 update, just for reference.
The Group Stage saw every 1 seed win their groups, which means the brackets are now filled out pretty much as expected. Ecuador narrowly survived with a clutch victory over Germany, which left Uruguay as the biggest upset in the Group Stage.
The round of 32 has some pretty big favorites, and we should take advantage of that because after this it’s about to get very hard. I think the strategy right now is either taking the big favorites, or if you feel inclined to get contrarian, you can give extra value to the teams playing against teams you’ve already used. By doing that you have the added benefit of setting yourself up for better future rounds, and if the big favorites lose you’d survive while most of the field is knocked out.
At the bottom you’ll see a chart I made which shows each team’s odds to advance this round, make the QFs, and make the SFs. The delta column shows the difference in odds between advancing this round and making the semifinals, which can help you determine which of the big favorites are most important to save for later. Argentina and France of course would be bad choices right now given how likely you are to need them later, and a team like Australia has a decent delta but is an unnecessary risk at this stage. You don’t want to pick strictly based on the order of this chart, but it’s helpful to have all the odds laid out like this cleanly.
The optimal choice is clearly Canada, as they are big favorites due to their fortunate draw against South Africa, but they are very unlikely to make a deep run. They were also one of the best choices in the Group Stage, so a lot of our entries will have already used them, but I’ll be using them in nearly all of the entries I have them available. They’ll be pretty popular, but since tons of entries can’t use them it will limit the total ownership. You can see from the Delta column that they are pretty clearly the top choice.
The next optimal team for this round is a very fun choice, and that’s the United States. I think it’s perfect because we get to root for them in this round, and then if they go too far and ruin our entries by making the semifinals, we can take solace in our American boys doing well. Odds are, they beat Bosnia and lose to Belgium or Spain and our Survivor entries work out perfectly. While their SF odds are technically showing 20%, the market is heavily inflated because the sportsbooks know it will be the most popular bet so they just set a bad line to rip people off. You can’t bet the “No” side of these “to reach semifinal” markets, so they can just set an awful price, which is what they’ve done. Realistically, as much as I’d love it to happen, the US does not have nearly that high of a chance to run through Belgium and Spain. However, they do have a great chance to advance past Bosnia, making them an optimal choice here.
The third and final clear optimal choice is Germany. They are a massive favorite to advance, and will then immediately run into France. That instant knockout potential is super important since the teams we use now have to be gone within a couple rounds or we’re screwed. As you can see from the Delta column, these three teams are so much better than anyone else, but there is certainly some merit to going further down the list, particularly if it allows you to knockout a team you already used. For example, in a lot of my entires, I used Ivory Coast in the Group Stage. This would make Norway quite a good pick, as this format is mostly about game theory, and if I can use the 5th best overall play to knockout a team I already picked, that might be better than using an objectively better pick. The better pick might be more likely to win now, but it could create an entry where you just have too many used teams advancing too far. And of course the other reason for going further down the board is ownership. There’s no doubt that Canada and USA will be popular, so if they were to blow it they’d knockout a huge chunk of the field.
Germany seems to be the team that isn’t getting as much attention among the top three, as it seems people aren’t paying enough attention to the likelihood of France knocking them out next round. I still think Canada is the best pick, but you could potentially prioritize Germany over USA if you have just one entry. If you have multiple entries and you want a contrarian team, Egypt may not be super popular in a close game, but we expect them to win that match and then get eliminated shortly after. Mexico is also viable to use in entries where you already played Ecuador, because it would help you to knock them out, and then you can pick England next round. That would be an upset build, as England is favored to emerge from their region, so in the end you’d need Brazil or whoever emerges from their section to beat England. You want to think about these potential paths as you start picking, because whoever you pick now is who you need to lose shortly after.
| Team | Advance This Round | Reach Quarterfinal | Reach Semifinal | Delta to SF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 72.3% | 23.8% | 5.0% | 67.3% |
| USA | 82.1% | 50.0% | 20.0% | 62.1% |
| Germany | 82.1% | 35.1% | 22.2% | 59.9% |
| Egypt | 54.4% | 14.3% | 6.7% | 47.7% |
| Norway | 62.7% | 28.6% | 16.7% | 46.0% |
| England | 87.5% | 64.9% | 41.7% | 45.8% |
| Spain | 87.5% | 56.5% | 41.7% | 45.8% |
| Switzerland | 58.8% | 38.5% | 14.3% | 44.5% |
| Mexico | 54.4% | 26.7% | 11.1% | 43.3% |
| Australia | 45.6% | 11.1% | 3.8% | 41.8% |
| Brazil | 69.6% | 52.4% | 29.4% | 40.2% |
| Senegal | 47.8% | 22.2% | 7.7% | 40.1% |
| Ecuador | 45.6% | 16.7% | 6.3% | 39.3% |
| Portugal | 61.9% | 36.4% | 22.7% | 39.2% |
| Netherlands | 60.2% | 50.0% | 21.3% | 38.9% |
| Belgium | 52.2% | 33.3% | 13.3% | 38.9% |
| Colombia | 58.8% | 43.5% | 20.0% | 38.8% |
| Austria | 41.2% | 8.3% | 4.3% | 36.9% |
| Ghana | 41.2% | 12.5% | 5.3% | 35.9% |
| France | 85.6% | 63.6% | 50.0% | 35.6% |
| Argentina | 95.0% | 78.7% | 60.8% | 34.2% |
| Ivory Coast | 37.3% | 12.5% | 3.8% | 33.5% |
| Croatia | 38.1% | 14.3% | 6.7% | 31.4% |
| Morocco | 39.8% | 31.7% | 11.1% | 28.7% |
| South Africa | 27.7% | 5.3% | 0.6% | 27.1% |
| Japan | 30.4% | 18.2% | 8.3% | 22.1% |
| Bosnia | 17.9% | 6.7% | 1.5% | 16.4% |
| Paraguay | 17.9% | 4.3% | 1.5% | 16.4% |
| Sweden | 14.4% | 5.9% | 2.8% | 11.6% |
| DR Congo | 12.5% | 5.3% | 2.0% | 10.5% |
| Algeria | 12.5% | 14.3% | 4.3% | 8.2% |
| Cape Verde | 5.0% | 4.3% | 1.1% | 3.9% |