Sometimes the ASL DFS Optimizer can feel noticeably slower when Auto-Team Stack is turned on. That's not because the optimizer has suddenly become inefficient. It is because you have asked it to do a tremendous amount of work.

Auto-Team Stack Is Running Many Optimizations at Once

Auto-Team Stack doesn't simply add a stacking rule to one lineup calculation. It tests the possible team stacks for the slate and determines which one produces the strongest lineup for each projection source.

For example, on a 32-team slate using four projection sources, the optimizer can be sending 128 separate lineup optimization requests into ASL's compute cloud. The work runs in parallel, but 64 optimization jobs are still a lot of calculations — and that isn't just happening when you first generate a lineup.

Your Lock and Exclude Decisions Are Being Checked Too

The optimizer also tries to protect you from creating a player pool from which no legal lineup can be built. When Auto-Team Stack is active, every time you lock or exclude a player, the optimizer has to reconsider all those potential stacking combinations, triggering another large group of calculations.

That is why selecting and deselecting players can sometimes appear slow when Auto-Team Stack is running.

You Don't Have to Wait Between Clicks

We built the optimizer knowing that users would want to make several decisions quickly. Its click queue lets you continue locking and excluding players without waiting for the previous calculation to finish, while the optimizer processes those decisions in order behind the scenes.

It also checks whether one of your changes makes it impossible to construct a valid lineup. If it does, the optimizer backs out the problematic selection rather than leaving you with an unusable player pool.

The Easy Way to Work Faster

There is a simple strategy when you are first setting up your player pool: turn off Auto-Team Stack and Exclude Opposing Defense while making your basic player selections.

Lock the players you want, remove the players you don't want, and narrow the pool. Then, when you are getting close to building your final lineup, turn the advanced options back on and let the optimizer do the heavy work. That gives you faster interaction while you are making broad decisions — and the full power of the optimizer when it matters.

Sometimes “Slow” Means It Is Doing More

A basic optimizer could simply calculate one lineup and stop. Auto-Team Stack is different: it explores many possible lineup structures across multiple projection sources while also checking that your player-selection decisions still allow a valid lineup.

That takes more time, but it is also exactly what makes the feature powerful.

That takes more time. But it is also exactly what makes the feature powerful.