Reading a salary-cap slate

Start with the schedule, not the players

The first thing that decides a lineup is how many maps or games each player is likely to play. A player on a team drawn into a best-of-three against an even opponent has a materially larger scoring window than a player expected to close in two. Count expected maps per team before you look at a single salary.

Price is a statement about the past

Salaries are a public function of the last ten scored maps, adjusted for opponent strength. That means a salary tells you what a player has done, never what they are about to do. Every edge available to you sits in that gap.

Find the mispriced window

The cases worth hunting are structural: a player returning from a stand-in period, a roster that changed role assignments, a team whose recent window was played against a weaker field than the one ahead. Each of those moves projection without moving price.

Leave the cap spendable

Filling four positions with the most expensive options and taking whatever fits in the fifth is the most common way to lose a contest before it starts. Build the last slot first if the cheap end of the pool is thin.