The 2026 Best Ball Pyramid Tournament
What is MLS Best BAll?
Best Ball is the easiest way to play MLS Fantasy!
Draft before the season and then sit back and watch your team rack up the points as your optimal lineup is automatically calculated each game week.
We have a blast playing Best Ball with our podcast brethren every year in the “Verde Best Ball League”, a league that pits a handful of Austin FC independent media outlets (and as of 2025, one national outlet) against each other in a battle of MLS prognostication.
We’ve been running the “Verde Best Ball League” since 2023, and some of our North End listeners have asked us over the years, “can we play?”
Now, as a member of our Patreon, you can!
How To Play
One of the most attractive aspects of MLS Best Ball is the low level of maintenance required to play.
When playing in a season-long league in any sport, a manager is required to make weekly pick-ups and drops along with setting a lineup. In our Best Ball leagues, a manager’s optimal lineup is automatically calculated from the available players on their roster each game week!
As a manager, you will only add (or drop) players from your roster on three occasions during the MLS season. First, you’ll draft your full team of 15 players in February. Then there are two “transfer drafts” during the MLS regular season where managers are allowed to make swaps from the pool of “free agent” players (those who are not on another manager’s roster).
A full nine-months of fantasy goodness from just three days of roster maintenance. If you’re still reading and interested, here is a link to the full rules and scoring guide for our 2026 leagues!
The Draft
This season our MLS Best Ball drafts will take place from Sunday February 15th through Wednesday February 18th in our Discord server. We expect each draft to take about two hours.
Each team will draft a total of 15 players. Each team will leave the draft with five forwards, five midfielders, three defenders and two goalkeepers.
If you would like an example of how the draft works, here is a link to the 2025 “Verde Best Ball League” draft!
Our drafts will not be live streamed like the Verde Best Ball League. Instead, we will conduct our drafts in The North End Podcast Discord server.
Prizes
We expect to have at least three leagues of six to eight teams this season. The top scoring team from each league will receive a North End Best Ball Champion T-shirt. The top overall scoring team across all leagues will receive the North End Best Ball Championship Trophy (we’ve got our top people working on a cooler name), which will be passed annually to the overall winner of the pyramid.
Wait. Pyramid you say?
THE PYRAMID (COMING JANUARY 2027)
That’s right, a pyramid!
After our inaugural season in 2026, The North End Best Ball leagues will adopt a promotion-relegation format.
The top eight scoring teams overall in the 2026 field will be assigned to the “Premier League” (once again, we’re brainstorming different names) in 2027. These eight teams will compete for the trophy.
The remaining teams will be organized into two leagues making up the “Second Division”. Any additional teams or new managers will be organized into a “Third Division”.
Want to Play? Sign Up Here
You can sign up for our Patreon memberships by clicking this link!
Reminder that only two of our four membership tiers grant access to the Best Ball Pyramid (Best Ball - $5/mo and Designated Patreon - $10/mo).
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at TheNorthEndPod@gmail.com or through any one of our social media accounts on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter or Threads.
