The NFL regular season is right around the corner, which means fantasy football leagues are getting underway and holding their drafts. These days, there are many different types of fantasy football leagues. Perhaps the most unique is the guillotine format, which has gained popularity in recent years. What is a guillotine fantasy football league? How does it work? Here’s everything you need to know about this creative spin on fantasy football.
What Is a Guillotine League?
In a guillotine league, there are no head-to-head matchups. The only thing that matters is total points, and the goal is to avoid being the lowest-scoring team each week.
As with any fantasy league, managers set their lineups each week. At the end of each week, the lowest-scoring team is eliminated.
Once a team is eliminated, things get really fun. That team’s players hit the waiver wire, so other teams can claim them using FAAB (free agent auction bidding).
This continues until just one team remains. The team with the highest season-long point total after 17 weeks wins.
It’s worth noting that there are some guillotine leagues where you play 17 individual weeks, and the goal is just to be the last team standing (and cumulative points don’t matter), but that format is very rare.
Strategy in a Guillotine League
On the surface, it may seem simple. You draft your team like any other fantasy football league, you set your lineup, and you cross your fingers that you don’t finish with the lowest points. However, there’s a ton of strategy that goes into a guillotine league, which is why they are so much fun. In the draft, you might want to target reliable players rather than filling your team with boom-or-bust players, as a down week can end your season.
But the waiver wire is where the strategy greatly differs from a traditional fantasy football league. In a typical league, when there are clear fantasy starters on the waiver wire, you aggressively pursue them, right? You can’t exactly do that in a guillotine league, as there are superstars hitting the free-agent pool every week.
Managing the Waiver Wire
This really is what makes guillotine leagues so exciting. The skill of guillotine leagues is not the draft. Of course, you still want to draft well. But you can very easily turn a bad team into a winner if you effectively manage the waiver wire.
In traditional fantasy football, the most valuable waiver-wire additions are the ones you make early in the season because they’re able to benefit your team the longest. If you add a season-long RB2 in Week 2, he’s way more valuable than an RB2 you add in Week 13.
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In a guillotine league, it’s different because you know with absolute certainty that there will be several notable players to target every week. After each week, an entire roster’s worth of players will be added to the player pool, including their studs.
Even the worst teams will have at least a couple of difference-making players. As the season progresses, the eliminated teams will be better and better. As a result, the caliber of player you can claim will be better. The strategic challenge is figuring out how to spend your FAAB (Free Agent Auction Budget). Do you spend your money early in the year or save it until later in the season?
Don’t Spend Too Much Early… But Also Don’t Spend Too Little
Contradictory? Counterintuitive? Nonsensical? All of those feelings are accurate. That’s what makes guillotine fantasy football leagues so interesting.
Your season-long point total matters because that’s what determines a champion. You definitely want to accumulate points early and build a lead. However, as the season progresses, the waiver wire will be filled with higher-quality players. Those players will invariably score more points. Therein lies the challenge.
You can’t ignore the waiver wire early because you don’t want to fall too far behind (or come in last and get eliminated). At the same time, you can’t burn through your FAAB too soon because then the teams that conserve their FAAB will be able to catch up very easily.
Your goal should be to stay out of last place while conserving as much FAAB as possible. By the time you reach the second half of the season, you want the buying power to grab the truly elite players entering the player pool.
In the second half of the season, it’s time to spend. That’s when you gain an edge over your competition. The teams that have spent their budget early will have good players, but you’ll be able to claim great players. There will be plenty of time to make up the difference.
Adjust Your Perception of How Much FAAB a Player Should Cost
Whenever you’re venturing into a new format, this is always the biggest challenge. I think it’s fair to assume 99.99% of fantasy football managers started out playing a typical redraft league with normal settings and a snake draft. How you’re introduced to any activity is going to naturally craft your frame of reference.
We all have a general idea of how much FAAB certain types of players require to secure off the waiver wire. In guillotine leagues, that perception needs to completely change.
When you see a clear RB1 hit the waiver wire in Week 3, you can’t go and spend 50% of your FAAB on him.
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Let’s use 2023 as an example because we had two of the greatest waiver wire pickups in fantasy football history. Everyone would agree, using hindsight bias, that both Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams were worth quite literally 100% of your FAAB back in Week 2. If we could go back in time, we would’ve spent all of it.
Now, what if we knew that over the course of the next 10 weeks, there would be another 20 Pukas and Kyrens available? Then, no one is spending 100% of their FAAB on a single player.
In a guillotine league, even if the team with Christian McCaffrey was eliminated in Week 1, he wouldn’t be worth 100% of your FAAB in Week 2.
It is crucial that you shift your outlook on players we know are good fantasy assets hitting waivers to viewing them more like you would a non-sure thing in a standard fantasy league. A guy like McCaffrey is still going to be expensive, but you’re going to be bidding 10-20% of your FAAB on really good players and winning those bids.
Play in Multiple Fantasy Football Leagues
We’ve reached the end of the article and still haven’t discussed the biggest downside of a guillotine league. Someone is going to get to play for exactly one week. That’s it. Season over. Better luck next year.
Of course, that’s no fun. So, if you’re playing a guillotine fantasy football league this year, make sure you play in other leagues too. They don’t have to all be guillotine leagues. But while no one plans to get eliminated the first week, it happens. Even if you make it a month, there are 17 weeks every season. Ideally, we want to play for all 17 of them.
