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Nick's best fantasy football Guillotine League strategy, draft guide and in-season roster tips. How to win your Guillotine League, including draft guidance and roster strategy.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, who once said that the easiest part of any coach’s job is the cuts, Guillotine Leagues are all about who got cut and who didn’t.
Each week, the lowest-scoring team is eliminated, their roster purged onto the waiver wire, and their top players partitioned onto other teams. As the remaining managers reinforce their rosters each week, each team improves (or doesn’t), another gets cuts, and the process repeats until only one remains.
It’s a ruthless, sometimes cruel format that effectively boils the entire season down to single-elimination each week — and it’s a blast. But this format requires a different thought process and a significantly altered method of acquiring top players that differs from standard formats, so having a plan for these leagues is a must. Here's how to craft a strategy that works.
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Know Your Scoring System Inside And Out
The way in which your league is scored should determine the most important part of your draft strategy: positional valuations.
Chances are, you already know the types of players who score highly in every format (running backs who catch passes, quarterbacks who get steady rushing yards, No. 1 receivers attached to good quarterbacks, etc.), but understanding your scoring format helps you structure the first few rounds of the draft to build a team that can win the game you’re actually playing.
Maybe you are so blessed to play alongside an opponent who has been aggressively out of the loop and will take Deshaun Watson in the second round. (Good luck with that, by the way.) But assuming your opponents are coherent, your goal for the first few rounds shouldn’t be to simply accumulate good players, but rather to understand the point system enough to place values on individual positions.
Let’s take Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, who is near the top of draft boards in any format. Bowers is liable to be the first tight end selected in your draft, but where should the first tight end be selected? It depends on the format.
Three different formats shown below score the catches in Bowers’ rookie season three different ways, and that changes his per-game average, even with yards and touchdowns being scored exactly the same way, by more than six points. As the chart below demonstrates he’s still a monster player in half-PPR and full PPR formats — but in tight-end premium, there’s a cogent argument that he’s the single most unique player in the draft.
Similarly, a Superflex Guillotine League will dramatically alter the valuation of quarterbacks. With twice the amount of quarterbacks starting every week, top-tier options like Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and Lamar Jackson will start to come off the board very early.
Knowing this ahead of time will give you a better draft plan and, ultimately, a better team.
Embrace The Cynicism
Guillotine Leagues are like the old joke: you don’t have to run faster than the bear, just faster than the person next to you.
In most fantasy formats, you’re out to build the highest-scoring machine possible by taking a few big swings. If you bet big on recent rookies like Jayden Daniels, De'Von Achane, or Malik Nabers in redraft leagues, you were handsomely rewarded — even more so if you nabbed them in dynasty.
This is a different, more cynical game. Playing not to lose is what keeps you in the mix during the crucial early weeks. If you have 10 players in your league in Week 1, it doesn’t matter if you finish first or ninth — you’re still alive with a talent infusion coming to the waiver wire.
Guillotine formats require a mental reset in terms of drafting. The temptation is strong to “get your guys” during a standard draft because it’s for a full season, you can stand to be patient, and missing out on a player you really wanted means you likely will have to negotiate with a man-child who either won’t engage or act like it’s a ransom.
In this format, it's important to remember that there are tons of second chances to roster players who broke out and/or you targeted during the draft.
Let’s take the Vikings, for example. Wide receiver Jordan Addison is suspended for the first three games. Can you stand to wait until Week 4 for a No. 2 receiver? Will recently acquired Adam Thielen significantly cut into Addison’s target share? How will this all change after Week 3 when Addison returns?
Jets talks to Thielen following the trade pic.twitter.com/p0xEAEbx32
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) August 29, 2025
In this format, the smart move is to bet the under on uncertainty and avoid situations like Addison’s altogether to start the year.
Let other managers pay for big draft-day risks that come empty.
Play For Now
Say it with me: You do not have time for projects.
Which brings us to one of the most fun parts of fantasy football, which is drafting breakout players before they hit it big.
It’s certainly possible that quarterbacks like Cameron Ward, J.J. McCarthy, or Jaxson Dart go onto stardom. But right now, none of them have thrown a pass in an NFL regular-season game. And the reality is that the overwhelming majority of first-time quarterbacks are volatile, even if they’re obviously improving week to week.
An impressive preseason for @JaxsonDart 👏 pic.twitter.com/QsNX9craZ8
— NFL+ (@NFLPlus) August 22, 2025
Even the aforementioned Daniels, despite an excellent overall season and a high rushing floor, went seven straight weeks without a top-10 finish from Weeks 5-11 as a rookie. Though a strong roster certainly can survive a few middling weeks, and Daniels was always a no-doubt starter in Superflex, your Guillotine strategy should be to end draft night with as many top-10 players at their position right now as possible.
For every young player who lives up to preseason hype, there are many more who do not. Managers will bet big and end up with this year's versions of Kyle Pitts Sr., Jahan Dotson, or Anthony Richardson Sr., effectively wasting draft picks that could have made a difference.
That’s not to say you can’t play the board and take chances on a couple rookies, but there’s a clear cost-benefit in Guillotine Leagues.
In the end, it’s much better to be pleasantly surprised if one of your projected bench rookies turns out to be a fantasy dynamo rather than betting the farm and being wrong on a star who isn't.
Devise A Waiver Strategy Before The Draft
Waivers matter more in this format than any other, so think about your waiver strategy early.
Priority waivers have an order in which waiver claims are processed. In rolling waivers, for example, the team that drafted 12th in a 12-team league will automatically have the top waiver priority, followed by the teams that drafted No. 11 and No. 10, and so on. Once the top team puts in a successful waiver claim, they go to the back of the line.
In Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) formats, the highest blind bid on every available player wins — but you have a finite amount of resources to spend.
Don't blow your FAAB all on one player!
We're showing you how to set up your waiver wire In Guillotine Leagues™!
🔗: https://t.co/KJsXeq7jBR pic.twitter.com/aAF7bXlmcN
— Guillotine Leagues (@GLchop) August 19, 2025
Unlike other formats, in which surprising breakout players are usually only available during the first few weeks, there will be a major talent infusion every week in a Guillotine League.
As long as your drafted team is strong, being patient in priority waivers can get you to the top of the line, a poker chip you can deploy if and when a whale like Saquon Barkley or Justin Jefferson hits waivers.
FAAB can be trickier. Personally, I like very small and very large bids, but avoid middling ones. Maybe I can get the eliminated team’s No. 2 quarterback or a backup tight end for cheap to cover me in a bye week. But when there’s a legitimate game-changer at a position where I need help, I think the big bid is almost always worth the expenditure.
At the end of the day, there isn’t one perfect strategy, but surviving and winning will require smart maneuvering on the waiver wires. If you’re reasonably upgrading your roster every week, you’re probably in good shape.
Cut The Cord Early
You can survive a few ho-hum weeks over a standard 14-week fantasy regular season. You cannot in a Guillotine League.
Anybody who is not performing right now needs to go right now. With significant talent up for grabs every week, there is no use holding your breath for the rookie who you think will get more playing time, the backup running back waiting for an injury to see more carries, your team’s No. 3 receiver for whom you have a soft spot, or the star player expected to miss a month with an injury.
Legitimate starters will be available every week. Waiting for a question-mark player is a long-term strategy in a short-term game.
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