Beginner guide
Guillotine League Rules: A Beginner’s Guide
How guillotine fantasy football works: weekly eliminations, FAAB waivers, tiebreakers, and the settings to check before joining a Sleeper league.
By Survive The Chop · 5 min read
Published · Updated
In a guillotine fantasy football league, the lowest-scoring team is eliminated each week. Its players go back to waivers, and the surviving teams compete to add them. In the standard format, this continues until one team remains.
You are trying to stay above the weekly cut, not beat a scheduled opponent. This guide covers the rules and the questions to settle before you play. For spending decisions once your league is underway, use our season-long FAAB strategy guide.
How the weekly cut works
Set your lineup, let the week’s games finish, and compare actual fantasy scores across the remaining teams. A projection can help you plan, but it does not decide who gets eliminated. Sleeper calls this format Chopped Leagues.
A simple example
Suppose four teams finish with 118, 104, 97, and 82 points in a one-cut week. The 82-point team is eliminated. The other three advance, even if 97 points would have lost a head-to-head matchup. Those numbers are an illustration, not a safe scoring target.
There is no universal championship week. If 18 teams start in Week 1 and exactly one is eliminated every week, 17 cuts leave one winner at the end of Week 17. A smaller league, a later start, or a different cut schedule changes that calculation. Confirm the schedule before the draft.
Which rules should you check before joining?
Ask the commissioner to write down the rules and check that the league settings match. These are the details we would settle first:
- Scoring and lineup slots. Check reception points, passing touchdowns, bonuses, FLEX eligibility, bench size, and injured-reserve rules.
- Eliminations. Confirm when cuts begin, how many teams go each week, the final week, and how ties and stat corrections are handled.
- Waivers. Check the starting budget, minimum bid, claim deadlines, drop restrictions, and whether any players can be added immediately as free agents.
- Trades. Do not assume they are allowed. Sleeper’s Chopped format disables them by default, but commissioners can enable them.
Sleeper recommends 18 teams and a $1,000 FAAB budget for beginners. Those are recommendations, not a definition that every guillotine league must follow. See its recommended Chopped settings.
How does FAAB work?
FAAB means Free Agent Acquisition Budget. Think of it as your league’s bidding balance. In a FAAB league, you submit a private bid for a player on waivers. When claims process, the highest valid bid wins. On Sleeper, the commissioner sets the budget and can change the minimum bid; $0 is the default minimum. Read Sleeper’s FAAB explanation.
For example, winning a player for $80 from a $1,000 balance leaves $920, assuming no other transactions. That bid uses 8% of your starting budget. This is only a budget example, not a recommended price for a player.
A high bid can still fail. Sleeper lists insufficient remaining FAAB, no available roster spot, and a linked drop who was already removed by an earlier successful claim as reasons for an invalid waiver claim. Review the whole set of adds and drops before submitting.
When do waivers run?
Use your league’s displayed processing time. Sleeper supports after-game waivers and custom daily schedules, including days that switch from waivers to immediate free-agent pickups. A recently dropped player can have a separate waiting period. Check the waiver schedule settings before assuming a player will be available for the next game.
Our starting advice: identify the lineup spot you need to improve, compare the available replacements, and decide what you can spend while keeping options for later cuts. A fixed spending percentage cannot answer that for every roster. The season guide explains those tradeoffs in more detail.
What happens in a tie?
Tied weekly scores: Sleeper’s Chopped rules name total season points as the tiebreaker. In Week 1, the team with the earlier draft or nomination position is eliminated. See the Chopped rules FAQ and confirm any custom league procedure with your commissioner.
Equal FAAB bids: Sleeper uses rolling waiver priority. A successful waiver claim sends that team to the back of the priority order. This is separate from the elimination tiebreaker. Check your position before relying on an equal bid. Sleeper explains bid ties here.
Your first-week checklist
- Confirm the scoring, cut schedule, tiebreakers, and waiver deadlines before drafting.
- Fill each starting slot and check player availability before lineups lock. Plan for injuries and byes rather than assuming your draft lineup will last.
- After the cut, review the released players against your own starters and bench needs.
- Submit bids and matching drops in Sleeper, then check the results and set the next lineup.
For a dated example of the decisions that follow a cut, read our Week 2, 2026 FAAB report. Its player recommendations belong to that week; it is not a permanent price list.
Where does Survive The Chop fit?
Sleeper hosts the league. Survive The Chop is a separate analytics app for Sleeper guillotine leagues. It helps you review your lineup, compare FAAB recommendations and market estimates, and assess projected survival chances. Those are decision aids, not guarantees.
You make the actual bids and lineup changes in Sleeper. Our weekly app walkthrough shows the routine. The articles are free to read; app access is covered on the pricing page.