The Official Guillotine Leagues™ Draft Kit: Everything You Need To Survive The Chop in 2025
Playing in your first (or 50th) Guillotine League™? Here's everything you need, from the founder of the game.
Welcome to the official Guillotine Leagues™ draft kit, where we'll help guide you through everything you need to Avoid the Chop, beginning with the draft – which has some quirks in strategy you should be aware of.
Guillotine Leagues is not your typical game, so this won't be your typical draft kit. If you want links, they're at the bottom. But for the full experience, let's start with…
What to Expect Week-To-Week from a Guillotine League™
As I’m going about my daily routine, at the yacht club or at the laundromat, people will approach me, asking what they should expect from their first year in a Guillotine League.
In a Guillotine League, your season can end any week. You’re going to experience playoff-level anxiety every week.
Fortunately, the odds of survival are strongly in your favor.
Until the championship week, you can roll into any week, secure in the knowledge that you’re probably not going to be the person who gets chopped.
But that won’t stop you from periodically having a Monday Night episode of existential dread, as you’re pleading with your tight end to keep you from the chopping block.
You’ll be upgrading your roster constantly. At GuillotineLeagues.com, we run waivers on Wednesday afternoon in private leagues (if you play in a public league there are three bidding periods), and it'll reshape your weekly habits. There's massive anticipation around the unveiling of the waiver wire results – Did you bid just enough to get that sneaky guy you wanted?
And, you'll love teasing the other owners when you see how they overpaid for their winning bids.
Speaking of the emotions of a Guillotine League, get ready for some serious anxiety attacks.
Mostly, I mean that in a good way, because you're going to fight to stay alive, and when you enter a Monday night game needing 12 fantasy points from your tight end, it's intense. Get 11.9 points and your season is over. Get 12.1 points and you're alive, no different from the team that finished with the weekly high score.
As the weeks go on, you’re going to realize that your draft was waaay less important than your traditional leagues. Because of the large number of teams, every roster will start the season with some gaping holes. But, you'll plug those holes with high-quality free agents—even some superstars.
If you're alive in December, you'll be benching superstars in tough matchups for different superstars in easier ones. Benching guys like Tee Higgins [gasp!] is surreal. But it can happen late in a Guillotine League season.
The Official Guide to Guillotine Leagues
START HERE: An Introduction to Guillotine Leagues
Strategy
- The latest Guillotine Mock (8/27)
- Guillotine Leagues Mock Draft (8/15)
- Unique Challenges of a Guillotine League Draft
- Who to Draft—and Not To Draft—in Guillotine Leagues
- The Safest Picks in Every Round
- How to Win in Guillotine Leagues: Tips From a First-Time Champion
- Lessons Learned From A First-Time Guillotine Leagues Player
Positional Strategy
- QBs More Valuable in Guillotine Leagues | QBs Less Valuable in Guillotine Leagues
- RBs More Valuable in Guillotine Leagues | RBs Less Valuable in Guillotine Leagues
- WRs More Valuable in Guillotine Leagues | WRs Less Valuable in Guillotine Leagues
- TEs More Valuable in Guillotine Leagues | TEs Less Valuable in Guillotine Leagues
Potpourri
- Guillotine League Mailbag: Does David Montgomery Need To Score To Avoid The Chop?
- Guillotine Leagues™ vs. Redraft, Derrick Henry vs. Brock Bowers: Showing The Differences In Drafting
- The Most Dangerous Guillotine Leagues™ Draft Possible: Beware Christian McCaffrey In Round 1
- Cheap Players on Top Offenses
CHOP: A Guillotine Leagues Show
The latest episode on current ADPs: