If you’re new to Guillotine Leagues™️, don’t fret — you haven’t missed out. 

We proudly present… “The Guilloteenie.” 

What is the Guilloteenie?

The Guilloteenie is a smaller version of the regular season leagues where the lowest-scoring team gets eliminated every week. And there are weekly waivers! In this playoff version, leagues are kept to just five people, where the player with the lowest score is eliminated every round, with the Super Bowl being a two-team, heads-up showdown.

  • Super Wild Card (Start 5, lowest score eliminated) 
  • Divisional Round (Start 4, lowest score eliminated) 
  • Conference Championship (Start 3, lowest score eliminated) 
  • Super Bowl (Start 2, highest score wins, Winner Crowned)

How does the Guillonteenie work?

The Guillonteenie is played in five-team leagues, and there are currently paid leagues (up to $250 per league) and free contests to enter on the site. All leagues have set draft dates and times so you can plan your schedule around them.

Once you enter and the draft starts you’ll partake in a five-team snake draft where you each make eight picks. Your starting lineup for every round of the Guillonteenie will be as follows.

  • 1 Quarterback (limit 1 drafted per team)
  • 2 Running Backs
  • 2 Wide Receivers
  • 1 Tight End
  • 2 FLEX (RB/WR/TE)

Additionally, there are NO BENCH SPOTS.

That’s right; whoever you draft must be in your starting lineup. Each team will start with $1,000 FAAB, and in order to acquire a player on waivers, a minimum bid of $0 must be placed. Remember, this is blind bidding, so the other players in your league cannot see what you have bid on a player until after waivers have been processed.

Check out the Guillotine lobby here

For more on the specific, week-by-week FAAB and Free Agency Rules you can look here.

When a team is eliminated, their players go back into the Free Agent pool and will be allowed to be bid on by the remaining teams for the following week.

Playoff Guilloteenie Strategy

With just five teams and eight-person rosters, with no benches, every pick you make in this format is going to matter.

We’ve highlighted some of our favorite Playoff Guilloteenie tips and strategies below, along with a few player recommendations at the bottom.

LaMarca’s General Strategy Tips

1. Wait on Quarterback

It is super tempting to try to grab one of the top fantasy quarterbacks. Someone like Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, or Jalen Hurts can single-handedly keep you off the block in any given week, so it’s tempting to grab one of them.

That said, I’m resisting the temptation as much as humanly possible. I’m not saying I’ll never draft one of those players… but the price is going to have to be right.

The format of these leagues — eight starters and zero bench — means that there will only be five quarterbacks drafted. There will be upward of 30 combined running backs and receivers, so the pickings at those positions are going to be much slimmer.

Think of all the viable quarterbacks that are going to be available in the first round of the postseason. Yes, you’ll have Jackson, Allen, and Hurts, but you’ll also have guys like Jayden Daniels, Jordan Love, and others.

The best part about passing on one of the top QBs is that it gives you an easy way to improve your team moving forward. Let’s say the guy who drafts Allen gets chopped in the first round. Are the guys with Jackson and Allen going to rush out and grab them? As long as those two teams win their first-round matchups, it’s going to leave you with just one other player to compete with on waivers.

No matter how deep you advance, there will always be at least one quarterback available to you on the wire. That’s the beauty of this format having no bench. Even though there are playoff teams getting eliminated each week, there will always be new players being added to the waiver wire to replace them.

2. Value the First Round

Guillotine Leagues operate in the opposite of the “Ricky Bobby” philosophy. It’s not “if you ain’t first, you’re last.” Instead, it’s if you’re not last, you’re first.

In other words, you can’t win a Guillotine League in the first week of the playoffs, but you can definitely lose it!

Remember, this is a no-bench format. Can you get away with grabbing a couple of players on bye in the first round and still advance? Potentially, but why risk it? The only spot where I’m willing to even consider taking a zero is at tight end, and I’m only doing that if Travis Kelce is around very late into the draft.

You simply cannot afford to have multiple zeroes in your lineup. Simply survive, advance, and worry about Round 2 when you make it there.

Ideally, you’ll want to load up on players that can last beyond Round 1. Targeting the teams you expect to win in the first round of the postseason is a very logical starting point. That includes the Bills, Ravens, and Eagles, who all figure to be sizable favorites against their first-round opponents.

After that, it makes sense to take a stand on some of the other matchups. If you’re right, it can pay dividends heading into the second week. While other players will likely be scrambling to fill some of the holes in their roster, you should, hopefully, only have to be thinking about upgrades.

3. Teams to Target

I laid out the three most obvious candidates to target in the previous section — the Bills, Ravens, and Eagles — but those teams should be hot commodities. The bigger question is, who are the other squads to consider.

We’re still waiting on some final seeding to be addressed, but whoever loses the Sunday Night Football contest between the Lions and Vikings is another strong candidate. Both teams have excellent offenses, and they will likely be favored over whichever team finishes No. 4 in the NFC.

Finally, whoever finishes fifth in the AFC could be a bit undervalued. The Texans have been extremely underwhelming this season, so it should shock no one if they exit early. The Steelers and Chargers are both currently options to face them in the first round, and while neither team is particularly explosive offensively, both could be looking at multiple weeks of viability.

Geoff Ulrich’s Players to Target

QB

Jayden Daniels

As LaMarca pointed out above, QB is not a position I’d necessarily want to burn high draft capital on. Obviously, if a marquee name falls too far it's an option, but otherwise, waiting on QB seems prudent.

By virtue of the Commanders' win in Week 18, they’ll now play the Buccaneers, which is a far better matchup than the Eagles. However, even with the improved opponent, Daniels and the Commanders will be small underdogs that will make him a riskier pick, as he could be a one-and-done at the position.

However, Daniels finished the season as QB4 in 4-point TD leagues, and will have a better matchup than several other first-round QBs. He also plays on a Commanders team that played extremely well against higher-level competition.

If you get Daniels, there is also a great chance he’ll get to face the Lions (in a dome) in Round 2 if the Commanders pull off the upset. All he’d need in that scenario is for the Eagles to beat the Packers.

RB

Bucky Irving

Thanks to the Buccaneers' win over the Saints and the Rams' loss to the Seahawks, the Bucs will now face the Commanders in Round 1. That’s not an easy matchup, but it’s far less daunting than the Vikings, and part of the reason is the Commanders rush defense that ranks just 24th in success rate vs the run.

Irving is actually a great pick to take alongside Daniels in some respects — both players have great matchups for Week 1, and pairing them together in your lineup means you’ll get one of the players through to Round 2 (and will either be strong at QB or RB).

Even if you don't take Daniels, Irving is a top-four RB for me in the draft. He doesn’t have as much long-run potential as Henry or Barkley (given his team isn't as strong), but he should come far cheaper and has plenty of upside in Round 1.

WR

Zay Flowers

Flowers is going to be a very important piece of the Ravens' offense if they are going to go on a long run. They won’t beat teams like KC and the Bills simply by running the ball all day, and Flowers has plenty of after-the-catch potential.

The WR1 to Lamar Jackson posted target shares of 30% or more in four of his last eight games and has plenty of weekly upside, despite his admittedly slow finish to the regular season.  

Puka Nacua

Nacua is the unquestioned leader of the Rams passing game, posting insane usage down the stretch, including 50% target shares in back-to-back games.

Check out Weeks 14-18 vs. Cooper Kupp in Dwain’s Utilization Report:

Thanks to their loss in Week 18, he’ll now face off against a Vikings secondary that allowed the most fantasy points per game to opposing WRs this season. The thing about the Rams is that they’ve already beaten the Vikings, so Nacua also has the chance to be a longevity play that could carry your team through multiple rounds. 

Ladd McConkey

McConkey has some tail risk, as the Chargers will eventually have to take on one of the big boys in the AFC, but I love his first-round setup against Houston. Not only is Houston very beatable, but they allowed the third-most TDs to opposing WRs this season and will be hard-pressed to shadow McConkey considering how much he plays from the slot.

I think McConkey is one of the strongest plays at this position for Round 1 and wouldn’t hesitate to be out in front of him if possible.

TE

TJ Hockenson

TE is just an insanely tough position in these drafts. Both of the top seeds have arguably the best two options at TE (LaPorta and Kelce), but taking one means you will take a zero in Round 1 and risk getting eliminated in the first round.

This makes TJ Hockenson ultra-valuable in my eyes, as his involvement in the Vikings offense has been nothing but solid over the last month. Hockenson has posted a double-digit target share in every single game since he’s returned and has posted four or more catches in three of his last four games.

Considering he’s on a team with a good chance to go far in the playoffs, he’s someone I would be looking to get out in front of once you grab a few bigger names for RB and flex.