Last man standing glossary

Auto-pick

What happens when you miss the deadline. Most leagues assign a team automatically, and it rarely favours you.

Banking

Deliberately saving a strong club's easy home fixture for a later gameweek where nothing else looks safe.

Burning a team

Using a valuable club on a week you did not need it — usually for a game you would have survived with a lesser side.

Dead rubber

A late-season fixture with nothing riding on it for either side. Motivation is unpredictable, so treat these as riskier than the table suggests.

Deadline

The cut-off for submitting or changing your pick, normally the first kick-off of the gameweek.

Double chance

A rule variant where you pick two teams and survive if either avoids defeat. Seasons last far longer and clubs run out faster.

Double gameweek

A round where some clubs play twice because of rearranged fixtures. In survivor terms only the specified match counts, so read your league's rules.

Fixture congestion

A run of matches packed close together, typically around European nights and the festive period. Rotation makes strong clubs unreliable.

Joker / wildcard

A one-off get-out some hosts allow — reusing a club, surviving a defeat, or an extra life. Fun socially, but it dilutes the format.

Last man standing

The format itself: everyone picks one team a week, a defeat knocks you out, and the final surviving player takes the pot.

No repeats

The core constraint: once you have used a club it is gone for the rest of the season. This is what turns the game into a planning problem.

Pick

The single team you back to avoid defeat in a given gameweek. In most rules a win or a draw keeps you alive.

Rebuy

An optional second entry after elimination, at a fee, if the host allows it. Grows the pot and keeps knocked-out players involved.

Rollover

What happens when everyone is eliminated in the same week. The pot either carries to the next round or is split, depending on the rules agreed up front.

Safety rating

Our combined score for a club, built from three seasons of results, home and away splits, opponent quality and division adjustments.

Survival rate

The share of recent matches a club avoided defeat in. The single most useful number when comparing picks.

Survivor pool

The same game under its American name, borrowed from NFL office pools. Rules differ slightly by league but the principle is identical.

The crowd

The team most of your league picks in a given week. Following it is safe socially and costly strategically — you gain nothing when everyone survives together.

New to the format? Start with how to play. Setting the rules for your own league? The hosting guide covers rebuys, jokers and rollovers. Just need a team for this weekend? This week's ranked picks update every gameweek.