The Weekly Cycle
Here's the rhythm every Survivor contest follows, from setup to a crowned winner:
Setup (once): The commissioner configures the contest — league, pick type, scoring basis, schedule, lives, limits — and can adjust most settings throughout the season.
Picksheet generated (weekly): Each week, a picksheet is generated showing the eligible games, based on pick days, conferences, and other picksheet settings.
Picks made: Entrants pick their team(s) before that week's Pick Deadline. Teams already used up to the Team Use Limit are unavailable.
Picks lock: Once picks lock, they become visible to other entrants — at the deadline, or per-game at kickoff when the deadline is set to first/last game time.
Grading: As games finish, picks are graded — correct = advance, incorrect = lose a life, 0 lives = eliminated.
Contest ends: When one entry remains, or at the final week — where remaining survivors are co-winners unless the commissioner enabled a single-winner tiebreaker cascade.
Summary: Set it up once, pick a team every week before the deadline, and survive as long as your lives hold out. The contest ends when only one entry (or a tied group of finalists) remains.
Entry Rules
Setting | What CS Should Know |
Entry Deadline | Off by default — most Survivor pools have no entry deadline. When off, players can join via the commissioner's link even after the contest starts. Behind the scenes, the platform sets a technical deadline of the contest's last game. |
Close Entries Immediately (Prevent New Entries) | A hard stop that immediately closes the contest to new players — the way most commissioners "cap" their pool once their group is in. |
Maximum Entries Per Entrant | Defaults to 1 per person; the commissioner can raise it. Raise-only once the contest is live. |
Joining Mid-Season | A late joiner inherits the already-decided results — in a 1-life contest they are effectively eliminated on arrival. The commissioner can revive them from the Entrant Manager if they want to let them play. |
Joining After the Contest Ends | Not allowed. |
Summary: Survivor pools tend to stay open by default — there's no automatic cutoff — so commissioners typically close entries manually once their group is set. Joining late is possible but risky: a mid-season joiner effectively inherits any losses already on the books, and the commissioner has to manually revive them to give them a fair shot.