How to run a Survivor fantasy league (free, with friends)

A Survivor fantasy league turns a season into a game you play with your friends. Everyone picks castaways, points come from what happens on the show, and the standings move after every episode. You can run one with a spreadsheet and a lot of patience, or on Pick the Cast for free, where a league is called a party and the scoring, deadlines and standings take care of themselves.

Here’s how to set one up so it stays fun from the merge to the finale.

1. Choose a format

Most Survivor fantasy leagues use one of these:

• Draft: players take turns choosing castaways before the premiere. It’s exciting, but it needs everyone online at once, and a bad draft slot can sink a player in week one.
• Pick a few and lock them: each player chooses a small team and keeps it all season. Simple, and nobody has to show up at the same time.
• Weekly picks: players guess who goes home, or set a new lineup each episode. More to do, and easy to forget.
• Bracket or confidence pool: rank the whole cast at the start and score how close you got.

Pick the Cast uses the second format with a twist that makes it friendlier: everyone picks two castaways, and picks stay open until the end of the merge episode. Two friends can pick the same castaway, picks are hidden until the deadline, and once you lock them in, they’re yours for the season. No draft night, no trades, no waivers.

2. Set the deadline at the merge

Early Survivor episodes are chaos: tribes shift, swaps scramble alliances and big personalities go home first. Waiting until the merge means everyone picks from the castaways who actually made it, and people who started watching late can still join.

On Pick the Cast, a party’s picks close at 11:59 PM in the party’s time zone on the night the merge episode airs, and scoring starts with the episode after it. If your group wants a different deadline, the host can set a specific date instead. Picks are checked against the server’s clock, so “I was just about to pick” doesn’t work.

3. Agree on scoring before anyone picks

The fastest way to start an argument is to change the points after the fact. Settle them first. A balanced Survivor fantasy scoring system rewards three things:

• Winning challenges: individual immunity is +5, individual reward +3.
• Playing the game: finding a hidden immunity idol is +5, playing one that saves you +7, voting with the majority +2.
• Lasting: getting voted out costs 10 (plus 1 for each vote), while reaching Final Tribal Council is +10, each jury vote +3 and winning the season +20.

Those are the values every Pick the Cast party starts with. The host can change any of them before the party starts; after that, scoring is locked so nobody can tilt it mid-season. Survivor fantasy scoring, explained walks through every event, with a worked example.

4. Invite your people

Four to twenty players works best: enough for a real race, small enough that everyone knows each other’s picks. Start a party, then share the invite link or the six-letter code in your group chat. Want strangers too? Make the party public and anyone can find it on the Survivor public parties page.

New members can join right up until picks close. After the deadline the party stops taking members, so nobody can join late with hindsight.

5. Keep it going all season

• Results go up after each episode airs, never before, and every party updates at the same moment.
• The standings show who moved, how far each player is from first, and what their picks could still earn.
• Spoiler-free emails: results emails don’t name who went home in the subject line unless you ask them to.
• Mistakes get fixed in the open: a corrected result is logged, standings recalculate, and anyone whose score changed gets a note.

Common questions

What happens when one of my picks is voted out?

They stay on your team, keep the points they earned, and stop scoring. Picks are locked for the season, so there are no replacements.

Can two people pick the same castaway?

Yes. Picks are hidden until the deadline, so you won’t know who doubled up until every team is revealed.

How are ties broken?

Players with the same score share a rank (1, 2, 2, 4) and are listed alphabetically within the tie.

Is it really free?

Yes. There’s no entry fee, no prize and no betting. Pick the Cast is an independent fan game, not affiliated with CBS or Survivor.

Ready? See Survivor on Pick the Cast, meet the cast, and check the boot order so far.