Survivor

A weekly NFL knockout pool — each week you pick one team, and one wrong pick ends your entry. Last entry standing wins. It's the simplest pool to explain and the hardest to survive: one team a week, all season, and you can never use the same team twice.

Survivor doesn't use a board or a number draw — it works differently from the Box Pools. (It also runs in reverse as Pick to Lose, where the team you pick has to lose instead of win.)

For the owner — setting up & running it

What you set up. The basics come first — your pool name, the season/year, entry points (tracking only), and any notes for house rules or context. You also set entries per person — how many separate entries one person can run — which defaults to 1, or you can make it unlimited.

Getting people in. Players can add their own entries right up until the first kickoff, so most groups fill themselves. You can also add a participant yourself by name — handy for anyone who isn't set up in the app yet — with an optional "This is me" to link an entry to your own account.

Win condition. You choose how a pick is decided:

• Pick to Win (standard) — the team you pick has to win. A loss sends the entry out.
• Pick to Lose (reverse) — you pick the team you think loses, and your team has to lose. A win sends the entry out. The pick screen shows a clear "PICK TO LOSE" badge and a confirm step, so no one picks the wrong way by mistake.

Ties. You decide whether a tied game counts as survive or eliminate — the default is eliminate. One exception you can't change: in Pick to Lose, a tie always eliminates, no matter how you set this.

Auto-pick. Off by default — it's your call at setup. Turn it on and anyone who forgets to pick still gets a pick: BoxD assigns the biggest underdog, the team least likely to win (in Pick to Lose it assigns the biggest favorite instead). Either way it's the pick most likely to send them out — the same as showing up and picking poorly. Leave it off and a missed pick eliminates the entry.

Hide picks until kickoff (optional). Turn this on and nobody sees anyone else's pick until games start — no peeking at the room before you commit.

Buybacks (optional) — off by default. Turn them on to let eliminated entries buy back in by spending points:

• You set ordered point tiers. The number of tiers is how many times one entry can buy back, and each tier, in order, is what the next buyback takes.
• A buyback never stacks lives — an entry always comes back with exactly one life, and any teams it already used stay used.
• The window: you can buy back until your comeback week's games have all kicked off — or the pool's buyback cutoff week, if the owner set one, whichever comes first. That cutoff week is your optional setting: no buybacks after it, regardless.
• Buybacks only work while two or more entries are still alive — once it's down to one, that entry has won.

Mid-season start. A pool doesn't have to begin at Week 1 — you can start it at a chosen week and run from there.

Editing & lifecycle. Every setting above lives behind the pool's EDIT button and stays editable right up until the first kickoff, then it all locks. At that same moment entries lock, and no one can join once the pool's first game has kicked off — so get your group set before then.

Results are automatic. BoxD follows every week's games and updates who's still alive — you never have to check scores yourself.

How it ends. When the last entries all go out together, you resolve the stalemate one of three ways:

• Split — co-champions; the remaining entries share the win.
• Continue — sudden death; the group plays on into the next week.
• Points Tiebreaker — the tied entries each enter a number for the combined total of the season's final game, and closest to the actual total wins.

For players — playing each week

Get your entry in. You can add your own entry — as many as the owner allows — right up until the pool's first kickoff, and then entries lock for the season. Once you're in, it's one decision a week from there.

Make your pick. Each week you pick one team. In Pick to Win your team has to win; in Pick to Lose your team has to lose — the pick screen shows a clear "PICK TO LOSE" badge and a confirm step so you never pick the wrong way by mistake. One rule holds all season: each team can only be used once, so spending a strong team early means you can't lean on it later.

You can change your pick right up until your team kicks off. The lock is keyed to your own team's game, not one deadline for the whole week — so two picks in the same week can lock at different times. Take a favorite playing the early game and you're locked in early; wait on a team playing later and you've got until their kickoff to change your mind. Once your team's game starts, that week's pick is final.

BoxD reminds you if you still haven't picked. Two nudges go out before the week's first kickoff — one at 24 hours and one at 2 hours — to any entry that hasn't locked in a pick yet. (See the Notifications guide.)

Auto-pick — only if the owner turned it on. If it's on and you forget, BoxD makes a pick for you so you stay in: it takes the biggest underdog (the team least likely to win), or the biggest favorite in Pick to Lose. Either way it's the pick most likely to send you out — the same as showing up and picking poorly. If auto-pick is off, a missed pick eliminates your entry.

Hidden picks. If the owner turned on hide picks until kickoff, you won't see anyone else's pick until the games start — everyone stays in the dark until the board is locked and the action begins.

Buying back in. If you're eliminated and the owner allows buybacks, you can return by spending the current tier's points. You always come back with exactly one life — a buyback never stacks lives — and every team you already used stays used. The window: you can buy back until your comeback week's games have all kicked off — or the pool's buyback cutoff week, if the owner set one, whichever comes first. Buybacks are only possible while two or more entries are still alive; once it's down to one, that entry has won.

When it comes down to a tie. If the last entries go out together, the owner settles it — a Split into co-champions, a Continue into sudden death, or a Points Tiebreaker where the tied entries each enter a number for the combined total of the season's final game and closest to the actual total wins.

For entertainment purposes only. BoxD organizes and manages your pool — it does not collect, hold, or transfer money or anything of monetary value. Survivor is built for the fun of the pool and bragging rights.