Set up tournament structure and formats

Tournament structure defines how participants are organised, how they compete against each other, and how a winner is determined. Tournament Suite supports a range of formats so you can pick the one that fits your event.

Where to find it

Projects → [Your Project] → [Tournament] → Structure → Builder

Supported formats

Single Elimination Participants are eliminated after one loss. The winner of each match advances until one participant remains. Best for fast events with large fields.

Double Elimination Participants must lose twice to be eliminated. Losers drop into a losers bracket for a second chance, and the losers bracket winner meets the winners bracket winner in a grand final. You can optionally enable a grand final reset: if the losers bracket finalist wins the grand final, the match resets and a second, deciding match is played (since a true double loss for the eventual champion isn't otherwise possible). Common in esports tournaments where one bad match should not end a run.

Round Robin Every participant plays every other participant once. Final standings are determined by win/loss record. Best for smaller groups where fair head-to-head records matter.

Swiss Participants are paired each round based on their current standing — winners play winners, losers play losers. No one is eliminated until the final round. Good for large fields with a limited number of rounds.

Groups + Playoffs A group stage (round robin) feeds into an elimination playoff bracket. The most common format for larger tournaments with a distinct group and final phase.

Free-for-All (FFA) Multiple participants compete in one match and are ranked by score. Common in battle royale and racing game formats.

Gauntlet A sequential challenge format where a defending champion is challenged by opponents in a set order.

You can chain a group stage, round robin, or Swiss stage into a single- or double-elimination playoff stage by adding stages in order.

Step by step

1. Navigate to Structure → Builder inside your tournament.
2. Click Add stage and select a format from the list.
3. Configure the stage:
   • For elimination formats: set the bracket size and seeding order. The bracket is sized to a power of two, so if your approved entrant count isn't already a power of two, review the bracket sizing and byes section below before you publish.
   • For Double Elimination specifically, you can also choose whether to enable a grand final reset (see the format description above).
   • For round robin or Swiss: set the number of participants per group and advancement rules.
   • For Groups + Playoffs: configure the group stage first, then add a playoff stage and define how many teams advance.
4. Click Preview to see what the bracket will look like with your settings.
5. Add additional stages if your event has multiple phases (e.g. a group stage followed by a single-elimination final). Reshape the structure before you go live; once matches start, use result overrides, reverts, resets or forfeits instead — each is recorded in the audit timeline.
6. When the structure is correct, click Publish structure.

You can also freeze a structure to prevent further edits once participants are placed, and unfreeze it if you need to make changes. Use Regenerate to rebuild the bracket from scratch while keeping your format configuration.

Bracket sizing and byes

Single Elimination and Double Elimination brackets only work cleanly when every round pairs participants evenly, which requires the number of slots in the bracket to be a power of two (4, 8, 16, 32, and so on).

Every approved entrant plays. When you publish the structure, Tournament Suite looks at your approved entrants and sizes the bracket up to the next power of two. The empty slots become first-round byes, and fold seeding hands those byes to the top seeds, so the strongest entrants are kept apart and skip round one:

• 9 approved entrants → a 16-slot bracket; seeds 1 to 7 receive a first-round bye, and seeds 8 and 9 play each other.
• 12 approved entrants → a 16-slot bracket; seeds 1 to 4 receive a first-round bye.
• 16 approved entrants → a 16-slot bracket; no byes.

The structure preview lists the first-round byes and the vacant seeds so you can check them before you publish. Nobody is dropped or held back because of the size of the field.

A separate, optional waitlist handles registrations beyond your participant cap. It's off by default; turn it on in the tournament's registration settings and promote waitlisted entrants manually, or automatically when someone withdraws. See Registration approval and the waitlist.

Round robin, Swiss, Groups + Playoffs, Free-for-All, and Gauntlet don't have a power-of-two requirement, so every approved entrant plays and no byes are needed for those formats.

What happens next

Once the structure is published, place your participants into their starting positions using the Seeding and placement article. After placement, you can schedule match times before going live.