Draws, seeding and scheduling
How the draw is made, who's kept apart, and when matches are played. All of these are in the cup's Settings.
The draw
Draw strategy decides how later rounds are filled:
- Full bracket upfront: the whole bracket is set when the cup starts, so everyone can see their route to the final ("winner of match 1 plays winner of match 2").
- Manual round by round: the next round is drawn by an admin once the current one is finished, so you can make the draw live on the night.
- Auto on resource availability: matches are drawn and put on a board or table as one comes free.
Byes
If the number of entrants isn't 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on, some first-round places are byes. Byes go to the top seeds, who go straight into round two.
Seeding
- On the Roster page, give seed numbers to the entrants you want to keep apart. Seeds 1 and 2 are put in opposite halves of the bracket.
- For a cup with groups or a league stage, choose how the knockout is filled from it: Cross-bracket (group winners separated) keeps group winners apart and crosses winners with runners-up, and Snake (overall rank order) ranks everyone across the groups and deals them out in turn.
Rounds and series
On Formats, set the match format for each round, so the final can be longer than the early rounds. A knockout round can also be a best-of series, a best-of-3 semi-final say; each game of the series is created as the previous one finishes, and the round is won by whoever takes the most.
Scheduling
Schedule mode decides when matches are played:
- Multi-week: one round a week (or as you choose), on the cup's play day and start time. Set them on Schedule, and move any match from there.
- Single event: the whole cup on one day. Set the start date and time and the gap between rounds, and every round gets a time, with a break between rounds for those going through.
A single-event cup calls each match to a board when it's ready, so players know where to go.