Tournament formats explained
Single elimination, double elimination, round robin, swiss, battle royale lobbies and leaderboards: how each tournament format works and when to use it.
Every RoundsWon tournament is one or more stages, and each stage has a format. A common setup is round robin groups first, then a single elimination bracket for the top of each group.
| Format | Best for | How a winner is decided |
|---|---|---|
| Single elimination | Quick events, big fields, streams | Lose once and you are out |
| Double elimination | Fighting games, serious brackets | Lose twice and you are out |
| Round robin | Leagues, small groups, group stages | Everyone plays everyone, points decide |
| Swiss | Big fields in few rounds, chess | Set rounds against equal records |
| Battle royale lobbies | Fortnite, Apex, PUBG, Warzone | Points for placement and kills |
| Leaderboard | Speedruns, high scores, kill races | Best submitted score in the time |
Single elimination
Players are paired in a bracket and the loser of each match is out. The bracket size rounds up to the next power of two (8, 16, 32...), and the top seeds get byes to fill it. You can set games per match (one game, best of 3, 5 or 7), a separate length for the final, and an optional match for third place.
Double elimination
A first loss drops a player to the losers side of the bracket, a second loss puts them out. The winner of the losers side meets the winner of the winners side in the grand final. With bracket reset on, the losers side winner has to win the grand final twice, because the other player has not lost yet.
Round robin
Everyone in a group plays everyone else once. A win and a draw score points (3 and 1 by default) and the table ranks by points, then score difference, then scores for. Split players into several groups for a group stage. Players are spread across groups by seed so each group is even.
Swiss
A set number of rounds where each round pairs players with the same record who have not met yet. Nobody is out early, and a field of 64 finds its winner in 6 rounds. Ties in the table are broken by Buchholz (the points of everyone a player faced), then score difference. Leave rounds at 0 for the usual number for the field size.
Battle royale lobbies
Everyone drops into the same lobby (or several, for big fields) for a set number of games. Each game scores points for placement (10, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 by default) and for every kill. Most points over all games wins, then most wins, then most kills.
Leaderboard
A race against the clock. Players play on their own and send in scores with a screenshot or clip link until the host ends the leaderboard. The table counts each player's best score, or all of them added up. Turn on "lower is better" for times, and choose whether the host checks each score before it counts.
Try one without an account
The free bracket maker builds single elimination, double elimination, round robin and swiss brackets from a list of names, and gives you a link and embed code to share it.