In the wizard
On Knockout setup, the question What does everyone else play? is the plate switch: choose A Plate (n) and the players below the qualifying line get a knockout of their own, built in the same Create the brackets → as the main draw. The plate takes its own match format, and its own answer for what plate losers play — just the draw, a 3rd-place playoff, or full placement.
If you'd rather they play a second round-robin than a bracket, They drop into a new competition builds new blocks or a Swiss instead — a second flight rather than a plate.
A straight knockout: a consolation beside the draw
A knockout-only competition has no qualifying line to cut a plate from — everyone is in the draw, and the players who need something else to play are the ones it knocks out. Its Then what? card on Format builds that as a separate competition instead of a bracket: A consolation event alongside, played as a Flexible Swiss (paired as lawns free up) or a Swiss (fixed rounds), and it asks whether the main draw's results count in its standings: carried across it is a Progressive Swiss (Reg F4), left out it is a plain plate. Neither answer is pre-selected.
Who is in it? decides when they arrive. Everyone, from the start puts the whole field in the consolation pool resting; you mark a player Ready on the Swiss console when they want a game, which includes a player still in the knockout with time to fill while they wait for their next opponent. Add them as they lose starts the pool empty and you add players from the Players tab as they go out.
A player can hold an entry in both competitions at once. Each ranks its own games: the consolation's standings do not count knockout results, and vice versa. (A Progressive Swiss is the shape where they do.)
A consolation's Minimum games starts at none, where a Flexible Swiss chosen as a competition's own structure starts at 5. The floor exists to stop someone winning one game, stopping, and finishing on 100% in a pool where everyone had the same chance to play — and a consolation is the case where they did not, since its players arrive as the draw beside it knocks them out. Set one on Format if your event wants it.
Adding one after the brackets exist
✨ Rebuild the knockout re-opens the wizard; creating with the plate answered builds the family fresh — it replaces the current brackets rather than stacking a plate on top, so do it before knockout results exist. Once knockout games are underway, add the plate by hand instead: 🎛 Build brackets manually, kind Consolation / Plate, seeded from the block ranks below the line — the main draw is untouched.
When the field isn't a clean rank range
A rank range covers the usual plate — everyone below the line. It can't skip specific people, and it can't reach players outside the finishing order. When the real field differs — say three non-qualifiers decline, and five players who never played the qualifying stage join — build the plate with 🎛 Build brackets manually and the Pick players seed source: tick exactly who plays, from any of the event's competitions, and set the seed order by hand.
Players joining from outside the event go in through the Players tab first. In an event with more than one competition they can stay unplaced — they appear in the picker under Not placed in a competition — or be placed into a competition of their own (a player can hold entries in several competitions). Adding them to the qualifying competition itself would put them in its standings, so pick them into the bracket instead.
A player who withdrew
A plate seeded from finishing places leaves out players who withdrew. A player who withdraws after the finishing order was saved keeps their stored place, so the plate skips them, and everyone below them moves up one place. This covers the knockout plate (A Plate (n)) and a Placed blocks competition. Places down to the qualifying line do not move: a qualifier who withdraws keeps their line in the main knockout, where their opponent takes the walkover. With no qualifying line set, a knockout plate does not move anyone, and a placed block skips every withdrawn player.
A withdrawn player who is fit to play the plate is added by hand:
- Replace with… beside each seed in the seed order editor (Seeds on a bracket) puts any player in the competition into that seed, withdrawn players marked (withdrew). Save & regenerate draws the bracket with them.
- Pick players (in 🎛 Build brackets manually) lists withdrawn players too, marked withdrew. None is picked for you.
- + Add players on a competition card lists withdrawn players marked (withdrew). Adding one by name gives them an active entry in that competition; Add everyone leaves them out. The competition they withdrew from keeps them withdrawn, with its results unchanged.
Set up the Plate
An event created from the WCF GC World Championship template has its own Plate step, step 4 on the template card. The Plate there is blocks of single games to 13, up to 4 blocks, with the top 4 of each going into a 16-player Plate knockout played best of 3 to 13.
Until every main block has finished, the step lists the blocks still playing. A block level across the qualifying line under WCF placings is listed as play-off (for example Block D play-off) until its play-off is decided, since who missed the cut is not known before then. Then Set up the Plate shows every player who missed the cut, grouped by the block they played in, with their finishing place and dGrade. Players who withdrew from a block are listed too, last in their block and marked withdrew, since a player who missed the blocks (through illness, say) may be fit by the time the Plate starts. Ticking one gives them a new, active entry in the Plate; their main-block entry stays withdrawn, and their block results are unchanged. Nobody is ticked to start; Tick all and Clear work on the whole list. At least 4 must be ticked.
Placing matches for Plate KO losers sets what the Plate knockout's losers play: None, 3rd/4th (a playoff for third), or Every place (a placing match for every position). Players who miss the Plate knockout get nothing built for them by this step. More games for them are added on Format as a Placed blocks competition built from the plate blocks' finishing places, or as Z games.
Divide into plate blocks shows the split before anything is built. The number of blocks is up to 4 with at least 4 players in each, sizes as even as possible (34 players make 9, 9, 8 and 8). Players are placed in this order of priority:
- the fewest pairs who already met in the same main block;
- block dGrade averages level, where averages within 10 points of each other count as level;
- the fewest pairs from the same country.
The preview gives the count for each, along with the fewest rematches any split of that field could have. The same ticked list always divides the same way. Within a plate block, seeds follow dGrade, highest first. Back to the list changes who is ticked.
Confirm and build the Plate makes the Plate competition with its blocks and order of play, and the Plate knockout. With 4 blocks of top 4, the knockout pairs Block A with Block C and Block B with Block D in the first round, 1st against 4th and 2nd against 3rd, with each block's four in different quarters. Other shapes are seeded from the block finishing places in the usual way.
Once built, the step shows the split's counts and How the plate blocks were divided, which lists each plate block's players, countries and main block, and its average. The Plate's blocks and knockout are then edited on Format and Knockouts like any other competition.
Scheduling it
The plate is a bracket like any other on Knockout schedule: give it its own lawn pool if the main draw owns the show lawns, and set where its final sits in the closing order.