What this section does
Format is where each competition gets its shape: how the field plays (blocks, Swiss, knockout…), how it's split and seeded, how long a match is, and what happens after the first stage. If the event has several competitions, pick each one with the pills at the top — every competition has its own format.
The tool walks you through these as plain questions the first time; everything below is what each answer does.
Competitions
A competition is one draw with one winner. Blocks, Swiss pools and knockouts all live inside a competition — however many blocks feed a knockout, that's still one title. The wizard's "how many winners will your event have?" is exactly this question. By example:
| The event | Competitions |
|---|---|
| Two blocks of 6, the top four from each into a knockout | 1 — many blocks, one title |
| A Championship and a First Flight, split by rating | 2 — a winner in each |
| Championship, First Flight and Second Flight singles, plus a Mixed Doubles | 4 |
Add one with a name and a type (Singles / Doubles), reorder them with ↑↓ (auto-assign fills competitions in this order, so keep the top competition first), and delete with ✕. Player chips show who's assigned. While everyone is unassigned, the Who plays where proposal splits the field by rating; once some are placed, an Edit competition sizes card with Edit / Auto-assign handles the rest — see Who plays where.
Per-competition scheduling overrides (e.g. doubles blocks on the weekend, singles midweek) are set on the Schedule section — see Schedule adjustments.
How will they play?
Five formats:
| Format | What it is |
|---|---|
| Blocks | Round-robin blocks — everyone in a block plays everyone once. Standings or a knockout decide what follows. |
| Swiss — N rounds | One pool, a fixed number of rounds; each round pairs players with similar records. |
| Flexible Swiss | One pool, no fixed rounds — players are paired whenever a lawn frees up. Runs from a live console on the day. |
| Straight knockout | No first stage — single elimination, double elimination, or Draw & Process, configured in Knockout setup. |
| Burridge Swiss | Swiss qualifying that feeds a knockout, per Croquet England regulation F8. The option appears only when it's enabled for your account. |
Choosing a format sets out the mechanics that differ between them — games per player, elimination, lawn time.
Split the field
For blocks, pick how many blocks from the split pills. The ★ marks the tool's starting point — the split whose block sizes come closest to 7 — and the line beneath gives the games per player each split produces, since a block of s plays s−1 games. For 16 players that is 7 games each in 2 blocks of 8, or 3 games each in 4 blocks of 4. Bigger blocks mean more games per player and more lawn time to fit them.
Set up blocks myself opens the full block builder instead.
Seed blocks by
Current dGrade seeds on each player's grade right now; Max dGrade last 12 months seeds on their highest grade in the last 12 months. Changing the source after blocks are seeded re-orders the ranked list, so it flags the blocks as stale.
How long is a match?
Single game / Best of 3 / Best of 5, and the game length — 13-point or 19-point games in GC; 26, 22, 18 or 14 points in AC. This applies to every block in the competition (per-round knockout formats are set separately in Knockout setup). Match length drives how much lawn time the schedule reserves, so set it before generating a schedule.
Then what?
What block standings feed: Block standings decide (the block result is the final result) or A knockout (block finishers progress to brackets — the tool takes you on to Knockout setup).
For a blocks competition, either answer then shows the Round order the draw will use, because that is decided here rather than downstream.
Block standings decide sets it to Top matches last, so the block builds to its top-of-table games and finishes on 1v2, 3v4, 5v6. There is no qualifying line in a standings-decided block, so the WCF tables' late 4v5 — the game that would settle the last place through — settles nothing. Switch back to WCF Regs on the same card if you want the published order regardless.
Answering A knockout sets it to WCF Regs and asks one more question:
How many from each block advance to the knockout?
1, 2, 3, 4, or Decide later. It sizes the knockout, sets the qualifying line in the standings, and — on the WCF Regs round order — decides which games are dealt into the closing rounds. The published WCF tables assume four go through, so they close a block of six on 1v3 · 2v6 · 4v5. Answer 2 and the same table is dealt with the seeds renumbered, so the game across the line lands last: the block of six then closes on 1v5 · 2v3 · 4v6, with seeds 2 and 3 — the pair either side of the line — meeting in the final round. The line under the pills shows the last round your answer produces.
This one has to be answered before you can save — it goes amber until it is, because the order of play is generated from it and an unanswered question would quietly build the wrong one. Decide later is a real answer and clears it in one click.
Decide later leaves the number unset: the published tables are used, and Knockout setup asks the question when you build the bracket.
Knockout setup asks it too, prefilled from your answer here, and it is the only place that takes a different count per block (5·5·6 for a draw of 16).
Round order
The same choice as on Order of play — WCF Regs or Top matches last — offered here because at this point nothing has been generated, so choosing costs nothing. Each answer to Then what? preselects the order that suits it, and the line beneath shows the last round it produces. Choosing an order yourself stops the preselection for the rest of the card.
Once the order of play exists, this shows what the competition is using and sends you to Order of play to change it, where the rebuild keeps every scheduled time.
On Top matches last the qualifier count doesn't affect the order of play at all; that order always closes on 1v2, 3v4, 5v6.
Swiss and Flexible Swiss competitions aren't asked either question — their pairings are drawn per round, so neither applies.
The block builder
Once blocks exist you can go beyond the even split:
- A Blocks count with an auto-even split preview ("Auto-even split: 6 / 6 / 5"), Create blocks / Reconfigure (replaces all blocks and clears assignments), + Add block.
- ↻ Snake-seed all — deals seeds down the blocks in a snake (1st seed to Block A, 2nd to B, 3rd to B, 4th to A, …) so blocks come out balanced. The tool's How blocks are seeded fold shows the exact pattern.
- Move any player between blocks with the per-player dropdown, or remove them from a block.
- Placed blocks — build a competition from another competition's finishing positions (e.g. a Plate for third-and-below).
- Custom blocks — hand-built blocks with their own name, match format and public notes.
"Snake-seed may be stale" appears when a dGrade refresh changed ratings after blocks were seeded; a roster change marks the affected blocks with a Snake order stale pill instead. Review changes shows what moved; Re-snake affected blocks re-deals them. Ignore it deliberately, not accidentally: a stale seed means the blocks no longer reflect the field.
When formats lock
Once a competition has recorded results, its format locks ("Format locked — results recorded"). Reshaping it means clearing the scores first — which deletes the recorded results, so the lock exists to make that a deliberate step.