What this section does
Everything about a competition's knockout lives here: who goes through, the shape of the draw, the match format round by round, and what everyone else plays. One Create builds it all — slots show as positions ("Block A 1st") and fill with names as qualifying finishes, so you can build and print brackets before a single block game is played.
If the event has no knockout yet the rail shows this section dimmed; opening it offers Set up a knockout.
Block finishing order
Brackets and placed blocks seed from each block's final standings — set here, 1st at the top. Until you save, a block follows its scores. Save finishing order fixes it: later results stop moving it, which is what lets you settle a tie by coin flip or playoff. Mark players = to record a joint placing, and Reset to current standings pulls the order back to the scores whenever you want.
Seeding
Two styles for placing qualifiers into the bracket:
- Block-protected (no same-block R1) — spreads block-mates apart so they can't meet in the first round.
- Ranking-tiered (balanced draw, by dGrade) — a balanced draw by rating, regardless of blocks.
▶ How does seeding work? in the tool walks a full example. Re-seed existing re-deals a bracket you've already built.
The knockout wizard
How many from each block go through?
Top 1 / Top 2 / Top 3 / Top 4, a free number, or a different count per block. The live line shows what it produces — "→ a main draw of 6 in a 8-bracket with 2 byes" — and this answer also sets the qualifying line shown in the standings.
It also shapes the WCF Regs round order: the games between the seeds either side of the qualifying line are dealt into the closing rounds, and which seeds those are depends on this number.
The question is asked earlier too — on Format, when you answer A knockout — and this field is prefilled from that answer. Answering it there means the order of play is built for the right number first time. If pairings were already generated when Create changes the number, they are rebuilt into the same rounds and keep their scheduled times and lawns; if a result has already been recorded the rebuild is refused, and the tool tells you the order of play still reflects the previous number.
This is also the only place that takes a different count per block.
For a Burridge Swiss the question reads Who goes through? and nobody picks the number: everyone who reaches the Wins to qualify set on Format goes through. While games remain the card shows an estimate (or the exact Qualifiers wanted count, when set); once every announced round is played it shows the players who actually qualified, and the draw is built for exactly them.
What shape is the knockout?
Single elimination, Double elimination (with a choice of a second final if necessary, or one final only), or Draw & Process.
Match format, round by round
Best-of and game points per round, prefilled from the qualifying-stage match format — change any round freely. Double elimination and Draw & Process take one All rounds format plus a Grand final / Deciding final row instead, with per-round tweaks made later in Scoring settings.
What does everyone else play?
- Nothing — just the main draw — non-qualifiers finish when block play ends.
- A Plate (n) — a knockout of their own for the players below the line, with its own format and its own answer for what plate losers play.
- They drop into a new competition — new blocks or a new Swiss: a second flight, not a bracket.
Do round losers keep playing?
For a single-elimination main draw: No — just the draw, a 3rd-place playoff, or Full placement (Bowl & Shield style) — each round's losers drop into their own bracket, so everyone finishes with a ranking.
Create the brackets → builds the whole family at once. Nothing is locked in — rename, re-seed, retime or rebuild any bracket afterwards, and fine-tune any round's format in Scoring settings.
The brackets panel
Each bracket can be renamed, re-kinded (Main / Consolation / Placement), downloaded as a printable sheet, regenerated or removed; its Seeds editor reorders entrants, and a First round preview on the card shows the pairings it produces. A ⚠️ alarm appears if a bracket is missing an eligible finisher — typically after a block gains one once the bracket was already generated.
🎛 Build brackets manually is full control: add one bracket at a time, pick its shape, and choose exactly which players feed it. Five seed sources:
- This competition's entrants — everyone entered in this competition, in the seed order set in the wizard.
- Pick players — hand-pick the field by name. The list shows every player entered in the event, grouped by competition — including players entered in another competition, and players added on the Players tab but not placed in one — with their finishing rank next to the name where one exists. Ticking a player adds them to the Seed order below, where ↑↓ arrows set the seeding and ✕ removes a player; the order at creation is the stored seed order (seed 1 plays the lowest seed). This is the source for a field no rank range can express — for example a plate where some non-qualifiers decline and entrants who never played the qualifying stage join. The names are fixed when the bracket is created: they don't follow later block results, and they feed any shape — single elimination, double elimination, or Draw & Process.
- Cross-block ranks — a rank range woven across several blocks (A1, B1, A2, B2…).
- Single block ranks — a rank range of one block's finishing order.
- Losers/winners of a bracket — one round's losers or winners from another bracket.
Related
- Knockout schedule — dates, lawns and "not before" times for the brackets.
- Scoring — the Knockout view for entering results.