Pick the right verb
- They're leaving and nobody takes their place → Withdraw. On Players, the row's Withdraw keeps every game they played on record and in the WCF export — the games drop out of the standings — and stops scheduling them. Reinstate if they come back. (Withdrawing a player who never played removes the entry outright.)
- Someone else takes their entry → Replace. The row's Replace swaps in the new player while keeping the block position, seed and schedule — the draw doesn't move, only the name changes.
- They never played and nobody replaces them → Remove (the ×). Only safe before results exist.
After a withdrawal
- Withdraw the player on Players.
- If blocks were seeded from a field that included them, the affected blocks show a Snake order stale pill on Format — decide deliberately whether to re-snake.
- If the withdrawal changes who qualifies, regenerate the affected bracket on Knockout setup, or adjust its Seeds editor.
Never remove a player who has played: removing deletes their games, and every opponent's record changes with them. Withdraw is built precisely so you don't have to.