Seeding
Seeding decides who plays whom in the first round of an elimination bracket.
Good seeding keeps the strongest teams apart early so they don't knock each other out before the final. Seeding applies to Single and Double Elimination; league formats (Round Robin, Swiss, Group Stage) don't use it because the format itself decides matchups.
Settings explained
Ordered (as entered)
Seeds follow the order you entered the teams — the first team is seed 1, and so on.
When to use: Use when your list is already ranked (by a prior ladder or registration order).
Example: Standard pairing: seed 1 vs the lowest, seed 2 vs the second-lowest, protecting top seeds.
Random
Seeds are shuffled randomly before the bracket is built.
When to use: Use for casual events or a neutral luck-of-the-draw bracket with no ranking.
Manual (seed editor)
Opens a drag-and-drop editor so you place each team into the exact first-round slot you want.
When to use: Use when you need full control — to respect rivalries, regional splits, or a custom bracket shape.
Example: Drag teams between slots, or use Auto Shuffle for a starting point. Reopen it later from the bracket via Edit Seeding.
Byes
A bye is a free pass through the first round, used when the field isn't a power of two.
When to use: Byes always go to the top seeds, so seeding determines who skips round 1.
Example: 10 teams → 16-slot bracket → 6 byes to seeds 1–6; seeds 7–10 play first-round matches.
Elimination extras
3rd-place match
An optional extra match between the two semi-final losers to decide 3rd and 4th place.
Values: On / Off (off by default).
When to use: Available for single-elimination brackets — and group/Swiss finals that use single elimination — with at least four teams in the final bracket. You can toggle it later from Config.
Example: In an 8-team single elimination, the two losing semifinalists play once more for 3rd place.
Grand final bracket reset
In double elimination a team is out after two losses. The team arriving from the winners bracket has none; the one from the losers bracket already has one. So if the losers-bracket team wins the grand final, it has only handed its opponent a first loss — not enough to eliminate them. The reset is a second grand final that settles it, with both teams now on one loss.
Values: On / Off (off by default).
When to use: Turn it on for fighting-game and community events (EVO, Smash), where an undefeated run through the winners bracket is meant to be worth something: that team has to be beaten twice. Leave it off to match most esports — League of Legends, Dota 2, Valorant, CS — which play a single grand final because broadcasts can't schedule a match that may never happen. The trade-off is that the winners-bracket team's unbeaten record buys it nothing in the final.
Example: With reset on, the bracket shows a second grand final marked BYE. It activates only if the losers-bracket team wins the first one; otherwise it stays voided and the tournament ends there.