Phase Types

Open the Phases tab in the tournament admin area to see every phase laid out as a pipeline, in the order they run.

Quick templates

The Create Phase page offers two one-click starting points, or you can build a phase manually below them:

• Swiss + Top 8 — 5 Swiss rounds, cut to a Top 8 single elimination.
• 2-Day Tournament — Day 1: 9 Swiss rounds. Day 2: 5 Swiss rounds, then a cut to Top 8.

Managing a phase

• Edit — change the configuration before the first round is generated; a running phase can still have some settings adjusted.
• Start Phase — locks the entrants and generates the first round. Disabled until the previous phase is complete.
• Pairings — jump to the current round to enter and manage results.
• Complete Phase — close this phase, freeze its final standings, and unlock the next one.
• Reopen Phase — reopen a completed phase to add rounds or correct results.
• Delete — permanently remove the phase and its settings.

The pipeline card for a phase after a cut shows a "Cut Top :count" or "Min :pts pts" tag, and a "1v1 → Multi" style tag whenever the pairing family changes between two consecutive phases.

Table layout, all phases at once

A "Table layout" bar at the top lets you pick First table or Last table and a starting number, then click "Apply to all phases" to set it everywhere in one step. Edit a single phase afterward to give it a different range (for example, the final table).

Constructed is the standard 1v1 mode: players bring a pre-built deck and play each other one at a time. Choose a Configuration of "Constructed" when creating a phase, then a Type:

Swiss Elimination — a Swiss-Top-N variant

Inside a Single Elimination phase, the "Elimination Algorithm" field offers a second option besides the standard seeded Bracket:

• Bracket (default) — standard seeded pairing: #1 vs the lowest seed, #2 vs the second-lowest, and so on.
• Swiss Elimination — players are paired Swiss-style each round instead of by a fixed bracket slot, but a single loss still eliminates them. Round labels still follow the bracket stage names (Quarterfinals, Semifinals...).

Best of, points, and cuts

• Best Of — Best of 1, 3, or 5 games per match.
• Points — Win, Draw, Loss, and Bye points. Default: Win 3 / Draw 1 / Loss 0 / Bye 3.
• Apply cut before this phase — eliminate players from the previous phase before this one starts, by rank (Top N) or by a minimum point threshold. This is what defines the size of a bracket phase (for example, cut to 8 for a Top 8).

Under Advanced Options you can also turn on Power Pairings (on the last Swiss/Round Robin round, pair the top-ranked player against the next highest they have not faced), a Deterministic toss (automatically and fairly assigns who plays first, with a choice of tie-break policy), and a Bye Assignment rule (random among the lowest ranked by default, or always lowest/highest/manual).

A Double Elimination phase runs two brackets side by side:

• Winners Bracket — players who have not lost yet.
• Losers Bracket — players who lost once. A second loss eliminates them.
• Grand Final — the Winners bracket champion against the Losers bracket champion, for the title.

Rounds are labeled by stage in each bracket — Winners Round of N / Quarterfinals / Semifinals / Final, and Losers Round N / Semifinals / Final — plus the Grand Final. A public "Bracket" tab on the live tournament page shows both trees side by side, and the print bracket does the same for the venue.

The bracket size is set the same way as a single elimination cut ("Apply cut before this phase"). If the entrant count is not an exact power of two, the top seeds receive byes in round 1 so the bracket stays a clean shape — no player ever needs more than one loss beyond the format's rule to be eliminated.

Booster Draft is a Configuration option of its own: players open booster packs, pick cards one at a time, build a deck from what they drafted, then play in pods (tables of players, typically 8). Choose Swiss or Single Elimination as the Type, set the Number of Rounds (typically 3 for one 8-player pod), and Best of 1 or 3.

Pod size and pairing scope

• Optimal (MTR) — pods of 8 preferred, following Magic Tournament Rules, ranging from 4 to 11.
• Fixed Size — every pod is exactly the size you set; the last pod absorbs the remainder.
• Inside Pod (default) — players are paired only within their own pod, the standard for competitive draft.
• Cross-Pod — players are paired across every pod with the standard Swiss algorithm; pods only matter for the draft and building steps.

For Inside-Pod Swiss, round 1 pairs opposite seats (1v5, 2v6...), and the "Swiss Mode" choice decides what happens next: "Bracket & Swiss" makes round 2 follow the round-1 winners in a mini-bracket while losers fall back to Swiss, with round 3 onward pure Swiss; "Only Swiss" pairs round 1 randomly and every round after by Swiss alone, so players can sit anywhere. For Inside-Pod elimination, seats pair by maximum circular distance and winners advance top-half vs bottom-half each round.

Draft workflow and admin tools

1. Click "Generate Pods" — players are shuffled and seated.
2. Review and adjust: Shuffle Pod, Swap Seats, Move Player, Remove Player.
3. Print pod seating charts, or check the Building Seating view — it deliberately seats players away from their own pod-mates during deck building to prevent card sharing.
4. Click "Lock & Start Rounds" to lock pods, auto-generate building seating, and start the build timer (set in minutes, shown to players and staff).
5. Generate Round 1 once building time is up, then report results and complete rounds as usual.

If no round has been generated yet, "Unlock Pods" returns you to the setup step. "Clear All" deletes every pod and unassigns everyone — destructive, use with caution.

Multiplayer is for games played 3 to 5 players at a table (a pod) at once — Commander/EDH being the common case. Choose Configuration "Multiplayer", then a Phase Type: Swiss (everyone plays every round) or Single Elimination (a top cut).

Top cut sizes

For a multiplayer Single Elimination phase, pick a Top Cut Size — rounds are computed for you:

Players are seeded with the snake method so pods stay balanced; only pod winners advance each round.

Every multiplayer phase picks one of two scoring systems.

MMTA

The standard, recommended system. Every result awards a fixed number of points:

All four values are editable to match your community's house rules — this is different from a 1v1 phase, whose defaults are Win 3 / Draw 1 / Loss 0 / Bye 3.

Standings rank first by total match points, then by up to six MMTA tiebreakers you can add and reorder: Match Points, Match Win % (MWP), Opponent Average Match Points (OAMP), Opponent Match Win % (OMW), Number of Wins, and Match Loss %. A new multiplayer phase defaults to MWP → OAMP → OMW.

Hareruya

A wager-based system: every player starts with a point pool and bets a percentage of their current score each round.

• Win — collect every loser's wager.
• Loss — lose your own wager.
• Draw — all wagers in the pod are pooled and split equally.

Early wins compound into wider gaps later on. Options:

• Starting Points (100-10,000, default 1000) — initial score for every player.
• Wager % (1-50%, default 7%) — share of the current score wagered each round.
• Round Shuffling — averages the final score across every possible round order, removing any bias from the order wins happened to fall in.
• Bye Method — Fixed Wager (default: the bye player gains their wager times 2), or Average Performance (bye value = the player's average points gained per game, fairer to a player who was performing poorly).

Rankings use final score first, then match wins as a tiebreaker.

• Pod Size — 3, 4, or 5 players per table. Default 4.

When the player count does not divide evenly, "Odd field handling" decides what to do with the remainder:

Pairing method

Round 1 is always random. From round 2 on, choose:

• Swiss (score brackets, anti-re-pair, default) — players are grouped by score and shuffled within each bracket while avoiding rematches — the competitive default.
• Random — shuffled with no score grouping and no anti-rematch logic — best for casual events.
• Power Pods (strict rank order) — the top scores fill pod 1, the next scores fill pod 2, and so on, for the tightest skill-based groupings.

"Avoid repeating seats" spreads out which seat (A, B, C...) a player sits in across consecutive rounds, instead of always giving the best-ranked player in a pod Seat A.

Team Trio is a tournament-wide format, turned on with the "Team Trio (3v3)" toggle in the tournament's Details settings, not a per-phase choice. Each team has 3 players, each assigned a seat (A/B/C), and teams are paired Swiss-style — every phase in a Team Trio tournament must be Swiss, since the team pairer does not support elimination brackets.

Every phase has an "Advanced Options" panel with the tiebreaker chain, its floor, and a couple of extra rules.

Tiebreaker chain

Drag to reorder, or add from the full list. 1v1 and Booster Draft phases can use any of 16 keys — OMW%, Game Win %, OGW%, Match Points, OOMW%, Cumulative MP, Match Loss %, Opp. Match Loss %, Opp. Cumulative MP, Buchholz, Buchholz Cut-1, Median-Buchholz, Direct Encounter, Number of Wins, Match Win %, and Opp. Avg Match Points — defaulting to OMW% → Game Win % → OGW%. Multiplayer phases are limited to the 6 keys relevant to pods: Match Points, Match Win %, Opp. Avg Match Points, OMW%, Number of Wins, and Match Loss %.

Tiebreaker floor

For 1v1 and Booster Draft, the floor sets the minimum value an opponent's win rate can contribute to your tiebreakers, so a single blowout early loss cannot tank the whole field's numbers:

• ⅓ — MTG Standard (default).
• ¼ — Pokemon.
• 0.20
• 0 — no floor.
• Custom (0.00-1.00).

Multiplayer phases do not show this selector — see Multiplayer scoring above for how their floor is derived.

Late Enrollment Penalty

How rounds missed by a player who enrolls after the tournament has started are treated: "Missed rounds = losses" (default) or "Missed rounds = byes".

Every phase has its own default visibility, switchable at any time during the phase:

• Pairings visible by default — whether players see their table/pod and seat as soon as pairings are generated.
• Standings visible by default — whether players see the live standings.
• Open decklists — when on, opponents can see each other's decklist for the round in the player portal. Two extra switches limit what they see: "Hide card counts" (no per-card quantities) and "Hide card categories" (mainboard/sideboard/command zone merged into one list).

For an event that mixes Booster Draft and Constructed phases, scoring always stays one combined cumulative Swiss no matter what — this setting only controls whether two players who already met can be paired again once the format changes. It appears on the Phases page only when your event actually mixes formats:

• Same format only (Pro Tour) — a draft opponent can be faced again in a constructed round; rematches are still avoided within the same format. Matches the MTG Pro Tour convention.
• Across the whole event — never re-pair the same two players, even across a format change.

A tournament cannot mix Multiplayer (pod) phases with 1v1 phases (Constructed or Booster Draft). The two use separate scoring engines — 1v1 defaults to 3/1/0/3 points, multiplayer pods to 7/1/0/7 — and their standings are never combined. Trying to add a phase of the wrong family shows an error where the Configuration selector is, and creation is blocked.

Every phase sets its own table range:

• First table — tables are numbered starting from this value, going up (e.g. 20 → 20, 21, 22...).
• Last table — the highest table number is this value, others count down (e.g. 100 → ...98, 99, 100).

Use the pipeline's "Apply to all phases" bar (see Building your phase pipeline above) to set the same range everywhere in one click, then override a single phase if it needs its own range.

The day-to-day flow of a phase, from start to finish:

1. Start Phase (or Generate the next round if it is already active).
2. Pairings are generated and, if visible by default, published to players.
3. Matches are played and results reported; track progress with the round's reported counter.
4. Complete the round — standings recalculate.
5. Generate the next round, or move to end-of-phase options.

• Add Another Round — adds one extra round beyond the plan, with a warning that this can create inconsistent pairings.
• Complete Phase — finish this phase without touching the next one.
• Advance to :name — complete this phase, apply the configured cut, and start the next phase's first round in one click.
• Complete Phase & End Tournament — shown only on the last phase; finishes everything and marks the tournament complete.

Round labels

Single elimination rounds are auto-labeled from the entrant count: Round of N, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Finals. Double elimination adds the bracket name: Winners Round of N / Quarterfinals / Semifinals / Final, Losers Round N / Semifinals / Final, and Grand Final. Swiss and Round Robin rounds are simply numbered.