Survival (cuts)

A single group, cuts at a fixed pace, one last team standing. The cuts eliminate teams, not a points pool.

Structure: Single group
Cut: Bottom 2
Initial seed: Site ranking
Odd team count: Play-in

IN SHORT

The essentials

No bracket: all teams stay in the same group, ranked and re-ranked every round.
Each round, teams are paired in adjacent pairs from the standings: 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6…
At regular intervals, the bottom two teams in the standings are eliminated, until there's a champion. Not to be confused with BlueGenji's Survival, where each team is out when its endurance pool is empty, with no cut.

Pairing
Cut zone
Play-in

The standings are recalculated every round; the pink zone is the cut zone.

IN DETAIL

Mode rules

Starting standings

Initial seeding comes from the site ranking: every team starts at 500 points, and each match transfers points from the loser to the winner — the more unlikely the result, the more points move. When a tournament ends, it hands out points again based on its final standings — the stronger its field, the more points. Seed 1 = best team.

Pairing and re-ranking

Each round pits teams two by two in the order of the current standings: 1st faces 2nd, 3rd faces 4th, and so on. The best teams meet each other, and so do the weakest.

After each round, the standings are recalculated: wins (descending), then losses (ascending), then initial seed.
A team that wins climbs and will face tougher opponents; a team that loses slides toward the cut zone.

Cuts

The pace is set when the tournament is created, with two settings: the number of rounds before the first cut, then the interval between the following cuts. You can let the standings settle before eliminating, then speed up. At each cut, the bottom two teams in the standings are out.

The cut zone is shown live in the standings: you always know who's on the edge.
When nobody would be left, the cut eliminates only one team: there's always a single champion.

Odd team count: the play-in

An odd team count would mean handing out a walkover every round — and since a cut removes two teams, the count would stay odd until the end. So the mode fixes the parity right from the start.

Odd registrations: round 1 is a play-in between the bottom two in the standings, and the loser is eliminated. The other teams enter in the next round.
The play-in doesn't count toward the cut pace: it starts with the first full round.
If a forfeit breaks the parity again mid-tournament, the next cut eliminates only one team instead of two to get back to an even count.
As a result, outside forfeits, no walkover is ever handed out, whatever the number of registered teams.

Final standings

The champion gets rank 1. The others are ranked by elimination round, latest first — going out late beats going out early — then by wins, losses and initial seed.

ALL MODES

Common rules

The same in every mode: match launch and match format, score reporting, forfeits. Open a rule to read it.

Match launch

A playable match doesn't start right away: at its start time (or as soon as it becomes playable if it has no schedule), it enters launch. A window then opens for the players of both teams, showing the host team and the useful contacts.

Each team confirms it's ready — captain, manager or owner; in a solo tournament, the player themselves. The assigned caster confirms too.
The match is launched once everyone is ready, when a referee forces it, or automatically after 15 minutes.
No score can be reported before the launch.

Match format

The match format (Bo — maximum number of maps — or FT — number of maps to win) is set when the tournament is created and applies to the whole tournament. Without a setting, any score can be entered (free score entry).

A score that exceeds the format, or that names no winner when the format requires one, is rejected on entry.
Draws only exist if the tournament allows them; they never apply to an elimination bracket.

Score reporting

It works the same way in every mode: each team reports its match score from the tournament page, through its captain, one of its managers or its owner (the player themselves in a solo tournament).

Two matching reports validate the match immediately.
A single report opens a 10-minute confirmation window, which only starts once a plausible series duration has passed since the launch (15 minutes per map the format allows): if the opponent doesn't dispute it, the score stands.
Two conflicting reports put the match in dispute: a referee decides and records the official score.
A referee or an admin can correct a score as long as the next round has no score entered; after that, the score is locked, for them too.

Forfeit

A referee can declare a team's forfeit on a match: the match is settled in favor of the opponent. For the forfeiting team, it's a loss like any other: in single elimination it's out, in double elimination it drops to the lower bracket, in BlueGenji's Survival it loses the format's full score and stays in the running with the pool it has left.

In Survival (cuts), Swiss and BlueGenji's Survival, a team can also withdraw from the rest of the tournament while it's in progress (or the referee can withdraw it): it's no longer paired.
Its final standing takes into account when it left.

Double forfeit

When neither team shows up, the referee declares a double forfeit: the match is closed with no winner and no score, and both teams lose it.

In elimination, both teams are out and nobody advances: the next match becomes a walkover for the other qualified team.
In Swiss and Survival (cuts), each takes a loss; in the qualifier of BlueGenji's Survival, each loses the format's full score.
In a final, a double forfeit crowns no champion: both finalists are ranked tied 2nd.

COMPARE

Other modes

Single elimination Double elimination BlueGenji's Survival Swiss Multi-stage tournament