Tournaments
A tournament is a single- or double-elimination bracket of 1v1 games, from 2 to 64 players. The Tournaments page lists them (open, running, finished) and each has its own page with the entrants and the bracket.
Making and entering one
- Any player with a confirmed W4 ID can make a tournament: a name (at least 3 characters) and the largest field (4, 8, 16, 32 or 64). You can have three open at a time and make five an hour. An optional map restricts which games count.
- While a tournament is open, anybody with a confirmed W4 ID can Enter or Leave. Nothing is decided until the owner starts it.
Starting: seeds and byes
The owner presses Start the bracket (at least two entrants). That closes the entries and seeds everyone by their 1v1 rating; newcomers count as 1500 and ties go to whoever entered first. The bracket is the next power of two: with five players it has eight places, and the three best seeds get byes, which means they go straight to the second round. Seeds are placed in the standard way, so seeds 1 and 2 can only meet in the final.
Playing a match
You do not report results. Play your match as an ordinary 1v1 game, in any lobby or in the ranked queue, against the opponent the bracket names. When the server reports a finished 1v1 between those two W4 IDs (on the tournament's map, if it names one) and one of them won, that match is decided and the bracket moves on. Only what a server reports counts, never what a player says. A game with someone else does not touch the tournament.
The tournament page looks again every twenty seconds while it is running, so the bracket updates by itself.
When a player does not show up
When a match has both players, a 24 hour clock starts. A player in the match can press I am here on the tournament page to say so; a tick marks who has, and the match shows the time left before it is settled. A match nobody played when the clock runs out goes to the player who checked in if the other did not, and otherwise to the better seed; then the next match's clock starts.
The owner can also name the winner of a match without a game (a no-show or a crashed game) at any time, and can cancel a tournament that has not started. Finished tournaments are removed after 180 days, and ones that never started after 30.
What is not there yet
Team modes, reserving a server for a match, and a prize or rating effect beyond the normal ranked rules.
Double elimination
The owner can choose double elimination when making a tournament: nobody is out until they have lost twice. The page then draws three parts: the winners bracket, the losers bracket (where players who lost a winners match go on) and the final. If the winner of the losers bracket beats the winners bracket's champion in the grand final, a reset game is played. The 24 hour clock and "I am here" work the same in every match.