Find out the best format for your competition.

We currently have five (5) Single Stage tournament formats, three (3) Two Stage tournament formats, and three (3) Racing formats readily available on Challonge to help manage your next competition.

Single Stage Tournament Formats

Single Elimination is one of the simplest and most popular tournament formats. It’s a knockout tournament wherein winners from each match advance to the next round and losers are automatically eliminated.

You may also include a Bronze or 3rd place match in Single Elimination.



Double Elimination gives players another chance to compete in the Finals unlike Single Elimination. If a player loses in the Winners' bracket (top), they'll fall down to the Losers' bracket (bottom) and compete once again. But if you lose, you're now officially eliminated from the tournament.

You may also start with half of the participants in the losers bracket using Split Participants.



Round Robin allows participants to compete against one another not more than once by default. If each participant plays all others twice or thrice, this is called Round Robin 2x or 3x. In order to achieve this format, check the tournament's Settings under Game Info.

In the case of a tie in ranking, organizers can set up to 3 Tie Breaks.



Swiss give equal play time to participants, pair players with others of similar skill level, and determine a winner in far fewer rounds than you'd anticipate. First half of the Participants' list are paired with the second half for Round 1. In Round 2, players are paired up against competitors with a similar record until all rounds have been played. Players are ranked by score at the conclusion of the tournament, with ties broken using the Median-Buchholz system.



The number of rounds to be played can be set on the Bracket prior to starting a tournament.

Free For All is the perfect format for running Battle Royale and Racing tournaments. Selected winners from each match will proceed to the next round until only one remains.



The number of players participating in each match can be modified from your tournament's Settings.
Premier users now have the option of adding 100 participants (individual or team) to a single free for all tournament match. Learn more here.

Leaderboard displays all participants, scores, and overall rankings. This format is best suited to highlight the performance of your participants in all kinds of events and competitions.

Two Stage Tournament Formats

Groups will be formed to compete separately in the Group Stage and winners advance to a Final Stage (e.g. Playoffs, World Cup structure). The Group Stage can be Single Elimination, Double Elimination, and Round Robin.

The available Final Stage formats are Single Elimination, Double Elimination, Round Robin, and Swiss.




Two Stage tournament – Round Robin to Single Elimination Final Stage.

For Group Stage Single Elimination and Double Elimination, the number of participants to advance from each group must be a power of 2 (1,2,4,8,16,...)

Racing Formats

Single Race pits you against a full field of racers in a single track. It allows tournament organizers to input the race results for each participant.



Time Trial is used to see who can secure the fastest time and provides an open registration format. At any time participants can register and log their best time in your next Time Trial event.



Grand Prix is used to host multiple races with the same participants and allocate points based on the results of each race. The participant with the most points at the end of all the Grand Prix rounds, wins.

Updated on: 21/09/2021