How does this website work?

You start with a fixed number of lives. If you lose a game you will lose a life. If you have zero lives left, you will be eliminated from the tournament. Last survivor wins. If you decline, you lose all your lives directly. So, survival mode with 2 starting lives is kinda like double elimination (and 1 starting live like single elimination).

The number of starting lives can be configured for each tournament.

Ranking is done by the following criteria:

1. most lives left
2. most real wins (not counting free wins)
3. Tiebreaker score

If there is an odd number of alive players, a free win will be given according to the following criteria:

1. least free wins
2. most lives
3. random choice

Why survival mode?

Inspired by poker. You start with a certain number of chips. Each game, some of your chips are at stake. The winner gets them, the loser loses them. If you Vote To End, you both keep your chips. If you lose all your chips, you are eliminated. If you decline, you lose all your chips directly (your opponent does not get the chips, they are gone). Last person with chips wins.

The stakes depend on the chips of the player with fewer chips. Let's call this amount X. If X is more than the round number, the stakes are half of X (rounded down). Otherwise, the stakes are X. Starting with round 13, the stakes are always X, too. (Before v1.6 the stakes are: 3,3,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,16,20,... before v1.3, the stakes were: 4,4,4,5,6,8,10,13,16,...)

To avoid very low-stakes game, if the round number is greater than 4 times the chips amount of that player, the system will perform a double-or-lose coinflip for that player.

Ranking is done by the following criteria (since v1.6):

1. most chips left
2. max chips
3. Tiebreaker score

Suggested by MetalGear4.5. You get eliminated if you lose two games in a row. There is also a variant where you get eliminated if you lose three games in a row. If you decline a game, your loss streak will set to 2 or 3, which will eliminate you.

Ranking is done by the following criteria:

1. smaller loss streak
2. real wins (not counting free wins)
3. Tiebreaker score

The tournament consists of a fixed knockout bracket. But you can enter the bracket multiple times! Its like having multiple clones of yourself in the tournament.

Declining will not necessarily eliminate you, but it will eliminate one of your clones. If both players decline, the first player will advance to the next round. If you get scheduled against yourself, the game will not be played, but you will advance to the next round (and it will count as a bye).

The bracket can be of size 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64. Depending on the number of participating players, some players might have one more clone than other participants. This is determined randomly.

Ranking is done by the following criteria:

1. round reached in the bracket
2. copies alive of you
3. Tiebreaker score

Inspired by GSL Style Groups. A GSL-style group consists of 4 players. They split into pairs to play two Opening matches. The winners and losers of the Opening matches continue to the Winners and Losers match. The winner of the Winners match will advance to the next stage. Finally, the loser of the Winners match and the winner of the Losers match play an Elimination match. The winner of that game also advances to the next stage.

There are GSL-style groups at every stage (with the top 2 advancing to the next stage), until there are only 2 players left. The top 2 players play the final, which is a best-of-5 match. The Losers match and Elimination match of the top 4 group will be best-of-3. All other matches are best-of-1. In case of VTE, additional games might be scheduled to decide the match.

For v1.6 and newer, in the best-of-3 and best-of-5 matches, previous encounters can count as part of the matches.

The GSL Cup mode works best for 8 or 16 players. Otherwise some players might get a Bye in stage 1.

Like survival mode, but you have multiple games per round, which you have to play simultaneously. The number of games you get is equal to your number of lives before that round (although this might include a free win). The disadvantage is that the matchmaking is worse. The advantage is that you need less rounds than normal survival mode. In fact, each round, the number of total lives is approximately halved.

If your game is a draw or in a stalemate where neither player can win, you can use the Vote To End option. (You can also use other ways to determine a winner, but contact XY#1 first about your plans.) If your opponent refuses to VTE in a stalemate position, let XY#1 know about the situation.

For most modes, if you end your game via Vote To End, a winner will be decided randomly. The first exceptions is chips mode, where you both keep your chips if VTE happens. The second exceptions is GSL Cup mode, where another game gets scheduled to decide a match.

The tiebreaker scores work the same way for all tournament modes. The tiebreaker score depends on the direct games between people with otherwise equal rank. For each direct comparison, your tiebreaker score is wins - losses - 2*declines (before v1.6 it was (wins + 1) / (games + 2), with exceptions if both decline or VTE). This gets added up for all direct comparisons, and then multiplied by 1000 and rounded. If there is still a tie, the tiebreaker score is calculated for all players in the tie, etc. If this does not break the tie, then the players will get the same rank.

If two or more players have an equal rank after the tiebreaker score, a tiebreaker game will be scheduled only if the rank is relevant for the rewards of the tournament. For example, if the reward for 3rd place is different from 4th place, and two players share rank 3, then they will play a tiebreaker game for place 3. The tiebreaker scores will be updated with the results from the tiebreaker games. In some rare cases, more tiebreaker games might be scheduled.