How Promotion/Relegation League works
In a Promotion/Relegation League (Set Partners), teams play a round robin inside their group. Then a playoff week moves the winner of each group's top match up a group and the loser of its bottom match down a group. That repeats for each block, and the season can finish with a seeded single-elimination bracket.
This format was previously called Relegation League (Set Partners). Look for Promotion/Relegation League (Set Partners) in the format dropdown.
The shape
The default is 4 groups of 4 teams (16 teams), 2 blocks, and a final bracket. Teams play as fixed pairs and keep the same partner all season. Groups are lettered from the top down, so Group A is the top group.
You set the shape in the League Structure dialog that opens when you first generate the league. It is locked once any match has a score.
Groups: 2 to 8
Teams per group: 4, 6 or 8 (even sizes only)
Round-robin blocks: 1 to 4
Final knockout bracket: on or off
You need exactly groups × teams per group teams to generate, and both players on each team must be set as each other's partner.
The season in blocks
Each block is a round robin inside your group (every team plays every other once), followed by one playoff week. The calendar follows from the group size:
Groups of 4: 3 round-robin weeks, then the playoff (4-week block)
Groups of 6: 5 weeks, then the playoff (6-week block)
Groups of 8: 7 weeks, then the playoff (8-week block)
With the defaults the season runs weeks 1 to 8, then the bracket.
Run the season
Use the admin menu on the MATCHES tab. It always offers the next step:
Generate Groups (for example Weeks 1–3): puts the teams into groups and creates the first round robin.
Generate Week N Playoff: creates the playoff matches once every round-robin match in the block is scored.
Advance to Weeks …: applies promotion and relegation and creates the next block, once the playoff is scored.
Generate Playoff Bracket after the last block, or Finalize Week N Results if the bracket is off. The bracket appears on the BRACKET tab.
What the playoff decides
In every group, ranks 1 and 2 play each other and the bottom two play each other.
Winner of the top match is promoted one group.
Loser of the bottom match is relegated one group.
Everyone else stays. In groups of 6 or 8, the middle teams have no playoff match.
Group A's top-match winner has no group to move up to, and the bottom group's bottom-match loser has no group to drop to, so those results only set the order within the group. Group A's bottom-match loser still drops, and the bottom group's top-match winner still moves up. Full rules are in Playoff weeks and the final bracket in Promotion/Relegation League.
The bracket finish
Bracket seeding is banded by group: every Group A team seeds above every Group B team, with a fixed order inside each band based on the final playoff results (in groups of 6 or 8, the teams with no playoff match are ordered by their block standings). A team relegated into a group seeds at the top of it.
How it differs from Season Points League
Season Points League | Promotion/Relegation League | |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Tiers, weekly round robin | Groups, round-robin blocks |
Movement decided by | Weekly tier standings | A playoff week |
Movement happens | Every week | End of each block |
Season decided by | Accumulated season points | The final bracket |
Default shape | 3 tiers of 5 (15 teams) | 4 groups of 4 (16 teams) |