How Team Events work
Team Events are the most configurable format in Good Game Sports. You define what a team match looks like — how many lines, how many players on each, how the winner is decided — and then run pool play, a knockout bracket, or both.
MLP-style events are one configuration of this format, not a separate one.
The three levels
This is the model everything else hangs off:
Level | What it is |
|---|---|
Team | The club or squad that registers — has a name, a roster, a captain |
Matchup | Team A versus Team B on a given round |
Line | One individual match inside that matchup |
A matchup is not a single match. It contains several line matches, and the matchup winner is worked out from those line results.
Lines
By default a matchup has 5 lines, each needing 2 players, named Line 1 through Line 5.
You can change all of it: how many lines, what each is called, and how many players each requires. Lines needing more than two players — Dreambreakers, Team Rally formats — are supported.
On multi-player lines the order players are added matters and is preserved. It is not just a set of names.
See Configure lines and lineups.
Winning a matchup
Two scoring modes, and they behave quite differently:
Lines won (the default) — whoever wins more lines wins the matchup. A lead decides it as soon as it is mathematically unassailable, so 2–0 with one line left is already a win.
Total points — whoever scores more points across all lines. Points cannot clinch early, so nothing is decided until every line is in.
Tied matchups are then resolved by your configured tiebreaker — and not every tiebreaker can break every tie. That catches people out, so it has its own article: Team event scoring and tiebreakers.
Pool play, bracket, or both
Run a round robin between teams, finish with a knockout bracket, or do both — pool play seeding the bracket.
The bracket can use a different lineup structure from pool play, so you can play 5 lines in pools and 3 in the knockout. By default it mirrors pool play.
Lineups
Before each matchup, each team assigns players to lines. Captains can usually do this themselves, and you can lock lineups or hide them from opponents until play starts.
See Configure team lineups and Hide or show lineups for team events.