Playoff weeks and the final bracket in Promotion/Relegation League
In a Promotion/Relegation League (Set Partners), each block's round robin ends in a playoff week: in every group, ranks 1 and 2 play each other and the bottom two play each other. The winner of the top match is promoted one group and the loser of the bottom match is relegated one group. After the last block, the season can finish with a seeded single-elimination bracket on the BRACKET tab.
Create the playoff and the bracket
The admin menu on the MATCHES tab always offers the next step once the current week is scored:
Generate Week N Playoff after a block's round robin.
Advance to Weeks … after the playoff, to apply promotion and relegation and start the next block.
Generate Playoff Bracket after the last block's playoff, or Finalize Week N Results if the final bracket is turned off.
What the playoff decides
Outcome | What happens |
|---|---|
Winner of the top match | Promoted one group |
Loser of the top match | Stays |
Winner of the bottom match | Stays |
Loser of the bottom match | Relegated one group |
Group A has nowhere to promote to and the bottom group has nowhere to relegate to. Those matches are still played and set the order within the group, which feeds the bracket seeding.
Groups of 6 or 8
Only the top two and bottom two teams play a playoff match, whatever the group size. In groups of 6 or 8 the middle teams have no match that week. They stay in their group and are ranked by their block standings.
How the bracket is seeded
Seeds are banded by final group: every Group A team seeds above every Group B team, and so on. Inside each group the order is fixed:
The team relegated in from the group above (Group A keeps its own top-match winner at #1)
The top-match loser
Any middle-ranked teams, best first (groups of 6 or 8)
The bottom-match winner
The team promoted in from the group below (the bottom group keeps its own bottom-match loser last)
A team relegated into a group seeds at the top of it, and a team promoted into a group seeds at the bottom. Coming down from a stronger group counts as better than climbing from a weaker one.
The bracket
Round 1 pairs top seed against lowest seed, so the two best seeds can only meet in the final. If the team count isn't a power of two (for example 12 or 24), the bracket pads to the next power of two and the top seeds get byes into round 2. The two semifinal losers play a bronze match for third place.
The final bracket is on by default. Turn off Final knockout bracket in the League Structure dialog when you first generate the league, and the season ends on the final block's standings instead.