Team event scoring and tiebreakers
How a matchup is won, and which tiebreakers actually work with which scoring mode. This is the setting most worth getting right before your event starts.
Two scoring modes
Lines won — the default. The team that wins more lines wins the matchup.
Total points — the team that scores more points across every line wins the matchup.
They are not just different metrics; they behave differently during play.
When a matchup is decided
Lines won clinches early. As soon as a lead is mathematically unassailable, the matchup is decided — the margin has to exceed the lines still to be played.
Situation | Decided? |
|---|---|
2–0 with 1 line left | Yes — the trailing team cannot catch up |
1–0 with 2 left | No |
3–1 with 1 left | Yes |
Total points never clinches early. Points can always swing, so the matchup is only decided once every line is complete.
If you would rather nothing showed until the whole matchup is done, turn on win requires all lines. That suppresses early clinching entirely, so no provisional leads are shown mid-matchup.
Tiebreakers — the important part
When a matchup ends level, a tiebreaker decides it. There are four settings, and which ones can actually break a tie depends on your scoring mode.
Your scoring mode | Tie looks like | What can break it | What cannot |
|---|---|---|---|
Lines won | 2–2 lines | Point differential or Total points — equivalent here | Total wins — this is the metric that already tied |
Total points | equal points | Total wins (lines won) | Point differential and Total points |
either | — | — | None — leaves it tied deliberately |
Choosing a tiebreaker that cannot break your mode's ties means the tiebreaker silently never fires and matchups stay tied. The most common mistake is setting Point differential on a Total points division, which cannot resolve anything.
Why point differential and total points are the same thing here
In a head-to-head matchup, one team's points-against are the other's points-for. So ranking by differential and ranking by total points produce the same winner. They are two names for one tiebreaker in this context.
What "none" does
None is the default and it is a real choice, not an absence of one: the matchup is left tied on purpose. Neither team is credited a win or a loss.
Use it when a drawn matchup is a legitimate result in your format. Use anything else when every matchup must produce a winner.
Picking a combination
You want | Scoring mode | Tiebreaker |
|---|---|---|
Classic MLP — win lines, break ties on points | Lines won | Point differential |
Points decide everything, ties broken by lines | Total points | Total wins |
Draws are allowed | either | None |
Keeping standings consistent
The matchup card and the standings table use the same logic, so a matchup showing as a win will count as a win in standings. If they ever disagree, the scoring configuration was changed mid-event — recalculate rather than editing scores.
Who can enter scores
Captains and players can both be allowed to submit scores, and both are enabled by default. Turn either off to restrict scoring to admins.