Single or double elimination? Reading an esports bracket
Some events knock a team out after one series loss. Others give every team a second life in a lower bracket. The format decides how many series a team has to win, and how to read the bracket as it fills in.
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Most esports playoffs use one of two bracket shapes. Both appear on PlayTheDream tournament pages, and the difference changes everything about how a team can still reach the final.
Single elimination
Lose a series and you are out. An eight-team single-elimination bracket has three rounds: quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final, for seven series in total. It is quick, easy to follow and unforgiving. One bad map can end a run.
On our pages, single-elimination brackets read left to right. Each column is a round; the winner of each series moves one column to the right.
Double elimination
A team has to lose twice to be eliminated. The bracket splits into an upper bracket, where every team starts, and a lower bracket, where teams go after their first loss. The grand final pits the team that survived the upper side against the one that fought through the lower side.
A four-team double-elimination event has six series: two upper semi-finals, an upper final, a first lower round between the two upper semi-final losers, a lower final, and the grand final. We draw the upper bracket on top and the lower bracket underneath, with the grand final on the right.
The grand-final question
Because the upper-bracket team has not lost yet, some events give it an advantage in the grand final, such as a one-map head start or a "bracket reset" where the lower-bracket team must win two series. Others play a straight series. Each tournament page states which rule applies in its format note.
Series length
- Best of one: a single map or game. Common in group stages.
- Best of three: first to two maps. The standard playoff series.
- Best of five: first to three. Usually saved for finals.
Next to each series on our brackets you will see the series score, and below it the individual map or game results. For MOBA titles, where there are no maps, each game is listed in order with its result.