The Official SMITE Magazine eSports Edition | Page 22

Smite 101 - Brackets

veryone who has
ever seen an eSports
tournament has
seen that image
with the lines and the names and
somehow everybody knows how to
make sense of this. Yet there you are,
looking at this image and you have
no idea what to expect. This image,
my friend, depicts the tournament’s
brackets, and outlines the structure
for the entire event. To keep it simple
for those wanting to start following
tournaments, there are many different
kinds of brackets, each with different
purposes, pros and cons. Keep on
reading if you want to find out more
about about these and the wonderful
world of tournament brackets!

E

22 • Contents

Brackets are an essential part
of structuring and organizing a
tournament. It determines who plays
who and when, and what the victory
conditions are. There is a huge variety
of bracket types, and each type
serves its own purpose and has its
own constraints. In this article I will
only explain the most common types
of brackets and a brief overview of
their advantages and disadvantages.

greatly improve your understanding
of brackets and tournament
structures as a whole, making it a
lot easier to find the logic behind it.

“

IMPORTANT TERMS

The first
term you
need to know
is ‘seed’ or
‘seeding’.

Before we get into the actual
structure of brackets and how to read
them, there are a couple of terms
you need to know and be somewhat
familiar with. These terms will

The first term you need to know
is ‘seed’ or ‘seeding’. Seeding is
essentially a tournament term for
a team’s ranking relative to the
other participants and is used to

”

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