Tournament Setup – Key Points

Tournament setup may be part of your role as a tournament organizer or scorekeeper. You will need organization access (ask the Tournament Organizer, or the owner of the organization’s Melee account) or to be listed as a Staff Admin in the tournament. If you can access the Edit Tournament button within the Tournament Controller or from the Tournament Landing Page, you have sufficient access. Below subheadings correspond to sections of the Edit Tournament page.

General Details

  1. Tournament Name: Displayed publicly as the tournament’s name.
  2. Tournament Type: Specifies the game platform or format.
    • For example, if MTG Arena is selected, that means this tournament will be on Magic: The Gathering Arena and Melee will display players’ direct challenge IDs for their opponent’s when they play.
    • For games such as Disney Lorcana, there are currently only two options to choose from.
    • Tabletop is the term Melee uses for in person tournaments. 
    • Registration Only refers to a tournament setting where Melee is not used for the purposes of tournament operations. This setting would be best used when you don’t want to pair matches within Melee or you are creating a Melee tournament for the purposes of collecting “entry fees” for a badge for your convention. 
  3. Search Tags: You can add search tags to your tournaments to help players find them more easily.
    • Keep in mind that many search tags will automatically get added to your tournament once you finalize the tournament such as what format the tournament is.

Schedule

Note that the time zone of the tournament is the local time; you may encounter issues if you use your own time zone. Start dates are pretty straightforward; make sure that if you are requiring decklists you either leave the decklist submission deadline blank or as you specified to players — for example, Regional Championships with early decklist submission deadlines will need to be specified. Note that decklists *cannot* be submitted after the tournament has been started via the Tournament Controller.

  1. Time Zone: Defaults to your computer’s time zone; adjustable for different zones.
  2. Tournament Start Date: Scheduled start time for the tournament.
  3. Registration Start Date: Scheduled start date for player registration.
  4. Registration End Date: Date when player registration closes.
  5. Unenrollment End Date: Players cannot unenroll after this date.
    • This deadline prevents players from automatically triggering a payment refund.
    • This setting is important for when you are taking entry fees through Melee.
  6. Decklist Submission Deadline: Required deadline for decklist submissions.

Player Registration

Most larger convention tournaments will take registration either through Melee, or through a third-party website or tool. In this case, you want registration to be Invite Only, and you as a scorekeeper will import players manually. In the event you are taking entry via Melee, you can specify currency and fee. If you are running an open, free tournament, like a charity tournament, you may wish registration to be Open.

  1. Registration Type
    • Invite Only: Players need an invitation to register and are not able to register themselves. 
    • Open Registration: Players are able to register themselves on the tournament’s public page.
  2. Entry Type
    • Code Only: Players must enter the code you gave a tournament to be able to register.
    • Entry Fee: Players must pay an entry fee to register for the tournament.
    • Free: There is no restriction or payment required for players to register.

Branding, Player Communication

If you wish to use specific imagery or communicate information via the Tournament Details page, this are the sections to use.

Player Data Requirements
If your tournament issues prizes that may need to be verified by external parties or include cash payouts (or event qualifications/invitations), you need to ensure that your tournament requires the correct data from players. Wizards of the Coast, for example, require:

  • Require Sharing of Age
  • Require Sharing of Country/Region
  • Require Sharing of Melee.gg Email (this one is useful for many actions as a scorekeeper)
  • Require Sharing of Wizards Account Email
  • Require Sharing of Wizards Account Display Name

As an addition, you need to ensure that players consent to giving their data for these purposes, and note that data is only available for 60 days to the Tournament Organizer before Melee removes access to it. Players consent to give this data by confirming their registration for the tournament, or, if they have been manually enrolled, filling out a PDA form via the Tournament Controller.

Exporting this data is chiefly done from the Standings tab, whereby exporting final standings will provide a .csv file with the necessary information. You can format this to your needs. 

Decklists

If your tournament intends to hide decklists from spectators *and* players, ensure that you have the Make Decklists Public checkbox UNchecked.

Unless you are very certain about dropping players without legal decklists, you should also leave this blank. There is usually some amount of hybrid decklist submission at larger con events, and it is usually safer to ensure that the scorekeeper manually drops/no-shows players themselves.

“Require Decklists” will allow you to indicate to players that they need to submit one. However, there are no consequences for not doing so.

Advanced Options

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory, however you may wish to note the following pitfalls:

  • “Ignore Player Check-In”: the check-in feature is predominantly used for online tournaments, and should be UNchecked for paper tournaments, unless you have a specific use for it.
  • “Enable Draws”: most tournaments allow draws, ensure that this is checked or unchecked appropriately.
  • “Delay Delivery of Matches”: this is an important option, it makes it so that you have control over when players see published matches — you should have this checked if you are, for example, printing pairings, dealing with a delay due to coverage, etc.
  • “Delay Delivery of Standings”: just as above, this time for standings.
  • “Enable the Round Timer”: this allows you to control a round timer in Melee that players also have access to. It’s good customer service.
  • “Enable Waitlist”: creates a waitlist if more players than the tournament cap try to register through Melee page. If an already enrolled player resigns, first person from waitlist will be automatically enrolled.

Exporting Standings Data

You may need to access player or standings data to fulfill certain tasks, such as giving prizing information to an organizer or publisher. Once the tournament has concluded, you can use the Standings tab to export selected phase (or entire tournament) standings from the Standings Action button.

Note that in tournaments with multiple phases, you should export the last phase for final standings. If you export the entire tournament standings, each phase will be displayed vertically, and you’ll need to discern which phase is which, likely through using PhaseSortOrder (Column I) or the phase name (Column C).

Once exported, you may wish to use some of these notable columns:

  • Final rank (Column J)
  • Final points (Column K)
  • Wizards Account ID (Column R)
  • Melee Email (Column T)
  • First Name (Column U)
  • Last Name (Column W)
  • Region/Country (Column Z)
  • Wizards Account Email (Column AB)
  • Age (Column AD)