The following Tiebreakers are used in order to determine how a player ranks in a tournament:
- Match Wins
- Opponents’ match-win percentage (OMW)
- Player game-win percentage (TMW)
- Opponent’s game-win percentage (OGW)
Rank in a tournament is decided by going down the above list in order to determine standings. For example, those with more Match Wins will be ranked higher. If two players have the same number of Match Wins, then Melee will look at their Opponents’ match-win percentage (OMW) to determine placement. If their OMW’s are tied, then it looks at their Player game-win percentage, then Opponents game-win (OGW) percentage.
Percentage Floors #
You may notice that in certain situations where a tiebreaker should be below 33%, but isn’t. That’s due to a Percentage Floor which is implemented to increase the effectiveness of tiebreaks. This floor is utilized to minimize the impact that low-performing players have when determining other player’s tiebreakers, instead putting more value on the results of higher-performing players when breaking ties.
Tiebreaker 1: Match Wins #
The number of matches a player has won. Any match that concludes without a winner will account for 0 Match Wins for all players.
Tiebreaker 2: Opponent Match-Win % (OMW) #
To calculate Opponents’ Match-Win %, all of a player’s opponents match-win %’s are calculated then divided by the total number of opponents. Only wins are considered for OMW.
For example, if a player’s opponents in a two-round tournament had the results of 1-1 and 0-2, the following calculation would take place.
1-1 = 1 match win out of 2 matches played = 50%
0-2 = 0 matches won out of 2 matches played. = 0% -> 33.33% due to the minimum floor
.50 + .3333 / 2 = 41.66%
Tiebreaker 3: Player Game-Win % (TGW) #
A Player Game-Win % is that player’s total number of game points divided by the total number possible. This utilizes the method where each game win is equal to 3 points, a loss equal to 0 points, and a draw equal to 1 point. This tiebreaker has a percentage floor of 33%.
So if a player’s current game record is 8-7-3 (eight wins, seven loses, and three draws). The math would look like this:
8 game wins = 24 points
7 game losses = 0 points
3 game draws = 3 points
8 + 7 +3 = 18 * 3 = 54 total points possible. (total possible points are all finished games * 3)
27 / 54 = 50% TGW %
*Note: The “T” in “TGW” stands for team. In any 1v1 tournament, a team consists of 1 player, thus “Player Game-Win %”.
Tiebreaker 4: Opponents’ Game-Win % (OGW) #
An opponents’ game-win % includes the sum of all of a player’s opponents’ individual player game win % ‘s and divided by the number of opponents. So if a player had two opponents who individually had a TGW of 80% and another with 60%, that player’s OMW would be 70%. If any opponents have a Game Win % less than 33%, it will instead be 33% during calculations.