Understanding Melee’s Swiss, Top Cut Pairings and Standings

Tiebreakers

The following Tiebreakers are used to determine how a player ranks in a tournament:

  1. Match points
  2. Opponents’ match-win percentage (OMW)
  3. Player/Team game-win percentage (TMW)
  4. Opponent’s game-win percentage (OGW)

Tiebreakers are decided by going down the above list one at a time to decide who should be ranked highest in standings. Players with higher match points will be ranked higher. Those with the same match points will then be ranked by who has the higher opponents’ match-win percentage (OMW). If players have the same match points and OMW, then the Player/Team game-win percentage (TMW) will be used to rank players, and then Opponent’s game-win percentage (OGW) as the last tie break.

Understanding Game/Match Points and Tiebreakers

In order to accurately decide tiebreaker percentages, each match percentage and game percentage uses a unique set of point values for their calculations. These points values similarly reflect the match points awarded within each match with a win worth 3 points, a draw worth 1 point, and a loss worth 0.

Example: if a player has a match record of 1-3-1 (1 win, 3 loses, and 1 draw) they will have a total of 4 match points out of a possible 15 when calculating tiebreaker percentages. The same goes for game win percentages.

Tiebreaker 1: Match Points

At the conclusion of each match, players are awarded points based on their result. Currently our default points are as follows:

  • A Match Win = 3 Points
  • A Match Draw = 1 Point
  • A Match Loss = 0 Points

Players receiving byes are considered to have won the match.

Tiebreaker 2: Opponent Match-Win % (OMW)

A player’s match-win percentage is that player’s accumulated match points divided by the total number of match points possible. If this number is lower than 0.33%, it will be 0.33% instead. The minimum match-win percentage of 0.33 limits the effect low performances have when calculating and comparing opponents match-win percentage.

To calculate an Opponents Match-Win %, all of a players opponents match-win %’s are calculated then divided by the total number of them.

For example, if a player’s opponents in a two-round tournament had the results of 1-1-0 and 1-0-1, the following calculation would take place.

1-1-0 = 3 Match Points out of a total 6 possible = 50%

1-0-1 = 4 Match Points out of a total 6 possible = 66.67%

.50 + .66 / 2 = .5833%

Tiebreaker 3: Team/Player Game-Win % (TGW)

A Team/Player Game-Win % is that player’s total number of game points divided by the total number possible. Again, 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. So if a player’s current game record is 8-7-2 (eight wins, seven loses, and two 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.
  • 27 / 54 = 50% TGW %

Tiebreaker 4: Opponents’ Game-Win % (OMW)

An opponents’ game-win % includes the sum of all of a player’s opponents’ individual team 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%.