How does single-elimination seeding work?

Seeds are placed so the strongest entrants meet as late as possible: seed 1 plays the lowest seed, seed 2 is put in the opposite half, and so on (1 v 16, 8 v 9, 5 v 12, 4 v 13 in a 16-slot bracket). This generator uses that standard seeding so a seeded bracket gives top seeds the easiest early path, while a shuffled bracket ignores seeds and draws everyone at random.

What happens if I do not have a power-of-two number of entrants?

The bracket is rounded up to the next power of two (4, 8, 16, 32...) and the empty slots become byes. A bye is auto-resolved: the real entrant facing it advances to round two without playing, exactly like a paper bracket. Top seeds receive the byes first, which is the fair convention.

Can I change a result after I have already picked winners?

Yes. Click the other name in any match to switch the winner. Any later rounds that depended on the old result are cleared and recalculated, so the champion and every downstream match stay consistent. Nothing is locked.

How many teams or players does it support?

It handles anything from 2 up to 128 entrants, covering everything from a quick four-team office contest to a large 128-player knockout. Beyond 128 the list is trimmed to keep the bracket readable on screen.

Is my bracket saved if I close the tab?

Yes. The current bracket, including every result you have picked, is stored in your browser's localStorage and restored when you return. Use the Clear button to wipe it and start fresh. Nothing is ever uploaded to a server.

Can I share the finished bracket?

Use Copy to put a clean text version on your clipboard, Export text for a plain .txt file, or Export JSON for a structured file you can re-import elsewhere or process with code. The text export lists the entrants, every round, the winner of each match, and the champion.

Tournament Bracket Generator

A single-elimination tournament bracket generator that turns a list of teams or players into a complete knockout draw you can play through match by match. It is for anyone running a competition: a five-a-side football night, an office ping-pong ladder, a gaming tournament, a school quiz knockout, or a weekend chess event. Instead of drawing boxes on paper and rubbing them out every time a result changes, you type the entrants, choose how to seed them, and click winners to advance them through to the final.

How it works

A single-elimination bracket pairs entrants so the loser of every match is out and the winner moves on, halving the field each round until one champion remains. The tool first counts your entrants and rounds the field up to the next power of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128). Any leftover positions become byes, and the entrant facing a bye advances automatically — exactly how a real bracket is run.

When you choose build seeded, the entrants are placed using the standard seeding pattern (1 v 16, 8 v 9, 5 v 12, 4 v 13, and so on) so the highest seeds sit in opposite halves and only meet late. Top seeds also receive the byes first, which is the fair convention. Choosing build shuffled instead randomises the whole draw so every pairing is luck of the draw.

From there you simply click a name to mark the winner of a match. The generator fills that winner into the correct slot of the next round and keeps going until the final is decided and a champion is crowned. Change your mind? Click the other name and the tool clears the later rounds that depended on the old result and recalculates them, so the bracket is never left in an inconsistent state. Everything is saved in your browser as you go, and you can copy or download the result at any time.

Example

Say you have eight teams: Lightning, Falcons, Sharks, Wolves, Titans, Dragons, Rangers and Comets. Build a seeded bracket and Lightning (seed 1) is paired against Comets (seed 8) in the quarterfinals, while Falcons (seed 2) is placed in the opposite half. Click through the quarterfinals and semifinals, pick the final, and the champion banner appears at the top.

With seven teams instead of eight, the field rounds up to eight slots and the top seed gets a bye straight into the semifinals — no manual fiddling required. Export the finished bracket as text and you get a tidy summary: the seeded entrant list, every round with each match and its winner marked, and the champion at the bottom, ready to paste into a group chat. Every calculation happens in your browser; no entrant names ever leave your device.

Tips

Use shuffled for a fair, suspenseful draw where nobody is protected by a seed.
Use seeded with a ranked list (best entrant on line 1) to reward stronger entrants with an easier early path and the available byes.
Re-shuffle as many times as you like before play starts — it generates a brand-new draw from the same entrants each time.