Our Swiss brackets have two options for breaking ties for standings. If you'd like your tournament to use the same tiebreaker system as the Hearthstone Championship Tour, select HCT. Otherwise, select Default to use the system popularized by Magic the Gathering and Pokémon.
Here is a breakdown on how those two systems calculate ties.
Default Tie Breaker
Sorting Order
The Players Opponent's Match Win Percentage
The Players Game Win Percentage
The Players Oponent's Opponent's Match Win Percentage
Opponent’s match-win percentage
A player’s match-win percentage is that player’s accumulated match points divided by the total match points possible in those rounds. If this number is lower than 0.33, use 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.
Game-win percentage
Similar to the match-win percentage, a player’s game-win percentage is the total number of game points he or she earned divided by the total game points possible (generally, 3 times the number of games played). Again, use 0.33 if the actual game-win percentage is lower than that.
HCT Tie Breaker
Sorting Order
Win/Loss Sum
First Tiebreaker Sum
Timing
Tiebreaker #1 (T1): Win/Loss Sum
Tiebreaker #1 represents the performance of opponents that a player has played over the course of the tournament. Players that played against stronger opponents will be ranked higher within the tournament. The formula to calculate the number is: Total the number of points each opponent contributes.
Opponents contribute +1 point for each win they accumulate throughout the tournament and -1 for each loss they accumulate throughout the tournament. Each single opponent may never contribute less than -3 points to a player’s first tiebreaker. A bye does not contribute any points towards a player’s tiebreaker.
Tiebreaker #2 (T2): First Tiebreaker Sum
Tiebreaker #2 represents the performance of the opponents that all of a player’s opponents played. Players that played against opponents who consistently played against stronger opponents throughout the tournament will be ranked higher. The formula to calculate the number is:
Total the sum of Tiebreaker #1 (T1) for all opponents that player played.
Tiebreaker #3 (T3): Timing
Tiebreaker #3 represents the importance of the rounds in which you lost. Players losing in later rounds will be ranked higher within the tournament. The formula to calculate this number is:
The sum of the squares of the rounds in which you lost.