Tournaments: format, bracket and rewards

Last updated: 18 August 2026

The tournament is the only format in the game where a defeat is final. A single bracket runs permanently on the server: you register, it starts, it plays out over three rounds, it crowns a champion, then registration reopens. This page describes exactly how it works.

The format

• Eight seats and single elimination: three rounds — quarter-finals, semi-finals, final.
• Each match is played to 7 points, with a two-point margin to close it out, as everywhere else in the game.
• The ten-second serve countdown is on, with an automatic serve when it expires.
• A tournament match has no effect on your ELO. Tournaments pay coins, experience and an achievement, not rating points.

The short format is not an aesthetic choice. Three rounds of first-to-11 would stretch a bracket well past a single session, and one entrant dropping out between rounds holds up everyone else. At 7 points, a full tournament fits in one sitting.

Empty seats and bots

A tournament cannot wait for eight humans to be online at once. Seats left unfilled at start time are therefore filled with bots, drawn from the game's six opponents. A bracket thus starts whatever the online count, and you may well find yourself playing your quarter-final against Fonceur and your semi-final against a human.

That is another good reason to know the six personalities: in a tournament they are no longer practice, they are opponents who knock you out.

The live bracket

The bracket is displayed and updated live for every entrant and every spectator. You see the current round's pairings, the scores, and the path ahead of you. Between rounds a short delay lets you read the result before pulling you back to the bracket.

The server orchestrates everything: each bracket match is a real game room created for the occasion, and it is the end-of-match detection that advances the round. Nothing is computed browser-side.

Forfeits and stalls

Leaving a live tournament match forfeits that match — you are out of the bracket. You are not, however, thrown out of the tournament: you stay in it as a spectator and are routed back to the bracket, not to the home screen. The idea is that a departure must never leave a round half-played.

A safety net covers the case where a round stops progressing — no score moving, no match resolving. After two minutes without progress, the server force-resolves the round. Since only one tournament exists at a time, a stall would deny the mode to everyone; that is not acceptable.

Once a champion is crowned, the bracket stays on screen for about thirty seconds, then registration reopens automatically for the next tournament.

The rewards

The first win pays more than later ones because it unlocks an achievement, and an achievement unlocks only once. Later wins keep a placement bonus, so winning stays worth it.

Every entrant with an account has their result recorded — champion, runner-up, semi-finalist or knocked out earlier — in a tournament history readable from their profile. Guests can play, but nothing is kept and no reward is credited: coins, experience and achievements need an account to exist.

Preparing

A first-to-7 match leaves very little slack: two points thrown away and you are already chasing. It is the format where drop shots are worth the most, because an opponent has no time to adapt to your pattern over such a short distance. Conversely, it is the format where taking pointless risks on the serve costs the most.