Running a tournament in a Discord server usually means a spreadsheet, a bracket site in another tab and a lot of pinging people about matches they forgot. Tournaments (beta) in Scoreboards keeps all of it inside your server: members sign up on the tournament's message, every match gets its own private thread, both sides report the result with a button, and the bracket moves on by itself.
The Discord tournament bot page shows what it looks like. This guide walks through running one from start to finish.
Pick a format
Every tournament takes from 2 to 64 entrants, playing alone or as teams of 2 to 10. Rounds can be best of 1, 3, 5 or 7, with a separate setting for the final.
- Knockout. Lose once and you're out. An uneven field gets byes, so any number of entrants works, and a third-place match is optional.
- Groups + knockout. World Cup style: everyone plays their group, the top of each table goes through to a knockout, and the best third-placed sides can go through too.
- Double elimination. One loss drops you into a losers bracket instead of knocking you out. The two bracket winners meet in a grand final, with an optional bracket reset if the losers-bracket side wins it.
Not sure yet? The bracket builder draws any format and size with made-up teams, and you don't need to log in.
Create the tournament
There are two ways in.
In Discord. Run /tournament create in the channel the tournament belongs in. A short form asks for a name, the format and the size, and the reply has an Open signup now button. Use a normal text channel: match threads can't open in announcement channels, voice chats or threads. If the bot is missing a permission in the channel, it tells you which one before the form opens, so you can fix it first.
On the dashboard. Open the dashboard, go to Tournaments and press New tournament. A three-step wizard asks for the name, the channel, the format and the size. Simple asks only what a tournament needs; Advanced shows every setting: signup window, check-in, deadlines per round, seeding and prizes. The wizard checks the bot's permissions in the channel you pick and lists anything that's missing.
The channel is optional on the dashboard. Without one, the tournament runs on its web page alone: signup, results and the bracket all live on the website.
Open signup
Opening signup posts the tournament's message in its channel with a Sign up button. Members press it to join, Leave to drop out, and the entrant count goes up as they do.
- First come, first served fills the bracket up to the size you chose; anyone after that goes on a waitlist and moves up when someone leaves.
- Open bracket takes everyone who signs up and sizes the bracket to them when it starts.
- Check-in is optional: it opens a set time before the start, and anyone who hasn't checked in is dropped.
For team tournaments, a captain presses Sign up, names the team and invites the teammates. The invites go out by direct message, so the channel stays clean, and teammates can answer on the tournament message too. A team is in once everyone has accepted.
Start and play
The tournament starts at the time you set, or when you press Start now. The bracket is drawn, and every match whose two sides are known gets a private thread with both of them added, whole teams included.
Nobody types a command from here on:
- Play the match and report it in its thread. One side reports the result with a button.
- The other side confirms or disputes it. A confirmed result sends the winner on, and their next match gets its own thread.
- My match, the button on the tournament's message, shows each player who they play next, by when, and links straight to the thread.
The bot reminds both sides halfway through the deadline and again with an hour left. Results can also be reported on the tournament's web page, for anyone who isn't in Discord at the time.
When things go wrong
Nobody plays the match. Every match has a deadline, 48 hours by default, and you can set a different one for any round. When it passes, the tournament's rule decides: a single report stands, the higher seed goes through, or both sides are out.
The two sides disagree. That's a dispute: the organisers are pinged and added to the match thread, and they pick the result. Organisers can decide or reopen any match at any time, from the dashboard or the tournament's page.
Who runs it
Server admins can always run a tournament. To let others help without making them admins, give the tournament an organiser role: its members can run the tournament in Discord and decide its matches.
/dashboard with a tournament picked takes you straight to it on the dashboard, where you open signup, start, cancel and change every setting. /tournament show posts a tournament in any channel: its signup while it's open, its bracket once it runs.
Extras
- A live bracket on the web. Every tournament has its own page with the bracket, results and entrants, updated as matches finish. The Discord message carries a picture of the bracket.
- Linked to a leaderboard. Seed the bracket from an ELO or League leaderboard's ratings, and let the tournament's matches count on that leaderboard.
- Prizes in your currency. With the economy on, pay currency for every match won, more each round, and for the final places.
- A champion role. Give the winners a Discord role of your choice when they're crowned.
Without a Discord server
Tournaments also run in your personal workspace on scoreboards.dev, with no server at all. Share your workspace's join link: members log in with Discord or Google, then sign up, check in and report their matches on the tournament's page. Players who never log in can be typed in as guests by name.
FAQ
Which permissions does the bot need? In the tournament's channel: View Channel, Send Messages, Embed Links, Attach Files and Read Message History, plus Create Private Threads, Send Messages in Threads and Manage Threads for the match threads. Manage Roles too if you hand out a champion role.
Can I run more than one tournament at once? Yes. Each one has its own message, threads and page.
Can players sign up from the website? Yes, on the tournament's page, after logging in with Discord.
Are tournaments finished? They're a beta, so details may still change while servers use them. Tell us what's missing in the support server.
Run your first one
Invite Scoreboards, then run /tournament create in the channel or press New tournament on the dashboard. Every setting is described in the Tournaments section of the docs.