Sanctioning Events

Tournaments organized for Grand Archive should be hosted through the Omnidex. The Omnidex is a software that enables tournament organizers and players to host and participate in events, respectively. The Omnidex allows tournament organizers to create events, register players, create pairings, track brackets, and list player standings in the tournament. All events sanctioned through the Omnidex awards players points that contribute to their player ranking within the Omnidex and among all registered players of Grand Archive.

If Omnidex is not available or is under maintenance, tournaments can also be tracked through free 3rd party tournament organizer software. Such tournaments will not, however, be tracked on the Omnidex and no points can be awarded to players to contribute to player ranking.

A minimum of 8 players is recommended to run a tournament for Grand Archive. It is acknowledged that some circumstances may result in fewer than 8 players present during the first round of a tournament or during the drafting phase of a limited tournament. In such cases, tournament organizers have the discretion to continue or start a tournament with fewer players if all participating players are in agreement. Future guidelines regarding ranked or rated tournament play will require a minimum of 8 players, otherwise, it will not be considered rated.

In the case of Swiss pairing tournaments, the number of rounds is based on players and can be calculated via rounding up of log2(N) where N is the number of players registered for the tournament. (Generally, tournament software is capable of calculating the necessary number of rounds.) In this manner, a table such as the following can be generated giving recommended rounds based on players:

Example Table of Attending Players and Tournament Rounds

Thus, a tournament will always have at least 3 rounds. Rounds should be determined before initiation of the 1st round of a tournament and the number of rounds cannot be changed any further after this, regardless of how many players choose to drop. Tournaments may be set up in such a way as to have more rounds than suggested by the above table, however, this might result in a situation where a single player will have X match wins after X rounds in a tournament announced as having an X+1 round structure. Additionally, organizers may wish to hold playoffs for top cuts of players. After the Swiss rounds of a tournament have concluded, it is possible to do a play-off phase with only the top 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. players.

For 5-8 players, tournaments may be Swiss or single-elimination. For 9-16 players, 4 rounds are recommended for limited format tournaments with a cut to the top 8, otherwise, 5 rounds of Swiss pairings should be played with a cut to the top 4, instead. For 17+ player tournaments, the above table and formula can be reliable for rounds, and cuts to the top 8 are recommended.