Tournaments

FoxLeague tournaments are multi-match formal events with locked lineups and FOXSY prize pools. A single tournament can span an hour or two (fast Bronze knockouts) to several days (large Swiss or round-robin events) depending on format, team count and round interval.

Looking for 1v1?

For one-on-one challenges with a single match and a winner-takes-most split (currently 90/10), see 1v1 Challenges. This page covers multi-team tournaments only.

How to join

1. Open the Tournaments tab
2. Pick one from Browse (status registration_open, slots still free)
3. Click JOIN
4. If there’s an entry fee (Silver / Gold tier), approve the FOXSY transaction in your wallet
5. Your team is now entered. Each match captures your formation, lineup and players’ synced stats at its strategy lock (about 30 minutes before that match’s kickoff), so you can adjust your plan between games

Keep improving between matches

Joining does not freeze your team. Each match uses your players’ synced stats at its strategy lock, so training you sync before a match locks counts for that match. See Match-day strategy.

Post-transfer cooldown

Any player that arrived in your wallet via a wallet-to-wallet transfer within the transfer cooldown (currently 10 days / 240 hours) cannot be staked into any tournament (Bronze, Silver or Gold). Same anti-rental rule already in effect for ranked plus 1v1 matches. Marketplace purchases, fusion outputs, distribute events, shop mints do not trigger the cooldown. Only direct wallet-to-wallet transfers do. You can pay to cut a transfer cooldown down to a 24-hour floor in Marketplace → Shop → Reduce Cooldown.

You can also create your own tournament via Tournaments → Create.

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The four formats

Knockout

Single-elimination bracket.

• Team counts: 4, 8, 16 or 32 (exact size; the bracket starts only when full, so every team has an opponent)
• Matches per team: 1-5 (depending on how far you go)
• Rounds: log₂(N) (4 teams = 2 rounds, 32 teams = 5 rounds)
• Seeding: classic seeded bracket (#1 vs #N, #2 vs #N-1, etc.) based on ELO at the moment the bracket is generated, when registration closes
• Draws are resolved through extra time and if needed, a penalty shootout (see below)
• Optional 3rd-place match between the two semifinal losers

Best for: quick, high-stakes tournaments with exciting upsets.

Groups + Knockout

Group stage followed by single-elimination.

• Team counts: 8, 16, 32 or 64 (exact size; it starts only when full, so the advancing field always forms a clean knockout bracket)
• Group stage: groups of 4, round-robin (each team plays 3 matches). Points: 3 win / 1 draw / 0 loss. Teams level on points are separated by head-to-head first (full rules in Tie-breakers)
• Top 2 from each group advance to the knockout bracket
• Cross-group KO pairing: A1 vs B2, B1 vs A2. Further group pairs follow the same pattern. Two teams from the same group sit in opposite bracket halves, so they can only meet in the final

Best for: balanced competition (everyone plays multiple matches), but stakes rise in the knockout.

Round Robin

Everyone plays everyone.

• Team counts: any size from 3 to 20. Odd counts work; one team rests each matchday
• Matches per team: N−1 (4 teams → 3 matches, 8 teams → 7, 20 teams → 19)
• Home & away: the creator can turn on a double round robin, so each team plays every other team twice (once home, once away) for 2×(N−1) matches per team. The return leg runs after the first leg completes, so the event takes twice as long
• Standings by points (3 win / 1 draw / 0 loss). Teams level on points are separated by the tie-breakers below
• No elimination (every team plays every match)

Best for: fair ranking as the best team usually wins. Great for small groups and mini-leagues.

Swiss

Teams are paired at random in round 1, then by standing (no rematches).

• Team counts: any size from 3 to 32. The creator sets a max; the event runs with whoever joins by the deadline, as long as that number is even. Round 1 pairs the field two by two, so an odd field at the deadline cannot be paired and the tournament does not start
• Rounds: log₂(N) + 1 (8 teams → 4 rounds, 16 → 5, 32 → 6)
• Pairing: round 1 is drawn at random. From round 2 on, teams with similar records (points, then goal difference) face each other
• Byes: only from round 2 on. If the field turns odd, the lowest-ranked team gets a bye that round, scored as a win (3 points)
• Final standings determine placement after all rounds are played

Best for: large tournaments with limited time. Everyone plays, strong teams eventually face strong opponents.

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Tie-breakers

When two or more teams finish a standings table level on points, FoxLeague separates them with a head-to-head mini-table before it falls back to overall stats. The order is:

1. Points across all group matches.

2. Head-to-head mini-table, built from only the matches between the level teams. Inside it the order is:

   • points in those matches
   • goal difference in those matches
   • goals scored in those matches

   If the mini-table splits the level teams into smaller groups that are still tied, it is rebuilt from just the matches among each remaining group, then applied again.

3. Overall stats, used only when the mini-table still cannot separate the teams:

   • overall goal difference
   • overall goals scored
   • higher ELO rating
   • lower participant id, meaning the team that registered for this tournament earlier

The final step relies on the participant id, a value unique to every entry in the tournament, so the ranking is always fully decided with no random draw.

These rules cover every standings table: the Groups + Knockout group stage, Round Robin, plus Swiss. In Swiss two level teams may not have played each other. When that happens the head-to-head step has nothing to compare, so the ranking falls straight through to the overall stats.

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The three tiers

Tiers scope the stakes:

Tier	Entry fee	Best for
Bronze	Free	Practice, casual competition, Hall of Fame runs
Silver	1,000-4,999 FOXSY (creator picks within the range)	Competitive stakes with a real prize pool
Gold	5,000+ FOXSY (creator picks)	Highest rewards, most serious competition

The creator sets the exact FOXSY amount when creating a Silver or Gold tournament, constrained by the tier’s bounds shown above. Bronze is always free.

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Creating a tournament

Open Tournaments → Create and step through format, tier, configuration, schedule and a final confirmation. You can have at most one active tournament you created as a player plus one you created as organizer-only at any time (admins are uncapped as organizers). 1v1 challenges have a separate cap of one active challenge per team. Two creation options are worth calling out.

Private (invite-only)

Flip the Private toggle to control who can register, then invite specific teams by searching for them. A private tournament:

• Still appears in the public lobby with a Private badge, so everyone can see it exists.
• Can only be joined by the teams you invited. Everyone else sees a locked Private (invite only) button.
• Needs enough capacity to reach the minimum. Capacity is the invited teams plus yourself (only the invited teams if you host as organizer-only). If that falls short of the minimum you cannot create it until you invite more teams or lower the minimum.

Organizer-only (host without playing)

On any tournament (Bronze included), flip Organizer only to run the event without competing in it. As an organizer-only host you:

• Take no slot. On a paid tier you also pay no entry fee. Every slot stays open for the other teams.
• See no Join button on your own tournament. You are running it, not playing.

This is the clean way to host a private event for a fixed set of invited teams. Invite the full field (for an 8-team tournament, invite 8 teams), since you do not take a slot yourself.

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How your team is used in matches

Your team is not frozen when you join. Each match captures your team at its strategy lock, about 30 minutes before that match’s kickoff:

• Formation and lineup: whatever you have saved at the lock. Change them between matches to plan for each opponent.
• Player stats: each player’s on-chain synced attributes as they stand at the lock. Training counts for a match only once you sync it before that match locks.
• Condition: read live at the lock. It regenerates passively between matches.

A match already past its lock is fixed. Newer syncs, training and lineup changes only affect your future matches.

Field a complete, owned squad at every lock

At each match’s lock your squad must be a legal 11 starters plus 7 substitutes, all still in your wallet. If it is short (for example you sold a player without replacing it) that match is forfeited 3-0. You return to normal as soon as you complete your squad again.

See Match-day strategy for the full flow, the Upcoming Games page and the lock countdowns.

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Schedule

Every tournament has:

• Registration deadline: last moment to join before the bracket is generated
• Tournament start: when the first match kicks off. Must be at least 1 hour after creation so the bracket can be pre-scheduled, more than 5 minutes after the registration deadline and at most 90 days ahead
• Time between games: every match is played one at a time, this many minutes apart. The creator picks a step from 30 minutes up to a day: 30 min / 1 h / 2 h / 4 h / 6 h / 8 h / 12 h / 1 day

Games run fully sequentially, one every “time between games”, so spectators can watch each match end to end. A short interval with a small bracket wraps up in a few hours. A large field or a 1-day interval can stretch a tournament across several days.

If one of the two teams in a match is busy with a match in another tournament at that time, the scheduler pushes the match later (keeping a 20-minute clearance around the other commitment) and every match after it shifts with it. A tournament can therefore run longer than the plain estimate, never shorter.

Blocking window (anti-overlap)

Each tournament reserves a blocking window from one hour before its first kickoff until one hour after its estimated end. The estimate counts about 3 minutes per scheduled match and ignores the time between games, so the window is a coarse reservation rather than the real span. The check runs when a tournament is created: the new window may not overlap the window of any other scheduled tournament on the platform, otherwise creation fails with a time-slot conflict. Joining has no window check. 1v1 challenges cannot be created or joined while you are inside the blocking window of a tournament you are in; they never reserve a window of their own.

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Seeding

When registration closes, all participants are seeded by ELO rating:

• Seed #1 = highest ELO at the moment the bracket is generated
• Seed #N = lowest ELO

Seeding drives:

• Knockout bracket slots (classic #1-vs-#N pairing so top seeds don’t meet in round 1)
• Groups + KO pot distribution (balanced groups)
• Swiss doesn’t use seeding either: round 1 is drawn at random, later rounds pair by standing
• Round Robin doesn’t use seeding for match order (everyone plays everyone)

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Draws and penalty shootouts

• Round Robin / Group stage / Swiss draws are legal results (1 point each).
• Knockout / semifinal / final / 3rd-place match draws cannot stand. The tie goes to extra time and if still unresolved, to a penalty shootout, with the winner advancing.

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Third-place match

Knockout and Groups + KO tournaments support an optional 3rd-place match between the two semifinal losers. The creator toggles this when setting up the tournament. The winner is recorded in the Hall of Fame alongside the champion and runner-up.

If the creator leaves it OFF, both semifinal losers finish as “3rd/4th” without separation.

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Auto-subs and forfeit

FoxLeague expects you to own a full 18 (11 starters + 7 substitutes) when your next tournament match locks. If a starter is not match-fit at that moment (condition below 30 or in the transfer cooldown), the tournament automatically substitutes a fit bench player in.

• The match report shows which auto-subs were applied for each side
• If fewer than 11 match-fit players can be assembled from your 18 (or you no longer own all 18), your team forfeits the match 3-0 and the opponent takes the win. The forfeit reason is shown on the match card so you know what went wrong
• If both teams forfeit the same match, it is recorded 0-0 as a loss for each side and each loses 1 standings point, so a standings total can go below zero

Keep your bench deep. A forfeit in round 1 of a Gold Knockout is an expensive lesson.

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Hall of Fame

Completed tournaments are archived in the Hall of Fame tab. Each entry shows:

• Tournament title, format, tier, completion date
• Winner team name + badge
• Runner-up team name + badge
• 3rd place team name + badge (if a 3rd-place match was played)

A permanent record of every finished tournament across all tiers and formats.

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Prize distribution

When a Silver or Gold tournament completes, the prize pool (entry fee × the number of teams that actually joined, not the maximum) is distributed on-chain automatically. Winners receive their share directly in their wallet with no claim action needed:

The current split:

Place	Share of pool
Winner	45%
Runner-up	30%
3rd place	15%
Platform fee	10%

In a Knockout or Groups + KO event without a 3rd-place match there is no third-place finisher, so the 15% goes to the runner-up (45 / 45 / 10). In Round Robin and Swiss, 3rd place is the third team in the final standings.

Example (with a 3rd-place match): 16 teams × 1,000 FOXSY entry = 16,000 FOXSY pool → 7,200 winner / 4,800 runner-up / 2,400 third-place / 1,600 platform fee.

Tournaments flagged as featured by the platform admins also award XP boosts: the winner gets 2× XP for 48 hours plus a Tournament Champion badge and title, the runner-up gets 1.5× XP for 24 hours. Boosts do not stack with each other or with the shop XP booster; the highest active multiplier applies.

Bronze tournaments have no entry fee and therefore no prize pool. They’re for practice, ELO-safe competition and Hall of Fame glory.

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Tips

• Plan for the whole run. You must field a legal 11+7, all owned, at every match’s lock or that game is forfeited. Nothing stops you from joining two tournaments that run in the same period, so check both schedules before committing.
• Watch the time between games. Games are sequential, so the total length is roughly the number of games times the interval. A 30-minute interval with a small bracket wraps up in a few hours. A large field or a 1-day interval spans days. It runs longer still when matches are pushed back to keep a team clear of its other tournament.
• Check the tier before committing FOXSY. Silver and Gold entry fees leave your wallet the moment you join. Leaving while registration is still open (before the deadline) refunds the fee on-chain. Once the deadline passes you cannot leave.
• Add a third-place match if you can. Without it the 15% third-place share simply goes to the runner-up; with it a third team gets paid.
• Sync before a match’s lock, not just before joining. Each match reads your synced stats at its lock, so train and sync ahead of a game for the improvement to count. Unsynced training does not.