Tournament Bracket Generator
| Field size | First round | Byes |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 matches | 0 |
| 6 | 2 matches | 2 |
| 8 | 4 matches | 0 |
| 12 | 4 matches | 4 |
Paste one name per line and draw the bracket: the field is shuffled Fisher-Yates style and paired into a single-elimination first round - 'Raven vs Falcon, Storm vs Titan' - with byes dealt automatically when the field is not a perfect power of two, the way real tournament directors handle 6, 10 or 14-player nights.
Bottom line: the draw is uniform and rerollable - every shuffle is a fresh draw, so the button is fair by construction and the bracket is copy-paste ready. Odd fields are handled the honest way: lowest seeds drawn get the bye, which is exactly how the professional formats do it, and the round structure (quarterfinals, semis, final) is printed so the whiteboard can be filled in directly.
The honest part: this page draws the bracket; seeding is a different decision. A random draw is right for game nights and club events, but ranked tournaments seed deliberately - the number one seed meets the number eight seed, not the number two, because the whole point of seeding is delaying the best matchups as long as possible. If your event cares about fairness across skill levels, seed manually and use the draw only to place names into the seeded slots.
How to use
- Paste one player or team per line - order does not matter, the draw shuffles first.
- Press draw: first-round matchups appear, byes marked, with the round structure labeled.
- Reroll for a fresh draw, then copy the matchups to your whiteboard or group chat.
Frequently asked questions
How does the bracket generator work?
Your list is shuffled with the Fisher-Yates algorithm - the standard unbiased shuffle, where each item is swapped with a random later position exactly once - and the shuffled list is then read off in pairs to form the first-round matchups. When the field is not a power of two, the last names drawn receive byes: the minimum number of byes needed to round the field up to the next power of two, the same rule a tournament director applies by hand.
Why do real tournaments seed instead of drawing randomly?
Because a random draw can pair the two best players in round one, which wastes the final everyone came for. Seeding solves it structurally: the top seed is placed opposite the second seed, so they cannot meet before the final - the classic 1-vs-8, 4-vs-5 first-round shape of an eight-bracket. Club nights randomize because fairness across one evening is the goal; championship brackets seed because narrative quality across the event is the goal. Know which one your event is before you draw.
What is a bye, and who should get it?
A bye is a free pass to the next round, issued when the field size is not a power of two: a 6-player bracket cannot pair everyone, so 2 players wait while 4 play. The convention - and this page's rule - is that byes go to the last names drawn, which in a seeded event would be the lowest seeds. Byes are an advantage, which is why tournaments hand them out in the minimum number required and why a random-draw event can justify them only as luck of the draw.
Is the same draw always the same matchups?
No - and that is deliberate here. The name registries on this site are deterministic lookups (same input, same result), but a bracket draw is a lottery by definition: rerolling is not a bug, it is a fresh draw, and running it twice is how you settle a dispute about whether the first draw was fair. Copy the matchups you like; the share button carries the current draw's text with it.