Swiss vs Round Robin Teams

We previously discussed some reasons to play teams instead of pairs. Most team games will either be a Swiss or Bracketed Round Robin. A Swiss includes one large pool of teams and at each round, your opponent should have a similar Victory Point as yours. For the first round, your opponent is usually the team that lined up and bought an entry just before or after you. Then they put everyone on a massive, colorful scoreboard.

When it’s called Bracketed Swiss or Bracketed Teams, it almost always means Round Robin – directors place teams into brackets of 8 teams of similar masterpoints, and you play every team in the bracket once. The top 3 spots pay overalls – sometimes the directors need to make a few brackets 9 teams, and in those cases the top 4 spots pay.

Some believe Round Robin is more fair. In a Swiss, your reward for winning early matches is usually more difficult opponents, sometimes leading to some very interesting come-from-behind wins by round 7. In a Round Robin, your opponent is not a function of your current score – it’s usually a fully pre-determined schedule.

Which To Play?

Usually, you don’t have a choice. A tournament will have either Bracketed Round Robin or Swiss on any given day, but rarely both. The only exception is during NABC, say Dec 4th 2019, when you might have A/X/Y Swiss (open), Bracketed B Teams (0-3000), and Gold Rush Swiss. If either your masterpoints or skill do not meet certain requirements, then your only choice is to vote with your feet and attend the one you want.

There are other formats still found in the wild – notably Knockouts and Board-A-Match. The Grand National Teams and the new Soloway Knockout Teams combines two formats: Swiss to qualify a fraction of the field, then days of Knockouts to determine the ultimate winners. These formats have cool but weird nuances that we shall discuss another time.