Playoff Ruleset

Schedule

Season 14 EU:

EU Playoff Structure

The top 8 teams of each division qualify for their respective playoffs. With the top two teams of each group in the joint division playoffs playing in the bracket and the top three teams of each group in the single division playoffs playing in the bracket. 

Season 6 NA:

NA Playoff Structure

The NA season will end with 3 playoffs, with each playoff consisting of a group stage and 1 bracket day. The first playoff will be between divisions 3 and 4. Divisions 1 and 2 will have their own playoffs. The top 8 teams of each division qualify for the group stages. All group stages will be a round-robin with each group consisting of 4 teams, with 4 groups for the joint division playoffs and 2 groups for the division 1 playoff.

Qualifying and seeding into playoffs

If teams are tied for the qualifying spots during the regular season, the following criteria will be matched in order against each other to determine the qualifying team(s):

1. Match wins
2. Map wins 
3. Head-to-Head
4. Map score(total map wins - total map losses)
5. Head-to-Head
6. Coin flip

Should teams be tied on the first three criteria, and Head-to-Head not be applicable, all tied teams are free to organize tiebreaker matches and report the result to the moderator team before the day of the draw show. For example, if the Drawshow is on the 13th of October, the result would have to be reported before 23:59 on the 12th of October.

If teams are tied for the qualifying spots during the group stage, the teams will be checked on the following criteria in order to determine the qualifying team(s):  

1. Match wins
2. Map wins
3. Map score (total map wins - total map losses)
4. Head-to-Head
5. Coin Flip

Draw show

The seeding of teams into groups will happen during the draw show. First, the teams will be sorted into pools based on their rankings in the division standings.

For the joint division playoffs, the pools will look as follows:

Then each pool will be divided among the groups, with only one team from each pool allowed in each group. The groups will end up as follows:

The single division playoffs have a similar structure with only 2 teams per pool for the drawshow, and only two groups.

Bracket stage

All games in the bracket stage are Best-of-3, with exception of the grand final which is played as a Best-of-5. Normal match rules apply. The seeding into the brackets is based on the results of the group stage. For the joint division playoffs, the 1st seed of each group will face the 2nd seed of the contradictory group. Group A and D will be matched against each other, and group B and C will be matched against each other. The winners will then be matched against each other, only allowing teams from the same group to meet again in the grand final.

Bracket:

The single division groups will have three teams qualifying, with the 1st seeds of both groups facing each other in the upper bracket. The 2nd seed of group A will face the 3rd seed of group B, and vice versa, in the lower bracket. The winners of these two games will then face each other, and the winner of this match will be playing the losing team of the upper bracket to compete for a spot in the grand final against the winning upper bracket team. 

The team coming into the grand final from the upper bracket will start the match by having both map pick and first pick on the first game before any map bans. Normal match rules apply after.

Bracket:

Important notice: Even in the group and bracket stages captains will still need to upload their games to the website.

All playoff matches of the bracket phase will be streamed on one of the official Heroes Lounge Twitch channels. Each match will have a channel assigned that it will be casted on. For this reason, a ‘rolling schedule’ will be used during the entire bracket stage.

With the ‘rolling schedule’, the next match of each stream will start once the previous match is over. There are no fixed start times for matches after the initial set of matches. A tournament admin will contact the captains of qualified teams in advance of their matches to let them know when they need to be ready to play.

If teams would have to play two matches in a row on stream they are allowed to take a break of up to 20 minutes between matches.

Below is an example of how the bracket would progress during the day: 

Additional substitute player and roster rules

At the start of the draw show, the participating teams' rosters will be locked, meaning no more roster changes can be made. 

If you want to, or may need to, use substitute players during the playoffs, you will need to register these substitute players beforehand with a moderator. This is required for both the group and bracket stages. Opposing captains have to be informed of the use of substitute players before the match, even if the player has been registered and approved by a mod beforehand. 

The usual substitute rules apply, with a few additions:

• A team can register up to 5 substitute players for the playoffs, with those registrations being valid for the entire playoff duration.
• Each player can only play for one team in each Cup throughout the playoffs, even after that team has been eliminated.
• The upper MMR limit for the playoffs is the division limit above the upper division in a given Cup. For example - In the EU Rare Cup (divisions 6 & 7), all teams can register subs from division 5 and below without approval from opposing captains.

Substitute players can be registered until 12:00 (noon) CET / PST of the bracket day (the final day of the playoffs). Substitute players registered later can be used in compliance with all normal substitute player rules, however the MMR limit is now that of the upper division in the Cup. For example - In the EU Rare Cup (divisions 6 & 7), division 5 players can no longer be registered without approval from the opposing captain(s).

If a substitute player’s MMR raises above the given Cup’s MMR threshold after registration, the opposing team’s captain can deny this substitute player at the time of playing.