What format for a Call of Duty tournament?

Double elimination with a best of three or best of five across the Hardpoint, Search and Destroy and Control rotation. Series are short enough that the extra bracket costs very little.

How long does an 8 team Call of Duty tournament take?

Fourteen series in double elimination. At forty five minutes for a best of five with rounds running in parallel, roughly four to five hours.

How many players per team?

Four in competitive play. Enter the team name first with the four players after a colon in the Teams division.

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Competitive Call of Duty is 4v4, and a series is a rotation through game modes rather than a repeat of one: Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, Control, in that order. Each mode is short, so a full best of five lands around forty five minutes, which is far friendlier to a bracket than a tactical shooter with fifty minute maps.

That rotation is the thing to fix before the draw rather than during it. A best of three is Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, Hardpoint; a best of five adds Control and a decider. Write the order and the maps on the sheet, because a series where the two teams disagree about game three is the one that stalls the whole schedule.

Which format to run

Double elimination at best of three for a community event, moving to best of five for the closing rounds, which is roughly how the ranked series is built. Round robin for four to six teams, where everybody wants more than two series.

Running it on the day

A best of five across the mode rotation is about forty five minutes. A best of three is closer to twenty five.
Enter each team on one line in the Teams division with all four players after a colon.
Fix the mode order and the map set before round one and put them on the printed sheet next to the bracket.
Every series is a private lobby, so rounds run in parallel and the event length is the number of rounds rather than the number of series.

How the draw is structured

Entrants

Matches played

Rounds

Byes

Round by round

Round	Matches	Entrants left after it
Winners Quarter-Finals	4	4
Winners Semi-Finals	2	2
Winners Final	1	1
Losers Round 1	2	1
Losers Round 2	2	1
Losers Round 3	1	1
Losers Final	1	1
Grand Final	1	1

Opening round by seed

Seeds are paired so the strongest and weakest meet first, which keeps the top seeds in opposite halves of the draw. This is the order the board is drawn in, top to bottom.

1 v 8
4 v 5
2 v 7
3 v 6

How long it takes

Rounds run one after another, because a round cannot start until the one feeding it has finished. Matches inside a round can all run at once, so the number of lobbies you have decides the day more than the number of entrants does.

Lobbies	23 min matches	45 min matches	68 min matches
1	5h 22m	10h 30m	15h 52m
2	3h 27m	6h 45m	10h 12m
4	3h 4m	6h	9h 4m

Playing time only. Add changeovers, warm-ups and the gap between rounds.

Questions

What format for a Call of Duty tournament?: Double elimination with a best of three or best of five across the Hardpoint, Search and Destroy and Control rotation. Series are short enough that the extra bracket costs very little.
How long does an 8 team Call of Duty tournament take?: Fourteen series in double elimination. At forty five minutes for a best of five with rounds running in parallel, roughly four to five hours.
How many players per team?: Four in competitive play. Enter the team name first with the four players after a colon in the Teams division.

Brackets for other sports

The same draw, in detail

8 Team Double Elimination BracketEight teams, winners and losers brackets, fourteen matches. One bad game does not end a good run. Free and printable.