Pokémon TCG Tournament Calculator

How Swiss rounds work

In a Swiss tournament nobody is knocked out early. Every round, players are paired against opponents with the same or a similar number of match points. A win is worth 3 points, a tie 1 point and a loss 0. If there is an odd number of players, one player gets a bye, which counts as a win.

After the last Swiss round, the top players by match points go through to a single-elimination top cut. Players on the same points are separated by tiebreakers, the first of which is Opponents' Win Percentage: the stronger your opponents' records, the higher you finish.

Typical rounds and top cut by player count

1. 4 to 8 players: 3 rounds, no top cut.
2. 9 to 12 players: 4 rounds, top 2.
3. 13 to 20 players: 5 rounds, top 4.
4. 21 to 32 players: 5 rounds, top 8.
5. 33 to 64 players: 6 rounds, top 8.
6. 65 to 128 players: 7 rounds, top 8.
7. 129 to 226 players: 8 rounds, top 8.
8. 227 to 409 players: 9 rounds, top 16.

This is the structure commonly used for one-day, best-of-three events. Larger championships often run over two days with a different structure, and organisers can make changes, so always check the event page. Tick "Set rounds and top cut myself" to enter a different structure.

What record do I need?

The calculator runs thousands of simulated events with your player count, pairs players by points each round, and counts how often each final record makes top cut. A record marked "usually safe" made top cut in at least 90% of simulations. Records "on the bubble" make it some of the time, depending on tiebreakers.

Ties change the maths. A tie is worth one point, which is often more useful than it looks: with 64 players, 6 rounds and a top 8, a 4-1-1 record makes the cut most of the time, while 4-2-0 almost never does. In the final rounds, players who are guaranteed a spot with a tie may agree to an intentional draw, which the simulation does not model.