Seeding helper

Random seeds

Use a random draw when you have no ranking. Every team has the same chance at every seed, so nobody can say the draw was unfair.

The shuffle uses your browser's secure random numbers. The first name after shuffling is seed 1.

Snake pools

With seeds in order, pool A gets seed 1, pool B seed 2, pool C seed 3, then it reverses: pool C seed 4, pool B seed 5, pool A seed 6. Each pool ends up with a similar strength.

Seeding in practice

A seeded bracket matters because the top seeds should meet as late as possible. In a 16-team bracket, seed 1 meets seed 2 only in the final if both keep winning, and seed 1 plays seed 16 in round 1. Random seeding gives no such guarantee.

If you have last season's results, a rating or a qualifying round, use them to rank the teams and paste the list best first. If you have none, a random draw is the honest option and everyone can see it was fair.

Snake order, explained

With four pools, snake order deals seeds 1 to 4 to pools A to D, then seeds 5 to 8 back from D to A, and so on. Pool A gets seeds 1, 8, 9 and 16; pool D gets 4, 5, 12 and 13. Every pool ends up with a similar total strength.

Questions