After the completion of the QR, the teams in each pool will be ranked according to the number of matches they won during the QR. A tie counts as 0.5 wins. Ties in the number of matches won will be resolved in favor of teams with higher average points scored during the entire QR (see the QR rules for the definition of how this value is calculated). Any ties that remain will be resolved in favor of the team that won the head-to-head match between the teams. If this is still insufficient, the tie will be resolved in favor of the team with the higher seed value.

The four highest-ranked teams in each pool will advance to the DE ladder. There will be no "wildcard" spots.

All teams advancing from the QR to the DE ladder will be ranked according to the procedure given above for resolving ties in the QR pools. Each team advancing from the QR to the DE ladder will be assigned a seed value based on this ranking. (The team with the best record will be the number 1 seed, and so on.) The seed value determines where each team begins in the DE brackets. Note that higher-seeded teams will have easier draws (they will play against lower seeds) during the early DE rounds, so it's advantageous to do as well as possible during the QR.

In the DE ladder system, a team that loses two matches is eliminated. All teams begin with no losses in the Top Bracket. All matches in the Top Bracket are 5 games long. After each round of matches, the defeated teams from the Top Bracket move to the Bottom Bracket where a second loss means elimination from the tournament. The teams in the Bottom Bracket play matches of 3 games to eliminate half their number (the "Winnowing Round") and then are matched up against newly-arriving teams that have just suffered their first loss (the "Elimination Round"). Note that after the second round, teams in the Bottom Bracket must play two matches per week in order to keep pace with the undefeated bracket.

Originally, we were intending that teams who lost match (say) 2T04 in the Top Bracket would be relegated to the corresponding match in the Bottom Bracket, 3E04. However, this results in teams having an increased likelihood of playing the same opponents twice in quick succession. So instead we are using the relegation formula x_new = (13 * x + 7) mod num_matches. Check out the Bottom Bracket page to see how it works.

Each DE match will consist of 5 games (in the Top Bracket) or 3 games (in the Bottom Bracket). The winner of a DE match is the team that accumulates the most total points during the match. In the event of a tie, the team that won more individual games in the match (by scoring more points than their opponent in that game) is declared the winner. If there is still a tie, the higher-seeded team shall be declared the winner.