Pick visibility
What participants can see of each other’s picks is fixed by where the bracket is in its life, not by a setting. A bracket has two phases, split by its lock time: before the lock, everyone fills in their own bracket; after it, picks are frozen and the field’s choices become visible as a whole.
For the participant’s view of a bracket competition, see brackets on fanzava.com.
Before the bracket locks
Section titled “Before the bracket locks”- Each participant sees and edits only their own bracket, or brackets if the competition allows more than one.
- Picks can be changed as often as the participant likes until the lock time.
- Nobody sees how the rest of the field has picked, so there is nothing to copy.
After the bracket locks
Section titled “After the bracket locks”Once the lock time passes, picks can no longer be submitted or changed. Two things become available:
- Pick distribution. For every matchup, the share of all brackets that picked each team, shown as most-picked percentages in the bracket’s pick assistance panel. The figures are only available after the lock, so they reflect final picks rather than a field still making up its mind.
- The leaderboard. It ranks each participant by their best bracket and shows their points as results are recorded. See how the bracket leaderboard ranks entries.
Pick distribution is where a bracket’s talking points come from: which upsets most of the field backed, and which champion pick is out on its own.
Help while filling in a bracket
Section titled “Help while filling in a bracket”Before the lock, the pick assistance panel beside a participant’s bracket offers help that does not depend on anyone else’s picks:
- Auto-fill the bracket with the favourites (the higher seed in every matchup) or at random, as a starting point to edit.
- Historical statistics for the seed pairing in the selected matchup.
Anything the panel fills in is an ordinary pick, saved and changeable like any other until the lock.
What participants are told by email
Section titled “What participants are told by email”Bracket participants receive these emails as the tournament goes on, subject to their notification preferences:
| When it is sent | |
|---|---|
| Lock reminder | As the bracket’s lock time approaches |
| Locked confirmation | After the bracket locks, confirming their champion pick and some of their key picks |
| Round results | After a round’s results have been scored |
| Champion eliminated | Once, if the team they picked to win the tournament is knocked out |
Play-in games
Section titled “Play-in games”Where a tournament has play-in games (matches that decide who takes a round-one slot), they are settled before the bracket locks. If a play-in result changes who is in a round-one matchup, any picks already made on that matchup are cleared and the participants who made them are told, so they can pick again before the lock.