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Discord leagues

Riftbound Tournaments and Leagues on Discord

Swiss rounds, best-of-3 matches and a weekly store night, with standings and ratings that carry from week to week.

Create your Riftbound league See 3 Riftbound leagues

Riftbound, Riot Games' League of Legends trading card game, is played the way most card games are played competitively: one on one, best-of-3 matches, Swiss rounds, and at bigger events a cut to an elimination bracket. Riot's own weekly store program, Nexus Nights, runs on that shape, and most community events copy it.

That shape is what a Discord community needs software for. Swiss pairings depend on the previous round's results, so someone has to pair round 2 after round 1 is in, give the bye in an odd field, and keep the standings straight when a player leaves after round 3. A spreadsheet handles one night of eight players. It stops working by the third week of a league, when everyone wants to know who is on top over the whole month and not just tonight.

Team Up does both halves. The event is a tournament with Swiss rounds, check-in, an optional top cut and a live message in your Discord. The season is a leaderboard that every reported match feeds. The night decides tonight's winner; the leaderboard remembers the rest.

Setting up your Riftbound leaderboard

The decisions that are specific to Riftbound. Everything else follows the general setup guide.

  1. 1

    Run the night as a Swiss tournament

    Create a Swiss tournament on the dashboard and set the number of rounds. Round 1 pairs by seed, each later round is paired the moment the previous one is fully reported, rematches are avoided, and an odd field gets a bye that counts as a win. Standings order by points, then Buchholz (the combined points of everyone you played), then head-to-head. Many card-game events break ties on opponents' match-win percentage instead. The two usually agree, but if your event rules name a tiebreak, say which one you use.

  2. 2

    Add a top cut when the event is big enough

    For a larger event, make Swiss the first stage of a two-stage tournament: the top players after the Swiss rounds advance to a single or double elimination playoff, drawn automatically when the last Swiss match is reported. For a weekly night of eight to twelve players, plain Swiss with no cut is usually the better fit.

  3. 3

    Record the match, with the game score if you want it

    A tournament match records one result, the match winner, and that is what moves the standings and Elo. On the dashboard you can add the game score (2-1, 2-0) and a note, and a Swiss match can also be recorded as a draw (half a point each) or skipped. In Discord, an admin uses the Report result button on the tournament message, which records the winner only.

  4. 4

    Check in before round 1

    Open a check-in window before the start, scheduled or by hand on the night. Players check in with a button on the tournament's Discord message or on its public page, and when you start you can drop whoever didn't, so nobody is paired against an empty seat. Mid-event, Drop keeps a player out of later Swiss rounds while keeping the results they already earned.

  5. 5

    Link a leaderboard so the season adds up

    Link the tournament to a leaderboard and every reported match also updates Elo, which seeds next week's event and gives the league a standing that survives one bad night. Keep one leaderboard per format: Constructed and Sealed are different skills, and one rating across both mostly measures which format a player turned up for. Duplicate copies a tournament to the same time next week, so a weekly night takes one click to set up again.

  6. 6

    Best-of-3 between events

    For games outside the weekly night, a 1v1 /queue_versus with its format set to Best Of 3 pairs whoever is online and rates the series, not each game. /challenge lets a player call out a specific opponent. Point both at the leaderboard your tournaments use and it all counts toward one standing.

  7. 7

    Keep the server in the loop

    /tournaments display posts the event to a channel and keeps that message current: registration and check-in before the start, then the current matchups and the standings or bracket as images after every result. The tournament's Flyer tab makes a poster to announce it, and its public page shows the standings to anyone, no Discord needed.

Commands you'll use

/tournaments Tournament schedule and live tournament messages/queue_versus Create a versus queue or lobby launcher/challenge Challenge one or more players to a match/record_match Record match results and update player ratings

Riftbound leagues on Team Up

Public communities running Riftbound rankings right now. Anyone can join.

Other card games

Nothing above is specific to Riftbound: Swiss rounds, best-of-3 matches and a weekly league work the same way for any one-on-one card game. Each link opens the league directory filtered to that game.

Formats you can run

The setup above is what Riftbound needs. These are the shapes a league can take with it — each has its own decisions about what to rate and what carries between sessions.

Challenge Ladders

No queue and no fixed night — entrants pick their own opponents, play when both are free, and the ladder sorts itself out.

Riftbound ladder guides

Not specific to Riftbound, but they cover what Riftbound ladders run into.

How to Run a Discord Tournament: Brackets, Seeding, and Prizes

A step-by-step guide to running a tournament in your Discord server: choosing a format, seeding players fairly, managing brackets and keeping it fun.

8 min read

How to Run a Competitive Season: Resets, Carryover, and Playoffs

Seasons stop a league going stale. The hard part is how much rating carries over: four carryover modes, and how to roll over without losing history.

9 min read

Dodges, No-Shows and Disputes: Writing League Rules That Hold Up

Rules fail when they need a judgement call at the moment everyone is angry. How to write league rules that decide themselves: dodges, no-shows, disputes.

11 min read

Riftbound on Discord — FAQ

The questions communities ask before setting up their Riftbound ladder.

Can I run Riftbound Swiss rounds with a top cut?
Yes. Run Swiss on its own, where the winner tops the final standings, or as the first stage of a two-stage tournament, where the top players after Swiss advance to a single or double elimination playoff that is drawn automatically.

How are best-of-3 matches recorded?
As one match. The match winner is what moves the standings and Elo; on the dashboard you can add the game score (2-1) and a note. A Swiss match can also be recorded as a draw, worth half a point to each player.

Can I run a weekly store league, not just one event?
Yes. Run each week as its own tournament linked to the same leaderboard, and use Duplicate to copy last week's event to the same time next week. The leaderboard keeps the standing across the season, and a season rollover starts a fresh one.

Is Team Up affiliated with Riot Games?
No. Team Up is an independent tool for running tournaments and leagues in Discord. It doesn't read decks or card data; results are reported by your players and organizers.

Ready to rank your Riftbound community?

Team Up is free to start. Add the bot, create a leaderboard, and record your first match — the ladder builds itself from there.

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