Matchmaking Configuration for Organizers

Tournament Suite includes a config-driven matchmaking system so organizers can run persistent, skill-based queues alongside their bracketed tournaments.

Queues As An Ongoing Service

Matchmaking queues are a project-level feature, separate from any single tournament. Where a tournament runs a bracket to a finish, a matchmaking queue stays open indefinitely, continuously pairing players into matches based on rules the organizer defines.

Because the system is config-driven rather than built around a fixed list of supported titles, a queue is defined by its discipline (game) and a set of rules rather than by hardcoded, game-specific logic. Each queue tracks:

whether it is enabled or disabled,
its hosting model — a self-hosted server fleet, a vendor-hosted setup, or a discipline that does not support automated matchmaking yet,
live status signals, such as a fleet not being configured for a region or automated provisioning being unavailable for that game type.

Queues that lack automated hosting still work as a discipline entry, but the platform surfaces a clear notice instead of silently failing to provision a match.

Building A Queue: The Configuration Wizard

Creating or editing a queue walks an organizer through a sectioned wizard, replacing what used to be a raw JSON configuration step. The sections are:

General — the queue's name, its discipline, and team size.
Access — minimum and maximum skill rating, a required subscription tier, a VIP-only (subscribers-only) restriction, an identity-verification (KYC) requirement, and a requirement that players have the anti-cheat client running to join.
Economy — an optional entry fee, its currency, and the platform rake percentage retained from entry fees.
Game Rules — settings specific to the queue's discipline. For titles with deeper competitive rule support, this covers series format, overtime behavior, pause allowances, knife-round and demo-recording settings, and custom server console variables. Disciplines without additional game-specific rules show a simple notice instead of an empty form.
Pre-Match — the pre-match lifecycle profile, including ready checks, map or side voting (turn order, per-turn duration, and what happens if a side doesn't act in time), auto-start behavior, spectator and broadcast-delay settings, and whether a match requires a live recording relay.
Engine — matchmaking-quality tuning: how much a rating gap is tolerated, how a party's combined rating is calculated, and, in advanced tuning, the weighting between wait time and rating quality, how far and how fast the acceptable rating band expands while players wait, VIP priority boosts, and the escalating cooldown penalty applied to players who repeatedly dodge accepted matches.
Preferences — pre-queue map and server-region preferences, letting players narrow the map pool or mark a preferred region before joining, with a minimum guaranteed overlap so matching doesn't stall, and an optional cooldown before the same two players can be matched again.

Sections not touched by the organizer inherit sensible, behavior-preserving defaults, so a queue can be published with only the basics filled in and refined later.

Managing The Queue List

The queue list is the home view for matchmaking. From here, organizers can create a queue, edit an existing one, and pause, resume, flush, or delete a queue. Each queue card shows its discipline, hosting-model badge, and any relevant alert — for example, that a region has no available fleet, or that automation for that game type is coming soon.

Live Matches

The Live tab shows real-time matchmaking activity: how many players are currently queueing and how many matches are live right now, alongside a table of in-progress matches with their queue, participants, and status. This gives operations staff the same kind of live visibility into matchmaking that they have into bracketed tournament matches.

Match History

The History tab lists past matchmaking matches, filterable by outcome — completed or aborted — so organizers can review how a queue has been performing over time.

Match Reviews And Protests

When a player disputes a matchmaking match, it surfaces in the Reviews tab as a protest awaiting attention. Each review brings together the match's event timeline, any disconnect records, submitted evidence, and match recordings in one place. Resolving a review requires choosing one outcome — upholding the result, overturning it, voiding the match, ordering a rematch, or dismissing the protest — along with a written reason of at least ten characters, so every resolution leaves an auditable record.

Entry Fees And Escrow

When a queue charges an entry fee, that fee is handled through the same escrow mechanism used for tournament prize pools. If a match is cancelled, any collected entry fees are automatically queued for refund rather than requiring a manual reversal.

Typical Matchmaking Setup Workflow

Create a queue and set its name, discipline, and team size in the General section.
Configure who can join in Access — rating range, tier gating, VIP status, KYC, and anti-cheat requirements.
Set an entry fee and rake in Economy, if the queue is paid.
Fill in discipline-specific rules in Game Rules and the pre-match flow in Pre-Match.
Leave Engine and Preferences on their defaults, or tune them once the queue has real usage data.
Publish the queue and monitor it from the Live tab as players start queueing.
Use History to review past matches and Reviews to resolve any protests that come in.