How does a 12 Team Double Elimination Bracket work?

In a 12 team double elimination tournament, the teams compete in a bracket where every team must lose two times to be eliminated. The winner of each game in the winners bracket moves on to the next round and the loser drops down to the losers bracket. Once in the loser's bracket, the winning team advances to the next round and the loser is eliminated. The tournament continues until there is only 1 team that hasn't lost two times.

Bracket Layout

The 12 team double elimination bracket has the games numbered from 1 through 23. This is the order in which the games will be played. In the losers bracket you will also see L1, L2 etc... The loser of game 1 in the winners bracket will drop down to L1 in the losers bracket, the loser of game 2 will drop down to game L2 etc...

Championship

When viewing the bracket, you will see some dashed lines coming off of the championship game. In the championship, you will have one team from the winners bracket that has not lost yet, playing a team from the losers bracket that has already lost one game. If the team from the winners bracket wins this game, they are the champions. If the team from the losers bracket wins that game, there must be a second game to decide the champion, as neither team would have lost two games yet.

Number of Games:

A quick calculation to figure the total number of games possible in a double elimination tournament, would be to double the number of teams, then subtract 1. So a 12 team tournament would have 23 total possible games, but if the winners bracket team wins the first game in the championship there would only be 22 games.

Tiebreakers (if necessary):

In the event of a tie in any game, there must be a tiebreaker put into place to determine a sole winner of each match. This format ensures that only one team from each match can advance to the next round. Tiebreaker rules can vary from each sport/game, so it is important to post clear tie-breaker rules before the start of the tournament.

Blind Draw vs Seeded

A blind draw bracket features teams that are randomly drawn and placed on the bracket in the order in which they are drawn. A seeded bracket is typically used when teams are ranked based on how well they finished during a season or a previous event. The double elimination bracket above is in blind draw format.