2023 Tournament Format
All NHRL events begin with a 2-round Qualifier. Competitors who are not eliminated in the Qualifier are placed into a single-elimination tournament bracket. Eliminated competitors are encouraged to participate in NHRL Freestyle Fights for the rest of the day.
The 2-round Qualifier is a custom format in which bots are split into three groups. In order to determine which bot goes in which group, we give each bot a numerical seed before the event.
- The highest-seeded bots go into our Boss group.
- The next-higher seeds go into our Challenger group.
- All other seeds go into our Rival group.
In the first round of the Qualifiers, the Challengers all fight each other, and the Rivals all fight each other.
- A Challenger that wins its fight qualifies for the tournament bracket, and will fight a bot in the Boss group in the second round of the Qualifiers.
- A Rival that wins its fight qualifies for the tournament bracket, and will not fight in the second round of the Qualifiers.
- A Challenger or Rival that loses its fight will fight in the Last Chance group in the second round of the Qualifiers.
In the second round of the Qualifiers, the winning Challengers fight the Bosses, and the Last Chance bots fight each other.
- The bot that wins a Challenger/Boss fight will get one of the highest seeds, and possibly a first-round bye, in the tournament bracket. Both bots will advance to the tournament bracket regardless of the outcome.
- The bot that wins a Last Chance fight will qualify for the tournament bracket. The loser is eliminated from the tournament.
Eliminated bots are welcome to fight Freestyle fights. These are fights that do not count for rank or stats, but can still give builders valuable experience. Freestyle fights are arranged in the pits on event day.