at the end of the regular season, the top five teams in each of its two conferences qualify for the playoffs. Under this system, the conferences have separate playoff brackets. From 2015 to 2018, six teams per conference qualify; 12 teams in total. In 2019, 2021 and 2022, seven teams per conference qualify, 14 teams in all, and all rounds are single-elimination. 2020 saw ten teams from the Eastern Conference and eight from the Western counterpart qualify, 18 in all, and again all rounds are single-elimination. Since 2023, nine teams per conference qualify, 18 in all, with all rounds except the conference quarterfinals single elimination. The preliminary round has the eighth seed hosting the ninth seed while the top seven seeds get a prelim-round bye. Whoever wins plays the top seed in Conference Quarterfinals. In the Conference Quarterfinals, the top-seed hosts the eighth-ninth winner, the runner-up hosts the seventh seed, the third hosts the sixth, and fourth hosts the fifth, in best-of-three games. Winners advance to play in the conference semifinals. In the conference semifinals, the top seed-wild card winner plays the fourth-fifth seed winner, and the second-seventh seed plays the third-sixth, higher seed plays host. The winners from this round advance to play in the conference finals. The winner of each conference will play for the MLS Cup, the league championship. Since 2012, the MLS Cup is hosted by the conference champion with the most table points during the regular season. In the case of ties after regulation in any round, 30 minutes of extra time (divided into two 15-minute periods) would be played followed by a penalty-kick shootout, if necessary, to determine the winners. The defunct Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), which operated only in the U.S., conducted a four-team stepladder tournament consisting of one-off knockout matches. The third seed hosted the fourth seed in the first round. The winner of that game advanced to the "Super Semifinal", hosted by the second seed. The Super Semifinal winner traveled to the top seed for the final. The WPS's replacement, the National Women's Soccer League (which launched in 2013), has a more standard six-team knockout playoff in which the lowest-seeded winner from the first round plays the top seed and the next-lowest the runner-up in the semifinals. The winners of two one-off semifinals advance to the one-off final. Australian rules football Playoffs are used throughout Australia in Australian rules football to