game for the World Series championship. Many esports competitions, such as The International use a variation on the double-elimination format where, after the initial group stage, the first round of the L bracket begins pre-seeded with the lower-performing teams from said stage, rather than all teams starting in the W bracket. Additionally, the finals are a single series regardless of winner, without any chance of a bracket reset if the L bracket winner wins the series. Much of this is due to time concerns, with some esports games taking upwards of an hour per match in a series, and the schedule not allowing for the additional time costs of scheduling like a traditional double-elimination tournament. However, many events that employ this format also schedule the event so that the W bracket teams have advantageous scheduling, with L bracket teams often having to play additional series on the final day, and W bracket teams getting considerably more time off to watch opponents. While the FIFA World Cup's bracket is single-elimination by design, the semi-final round is double elimination, in which the losers play each other for third place. Other tournament systems Variations of the double-elimination tournament include: Elimination tournament Single-elimination tournament Other common tournament types are Round-robin tournament Swiss system tournament Playoffs – a variation of the single-elimination tournament where instead of one win, a team needs to win a specific number of games in a series in order to advance. References External links Stanton Isabelle & Williams Virginia Vassilevska, 2013. "The structure, efficacy, and manipulation of double-elimination tournaments," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 319–335, December. Tournament systems