Board Game Arena

So I run a number of tournaments, but I have never seen this, so the tournament in question.

https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=501394

The settings for each group were originally set to 2 to qualify, but they have been changed out of my control to 1 to qualify, for example see group 7.

https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?i ... ge_display

You can see how it was originally set to 2 to qualify by virtue of some tables have 2 qualifying, but in the last 24 hours that has somehow changed to 1 to qualify, which will completely kill the tournament as the numbers won't work.

What is going on here? And a warning as I assume this is affecting other tournaments, albeit it's not affecting my other ongoing tournament which is multiplayer elimination with 3 to qualify, so maybe is something to do with group phase.

RazorOz wrote: ↑14 January 2026, 23:45 What is going on here? And a warning as I assume this is affecting other tournaments, albeit it's not affecting my other ongoing tournament which is multiplayer elimination with 3 to qualify, so maybe is something to do with group phase.

This is concerning. It wouldn't kill a tournament where the second stage is single-elimination, it would just have an undesired structure. But the impact on multi-player elimination is pretty devastating.

As a warning, I've heard on Discord this is affect all games/other games, I've told people to post here, but I suspect it's going to kill a lot of tournaments then. It's group stage multiplayer elimination that seems badly affected.

This has also seemingly retroactively changed on every group phase multiplayer elimination game. See Season 5 Group 1 of the same tournament:

https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?i ... ge_display

Notice in settings it now says 1 qualified player, yet you can see from the tables that it was 2 to qualify.

I researched other tournaments where this is happening. So far I found these:

- https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?i ... ge_display
Stage 1 here is still occurring. In group 1 of stage 1 is possible to see tables with 2 qualified players, and tables with 1 qualified player. It's happening the same for other groups of this tournament

- https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?i ... ge_display
Stage 1 here is concluded, but entering in a group page, it's possible to see the setting changed into "1 qualified player", but clearly the tables had 4 qualified players originally

- https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?i ... ge_display
This is the same tournament that RazorOz shared. Here we can say that the setting is changed retroactively into "1 qualified player", but tables in stage 1 clearly had 2 qualified players in the setting originally.

This issue seems to happen for tournaments with stages, where the first is a multiplayer elimination that requires 2+ qualified players. We still don't know if this is going to happen to future tournaments as well. This surely deserves a bug report.

This happens in every multiplayer elimination tournament when there aren't enough players left to fill 2 tables. Example: If there are 7 players left in a 4 player table tournament, then 3 players get a bye to the final and there's a 4 person game with only the winner advancing to the final.

The way you avoid this problem is you make it 3-4 player tables with 2 advancing. Most of the tables will be 4 players, but a few 3 player tables will be created to avoid weirdness at the end.

FSKFSK wrote: ↑15 January 2026, 02:07 This happens in every multiplayer elimination tournament when there aren't enough players left to fill 2 tables. Example: If there are 7 players left in a 4 player table tournament, then 3 players get a bye to the final and there's a 4 person game with only the winner advancing to the final.

The way you avoid this problem is you make it 3-4 player tables with 2 advancing. Most of the tables will be 4 players, but a few 3 player tables will be created to avoid weirdness at the end.

Nothing to do with that. The tournament would work fine, I have used the same settings many times, the issue is the system has changed the settings to the tournament in the last 24 hours, and has done so it appears to all group phases multiplayer elimination to 1 to qualify, which will render many tournaments unplayable.

RazorOz wrote: ↑14 January 2026, 23:45 The settings for each group were originally set to 2 to qualify, but they have been changed out of my control to 1 to qualify, for example see group 7.

How odd! I wonder if it's related to what Dschingis27 reported yesterday here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 18#p238518

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑15 January 2026, 02:47 How odd! I wonder if it's related to what Dschingis27 reported yesterday here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 18#p238518

Imo no, I suspect 2 player single elimination is unaffected by whatever has happened here. That bug also long pre-dates this, as their original post was from the 26th December, the settings have been changed to these tournaments in the last 24 hours, it wasn't affecting games finishing this tournament until then, and the tournament didn't even begin until 5th January.

As far as I can see every single group phase multiplayer elimination has has had its rules changed to 1 player to qualify in the last 24 hours, even if the tournament finished years ago, so it will affect every game, just the games that will be most affected will be the games actually played in a multiplayer elimination setting with more than 1 to qualify (so eg. 2 player tournaments should be fine).

RazorOz wrote: ↑15 January 2026, 02:55

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑15 January 2026, 02:47 How odd! I wonder if it's related to what Dschingis27 reported yesterday here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 18#p238518

Imo no, I suspect 2 player single elimination is unaffected by whatever has happened here. That bug also long pre-dates this, as their original post was from the 26th December, the settings have been changed to these tournaments in the last 24 hours, it wasn't affecting games finishing this tournament until then, and the tournament didn't even begin until 5th January.

Well, the commonalities are, that both threads are about tournaments of type "Group-stage", and the other thread is about a bug that was repaired yesterday while this thread is about a new bug that arose yesterday. It seems plausible that perhaps, whatever was done to fix the other bug, unintentionally caused this new bug. But of course I'm just speculating.