Home / Brackets / 18 Team Single Elimination Bracket
18 team single elimination bracket
18 team single elimination bracket: 5 rounds, 17 matches, with 14 first-round byes. See the full matchup tree, then customize it free.
Bracket layout
How the 18-team single elimination bracket works
18 is not a power of two, so the draw rounds up to a 32-slot bracket and the 14 empty slots become byes. That gives you 5 rounds of play and 17 matches in total - one fewer than the number of teams, because every match eliminates exactly one team.
How byes and seeding work
Seeds are placed with a balanced draw: seed 1 is paired against the lowest seed, seed 2 against the next lowest, and so on, so the top seeds cannot meet before the late rounds. The 14 byes go to the top 14 seeds, who skip straight to round 2 - the standard reward for seeding high. Seeding explained covers how that draw is built, and byes in a tournament bracket covers what a bye does to your schedule.