Promotion and relegation
How a cycle ranks each division, picks who moves up and down, and transfers them between tiers.
A cycle is one round of the season between movements. When enough games have been played, the organizer triggers a cycle and the ladder reshuffles: strong players rise, struggling players drop, and every division gets a little more competitive.
What happens in a cycle
- Standings are calculated. Each division is ranked by visible rating — your rating adjusted for any inactivity decay you picked up during the cycle.
- Movers are identified. The bottom of each higher division is marked for relegation; the top of each lower division is marked for promotion. You choose how many slots move at each boundary.
- Start ratings are set. Movers don't reset to zero or parachute in at the top — they step into the rating spot vacated by someone heading the other way. See Start ratings when you move.
- Transfers execute. Everyone moves into their new division and the next cycle begins.
How many move?
The number of promotion and relegation slots per boundary is configurable. The system also protects divisions from emptying out: it will always leave at least one qualifying player in a division, so a small division simply moves fewer people than the configured count.
No-shows: who's eligible to move
You can decide how players who didn't play the most recent session are treated, with two organizer options:
- Promote inactive players? Off by default — someone who sat out the latest session isn't promoted on standing alone; they're held in place.
- Relegate inactive players? On by default — sitting out doesn't shield you from relegation, which keeps no-shows from blocking the players below them. Turn it off to protect inactive players from dropping.
"Played the most recent session" is the same signal the public standings page shows, so what you see previewed is what the cycle does.
Decayed vs defeated
A player can drop a division two ways: by genuinely losing games, or by being inactive long enough that decay pulls their visible standing down. Both land in the lower division with the same start rating — the only difference is that a player relegated purely from inactivity is protected from a second decay-driven drop until they play again, so they don't free-fall through the ladder while away. See Inactivity decay.
Next
See Running a cycle for the organizer's step-by-step.