How to Run a King of the Hill Tournament

In this article, I will discuss how to run a successful King of the Hill Tournament. I will show you the various ways you can set up your tournament and set the custom sizes of elimination. The King of the Hill Tournament is an open competition style used primarily in Free for All game modes (FFA).  A portion of the top scoring players each round in a bracket advance until the final number of players remain. The last bracket of players then play for the finals. The number of bracketed rounds is dependent on the size of the elimination curve you set for the matches in the begining.

For example, lets say you have 32 players join a King of the Hill Tournament that will feature games with 8 player slots per game.  If you have the top 4 advance per round, you will have 4 games of 8 for the first round, 2 games of 8 for the 2nd round and 1 game of 8 for the finals.  I think eight is just an easy number to work with. You can also make 16 player slot games, with the top 8, 4 or even 2 that advance. The more players that are allowed to compete on a server, the larger the scores become because of the additional targets. The lower the number of top players that are allowed to advance in the tournament, due to large cuts, will make the tournament go faster. Faster isn’t the goal of any tournament. The tournament should provide a compelling experience for all players taking a decent amount of time.

Here is an pictorial example of 64 player tournament divided into 4 groups of 16.  The winners will be  determined in the 2nd round which could be the finals if you designate it that way.

As you can see, the King of the Hill Tournament is an excellent choice when dealing with a large volume of players.  You have flexibility in many areas in customizing your tournament to gain maximum potential while fulfilling a positive experience to the sponsor and players.

What games do you play that would be a good candidate for this type of tournament? Please let me know in comments.

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