Tournament Time Management

Starting your first game
If you start your first game a little after the tournament starts, you may avoid some of the pros eager to start on time and could end up instead with a lobby built from early eliminations, which could be less capable players / opponents.

Tournament end time
You can’t start a new game after the end of the tournament window, but you can continue a game beyond the end of the tournament window as long as it starts within the window. Be aware of this to manage your time and ensure you get as many games as possible/allowed. You may need to drop out of a game early right before the end of the tournament window if you have a game(s) remaining. This could allow you a greater potential of points to be achieved. You’ll need to balance your decision based on how well you’re doing in your current game (loot, medallion(s) you or others have and their location relative to you, your potential for eliminations and maximum placement, etc) vs the risk of starting a new game and possibly being eliminated off initial drop or getting worse loot.

Pushing vs passive and resulting time spent per game
It’s probably no surprise that the longer you survive in a game the longer that game is likely to be for you. If you’re camping for maximum placement every time, your games are likely to be long and you may risk getting all of your allowed games within the time limit. If you’re pushing hard every game, you may risk being eliminated early and running out of games well before the tournament window ends. Finding a balance is important to maximize your number of games allowed and time/points in each game. If you have great loot, or maybe got a few eliminations off drop, it may be a good game to push for elimination points. If you don’t have good loot and didn’t get lucky with some early eliminations, it may be a better game to try to camp and wait out placement points. If much of the lobby is camping or otherwise avoiding fights though, you’ll have to wait a long time to get placement points and this may burn more of your tournament time than you can afford. This may also be a good time to try to push aggressively and risk your own early elimination to make the most of the seconds ticking by.

Points accumulation based on placement
Most tournaments give out points based on placement and these points are often greater than the points coming from eliminations. Unless storm surge damage is in play, placement really does trump eliminations. Many players qualify each time with few kills, but very few qualify without decent placement. Obviously a combination of both is necessary to get to maximum points, but every battle for an elimination comes with a lot of risk to ending your placement progression. In our opinion, placement is king for qualification!

Ensure you get all your games!
Spending too much time in too many games, especially if much of the lobby is playing passively, may result in not getting a lot of points in the game still, AND running out of time to get all your games that are allowed for the tournament. This is a lose-lose situation you need to avoid.

Efficiency within each game
As stated partially in other places, you’ll need to be efficient in each and every game. This means you’ll have to “read the room” and determine if the lobby is generally fighting a lot or if a majority is camping. This will help you determine what approach you need to take to get points QUICKLY. It’s not enough to just get decent points in a game; you also need to ensure that you’re not burning too much time to get them.

Strategy of early exit from a game to ensure you get a final game in before the cutoff
If you’re going to exit from a game early to be able to start a final game before the tournament window ends, make sure you have enough time for a lobby to load! You don’t want to leave your current game too early and miss out on placement points, but you especially don’t want to leave that game early only to NOT get into another game. We recommend leaving around 5 minutes if the tournament is in your geography, and longer if it is further away.