Hosting a Tournament

Battlesnake tournaments allow you to run your own competitive bracket for your colleagues, students, friends, etc.

When you create a tournament you’ll be provided with a URL to share with your participants, allowing them to enter their Battlesnakes. The tournament itself handles all bracketing, stages, and keep track of wins and losses until a champion is declared.

You shouldn't need any technical expertise to use it. Check out the video below for a full walk-through tournaments.

How many battlesnakes can participate in a tournament?

Tournaments can support 4 to 32 Battlesnakes. We find 16 to be a good sweet spot, in terms of competitiveness and time commitment. If you want to run an event with more than 32 Battlesnakes, you can always create two separate tournaments and run them both indivudally.

How long do tournaments take to run?

That depends highly on the number of developers participating, and how long they've had to develop their Battlesnakes. As a general rule, a typical tournaments with 16 Battlesnakes takes about 60-90 minutes to run.

How do tournament events usually work?

Most groups find it easiest to use the Standard 11x11 Map, with 4 Battlesnakes per match. This is plenty challenging for folks who are building Battlesnakes for the first time.

We recommend at least one full day of Battlesnake development prior to the tournament. Student groups tend to run a tournament over the course of a weekend, similar to a hackathon. Competitions among colleagues tend to happen over a week or so, where developers work on their Battlesnakes throughout the week and then gather on Friday to watch one final tournament.