Manage Schedule Phases

Phases organize the schedule. They decide where games belong and which scheduling tools are available.

Every league has one permanent, system-managed Match Games bucket. It stays outside the competition phase list and is always available for friendly, immediate, or undecided games. Match Games do not affect official competition standings or aggregate player statistics unless they are assigned to an eligible competition phase later.

When to manage phases

Open Manage phases before scheduling when:

• The league needs a regular season plus playoffs.
• Teams are split into groups.
• You need finals, semifinals, series, or classification games.
• A scheduling method is missing from the scheduling hub.
• You need to change a phase from Draft to Active before publishing games.

Quick setup

Use Quick setup when a season template matches your league structure. A template can create a ready-made phase plan faster than building each phase manually.

After selecting a template, review the current phase preview before applying it.

Template availability uses the league's current team count:

• Group Stage + Top 4 Playoffs requires 6–12 teams.
• Group Stage + Top 8 Playoffs requires 8–12 teams. It uses two groups and advances four teams from each group into the quarterfinals.
• Ineligible templates remain visible with a reason.
• When no competition phases exist, the app can recommend an eligible template using the team count, season dates, and projected workload.

Fixed templates are applied as defined. LeagueFlow does not silently restructure them for a different team count.

Advanced custom

Use Advanced custom when the league needs a specific phase setup.

You can create phases, rename phases, change phase type, change phase status, reorder phases, save phase changes, and delete empty phases when allowed.

Common phase types:

• Custom: flexible structure that does not fit the built-in formats.
• Matchup games: simple manual scheduling.
• Round robin: broad opponent rotation for a regular season or league stage.
• Group stage: teams are split into smaller groups.
• Knockout: bracket-style elimination path.
• Series: repeated games between the same teams.
• Classification: placement games such as third place.
• Legacy playoff series: older playoff series format kept for existing league setups.

Matchup games is also available as a competition phase type for manually planned games. It is separate from the permanent non-competition Match Games bucket.

Custom group stages

Custom group-stage planning uses the current registered-team count. The form shows balanced options with 3–6 teams per group and recommends the option closest to four teams per group. Fewer than six registered teams blocks custom group-stage creation.

The saved group count is a plan. Use Manage Groups to create or redistribute the actual groups before games exist. Fixture generation checks the current assignments again.

Qualification from a group stage

A custom Series phase can qualify the same number of teams from every group or use a combined Top 8.

Combined Top 8 requires at least eight assigned teams, equal-sized groups, and all configured group results to be final. LeagueFlow ranks the assigned teams together and uses seeded 1–8 quarterfinal pairing.

Status matters

Use Draft for phases that are not ready. Use Active for phases where games may be published. Use Completed when that part of the league is finished.

Related guides

• Create a schedule
• Use schedule generators
• Generate playoff, bracket and placement games
• Review and publish a schedule