import { Link } from "react-router"; export function meta() { return [ { title: "How To Play - Brackt" }, { name: "description", content: "Learn how to play Brackt and compete in multi-sport fantasy leagues", }, ]; } export default function HowToPlay() { return (
Brackt is a multi-sport fantasy league where you draft athletes and teams across dozens of sports, then watch your roster compete all year long. Here's everything you need to know to get started.
Before the season starts, every participant in your league holds a draft — picking real athletes and teams across a set of sports chosen by your commissioner. Over the following months, those picks compete in their actual seasons. When it's all said and done, whoever earned the most points from their picks wins.
Your league includes a set of sports selected by the commissioner — think NFL, NBA, golf, Formula 1, tennis, and more. Your roster has one dedicated spot for each sport, so you need to draft at least one pick from every sport in the league.
Extra draft rounds beyond the number of sports create{" "} flex spots. Flex picks can come from any sport — great for grabbing a second player in a sport where you see value, or doubling down on a safe bet.
Example:{" "} Your league has 20 sports and 24 draft rounds. That means you fill 20 dedicated sport spots and have 4 flex picks to use however you like.
Points are awarded based on where your picks finish — 1st through 8th. The better they finish, the more you earn. Your commissioner can adjust point values before the draft, but here's what a typical league looks like:
| Finish | Points |
|---|---|
| 1st Place | 100 |
| 2nd Place | 70 |
| 3rd Place | 50 |
| 4th Place | 40 |
| 5th–6th Place | 25 |
| 7th–8th Place | 15 |
If nobody in your league drafted a team that finishes in the top 8, those points aren't awarded to anyone. Drafting rare picks can pay off.
Some sports don't have a single championship — they have multiple major tournaments spread throughout the year. For these sports, players earn{" "} qualifying points (QP) {" "} at each major:
| Major Finish | Qualifying Points |
|---|---|
| 1st | 20 QP |
| 2nd | 14 QP |
| 3rd | 10 QP |
| 4th | 8 QP |
| 5th–6th | 5 QP |
| 7th–8th | 3 QP |
| 9th–12th | 2 QP |
| 13th–16th | 1 QP |
QP don't go straight to your score — they determine the final ranking within that sport. Once all the majors are done, total QP are added up, and whoever's ranked 1st through 8th earns the standard league points. Consistency across majors is the key.
The draft is a snake draft — pick order reverses every round. If you pick last in round 1, you pick first in round 2. No trading picks, and once you make a selection it's yours for the whole season.
{/* Chess Clock */}Most fantasy drafts use a simple countdown: you get X seconds per pick and that's it. Brackt does it differently with a{" "} Fischer increment timer , borrowed from competitive chess.
Every participant starts the draft with a personal time bank. Your clock counts down while it's your turn. When you make a pick,{" "} time is added back {" "} to your bank. Any time you don't use carries over to your next pick.
Pick quickly early on and you'll build up a bigger bank for the later rounds when decisions get harder. Deliberate too long and your bank shrinks. It rewards decisiveness without penalizing you for taking a moment when you really need it.
Before and during the draft you can build a{" "} draft queue{" "} — an ordered list of picks you want to make. When it's your turn, you can pick manually or let your queue guide you.
If your time bank runs out,{" "} autodraft{" "} kicks in automatically. It'll grab the first available pick from your queue. If your queue is empty or everything in it has already been taken, it'll grab from the top of the available player pool. Keep your queue updated and you'll never get stuck with a random pick.
Once the draft ends, your roster is locked. No trades, no waivers, no pickups. Just watch your picks compete across the year and see how your draft decisions play out. Points accumulate as sports seasons wrap up, and standings update in real time.
If there's a tie in the final standings, it's broken by who has more 1st-place finishes. If that's still a tie, it goes to 2nd-place finishes, then 3rd, and so on.
Want the full breakdown? Read the{" "} official rules .
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