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PAIRINGS TOOL

Compute the blind-written ceiling for an 8v8 (WTC) or 5v5 (regional and team-open) round — the best total rating one captain could reach if they placed all the pairings themselves, in one shot, with no opponent response. Each cell is a captain's read of a matchup on the five-point scale (−2 to +2) used in WTC prep. The tool finds the assignment-optimal pairing, compares it to alternatives, and tells you how robust the call is to your matchup estimates being off.
This is an upper bound, not a WTC simulation. Real WTC pairings are set across three sequential captain pushes — secret defender, attacker pair, refusal — and no single captain controls the assignment. The ceiling computed here is rarely reachable in practice; the WTC three-push sequential solver that models the actual captain dance is the v1 work.

TEAM A · YOUR TEAM

SELECT N LISTS

MATCHUP MATRIX

CAPTAIN'S READ · WTC-STYLE RATING · ★ = CEILING ASSIGNMENT
↓ TEAM A LISTS TEAM B LISTS →
−2 VERY BAD Strong underdog — need variance to win ≈ 30% win
−1 BAD Underdog — uphill but playable ≈ 40% win
 0 EVEN Coin flip — anyone's game ≈ 50% win
+1 GOOD Favored — should win more often ≈ 60% win
+2 VERY GOOD Strong favorite — should rarely lose ≈ 70% win
► The −2 to +2 scale is how most captains think about matchups. The percentages are an illustrative calibration; in v1 these will be user-editable and tied to empirical aggregator data.

TEAM B · OPPONENT

SELECT N LISTS

OPTIMAL ASSIGNMENT

ASSIGNMENT-OPTIMAL CEILING · BLIND-WRITTEN PROTOCOL
TOTAL MATCHUP RATING
+5/ +8 MAX
Calibrated win-probability sum: 2.50 / 4 (62.5% implied team win rate).

ALTERNATIVES

NEXT BEST · NAIVE · WORST

SENSITIVITY

HOW ROBUST IS THE CALL
SMALLEST FLIP
±1RATING STEP
A single matchup re-rated by this much flips the optimal assignment. Dashed cells are most fragile.
CLASSIFICATION
MODERATELY ROBUST
A robust call holds under reasonable mis-estimation. A brittle one flips on a small rating change.

PAIRING PROTOCOL

LIVE MODE SWITCH · CHANGES WHAT THE TOOL COMPUTES
Blind / Ceiling: the assignment-optimal upper bound — the best total rating one captain could reach if they placed all the pairings themselves, in one shot, with no opponent response. This is the right answer under a true blind-written protocol; under any other protocol, the ceiling is rarely reachable. Hungarian-style optimization against your stated ratings.
► WTC Sequential models the three-push captain dance that real WTC rounds use — secret defender, attacker pair, refusal, repeated three times. 8v8 only. The reading flips: instead of a single best assignment, the tool recommends a Push-1 defender and reports each defender's worst-case round value (RowMin).

PRESETS

FROM THE DECISION ARCHIVE
DECISION AID · NOT DECISION

This tool surfaces what your matchup ratings imply. If your reads are noisy — and pre-event matchup estimates almost always are — the optimal assignment is noisy too. Always read the sensitivity readout. A brittle "optimal" that flips on a single rating step is barely an optimal at all; in real play, a captain with good intuition for the opposing player's style or an information edge will outperform a captain who blindly trusts a math-optimal pairing built on shaky inputs. Use this tool to surface and stress-test your reasoning, not to replace it.