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Split your list into 6 teams

Six teams suits bigger events: classrooms of 30, summer camp groups, esports leagues, conference workshops.

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Use case

When to use this

With 6 teams you can run two parallel mini-leagues of 3, then a final between the winners. Or seed straight into an 8-team bracket with two byes. The split here is the first step.

How to use it

Step by step

  1. 1

    Paste names

    Plain text from a doc, sheet, or chat.

  2. 2

    Generate 6 teams

    Try 'Animals' for memorable names.

  3. 3

    Build the bracket

    Use the bracket tool with 8 slots — two byes.

Group format suggestion

Two groups of three teams each. Round-robin within the group (3 matches each), top of each group meets in the final. Total: 7 matches. Fits in roughly 90 minutes of casual play.

What 'fair' actually means here

When we say a split is fair we mean two specific things. First, team sizes differ by at most one — never by two — regardless of how the headcount divides. Second, in skill-balanced mode the total rating per team stays within roughly one rating point of the average. Those are mathematical guarantees of the algorithm, not marketing language. If you want to verify, generate the same input twice with different seeds: the per-team totals will land in the same narrow band each time. Pure-random mode trades that balance for surprise — useful when the ratings are noisy or the activity is recreational. Read the full algorithm description on the methodology page if you want the snake-draft maths.

Practical tips before you paste

Three small habits make the output noticeably better. (1) Strip leading numbers and bullets from your list — paste plain names, one per line, so the parser doesn't treat '1. Alex' as a name. (2) If you have ratings, append them after the name with a space, e.g. 'Alex 4'. The generator accepts integers and decimals from 1 to 10. (3) Decide up-front whether absentees should be excluded or kept as ghosts. Excluding gives tighter teams; keeping them lets you swap names back in later without regenerating. The 'Copy as text' button preserves your line order so you can edit and re-paste.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Will 6 teams print on one A4?

Yes — landscape, single page, with a team list on the back.

Is anything sent to your servers?

No. The team generator runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. The names you paste are kept in component memory only and are never transmitted, logged, or persisted unless you explicitly export them. Closing the tab clears the data. See the privacy and methodology pages for the technical detail.

Can I lock specific people onto the same team?

Yes. After generating, click any name to swap it with another, or use drag and drop in the team panel. For one-off groupings (siblings, carpool partners) this is the fastest path. For repeated locks across many regenerations, give the locked group a shared rating that's slightly above average and use balanced mode — they'll cluster together most of the time.

Why do I sometimes get the same split twice?

On very small inputs (under ~10 names) there are only a handful of mathematically distinct splits, so repeats are inevitable. The shuffle is cryptographically random — it's just that the space of valid outputs is small. Either add more names or accept the duplicate; either is fine.

Keep exploring

Related tools & guides

Ready to run your event?

Free forever for basic use. No signup required. The free version really does do the job.

Open team generator Open bracket maker

Want prettier prints? See the optional template pack