Fortnite tournament tiebreaker decided by coin flip

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"We aren't big fans of having to rely on a coin flip for this," an Epic employee said.

The final qualifying round of Fortnite's Summer Skirmish tournament came to a halt yesterday after two players, Colton and The_Real_Cryohme, tied in every possible way. Only 33 players from each qualifying group can advance to the final round, with every qualifier earning at least $5,000 and a shot at up to $225,000 in the finals. This put Colton and Cryohme, who tied for last place, in a tough spot. To resolve the dead heat, Epic relied on the oldest tiebreaker in the book: a coin toss. In the end, luck favored Cryohme, so Colton lost his spot in the finals. You can watch the coin toss below:

Epic esports designer Colin "SkyzYn" Fogle explained the awkward situation on Reddit. "We’ve been using this order for tiebreakers throughout all of Summer Skirmish, across a variety of formats," Fogle said. "The order is as follows: Total Points, # Victory Royales, Total # Eliminations, Average Placement, Coin Flip. We’ve communicated this tiebreaker order repeatedly through both broadcast, Summer Skirmish posts and rulesets, and verbally in briefings to competitors here at the PAX West Summer Skirmish event this weekend. It’s well known what the rules are in the event of a tie.

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"Both players incredibly managed to tie in all scenarios, all the way down to average placement. This scenario is unprecedented and has not occurred in any week of Summer Skirmish to date. While we do have a 100th player spot open tomorrow (live spectator which we are using at this event does not take a spectator or admin slot), the rules are clear in this case what is to be done - coin flip breaks the tie. Advancing the tied player after the coin flip would be unfair to all the other 34th place players through the week and against our own rulebook."

Fogle also said they "aren't big fans of having to rely on a coin flip for this" and are investigating alternative tiebreakers.

For his part, Colton had this to say on Twitter: 

Thanks, Kotaku.  

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Staff writer, GamesRadar

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.