Rules

One bracket per email. Pick the winner of every knockout match, score points as games finish, and climb the leaderboard.

The bracket

The FIFA World Cup 2026 knockout stage: Round of 32 (16 matches) → Round of 16 (8) → Quarterfinals (4) → Semifinals (2) → the Final, plus a Third-place playoff between the two semifinal losers. You pick a winner for all 32 matches.

Scoring

Each correct pick earns points, and they climb every round — so picking the champion is worth the most:

Round of 32	1 pt each
Round of 16	2 pts each
Quarterfinals	3 pts each
Semifinals	4 pts each
Final (the champion)	5 pts
Third-place playoff	3 pts
Perfect bracket	60 pts

A pick scores only if your predicted winner actually wins that match. If a team you advanced loses earlier, it can't win the later matches you placed it in — those picks just score 0 (no penalty, no points).

What makes a bracket valid

Each Round-of-32 pick must be one of that match's two real teams.
Every later pick must be a team you advanced into that match — a winner you already picked in one of its two feeder matches.
Your third-place pick must be one of the two teams you have losing the semifinals.

Brackets that break these are rejected on submission, so you always end up with one consistent path per team.

The leaderboard

Each entrant shows points earned out of their ceiling (earned / still possible) — the most they can still reach with teams not yet eliminated — plus picks played / won / lost and whether their predicted champion is still alive. Tiebreakers, in order: total points, then most correct in higher rounds (Final, then Semifinals, Quarterfinals, Round of 16, third place, Round of 32), then highest ceiling, then earliest submission.

How to enter

One bracket per email. Three ways, all free:

Let AI do it — open Build with AI, copy the prompt into Claude or ChatGPT, and it fills out and submits your bracket.
Build it yourself — use the private builder link in your welcome email (click a team to advance it).
Email a bracket — send your picks as JSON to worldcup@agentmail.to from your AgentMail inbox.

You can re-submit any time before lock to change your picks — the latest one counts.

Lock & reveal

Picks lock when the Round of 32 kicks off. After that there are no more edits, and everyone's brackets become public on the leaderboard. Before lock, brackets stay private (so nobody can copy a strong one) and you appear under a public handle, never your email.