A new pool draw format makes its debut.
September 29, 2026 by Charlie Eisenhood in News
Earlier today on Deep Look, the pool draw for the women’s division pools at Club Nationals took place with a brand new format for 2026.
The Club Guidelines were revised last winter to group teams by rating proximity in the post-Regionals rankings and then randomize within those groupings, rather than creating pots from the ranked order alone. (The full guidelines are below.)
As the #1 ranked team, Washington DC Scandal was guaranteed the #1 seed, and San Francisco Fury finished close enough in rating to Scandal to lock in the #2 seed. The groupings were as follows:
Pot 1: Washington DC Scandal
Pot 2: San Francisco Fury
Pot 3: Boston Brute Squad, Denver Molly Brown
Pot 4: Toronto 6ixers, Seattle Riot
Pot 5: San Francisco Nightlock
Pot 6: San Diego Flipside, New York BENT
Pot 7: Philadelphia Flight, Portland Schwa, Dallas Dimes
Pot 8: Minneapolis Pop
Pot 9: Pittsburgh Parcha, Northampton Starling, Raleigh Phoenix
Adam Goff, the USA Ultimate Foundation Board President and National Club Men’s Director, joined Deep Look to randomly draw the ordering within each pot, yielding the following pools:
Want to watch Club Nationals? Stay tuned for Ultiworld’s livestreaming schedule, which, for the first time, will include every single bracket game from prequarters through finals! More details to come after the Men’s and Mixed pools get finalized next week.
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The full seeding rules are as follows:
- Step one – teams will be placed in power rating order.
- Step two – teams will be divided into six pots determined by the five biggest gaps between teams’ power ratings.
- Step three – if any pot of four or more teams has a power rating difference of 100 or more, that pot will be divided into two pots at the biggest gap between teams’ power ratings.
- Step four – teams in Pot 1 are placed into their pools in Power Rating Order.
- Step five – Any one team pots are assigned their Pool placement.
- Step six – starting with Pot 2 and following in order, draw the spot then the team. Repeat for remaining pots.
- No pool shall have 3 or more teams from one region
