A new pool draw format makes its debut.
October 6, 2026 by Charlie Eisenhood in News
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Earlier today on Deep Look, the pool draw for the mixed 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, New York XIST was guaranteed the #1 seed, and Ann Arbor Hybrid finished close enough in rating to XIST to lock in the #2 seed. The groupings were as follows:
Pot 1: New York XIST
Pot 2: Ann Arbor Hybrid
Pot 3: Boston Slow, Sacramento Tower, Austin Disco Club
Pot 4: Philadelphia AMP, Fort Collins shame., San Francisco Polar Bears
Pot 5: Durham Toro, Pittsburgh Port Authority, Minneapolis Drag’N Thrust, California Burrito, Los Angeles Lotus
Pot 6: Seattle Mixtape, Oregon Scorch, Toronto Union
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 later this 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
