Documentation

Elobby gives your Discord server its own ranked custom games, then turns them into a story. It hosts lobbies on one live board, auto-balances teams with a Glicko-2 skill rating, moves players into team voice, and runs a full ranked ladder that's yours alone: your own tiers, leaderboard, profiles, and match history.

On top of that sits the broadcast layer: storyline ribbons on standout matches and a weekly recap on every server, plus, on Elobby Pro, seasons with a crowned champion and the season recap that narrates your server's history. You design and configure all of it here on the website.

1. Add the bot. Use the Add to Discord button and invite Elobby to your server (you need Manage Server permission).

2. Run /setup. One command in Discord creates the customs category, channel and voice lobby, then checks its own permissions and tells you if anything is missing. You are live in under two minutes. Fine-tune ranks, hosts and naming on the dashboard whenever you like.

3. Play. Run /custom start in Discord to open your first session.

/custom start posts the live board in your customs channel and opens a session thread plus a Lobby voice channel. Players tap Join(on the board or right inside the voice channel's chat) and hop into the lobby.

The host runs the game from the in-thread Host Controls panel:

• Balance / Shuffle: make the teams (balanced by rating, or random).
• Start Game: begin the game with the teams you made.
• Split VCs: move each team into its own voice channel, and back to the lobby after.
• Ranked or Casual: flip a session to Casual and it plays exactly the same, but the result doesn't count toward the ladder.
• Report the winner and every player's LP updates instantly, posted in the thread. Standout games (a rivalry, a streak, an upset) get a one-line storyline ribbon on the result card. Rematch the same teams or shuffle new ones.
• End Sessionwhen you're done. The board is kept as a record and the voice channels are cleaned up.

Everything updates on the board the moment it happens, including an away tag when someone leaves voice, so the lobby is never out of date. Idle sessions whose voice channels sit empty clean themselves up automatically.

Most inhouse bots ask you to trust their teams. Here is exactly what ours does, so you can decide for yourself.

Balance

Balance does not guess and it does not just sort by rating. It enumerates every possible even split of the lobby, scores each one by how close the two team averages come out, keeps every split within a hair of the best, and then picks one of those at random.

That last step is the part that matters over a long season. A balancer that always returns the single “optimal” answer hands the same ten regulars the same two teams every night. Ours rotates through every split that is just as fair, so the games stay fresh without ever getting lopsided.

Measured against the real balancer, on settled ratings spread around the ladder average. Your mileage moves with your own spread.

New players cannot skew a team

A rating the ladder is not yet sure about gets pulled toward the middle before the maths runs, in proportion to how unsure it is. A 1900-rated player on their first night counts as roughly 1598, and grows into their real weight as the ladder learns them. So one hot streak from a newcomer never anchors a side, and a smurf's first few games cannot quietly stack a team.

Nobody can stack a team

There is no party queue. Everyone joins the lobby solo, and the balancer builds both teams from the whole pool, fresh, every game. A premade five-stack has no way to lock itself onto one side, so the classic inhouse complaint (the same friend group stomping the lobby night after night) cannot happen here by design.

Shuffle

Shuffle ignores ratings completely: a pure random split, for when you want chaos instead of a fair fight. It is there on purpose, right next to Balance, so the choice is always yours and always obvious.

Role games

Pick a game with roles (League, Dota 2, Overwatch 2, Marvel Rivals) and the same two buttons run a stricter version. Roles are assigned first, putting as many people as possible on their main, and only then are the teams split so every side is one of each role. Balance picks the most even of those valid splits; Shuffle picks a random one. A role game will not start off its comp size, so you never get a 4v4 League game with two junglers and no support.

Autofill pays you back

Somebody has to play off-role when picks collide. When it is your turn to take that hit, Elobby remembers: the next game, you get first claim on your main, ahead of everyone else contesting it. So autofill rotates instead of always landing on the same person, and the debt is paid back automatically. Nobody has to police it.

Nothing is hidden

The % WINon every match card is the balancer's own prediction for that exact split, from the same ratings it just used. If a game was close, the card says so before it starts. If someone re-rolls into a stacked split, the card says that too.

Run your ladder in seasons instead of one endless climb. Start a season, set how long it runs, and Elobby handles the rest: a pre-season announcement, a soft rank reset so everyone has a real shot, and a crowned champion with a podium when it ends.

Each season posts a premium start splash and end card, and the top 3 can earn Discord roles: reigning titles that rotate to each new champion, plus permanent badges frozen to that season. Close a season any time with /custom resetladder, or line up the next one with /custom seasonschedule.

This is the part no other ranked bot does, and it's part of Elobby Pro. The season recap reads every game and narrates your server's history: who ruled the ladder, how long their reign lasted, the rivalries, and exactly how each reign ended. When a season closes it becomes a shareable, colourful recap, every card a real player and number.

The weekly recap, by contrast, is free on every server. Each week Elobby posts the week's biggest moments: the top climber, the hottest run, and the biggest upset. Quiet week, nothing posts. Turn it on or off and point it at a channel from the dashboard, or post one on demand with /recap.

Most servers run one game. If yours runs more, Elobby Pro gives each game its own separate ladder: its own ranks and tiers, its own rank roles, its own voice category and customs channel, and its own recap. The channel you run /custom start in decides which ladder the match counts toward.

Admins manage them with /custom leaderboard (add, list, rename, remove). Single-game servers never see any of this, it only appears once you add a second ladder.

On a server's config page you can set:

• Hosts: allow whole roles, or specific members by name, to run and manage customs (besides Manage Server admins).
• Category & customs channel: where the bot creates voice channels, and the text channel each session's thread lives in.
• Channel names: name the Lobby / Team channels. Use {NUMBER} for the session number and {HOST} for the host's name.
• Ranks: design your tiers, each with a minimum rating, a name, your own crest image, and an optional Discord role to grant.
• Seasons: set the length, schedule the next one, and write the announcements.
• Weekly recap: turn it on or off, pick the channel, and set the cadence.

Ranks are yours to design. Create as many tiers as you want, each with a minimum rating, your own name, and your own crest art (a custom image, not an emoji). Every tier can grant a matching Discord role automatically, so a player's rank sits right next to their name.

A hidden Glicko-2 rating drives it all, rising on wins and falling on losses, adjusted for how strong the opponents were. It maps straight to the tier shown on the leaderboard, on profiles, and on every match result card.

Placement. A player's first 5 games are placement games. They show as "Placing" instead of a rank while the ladder learns them, so a lucky early streak can't vault anyone to the top. When they finish, they enter at the rank they earned, but the top two ranks are always earned by climbing the live ladder, never handed out straight from placement.