What is Neustadtl Score in DOTA 2?

The Neustadtl Score (also known as the Sonneborn-Berger score) is a tiebreaking system used in chess tournaments and certain esports events. Since it is usually used in events with round-robin formats, it is usually seen in the group stages of DOTA 2 tournaments.

It works by adding the total of the points earned by the participants defeated by the particular player (or team) to half of the points of those they’ve drawn against. The idea is to reward those with more decisive results and who performed better against stronger composition. Occasionally, further tiebreaker methods are required to break the deadlock, but one tiebreaker in DOTA 2 events is usually enough. Using the Neustadtl Score ensures that the well-performing teams get better seeds in the playoffs.

In Swiss-based tournaments, the Buchholz format is usually used, which is meant to mitigate the randomness of unseeded first-round pairings with similar effect.