Egej Vencelj Senior software engineer

Projects / FairPair

FairPair

A web app that runs competitive Commander (Magic: The Gathering) tournaments, live at fairpair.gg. I started it, and it has grown into a small team. I wrote the live side: the stream overlay, its phone remote and the life-total sync. Its pairings come from EDH Matchmaker, the Swiss engine I started in 2018.

FairPair running locally with demo data: the organiser's round view on a laptop, the stream controls and the table's life counter on two phones.
Fig. 1 FairPair running locally with demo data: the organiser's round view on a laptop, the stream controls and the table's life counter on two phones.

A whole Commander event runs on it from the players' phones: sign-up with decklists, Swiss rounds, judges' notes, standings and the top cut. I also play competitive Commander, 4th of 315 at the 2025 European Championship. I work with judges and tournament organisers on clearer rulings and on transparent matchmaking, which players want as well.

The team. I started it, and it has grown into a small team. I hold most of the product knowledge. My own code is the live side, for streams.

The pairing engine: EDH Matchmaker. Pairings at our local tournaments were drawn from a hat, so in 2018 I wrote my own Swiss pairing engine. Ordinary Swiss software pairs people two at a time, but Commander is played four to a table. My small script grew into a fully fledged PyQt tournament manager. The core powers FairPair today. The cEDH European Championship's multiplayer rules addendum lists it first among the tools for the pairing it recommends.

Tests. There are about as many lines of tests as of engine, and they run on every push. I play the format in tournaments myself, so the tiebreakers come from the player's side.

The stream overlay over a table surface: four players with commander art around the camera, standings, the round's tables and a timer.
Fig. 2 The stream overlay, over a stand-in for the table camera.
The organiser's view of round 2: pods, round timer and reporting controls.
Fig. 3 The organiser's round view.
A player's profile with events, win rate, top cuts and recent tournaments.
Fig. 4 A player's history across events.
Phone: stream layout presets and the featured table.
Fig. 5 Stream control from a phone.
Phone: a four-player life counter with commander art.
Fig. 6 The table's life counter, synced to the overlay.
Phone: a player's seat and table for the round.
Fig. 7 A player's view of their pod.
Phone: a judge's view of the round's pairings.
Fig. 8 Judges work from their phones too.
Large-screen pairings board with three tables and a QR code to follow live.
Fig. 9 Pairings for the venue's big screen.
EDH Matchmaker after three rounds of a 24-player event: the ranked player list and six four-player pods for round four.
Fig. 10 EDH Matchmaker, the desktop app, after three rounds of a 24-player event.

Shots taken from a local build of FairPair with its own invented test data (every name is made up), not from the live site. EDH Matchmaker: screenshots from the current version, run locally with invented players.