The Complete Guide

How GG Anvil
Works

From first login to confirmed match results. Everything a player, leader, or organiser needs to know.

1. Getting Started

1

Accept Privacy & Terms

Your server admin pins a single GG Anvil info bar message — one message, all the buttons you'll ever need. Click Launch Portal. Discord auth identifies you and loads your exact session. First time? You'll see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Click "I Agree" — a one-time step required by South Africa's POPIA regulations. You won't see it again.

2

Get Your Portal Link

After consenting, you get a personal, encrypted link to the GG Anvil Portal. This link is tied to your Discord account and expires based on your role (15 minutes for players, longer for admins). Don't share it.

3

Claim Your Seat

Your clan leader or org admin has set up the roster. Find your clan, match your gamertag (like YourName#1234), and claim your seat. Once approved, you're in — stats start tracking from your first match.

2. The Role System

GG Anvil has layered roles at the platform, organisation, competition, and clan level. Each level scopes what you can see and do.

Org Owner

Runs the league. Full control over billing, members, competitions, and branding. The person who signs up and pays.

  • - Create & manage competitions
  • - Manage billing, credits & payments
  • - Invite admins & members
  • - Upload org branding & assets

Comp Admin

The day-to-day operator. Handles match disputes, manages clans, creates matches, and controls competition stages.

  • - Create & schedule matches
  • - Override scores & resolve disputes
  • - Manage clans, seats & rosters
  • - Advance competition stages

Clan Leader

Runs a team. Manages the roster, schedules matches, confirms results, and represents the clan.

  • - Manage roster & approve seat claims
  • - Schedule matches against other clans
  • - Confirm match results
  • - Represent clan in disputes

Player

The core of the platform. Plays matches, submits screenshots, tracks stats, and builds their player card.

  • - Claim seat & join clan
  • - Submit scoreboard screenshots
  • - View stats, standings & player card
  • - Track K/D, wins, and career history

3. Setting Up a Tournament

The portal's Tournament Setup dashboard walks you through every step. Each one works independently — jump in wherever you need.

01

Create Your Organisation

Set your org name, billing email, and Discord server ID. This is your league's home — all competitions, billing, and branding live under it.

02

Create a Competition

Name it, set start/end dates, team size, and game mode ruleset. Choose a CDL preset (Bo3, Bo5) or build a custom mode setup with your own scoring rules, seeding points, and series format.

03

Add Clans

Use the Clan Management page to create clans one by one, or bulk import an entire league from a JSON roster. Each clan gets a leader and ghost seats for every player gamertag.

04

Enrol Clans in the Competition

Pick which clans participate. You can enrol existing clans or auto-enrol when creating new ones. The Clan Management page shows enrolled vs. unenrolled at a glance.

05

Manage Seats

Expand any clan to see its seat table — ghost, pending, and claimed seats. Force-claim seats for players, swap users between seats, or add new ghost seats. All from the Clan Management page.

06

Schedule Matches

Admins can create matches between any two enrolled clans from the Create Match page. Clan leaders can also schedule their own matches from their Leader Panel. Both leaders get a Discord DM with match details.

07

Activate & Go Live

When everything's ready, hit Activate on the Setup dashboard. The competition goes LIVE, matches can begin, and standings start tracking.

4. How Competitions Work

Seeding Stage

Teams play initial rounds to establish skill level. Seeding scores are calculated per game mode each with configurable point values. Higher seeding = higher division placement. Admins set a deadline; after that, rosters lock.

Round Robin

Every team plays every other team. Each match night is a best-of serie across your configured game modes. Results feed into a live standings table, win/loss or score-based, depending on your competition format.

Playoffs

Top teams advance to elimination brackets. Divisions are auto-generated from seeding standings. Single elimination, highest stakes.

Current Game Modes

GG Anvil ships with CDL 2025 and 2026 presets, or you can build completely custom rulesets.

S&D

Search & Destroy

Round-based. First to 6. Each round won earns seeding points.

HP

Hardpoint

Score-based. First to 250. Your score feeds directly into seeding.

OVR

Overload

Objective-based,Each round won earns seeding points.

Custom modes supported — define your own game types, scoring rules, and seeding point values.

5. Match Night Flow

Here's exactly what happens from match creation to confirmed results.

01

Match Created

An admin creates the match from the portal, or a clan leader schedules it from the Leader Panel. Both leaders get a Discord DM with a match card — opponent, modes, and a direct portal link.

02

Play Your Games

Jump into your game modes in order. Screenshot the scoreboard after each one. The series format tells you which modes to play and in what order.

03

Submit Screenshots

Open the portal. If you owe screenshots, Anvil locks you out of everything else — no browsing standings or stats until you submit. Upload your scoreboard screenshot for each mode. The AI takes it from here.

04

AI Reads the Scoreboard

Anvil's OCR pipeline verifies it's a real scoreboard, preprocesses the image, extracts scores and player stats, validates against the registered roster, and posts results. About 60 seconds, fully automated.

05

Leaders Confirm

Both clan leaders review the extracted scores in the portal. When both confirm, the match locks as CONFIRMED. Disagreement? The admin resolves the dispute — or forces a winner/void.

06

Standings Update

Confirmed results feed into standings immediately. K/D ratios, win rates, seeding points, and player cards all update in real time. Everyone sees the impact instantly.

6. Clans & the Seat System

Ghost Seats

Anvil uses a unique seat system. Admins populate full rosters from gamertag lists or bulk JSON imports — even before players join the platform. These "ghost seats" are gamertags with no linked Discord account. When a real player arrives, they claim their ghost seat by matching their gamertag. Their leader approves, and the seat goes live.

This means a 40-player league can have every roster populated from day one. Players just show up and claim their spots.

Clan Management

The portal's dedicated Clan Management page gives admins full control: create clans, enrol them in competitions, expand any clan to see its seat table, force-claim ghost seats, swap users between seats, and bulk import entire rosters. Filter by competition to see exactly who's enrolled where.

Seat Statuses

  • GHOST — Gamertag only, no player linked
  • PENDING — A player claimed it, awaiting leader approval
  • CLAIMED — Linked to a real Discord user, fully active

Leadership

Each clan has one leader. Leaders confirm match results, manage the roster, and schedule matches. If a clan has no leader, players can submit a leadership claim. Admins can also force-transfer leadership.

7. AI Score Capture

How It Works

Upload a screenshot. Anvil's AI pipeline reads it, extracts every score, and posts the results — in about 3 seconds. No manual data entry. No spreadsheets.

1

Image Verification

AI verifies the upload is a real game scoreboard — not a menu screen, selfie, or random photo. Non-scoreboards are rejected automatically.

2

Score Extraction

AI vision models read the scoreboard and extract team scores, individual stats (kills, deaths, objectives), and player names. Handles glare, angles, and phone photos.

3

Roster Matching

Extracted player names are fuzzy-matched against the registered roster. Fixes common reading errors by comparing against known gamertags in the competition.

4

Validation & Anti-Cheat

Scores are checked against expected ranges. Player identities are verified against the submitter's account. Cross-verified against the opposing team's submission when available.

5

Results Posted

Verified scores are posted to the match. Player stats, K/D ratios, and career records all update automatically.

Standard Tier

1 credit per submission. AI vision analysis with full scoreboard extraction, roster matching, and validation.

Default for org members with credits.

Premium Tier

5 credits per submission. Higher-accuracy AI model for difficult screenshots — heavy glare, low resolution, or complex layouts.

Available when you need the extra accuracy.

Screenshot Tips

  • - Use a direct screenshot (Share button / Print Screen) — not a phone photo of your screen
  • - Make sure the full scoreboard is visible — don't crop out player names or scores
  • - Avoid screenshots with overlays, notifications, or party chat covering the scoreboard
  • - If using a phone photo, keep it straight-on with minimal glare
  • - PNG or JPG, maximum 10MB per image

8. Discord Integration

GG Anvil is Discord-native. Your community stays in Discord — Anvil meets them there.

The Info Bar — Your Front Door

Forget slash commands. A server admin sends one pinned message — the GG Anvil info bar — with every button anyone in the server will ever need. Click a button, Discord auth identifies you, and your exact role-aware session loads instantly. No typing, no memorising commands.

Launch Portal

Personal, secure, role-aware link. Includes POPIA consent on first use. Front door for every user.

Marshal Panel

Admin hub embed — view competitions, standings, and clan summaries without leaving Discord.

Create Clan

Spin up a new clan directly from Discord. You become the leader.

Update Profile

Edit your gamertag or profile info without opening the portal.

Automated Notifications

  • - Match DMs — Both leaders get a DM when a match is created, with opponent details and a portal link
  • - Submission Takeover — Players who owe screenshots get locked out of the portal until they submit
  • - Contact Replies — Messages from the website contact form go to founders via Discord DM, with reply buttons
  • - Admin Alerts — Deletion requests, disputes, and flags notify founders via DM

9. For Tournament Organisers

Running a league, community comp, or branded tournament? Here's the full picture.

The Portal — Your Control Centre

Tournament Setup

Step-by-step dashboard: org → comp → clans → seats → matches → activate. Jump to any step.

Clan Management

Create clans, manage seats, enrol in competitions, bulk import rosters. All in one page.

Admin Panel

Disputes, flags, stage controls, credits, leadership transfers, OCR testing lab.

Organisations

Billing, members, competition requests, branding, role management.

Asset Manager

Upload org logos, banners, and clan branding. Allocate storage per org.

Activity Log

Full audit trail of every action — who did what, when, and to whom.

Why Organisations Choose Anvil

  • - Discord-native — no separate app. Runs in your existing server.
  • - Custom branding — your logos and colours throughout the experience
  • - Scales — from 4-team scrims to 50+ team national leagues
  • - AI automation — score capture, roster matching, result confirmation
  • - Custom game modes — not locked to CDL. Build any ruleset.
  • - Regional pricing — ZAR billing via Paystack, international via Stripe
  • - Zero downloads — players click the pinned info bar button and they're in
  • - POPIA compliant — consent, data export, deletion rights, all built in

10. Privacy & Your Data

GG Anvil is fully compliant with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Here's what that means for you:

  • Consent first — You explicitly agree to our Privacy Policy before accessing the platform. No sneaky defaults.
  • Data export — You can download all your personal data at any time from the portal. Structured JSON format.
  • Right to deletion — Request account deletion from the portal. We anonymise your data and remove your profile.
  • Secure storage — Your data lives on encrypted servers in the EU. Screenshots auto-delete after 7 days.
  • No tracking — No cookies, no analytics, no ad networks. We don't sell or share your data.
  • Transparent — Our Privacy Policy details exactly what we collect, why, and who sees it.

Ready?

Get in touch and we'll have your league running in 24 hours.