List of national tournaments that ended without a championship final

This page lists national championship tournaments that ended with a team "clearing" the field (winning without the need for any final).

Tournaments which used the ACF finals format

• PACE NSC: From 2010 through 2019 and from 2022 onwards. Formats used from 1998 to 2009 guaranteed a final of exactly one game. When the tournament was held online in 2021 after a one-year cancellation due to COVID, the format ended with a double-elimination bracket that guaranteed some sort of final.

• NASAT: From the tournament's inception in 2010 through 2019, and from 2022 onwards. When the tournament was held online in 2021 after a one-year cancellation due to COVID, the format ended with a double-elimination bracket that guaranteed some sort of final.

• NAQT ICT (Division I and Division II): From 2016 onwards, except when the tournament was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID.

• ACF Nationals: In 1994 and from 1996 onwards, except when the tournament was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID.
  • In 1991 and 1993 (the tournament was not held in 1992) the champion was able to win without a final after clearing the field by one game (i.e., the second-place team lost only to the champion and was not entitled to a final.) It is not known whether a final would have been played if the tournament had ended in an outright tie in the standings, or if the tie would have been broken based on a metric such as PPG or head-to-head. Tournaments run as a full round-robin without any additional rounds were a common format in the Southeast at this time.
  • In 1995, the champions of two parallel playoff brackets played a straight two-out-of-three, nonadvantaged final.

• Arguably, all of the double-elimination formats listed below are similar to the ACF-style final in certain key respects: A team which wins all of its games while all other teams have 2+ losses has won the event without the need for futher gameplay, a team which is 1 game ahead of some other team (with or without tiebreaker games being played to determine who that second-place team is) gets an advantaged final of up to two games, and any scenario where there are N teams remaining with exactly one loss reduces to a single-elimination among those teams. The disregarding of all games played before the double elimination bracket begins, and the arrangement of matchups such that records are not directly comparable as in a round-robin, are the key differences, as is the elimination of any possibility of a team with 2+ losses remaining in contention based on the results of matches not involving that team.

Tournaments which have never used the ACF finals format

• NAQT CCCT: Used the old NAQT finals format through 2020. In 2021 and 2022, only an outright tie for first would be played off, and otherwise the top team after the playoffs won the tournament outright. In both years, a team went undefeated to win the tournament without a final.

• NAQT HSNCT: Has used a double-elimination playoff every year it was held except 1999 and 2002, when a round-robin championship pool and the old NAQT finals format were used.

• NAQT SSNCT: Has used a double-elimination playoff every year it was held.

• NAQT MSNCT: Has used a double-elimination playoff every year it was held.

• History Bowl national championship tournaments: Playoff format has always ended with a single-elimination bracket.

• NAC and other bad quizbowl nationals: Some years of the NAC used a double-elimination system for the last few teams remaining; all other known NAC years and all defunct bad quizbowl nationals used a straight single-elimination playoff bracket.

• NTAE: Used a modified single-elimination playoff every year it was held (more than 2 teams played at once and more than 1 team could be eliminated in a given game, but playoff teams progressed through an elimination bracket until a single final game was held, with the winner of that game being the tournament champion; often the elimination bracket consisted solely of two semifinals followed by a final).

List of teams who won without a final at nationals using an ACF finals format

• Chicago at 1999 ACF Nationals
• Chicago at 2007 ACF Nationals
• State College, playing as Team Pennsylvania, at 2010 NASAT
• Team Texas at 2011 NASAT
• Team California at 2012 NASAT
• Team Texas at 2014 NASAT
• Virginia at 2014 ACF Nationals
• Team Illinois at 2016 NASAT
• Detroit Catholic Central at 2017 PACE NSC
• Chicago at 2018 ACF Nationals
• Oxford at 2021 BSQC
• Cornell at 2023 NAQT ICT
• Chicago A at 2024 NAQT ICT

List of teams who won without a final at nationals using a non-ACF finals format

(Winners of playoff formats which were simply single- or double- elimination brackets are not individually listed here)

• Tennessee at 1991 ACF Nationals
• Chicago at 1993 ACF Nationals
• Jefferson at 2021 NAQT CCCT
• Inver Hills at 2022 NAQT CCCT (Cleared the field by 2 and still would have won without a final even if the finals format was ACF)

List of teams who lost only 1 game at a national tournament but did not win the tournament

• Georgia Tech A at 1991 ACF Nationals
• Maryland A at 1993 ACF Nationals
• Maggie Walker A at 2000 PACE NSC
• Thomas Jefferson A at 2004 PACE NSC (Additionally, Thomas Jefferson B was eliminated by losing 1 full game and 1 tiebreaker minimatch at this tournament)
• Santa Fe at 2021 NAQT CCCT
• Numerous teams at tournaments such as NAC and NHBB that use single-elimination playoffs

The single-elimination "final four" format used at PACE NSC from 1998 to 2008 presented up to three games per year in which a team could be immediately knocked out of contention by its first loss (there could be a maximum of two undefeated teams after the playoffs in that format, either of which could lose in the semifinals or finals of the final four). Despite this possibility, the only team to enter the final four undefeated without going on to win the event was 2004 Thomas Jefferson A.

Every year's PACE NSC format has contained the mathematical possibility of a team being eliminated while losing only 1 full game and 1 tiebreaker game over the course of the tournament (including being eliminated in this manner prior to the single-elimination final four used in the 1998-2008 formats). This could happen as the result of a three-way tie at 6-1 in almost any prelim or playoff group in most years' formats. Despite the enormous number of theoretical opportunities for this situation, it has only actually happened once, to Thomas Jefferson B in 2004.

List of teams who went undefeated at a national tournament but did not win the tournament

• Grand Junction went 7-0 and won the single-elimination playoff at the 2000 NAC DC site, but was retroactively disqualified and forbidden from playing at the tournament final four in Los Angeles by the tournament invoking a previously unpublicized rule after the tournament had ended.
• Briarcliff went 8-0 at the JV division of the 2014 NAC DC site, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.
• Altamont went 8-0 at the JV division of the 2015 NAC New Orleans site, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.
• Paideia went 8-0 at the JV division of the 2016 NAC New Orleans site, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.
• Johnson County went 8-0 at the JV division of the 2017 NAC New Orleans site, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.
• Johnson Central went 8-0 at the JV division of the 2018 NAC, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.
• Johnson County Middle went 8-0 at the middle school division of the 2018 NAC, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.
• Winburn went 8-0 at the elementary school division of the 2018 NAC, was not given an opportunity to play further games, and was awarded the #2 spot by being compared to the other site champions using an arbitrary system of made-up points.

• Harvard was initially awarded the 2011 ICT title at 13-0 before they were discovered to have cheated. All of their game results were changed to forfeits. As it is impossible to determine what Harvard's record would have been had they played the tournament legitimately, this is not considered the same kind of "undefeated non-champion" as the above teams.