I’ve just copy/pasted this from my post on my alliance thread, I didn’t want to have to go through it all again.
tl;dr version - You can rank in a PVP with zero points, but you won’t get any rewards.
Yeah I had this happen to me too a couple of tournaments ago. I did not join a late bracket, but at the end I was around 450/500. That means that about 50 other people also did not win their first battle, and did not attempt another battle. I also noticed that I did not receive a reward, but I assumed I had mixed them up for a FB reward.
So, something some people may find interesting…
I’ve often spent a lot of time in the 0 score range of a PvP tourney, up until the last hour or two of the event (even if I joined a long time before.) Even with zero points, I’m usually at worst #460 or so. So, a fairly significant portion of the playerbase sticks around at 0 points for entire events. I always wonder who these people are and what they are doing.
I re-treated to join a bracket for the Cap tourney and didn’t play for several hours. I came back and was truly ranked #500 so YMMV?
Yeah, possibly. I wonder how many people above you also had zero. I know if I retreat out of a battle when I’m at 0, I go to the top of the 0 pile of players (since I apparently ‘tied’ most recently.)
I have a bad habit of forgetting to use health packs before I enter a battle. So, I’ve actually lost my first match of a PVP and PVE event. The PVP loss will place you in a bracket, but the loss in the PvE event won’t.
If I had to hazard a guess, people have dummy accounts that they use to take a quick peek into a bracket to see if any top contenders are near the top. If they see one, they wait for the next bracket. Brackets fill quickly, so I’m not sure how effective it would be.
Or maybe people join a bracket with all their accounts in order to fill the bracket quickly in hopes that a more competitive player will be bumped to the next one.
That’s a really good point. I’ve definitely heard of people checking a bracket ahead of time with dummy accounts (though I question it’s ability to really discern most of the time.)
Do you need to do that? I thought you didn’t get bracketed until you start a game. Can’t you peek at the rewards / leaderboard before you do that?
You can check rewards in PvP events, but you can’t see leaderboards until you win/lose a match and are in that bracket.
So, people (could) take a dummy account, lose a match really quickly and then see the leaderboard to see if the top ten has a bunch of determined people that win often.
You can look at the rewards, but you can’t see what bracket is currently being filled. The “strategy” is really to just join with your dummy account, check if walkyourpath is currently in the top 10, and if he isn’t, then go ahead and join. If he is, then wait an hour and then join.
I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that for every player who takes this game seriously, there are two or three players who are just as likely to play only one or two matches in a PvP (and then go down to 0 after a few defeats) as they are to go for the 300 point reward. f2p games attract some REALLY casual players.
Here’s an example. A previously traumatized individual is finally sick of running into walkyourpath for the fifth time in a row. S/he creates a dummy account, and before joining a bracket with their main account, they join with the dummy. They then check the player bracket to see who’s at the top. The dummy is rank 50 with zero points, and lo and behold… Wyp is already cashing in his event token! S/he then waits 30 minutes for wyp’s bracket to fill up, and joins the next bracket. (Only to end up with reckless)
Yea, I don’t think it’s a very effective strategy. As you cited yourself, you hide low when you first join a bracket and I typically don’t make a push until much after I join a bracket as well. People would never know we are there.
At really low score you don’t loose many points I doubt even noobs with 25 or 50 points get attacked down to 0.
Oh, so that’s why I don’t get anything from Lightning Rounds when I have 0 points, even though I have a rank that would normally give me something (like 70 iso).
Interestingly the new update can give you a little insight into whether your favorite nemesis has entered an event. The top alliances are listed and you can see who is contributing to their point totals. I already was in the hollow point event so I am not sure if you can see it ahead of time, but given that I don’t see walkyourpath adding to S.H.I.E.L.D’s score I assume he hasn’t yet entered 
Oh but he’s going to soon, any minute now, or is he?
True, he (or really any Shield player) could join at any time and squash your dreams. I humbly offer this as an alternative to the methods described above. The insight provided could best be described as foggy, but hey better than nothing right?