So, Pau – who were Pro D2 champions – will be seeded above Agen – who qualified through the Pro D2 play-off. Teams were taken from a league in order of rank and put into a tier. A draw was used to allocate two second seeds to Tier 1; the remaining team went into Tier 2. This allocation indirectly determined which fourth-seeded team entered Tier 2, while the others entered Tier 3. Given the nature of the Qualifying Competition, a competition including developing rugby nations and Italian clubs not competing in the Pro12, Rugby Europe 1 and Rugby Europe 2 were automatically included in Tier 4, despite officially being ranked 1/2 from "that competition". The brackets show each team's seeding and their league (for example, "1 Top 14" indicates the team was seeded 1st from the Top 14). The draw for the Challenge Cup took place on 17 June 2015 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. The following restrictions applied to the draw:  The draw took place on 17 June 2015. Teams will play each other twice, both at home and away, in the group stage, that will begin on weekend of 12/13/14/15 November 2015, and continued through to 21/22/23/24 January 2016, before the pool winners and three best runners-up progressed to the quarter finals. Teams will be awarded competition points, based on match result. Teams receive 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw, 1 attacking bonus point for scoring four or more tries in a match and 1 defensive bonus point for losing a match by seven points or fewer. In the event of a tie between two or more teams, the following tie-breakers will be used, as directed by EPCR:  The eight qualifiers will be ranked according to performance in the pool stages, and competed in the quarter-finals, which will be held on the weekend of 8/9/10 April 2016. The four top seeds will host the quarter-finals against the lower seeds, in a 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 format. The semi-finals will played on the weekend of 22/23/24 April 2016. In lieu of the draw that used to determine the semi-final pairing, EPCR announced that a fixed semi-final bracket would be set in advance, and that home advantage would be awarded to a side based on ""performances by clubs during the pool stages as well as the achievement of a winning a quarter-final match away from home"".