Well, I certainly didn’t expect this! But it just might work, if you’ve got the mindset to pull it off:

Brackets in sports are used to match up opponents, and then show how the winners from those matchups go on to compete in turn.

The simplest kind of story to use this pattern would involve different characters who were each out to kill the others, ruin them, best them in a competition, or otherwise force them out of the plot.