Match day

A league match is a best-of-five under Proleague rules: games 1–4 field four different players; only game 5 — the ace match, played only at 2–2 — may repeat one. If you leave the ace unset, your top-rated player steps up; leave any slot blank and the coach rotates sensibly (your roster order leads the rotation — arrange it from the Team page).

Set lineups from Team → Matches or the fixture page itself. Lineups can be changed any time before the match plays; a player you've sold or released simply falls out and the coach covers the slot.

The middle phase of every league season — and any challenge or cup that chooses it — plays KOF, winner-stays: you submit an ordered four, the winner of each game stays on stage, and the losing side sends its next player. First to four wins takes the match. You cannot pick players for specific maps — the stage decides who is standing when each ground comes up — but the battleground order is announced on the prep page, so you know what your opening man will fight on.

One hot hand can all-kill an entire team — but fatigue builds with every consecutive game on stage, so the longer the streak, the more beatable the man. A deep bench can absorb an all-kill run and break it late; order is everything.

Every upcoming match has a fixture page, your prep room: the maps are announced in advance, each with its stat profile (rush distance, resources, complexity, spawns) and its live matchup win rates from every game ever played on it. Pick your player per map — a raider on a complex map, a defender on a rushy one.

Below the maps sits the scout's desk: the opponent's roster with ratings, their recent form, your all-time head-to-head, and the analysts' notes — including a warning when one of theirs is running on fumes.

Match days play out live: the day's matches kick off together and each game's battle report unrolls at a steady pace, with a LIVE badge on the fixture lists and a "N LIVE NOW" pulse in the briefing bar. The score stays sealed until full time — and so does the league table, which only moves when the broadcast ends. Nothing on the site will spoil a match you're watching.

The live board shows the announced maps and regulation pairings from kickoff; the ace slot stays sealed until the decider actually starts (or is marked "not needed" when the sweep ends early). Each set carries a live army-strength bar and a chart drawing itself as the report unrolls — green for the left side, violet for the right, so you always know who's leading.

The commentary itself comes in two voices: the modern broadcast voice, or the classic 2013 text the original game spoke. The 🎙 toggle on any match page switches between them — your choice is remembered.

Every game ever played keeps its full battle report: a play-by-play with a game clock, phase markers (early / mid / late game), momentum commentary on who's ahead, highlighted decisive moments, and the army-value chart. Starleague duels, league games, friendlies, amateur fixtures — all of it, forever.

Match pages also show per-game rating changes, the series score as it ran, and the clubs' (or players') head-to-head history. Old matches replay in the exact voice of the engine that played them — history is never rewritten.

Every battleground has a page: the map itself in picture, its stat profile, its live per-matchup record (TvZ, TvP, ZvP) from every game on it, and its recent games. Fixture pages link straight to them. Read the pool before you commit a lineup — the map is the third player in every game.

A map carries three numbers that matter, each running 0–100. Fifty is neutral in all of them — a 50/50/50 map favours nobody and nothing. Everything below is about how far a map leans from that centre.

In one line each: rush distance decides how early armies commit (and is the number that leans a matchup hardest), resources decides how long the game runs and how much a macro game can compound, and complexity feeds the raid-and-read game — harassment against scouting. Spawn count is character, not tactics. Check rush first when picking a player for a map, and trust the live per-matchup record printed on every map page over any theory.

The full doctrine — what each attribute rewards, which matchups lean where, why the extremes are deliberate, and how the season pools are curated so the whole portfolio stays fair — lives on the Balance page, under "The maps are the balance". Browse the maps directory for every battleground's profile and live record.

Official play (league, playoffs, Starleague) moves Elo — overall and per-matchup — experience, condition and team confidence, and pays sponsor win bonuses. Exhibitions (friendlies, sparring, community cups) produce full reports and move nothing. A match's consequences land when its broadcast ends — never before.