Team & Multiplayer Play

Most competitions pit one player against one. A few change who — or what — sits on each side: you might enter as a pair, pilot two fighters at once, or share a single game with three other players. This page covers what each of those feels like from your side of the table. Organizers can find the setup instructions in Stages & Formats.

2v2 competitions

In a 2v2 competition, an entry is a pair of players who share one game against another pair. Standings track the pair, not the two of you separately.

Joining as a pair

Nobody is put into a pair without agreeing to it. One of you registers first and becomes the pair's captain; the other is invited and has to accept.

If you're the captain: register as normal, then look for your pair's card on the competition page. It shows the pair's name, a members badge (1/2 members until your partner joins, 2/2 complete afterwards), and a search box. Search by name or username, then hit Invite on the right person. A player who has already entered the competition on their own shows Already entered instead of an invite button — they can't be pulled into your pair.

While an invitation is outstanding it's listed above the search box with a Cancel button, so you can withdraw it and invite someone else.

If you're the one invited: open the competition page and you'll see a Party invitation banner naming who invited you and which pair you'd be joining, plus any message they added. Choose Accept & join or Decline.

Declining a pair invitation is not permanent — if you turn one down by mistake, your captain can simply send it again. (This is different from a competition invitation, which is permanent once declined — see Invitations & Unlisted Events.)

Reporting a 2v2 match

A 2v2 match has two sides, and reporting works the way a 1v1 does: one report covers the whole match, with each of the four players' fighters recorded on it. There's no separate partner sign-off — one report speaks for the pair. In a game system that tracks health, each of the four players also needs an ending health before the game can be submitted — see Ending health in Match Reporting.

How the result is finalized after that depends on the competition's verification setting. Where the competition finalizes results automatically, reporting is the last step. Where confirmation is required, the result is held as awaiting confirmation and the other pair is asked to confirm it — either of them can, and whichever one gets there first finalizes it for both. They can also send it back for correction, which returns it to the pair who reported so they can fix and resubmit.

Confirming is the other pair's call, so the partner of whoever reported won't see a confirm button — from their side the match simply reads as awaiting confirmation. If the other pair never responds, your organizer can still resolve it from the manage area.

What works differently in a 2v2

A few things behave differently, by design rather than by oversight:

| Area | What to expect | | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Ratings and fighter stats | Neither is produced. A shared game can't be attributed to one partner, so those pages stay empty for 2v2 events | | Proposing times / availability | The scheduling section doesn't appear on a 2v2 match. Proposals, polls and mutual availability are built around two people, so a 2v2 is scheduled by the organizer | | Drafts | Not available. Fighters are recorded when you report the result | | Per-game fighter list | Shows two of the four fighters. The match scoreboard and the standings are correct for the pair — only that one breakdown isn't split by side yet | | Forfeiting | You can't record a 2v2 forfeit yourself. Ask your organizer, who can record it for the pair |

Playing a one-off 2v2 outside a competition works differently and has none of these limits — see Quick 2v2 Team Game in Match Reporting.

Double-handed play

In a double-handed match each player pilots two fighters at once: four fighters on the board, but still one player against one player. Your organizer turns this on for the whole competition, so every match in it is double-handed.

Reporting a double-handed game

Each game asks for four fighters — two for you, two for your opponent — plus who went first and each fighter's ending health. Unlike a 1v1, a double-handed game doesn't ask who held the advantage.

In a game system that tracks health, all four healths are required — the health lives per fighter here rather than per player, so each of the four boxes has to be filled before the game can be submitted. See Ending health in Match Reporting for the full rule.

Two rules narrow the fighter lists as you fill them in:

• Your own two fighters must be different from each other. Once you pick one, it drops out of your other slot.
• In game systems where a mirror match isn't possible — Unmatched, for example, where every hero is unique — all four must be different. Your opponent's choices drop out of your lists too.

If your competition uses a pre-match roster or draft, the fighter dropdowns narrow to the fighters you declared there. Otherwise you pick from the competition's whole pool.

Ratings

Because it's still one human against one human, a double-handed match in a rated competition counts toward your normal 1v1 rating — there's no partner to muddy who won. Fighter and character statistics stay closed for this format for now.

Friendlies are a different matter: as with every casual game, a friendly double-handed match doesn't move anyone's rating. You can log one from Quick Double-Handed Game — see Match Reporting.

Blitz pods

A Blitz pod is a single game with up to four players all playing against each other, inside an elimination bracket. Only the pod winner advances; everyone else is out. A pod is always one game — there's no best-of-three in a pod.

Pods aren't always full. Depending on how many people entered, your pod might hold two, three, or four players. A pod of two is still a real match, not a bye.

Recording what you brought

Some Blitz stages collect a pod roster — the fighters each player brought to the table — before the result is reported. When your organizer has switched it on you'll see a Pod roster step in the reporting flow, labelled with how many fighters each player records and whether it's Required or Optional:

• Optional — you can fill it in, or press Skip for now and go straight to the result.
• Required — the result can't be reported until every player in the pod has their fighters recorded. The step tells you how many of the pod are done.

The roster is what each player brought, not what they played; who actually won is entered on the next step. Two players in the same pod may bring the same fighter, except in game systems where a mirror match isn't possible.

Reporting a pod

A pod must finish with exactly one winner — there are no ties for first in a bracket. Two ways to record it:

1. Who won? — tap the winner. One tap records them as first and eliminates everyone else. This is the fastest option at a live event and is what most pods need.
2. Full finishing order — tap the players in the order they finished, first to last. Each gets a numbered badge; tap a badge again to undo it.

In a game system that tracks health, each seat also carries an Ending HP box, and every one of them has to be filled before the pod can be reported. In a system that doesn't track health, the boxes aren't shown at all.

Like any free-for-all, any one player other than the reporter can confirm the result, and that finalizes it for the whole pod.

If a pod somehow ends with no winner at all — everyone forfeits, say — it completes without advancing anyone, and your organizer reopens or resets it to sort things out.

Ratings

No pod match affects anyone's rating, at any size. That includes a two-player pod, which looks like a duel but is still part of a Blitz bracket — rating one pod of a round and not the next would be worse than rating none of them. Fighter and character statistics are also closed for pods.

Free-for-all friendlies

A free-for-all outside a competition — three to five players, ties allowed, finishing order recorded — works a little differently from a bracket pod. See Free-for-all (FFA) games for that flow.