THURSDAY ARENA

A match is best of three rounds. Each round has two parts: a shop, where you spend tokens on bots and food, and then an auto battle against an opponent's board. The first side to win two rounds wins the match. If no side has two wins after round three, the side with more round wins is the winner. An equal count is a draw.

Your team has up to 3 bots. The bots that you buy stay on your board between rounds, and so do their permanent stat gains. Temporary boosts, such as Potato, reset after each battle.

• Each shop gives you 10 tokens. Tokens that you do not spend do not go to the next round.
• The shop shows 3 bot offers and one food. Bots cost 3 tokens or more, and rarer bots cost more (see the table below).
• Reroll costs 1 token and replaces every offer and the food. Freeze an offer to keep it after a reroll and in your next shop.
• Selling a bot refunds 1 token and fires that bot's sell ability, if it has one.
• Move bots left and right to set your battle order. The leftmost bot fights first.
• You need at least one bot on the board to end the shop and start the fight.

Legendary bots are in the shop from season 2. The shop offers each legendary bot half as often as each other bot.

Each bot has a kit: a trigger, such as Buy, Sell, Start of battle, Before attack, Faint, or Knock out, and the effect of that trigger. The Bots page lists every bot and its kit.

Each shop offers one food. Feeding it to a bot costs 3 tokens.

• Apple: +1 attack and +1 health, permanently.
• Honey: when that bot faints, it summons a 1/1 Drone in its place.
• Potato: +2 attack for this round only. Potato is in the shop from turn 2.
• Honey and Potato replace each other on one bot. A bot cannot take a second copy of the same boost, and the try costs nothing. Apple stacks with all other food.

Battles are automatic. Start-of-battle kits fire first. Then the two front bots hit each other at the same time, and each takes damage equal to the attack of the other bot. A bot at zero health faints, its faint kit fires, and the next bot moves to the front. Before-attack, knock-out, and friend-ahead-attacks kits fire when their trigger happens.

A side with no bots left loses the round. If both sides lose their last bot in the same exchange, the round is a draw. After 40 exchanges the fight stops, and the side with more total health wins. If the health is equal, the side with more total attack wins. If the attack is also equal, the round is a draw.

From season 2, each match gets three random seat rules: one for the front seat, one for the middle seat, and one for the back seat. The round 1 shop shows the front rule, round 2 adds the middle rule, and round 3 adds the back rule. After a rule shows, it stays on for the rest of the match.

A rule applies to the bot in its seat on both teams. The front seat is the leftmost bot, the middle seat is the second bot, and the back seat is the last bot. So with fewer than three bots, one bot can be in two seats. Start-of-battle rules apply before any kit fires, from front to back, your side first.

• Anyone can practice without an account. Practice matches are against an AI board and do not change your rating.
• Sign in with X to play rated matches. When you end a shop, the game saves your board as a snapshot. Then you fight the snapshot of another player at the same round, the one closest to your aim. That opponent is your ghost.
• Your aim is your rating plus 23. Attackers win a little more often than equal ratings say, so a board at your aim gives you an even chance. Your last 10 rated results move your aim: after more wins than losses it goes up, and after more losses than wins it goes down, by at most 70 points. Your rating change still comes from your rating and your ghost's rating, so a higher board gives more points for a win and takes fewer for a loss.
• The game looks at every saved board for your round. It uses the first of these ranges that has a board: within 100 rating points of your aim, within 200, within 400, and then any rating. In that range, a board that you have not fought comes before a board that you have fought, and then the closest rating comes first.
• When one player was your ghost in 10 of your last 50 rated matches, the game takes a board of another player first, from any range. A board more than 400 rating points above your aim comes last.
• After the game picks your ghost, you fight the boards of that same player in the later rounds of the match.
• If no ghost is available for your round, you fight an AI board, and the match is unrated. The result screen shows this.

Each player starts a season at 1000 Elo. A rated match changes your rating by standard Elo with a K factor of 32. A win against a higher-rated ghost gives more points, a loss against a lower-rated ghost takes more points, and a draw counts as half a win. Your rating changes as soon as the match has a result, so if you leave after you lose the last fight, the loss still counts.

Your ghost counts too. When another player fights your board, your rating goes up when your ghost wins and down when it loses, with a K factor of 16, if the two ratings are within 400 points. Attackers win a little more often than equal ratings say, so the expected score gives the attacker 23 extra rating points. So an average match moves the ladder by almost nothing.

From season 2, SuperGrok is a title for one player: the #1 player of the ladder, when their rating is 1700 or more.

The leaderboard shows the top 100 players of the current season by rating. Each season has its own ratings, and each new season starts every player at 1000.