PvP: Ranked, Casual and Friend challenge

Three ways to play against people

Online duel

The fastest way to face another person is the Online duel. It sits on Home and in the Play menu (the golden button in the middle of the phone bar; on a computer, the Online duel item in the side menu). Tap Find a duel and the search starts at once, in Casual mode (no Elo). The switch right above the button, Casual or Ranked, picks the type; it locks while you search.

While searching, the screen shows “Looking for an opponent”, the wait time and Cancel search; when someone is found, the duel opens by itself. It is the same queue as the Ranked screen, which stays as it was.

The Play menu gathers every way to duel: Online duel, Challenge a friend (the Friends screen), Ranked, Honor Duel, Tournaments, Campaign and Crossing.

The queue

Ranked and Casual require a Competitive deck (Collection, decks and Codex): 40 cards, up to 3 copies of each. Both use the same queue, with different search rules:

• Ranked: an opponent within 200 Elo points; for every second you wait, the search widens by 10 points.
• Casual: an opponent of a similar Rank, up to 8 Ranks apart, widening by 1 every 5 seconds; after 30 seconds, any Rank. Elo does not count.
• Region (both): the game first looks for players from your part of the world; after 15 seconds, from nearby regions; after 30 seconds, from anywhere. Your region is never shown on screen.

On the Ranked screen, the “How the queue works” button sums these rules up.

The Elo

Elo starts at 1,000 and every ranked match moves it (K factor = 32). Fleeing, abandoning or surrendering is a real defeat: Elo always moves in Ranked.

Inside each league below Mythic there are five divisions, from V (the lowest) to I. The starting Elo is equal to Bronze III. In Mythic there are no divisions: the season's top 500 show their numbered position.

Seasons

The ranked season lasts one UTC month. In the soft reset, the new month starts at 1,000 + (final Elo − 1,000) × 0.5. Example: someone who finished at 1,400 starts the next season at 1,200.

A season only counts (for the end-of-season XP and for Rank gates) if you play at least 10 ranked matches in it.

PvP gold

In Ranked, a win pays 50 gold and a loss 15 gold; in Casual, 25 gold and 5 gold. The cap is 300 gold per UTC day, and it only counts in a real duel, with at most 3 paid duels per opponent per day (Real duel).

The clock

In PvP each turn has 80 seconds, with no reserve, and the last 10 tick-tock. If time runs out, the turn passes by itself; 3 timeouts in a row are a defeat. If the connection drops, there are 60 seconds of grace to come back before losing by abandonment.

Friend challenge

On the Challenge a friend card of the Ranked screen, press New code: you get a 6-character code (and an invite link with that code) to send to your friend, who types it into the same card and presses Accept. The code lasts 10 minutes; your friend accepts with a Competitive deck. With an online friend you can also press Challenge on the Friends screen: the direct invite lasts 60 seconds (Social multiplayer). The challenge does not give gold, Elo, XP or quests: it is for playing for fun.

Honor Duel

In the Play menu, the Honor Duel is a different kind of contest: each player puts one card up and the winner takes both. It is only a swap of two cards between players, decided by a duel; no money is involved.

• Post: you pick one of your cards (the magnifier opens the inspector) and a Competitive deck, and post a challenge. It shows up on the Open challenges board with the card in plain sight; you can also send the code or the link, or choose Only for a friend. A challenge lasts 24 hours.
• Offer: another player opens the challenge and offers a card of theirs, at most 1 rarity step above or below yours. You see the offers and accept one or decline; once you accept, the others drop. An offer lasts 15 minutes: if you do not accept in that time, it lapses. Whoever offered is told, on any screen of the game, when the creator accepts, and has about 120 seconds to join the duel.
• Custody: on accepting, both cards are held (nobody can trade, disenchant or use them in a deck) and a Competitive duel starts right away. It gives no gold, Elo, XP or quests.
• Result: the winner receives both cards at once, and the result screen says which card you won or lost. Leaving, losing the connection or running out of time after joining the duel is a loss; a player who never got in loses nothing: the duel is annulled and the cards go back. A draw or a server failure sends each card back to its owner. Each side pays the gold fee of trades (Trades); it is held on acceptance and comes back in full if the duel is drawn or annulled.

To prevent throwaway accounts, the Honor Duel uses the same lock as trades on both sides (Rank, account days, days with a duel and PvP days), the same newly-unlocked-account window and the same receiving caps. On top of that: the day's trades and Honor Duels count together (up to 3 a day), with at most 3 Honor Duels a day per account and 1 a day against the same player (2 a week, counting trades); never against a guest or a system player; two players sharing a signup IP, a recent access IP or a device do not duel each other; suspended or banned accounts cannot take part; an epic or better card only plays between accounts at least 30 days old with 20 days with a duel and 10 of them PvP (the same rule as trades); and a card can only be in one challenge at a time. The card in play does not count as a card of your deck during the duel: keep a spare copy. The team can switch the Honor Duel off; then the button disappears from the Play menu.

Quick phrases and emotes

In duels against another person (Ranked, Casual, Friend challenge and tournament matches), the speech-bubble button at the top opens the Quick phrases: 28 ready-made phrases, in two tabs, Game (12 phrases) and Taunt (16 phrases), and 6 emotes. There is no free text.

• Limit: 1 every 3 seconds and up to 6 per minute. The phrases of the Game tab stay open for 60 seconds after the duel ends.
• Language and voice: the receiver reads the phrase in their own language and hears it in the sender's character voice (no character: the announcer's voice). The sender also hears their own phrase, in their own character's voice. Phrases from both sides go into a queue: if two arrive together, you hear one in full and then the other. Emotes have no voice.
• Mute opponent: the sound button next to it hides the opponent's phrases, emotes and automatic taunts of their character for this duel; Unmute opponent undoes it.
• In Settings → Multiplayer: “Mute phrases from strangers” hides the phrases of players who are not your friends (off by default), “Phrase voice” turns the voice on or off (on by default; off: text only) and “Receive taunts” turns on or off the Taunt-tab phrases the opponent sends (on by default; see below).

The Taunt tab has 16 playful phrases, bolder than the ones in the Game tab. They tease the play, never the person:

• “Too easy. Where's the challenge?”
• “That's it? I was expecting a myth.”
• “Was that an attack or a pat on the head?”
• “The gods are yawning…”
• “Not even the oracle saw that stumble coming!”
• “You may bow. The legend has arrived.”
• “Tremble! My myth has awakened!”
• “This duel will become an epic song!”
• “Count your turns. Few remain.”
• “Welcome to my arena!”
• “Fate has already chosen: me!”
• “Call your titans. I'll wait.”
• “Hear that thunder? That was me!”
• “Brace yourself! Magic incoming!”
• “Your legend ends here!”
• “Try again, mortal!”

• Taunt limit: at most 10 per duel, for each player; the tab shows “Taunts left in this duel”. When they run out, the game says so and nothing is sent.
• They close when the duel ends: after the end, only the Game-tab phrases, such as “Good duel!” and “Rematch?”.
• Receive taunts: in Settings → Multiplayer. It is on by default, but for anyone who declared being under 16 it starts off; whatever you choose always wins. Off, the opponent's taunts neither show nor play for you, and the sender is not told. Turning it off does not stop you from sending them.
• Team switch: the team can turn taunts off at any time, without a game update; then the Taunt tab disappears and only the game phrases remain.

Next to the phrases are the Chat button and the Safety shield (Block and Report): see The Chat button in the duel and Blocking. A player you blocked arrives muted: their phrases, emotes and taunts do not show, and the sound button stays locked on mute. If you block someone in the middle of a duel, the mute applies right away.

Automatic taunts

During the duel, characters also taunt on their own: a bubble with a short line appears near the character's name (yours and the opponent's, when they have a character) and, if there is a recording in your language, you hear their voice. It is seasoning, not a pause: a taunt never stops the duel, does not catch taps and never shows on top of a cut-in, a cinematic or another voice. If there is no room right after the moment, it is dropped. Every character talks this way, free and premium: each one has 30 taunt lines of their own (up to 4 variations for the first damage and for the big hit), so the same character rarely repeats a line.

When they show up

• First damage of the duel (whoever dealt it speaks): 50% chance, 1 time per duel.
• Big hit, from 25% of the target's starting Life (whoever dealt it speaks): 60%, up to 2 per duel.
• Strong monster destroyed, level 7 or higher, or epic or legendary (whoever destroyed it speaks): 40%, up to 2 per duel.
• The opponent's fusion failed (the other side speaks): 50%, up to 2 per duel.
• Comeback: was at least 20% of the starting Life behind and moved ahead (whoever turned it around speaks): 100%, 1 time per duel.
• Opponent's Life low, down to 12.5% of the start, the first time (the other side speaks): 80%, 1 time per duel.
• Your own Life low, same threshold (your own character speaks): 70%, 1 time per duel.
• Opponent stalling, only against a person: 25 seconds without acting on their turn, or their clock under 10 seconds (your character speaks): 100%, up to 2 per duel.
• Opponent surrenders, leaves or runs out of time (the winner speaks, after the victory): 100%.
• Draw (both characters speak): 100%.

The limits that keep it from getting tiring

• At most 4 taunts per side in each duel (the surrender and draw ones do not count), with 12 seconds between any two and never two from the same side in the same turn.
• Never the same line twice in a duel; between duels, the game avoids the last 6 lines of each character.
• If the duel is at a high speed, the chance is cut in half; at the highest speed, there are no taunts.
• If it cannot speak at the moment (another voice playing, a cut-in or cinematic on screen), it waits up to 1.5 seconds and then is dropped, because a late taunt would announce the wrong moment.
• Voices take turns in a queue, one at a time, and none cuts another: quick phrases (yours and the opponent's) play in the order they arrive, in full, even if they have to wait (the bubble shows at once; the voice comes on its turn). A cut-in line waits for the previous voice to finish, and the band waits with it, so it enters together with the voice. The end-of-duel announcer (victory, defeat, draw) also waits its turn and is never skipped. Only a legendary's cinematic and shout, which go with the picture, jump ahead: if the voice playing ends within 1.5 seconds they wait for it; otherwise they cut it.
• Only two voices can be dropped: the turn announcer (“Your turn”, “Fusion!”), who stays quiet while another voice plays or waits and for 3 seconds after a taunt or phrase, and the automatic taunts (as described above). As a safety net, if more than 6 phrases are waiting at once, the oldest one is dropped.
• Fixed order at the start and at the end: at the start, the cut-in of whoever goes first, then the other one, each with its full line, and only then the turn notice. At the end: the last play, the winner's cut-in (band and line), the loser's, the victory or defeat sign with the announcer and, last, the closing taunt (surrender or draw) and any phrases that arrive, one at a time; the result panel comes next, with no voice over another. It can take a few seconds longer, but nothing overlaps.

• Switch: Settings → Characters → “Automatic taunts” (on by default). Off, the bubbles disappear; the normal cut-in lines continue.
• No sound: with “Reduced audio”, “Mute all” or “Character voice lines” turned off, the taunt shows only as a bubble. If your language has no recording of that line yet, it is also just the bubble: the game never plays another language's voice in its place.
• Mute opponent (or a blocked player) also silences their character's taunts, text and voice; your character's taunts continue.
• Reduce animations: the bubble appears without animation. Screen-reader users hear the line as a discreet announcement.

Replay

When a duel ends, the result screen shows “Watch replay”. The replay also opens from the eye icon in the Ranked history and, on your Profile, from “Watch the replay of your last match”. Only the two players of the duel can watch it, and only after the duel is over.

• Controls: Play and Pause, one move back or forward, speed 1×, 2× or 4×, and jump straight to a turn.
• Show everything: shows both hands (the duel is over). Without it, you watch the duel as you saw it while playing.

What about friendships?

The social features are in the chapter Social multiplayer.

Open Ranked →