Brawls

Brawls are ticket-gated on-demand competitions where four players fight through a single-elimination bracket for an ETH prize pool. Unlike tournaments, which are open to much larger pools of entrants across a wider skill level, a brawl is compact by design: four players, elo matched.

Brawls run inside a daily play window — when the window is closed, no new matches form and the queue is swept. Brawl state is indicated at the top of its play arch. Whether open or closed, more information and brawl history is visible on the Brawl landing page: Brawls.

Tiers

Every account starts in the Placement tier and brawls other placement players. Once you have played out two Placement Brawls, you move up to Standard and join the open queue with everyone else.

The split exists because a brand-new account and a strong player who has just signed up look identical to a rating system — both start at the same number. Holding new players together until their rating means something keeps early brawls fair, and keeps experienced players from farming them.

How far along you are is shown on the Brawls page: while you are in the placement tier, the entry card names the Placement Brawl and counts down the placements you have left. When a play window runs both brackets you are only ever offered your own.

Win or lose, a brawl counts once you play it out. Brawls you do not play fairly and to the finish do not count toward moving up — the requirement is that you actually played, not that you won.

Moving up is permanent. Nothing sends you back to the placement bracket on the strength of results.

Getting a Ticket

Entry requires a Brawl Ticket. Tickets are obtained by forging a piece from your collection into a ticket — one piece forges into one ticket. The ticket is ripped and consumed when you enter a brawl; the burned piece is gone permanently regardless of how the brawl goes.

The forge is open 24/7 and be entered from the Brawls page or directly: Ticket Forge.

Entering the Queue

Once you have a ticket, you can queue for an active brawl format. The queue pairs you against three opponents within a compatible rating range. If a match is unable to be found before the queue times out (typically matched within 5 minutes), your ticket will be refunded.

Piece Selection

How you get your pieces depends on the brawl format.

Fixed Pool

The format specifies which pieces are available. All players draw from the same pool. You choose your lineup during the piece selection phase before the first match.

Random Pool

Pieces are assigned at random from a defined set — either the same set for all players, or a fresh random draw per player, depending on the format.

Draft

Before the bracket begins, players draft their pieces live. Each step presents a set of options (typically 3) and a short pick clock (typically 10 seconds). Picks are made simultaneously, not sequentially — no one can see what their opponents are choosing. Once the draft completes, the bracket launches.

The Bracket

Standard brawls run with 4 players in a single-elimination bracket:

• Semifinals — two matches, two winners advance
• Finals — the two semifinal winners play for 1st
• Consolation match — the two semifinal losers play for 3rd

A draw triggers a rematch at full game duration. Further rematches run at a shorter clock to force resolution.

If a player fails to launch a match within the launch window, they forfeit that match.

Payouts

The prize pool is built from the ticket entries. In the standard format each ticket contributes a fixed ETH amount, so a 4-player brawl creates a 4× pot. Payouts follow a fixed split:

Payouts settle on-chain automatically after the bracket completes.

Rating / Matchmaking

Brawl matchmaking and ELO is derived from regular ELO, but calculated differently and not publicly visible.

Matchmaking runs within your tier, not across the whole queue: a placement player is matched against other placement players, and rating is compared inside that pool. Your brawl rating is independent of your quickplay rating — results in one never move the other.

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