A ranked match is a race. The lobby says it plainly: Race other players to fix the same ticket. Whoever closes it first wins. Both players get the same ticket, one medium ticket per match, and the first correct close takes it.
Open it from Ranked match. There is no daily limit on matches.
The two ways in
Join random match (1 vs 1) pairs you with somebody near your rank. While it looks, it says Looking for an opponent near your rank. If nobody suitable turns up, a stand-in takes the seat so you still get a match: the result screen marks that one Practice match against a stand-in, unrated, and it does not move your rank.
Open your own room gives you a code for up to five players, host included, and the room keeps its own leaderboard. Friends type the code under Have a code? to take a seat. A private match is marked Private match, unrated.
Everyone presses I’m ready, and then The match starts when everyone is ready. From the first Ready there is a one minute window, and anyone still not ready when it closes is moved out.
“Too soon for the match server”
This is the message people mistake for a stuck match, and it is the one that is working correctly.
A ticket counts toward a match only after two and a half minutes. Nobody reads, diagnoses and closes a medium ticket faster than that, so a close that arrives earlier is held rather than counted. Your ticket is not lost. It keeps its token and the app resends it by itself once the floor has passed, so the right move is to wait a few seconds rather than close anything again.
The stand-in is held to the same floor, so a practice match is a fair race.
A match that will not finish
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Could not reach the match server. The ticket is still open; close it again to resend it. | Your close never arrived. Close the ticket again. |
| Reload the page: 1 of this match’s tickets could not load. | The ticket’s text did not arrive. Reload and it is fetched again. |
| The match is over, but your queue could not be brought back. Reload the page to continue. | The match ended cleanly. Reload to get your normal queue back. |
| You’re in a match right now. in the lobby | A match is still open on your account. Use Go back to that match rather than starting another. |
A match nobody is playing does not sit there forever. The server sweeps abandoned matches and stale lobbies every minute, and a room that nobody joins closes after ten minutes with Your room closed because nobody joined within 10 minutes.
Leaving, and alt-tabbing
Leaving is a forfeit, and the confirmation says so: Leave? It counts as a forfeit, and you keep no points from this match. The result screen shows the deduction as -N from your score.
Switching to another window is fine. A hidden browser tab has its timers throttled by the browser, so the app keeps a slower heartbeat while you are away and allows two and a half minutes of silence before it treats you as gone. Closing the tab or losing your connection for longer than that forfeits the match.
If something else happened
Tell support what the match said, roughly when, and whether it was rated or a private room. The match record is on our side, so there is no need for a screenshot of the ticket.