Pre-Season Hub
IlluviClash is in open testing. Play, climb, and shape the meta — the leaderboard may reset without prior announcement after balance changes. Real seasons, prize tiers, and clean ladder cycles arrive after pre-season wraps.
Pre-Season Quick Start
Start in four steps
Build the deck, the engine fights the match.
- 01
Connect & Verify
Connect with Passport so your matches count toward the leaderboard.
- 02
Build Your Deck
Pick 5 Illuvials and order them across the 5 lanes — range, lane order, affinity matchups, and adjacent-affinity link synergies all decide the fight.
- 03
Queue a Match
Start Quick Match to face a live ranger or a Ghost Deck of similar strength.
- 04
Watch & Climb
Review the replay, tune your deck, and climb the pre-season ladder.
Live now
What you can play today
Everything below is live in pre-season. Build a deck, queue up, and your matches start counting toward the leaderboard the moment your wallet is verified.
Core game
- 5v5 IlluviClash auto-battlerFive-card decks, lane-based combat, deterministic resolution.
- Deck builder with lane orderingDrag-to-reorder, fluid slot sizing, side-panel inventory, lane suggestions, live link-synergy preview.
- Affinity matchupsDamage swings ±2 per hit based on the attacker's vs defender's dominant affinity — pick lineups that counter the meta.
- Affinity link synergiesAdjacent same-affinity Illuvials form linked groups (I–III) — Fire burst, Water bypass, Earth mitigation, Air dodge, Nature regen. Links retier or break as the lane collapses.
- Final board stateResult page renders both decks at end-of-match — survivors and defeated cards.
Competitive
- Verified ranked matchesEvery match is Passport-signed and counts toward your leaderboard rating.
- Live leaderboardSortable by Overall, Collector, Power, or Trader focus archetype.
- Battle historyPer-wallet history with outcome tinting, opponent decks, and rating deltas.
- Archived ladder seasonsLeaderboard season selector lets you switch between the live Engine 2.0 ladder and archived Pre-Season Engine 1.0 standings.
Unranked — Showdown
- Call out any rangerPick a ranger from Showdown and fight the deck they actually play. Unranked — no rating moves, win or lose.
- The GauntletPublish your five as a shareable challenge. Challengers, break rate, and a Hall of Defeaters build up on its page as people try it.
- Scouting reportsThe deck you're shown is the deck you fight, for 30 minutes — build a counter without the target swapping under you.
- Temporary decksEverything you build in Showdown is throwaway; your saved ranked deck is never touched.
Replay & sharing
- Shareable replaysEvery match generates a replay URL with a rich social preview card.
- Replay viewerFull playback controls — pause, skip, scrubber, and 1× / 2× / 4× / instant speeds.
Coming next
On the roadmap
Open-tested in pre-season, not promised on a date. Order and timing depend on what survives playtesting.
- Ability systemPer-Illuvial actives and passives layered onto the AP engine.
- Class synergiesLineup bonuses for matched classes — the same linked-group model the affinity synergies use, applied to class types.
- Multiple deck slotsSave and switch between named loadouts so you can swap counter-decks between matches without rebuilding.
- Seasonal rewards & resetsReal seasons with prize tiers and a clean ladder restart between them.
- On-chain attested matchesReplay hashes posted to zkEVM so any player can verify a result independently.
- IlluviDuel mode1v1 head-to-head — same engine, single champion, tactical play.
Patch notes
Recently shipped
The last wave of changes — quality-of-life polish, balance and economy guards, and visual refinements.
- #19Showdown & the Gauntlet — challenge anyone, unrankedCall out any ranger from Showdown: scout the deck they actually play, build a counter, and fight them with nothing at stake. Or publish your own five as a Gauntlet and get a short link anyone can open — every attempt adds to its record, and the rangers who beat it are named in its Hall of Defeaters. None of it touches your rating, your ranked history, or your leaderboard deck: Showdown decks are temporary and never overwrite the one you climb with.
- #18Scouting reports — you fight the deck you were shownOpening a ranger's challenge page takes a scouting report of their deck that stays yours for 30 minutes, so you can build a counter at your own pace: if they swap lineups while you're picking, you still fight the five that were on your screen. The opponent panel shows how long ago you scouted and a Re-scout button pulls their current deck if you'd rather face that instead. On the result screen, Play again sends you back with empty slots for a fresh answer, and Edit deck brings back the exact deck you just played so you can change a single lane.
- #17Pre-Season MMR — true Elo ladder resetRatings now move on a classical Elo formula instead of the old friendly +25/-15. Your first 20 placement matches swing up to ±40 per match; afterwards, ±16–32 scaled by opponent strength. Tiers stretch from Bronze to Legend — tap the ⓘ next to the Leaderboard title for the full breakdown. All ratings reset to 1000 and your previous standings are archived on the leaderboard's season selector.
- #16Suggested order is now synergy-awareThe deck builder's Suggested order button now groups same-affinity cards adjacently so Engine 2.0 resolves the strongest link tier your composition allows — biggest affinity bucket leads, melee-front sorting kept as a secondary cue inside each bucket. Click it on a mixed-affinity deck and you'll see Tier I/II links form in the synergy chip strip.
- #15Ghost decks now form synergy linksGhosts now build affinity-synergy decks — Tier III mono-5s where the ranger's collection allows, otherwise 3+2 splits — picked by actual combat strength (HP + ATK on the engine card) instead of the old rarity-based ranking. Ghosts also no longer downgrade to match a weaker player deck, so queuing a low-power lineup won't get you an easy win. Expect tougher ghost fights, closer to even win rates.
- #14Affinity synergies & Engine 2.0 — ladder resetEngine 2.0 ships with full affinity synergies (Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Nature) and ladder reset. Your Engine 1.0 standings are archived and viewable on the leaderboard under the 'Pre-Season Engine 1.0' tab — Engine 2.0 starts everyone fresh at 1000 rating. Build a deck around the new synergies and climb.
- #13Tighter matchmaking & fresher opponentsFind a Match now searches within ±5% of your rating first, then ±10%, then ±15% — closer fights, less drift between matches. Your last 50 distinct opponents are also skipped so you see more fresh names before a rematch.
- #12Replay speed actually scales1× / 2× / 4× now plays every battle effect at the picked tempo — lunges, hit flashes, damage chips, collapses, cleaves, dodge and affinity auras — instead of just clipping them when the next event arrives.
- #11Battle & replay polishVS intro now waits on the full card render, the scrubber no longer flashes the card art, defeated cards cleave as a whole card, and survivors no longer drift into a stacked layout at high speed.
- #10Public battle feed & connect gate/clash/history now shows every Ranger's completed battles, newest first. Logged-out /clash/match and /clash/deck pitch the latest battle and a live Ranger count.
- #09How to Play pageNew dedicated guide walking through every stat on a card and how a round resolves — accessible from the top nav.
- #08Mobile polish passSweep of fixes and tweaks across small screens — deck builder, match flow, and replay viewer all read better on mobile now.
- #07Pre-Season Hub launchedThis page — your home for what's live, what's next, and what just shipped.
- #06Replay social cardsShared replay URLs now render rich OG images with both rangers' avatars and the outcome.
- #05Result screen — final board stateOpponent and player decks render side-by-side with defeated cards stamped and desaturated.
- #04Battle history outcome tintingWin and loss rows pick up a soft emerald or rose wash so a column scans at a glance.
- #03Battle screen polishBattle log now spans the full lane width; hit flashes, lunge timing, and dodge feedback tightened.
- #02Replay controlsRestart, scrubber, and 1× / 2× / 4× / instant playback added to the replay viewer.
- #01Rating cap & mirror-match guardRolling 24h cap and same-opponent guard keep the leaderboard from being farmed.
Help shape the meta
Every match in pre-season is balance data. Build a deck, queue up, and your replays feed into the next patch.
