Tournament Rules

Last updated: 15/01/2026

Drafting Timer and Order

Once all teams are seated, a three-minute Drafting Timer will start. Players should aim to have banned and picked their characters before the Drafting Timer ends.

Play starts with Seat 1, then Seat 2 and so on.

Three-player games

Seat 3 bans one Spirit Lord
Seat 1 bans one Spirit Lord
Seat 3 picks their Spirit Lord
Seat 2 picks their Spirit Lord
Seat 1 picks their Spirit Lord
Lanterns and starting cards are dealt out, starting at Seat 1
Seat 3 is dealt one additional card
Play begins

Four-player games

Seat 2 bans one Spirit Lord
Seat 1 bans one Spirit Lord
Seat 4 picks their Spirit Lord
Seat 3 picks their Spirit Lord
Seat 2 picks their Spirit Lord
Seat 1 picks their Spirit Lord
Lanterns and starting cards are dealt out, starting at Seat 1
Seat 4 is dealt one additional card
Seat 3 is dealt one additional card
Play begins

Revive Timer

Immediately after the Drafting Timer ends, a ten-minute Revive Timer will begin. Once the Revive Timer ends, all players who are dead at the end of the current player's turn may attempt to revive one more time, after which they are eliminated from the match.

The Tailed Shisu and its variants are exempt from this rule, and may continue to attempt to respawn until the end of the match.

The Revive Timer will begin at the end of the Drafting Timer, regardless of whether all tables have finished picking their characters. As such, if players don’t manage to complete the Drafting Phase before it ends, they will have less play time before the Revive Timer ends.

Spirit Lord Selection

Tables will be provided with a copy of the base game. If a player wishes to play an expansion Spirit Lords that’s not at their table, prior to the drafting phase, they may add their own copy of a Spirit Lord to the character pool. Spirit Lords added in this way are subject to the normal drafting rules, just like all other Spirit Lords.

The tournament organisers may have a limited number of expansion characters available to borrow on request.

Banning a character also bans all alt-arts and variants of that character. For example, if Sake Master is banned, Strawhat Sake Master is also immediately banned. A player cannot ban Sake Master but not Strawhat Sake Master.

Only one of each character may be played in a match. Alt-art and variant characters count as the same character as their base counterparts. For example, if a player is playing Sake Master, other players may not play as Strawhat Sake Master.

Sun/Moon-Dominant Limits

A Spirit Lord is designated Sun/Moon-Dominant if the majority of their combined health costs are of one type. If a Spirit Lord has no symbol with a majority in their combined health costs, they are considered Neutral.

Each match can have a limit of two Sun-Dominant Spirit Lords, and two Moon-Dominant Spirit Lords. For example, if the first two players both pick Moon-Dominant Spirit Lords to play, the other players in the match cannot choose to play as Moon-Dominant Spirit Lords. Neutral Spirit Lords may be chosen regardless of what other characters have already been chosen.

A list of Spirit Lords' dominant symbols can be found below.

Spirit Lord	Dominant Symbol
Fox of the Hollow	Moon-Dominant
Fox of the Haunt	Moon-Dominant
Fox of the Mirage	Sun-Dominant
Fox of the Celeste	Sun-Dominant
Tanuki of the Hearth	Neutral
Tailed Shisu	Moon-Dominant
Fox of the Deep	Moon-Dominant
Itachi of the Eclipse	Neutral
Neko of the Veil	Sun-Dominant

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Spirit Lord Tournament Legality

Spirit Lords which are not tournament legal may be entered into the character pool only if and only if all players in the match agree. If any player at the table decides to disallow the Spirit Lord, they cannot be added to the character pool.

A list of Spirit Lords' tournament legality can be found below.

Spirit Lord	Tournament Legal
Fox of the Hollow	Yes
Fox of the Haunt	Yes
Fox of the Mirage	Yes
Fox of the Celeste	Yes
Tanuki of the Hearth	Yes
Tailed Shisu	Yes
Fox of the Deep	Yes
Itachi of the Eclipse	Yes
Neko of the Veil	Yes

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Placement Points

After each match, players will gain Placement Points based on their placement. A player's placement is dependent on their last death, so if a player is eliminated first, revives, and is eliminated again when there are only two players remaining, they will place 2nd.

Placement	Points - 3 players	Points - 4 players
1st	5	6
2nd	2	3
3rd	0	1
4th		0

Renegade and Challenge Bonus Points

All players keep track of the number of challenges they win, whether they were the challenger or the challengee.

At the end of a match, if a player wins three or more challenges that match, they will receive a two point bonus to their Placement Points.

At the end of the round-robin matches, the player who won the most challenges overall will be deemed the Renegade, and will qualify for the finals, regardless of how many placement points they received.

Finals Qualification

At the end of the final round-robin round, the players who qualify for the finals will be the Renegade, and the three players who scored the highest number of placement points excluding the Renegade.

In the case of a tie on placement points, the player who won more challenges overall will be placed higher. Further ties will be broken by the number of wins.

If the Renegade has the highest number of points, they will pick their seat first, followed by the second highest placed player, the third highest placed player and the fourth highest placed player. Otherwise, the first placed player will pick their seat first, followed by the Renegade, the second highest placed player and the third highest placed player.

Adjudication

Players may ask for an adjudicator’s ruling for rule clarifications on their turn, but cannot receive any other help. Adjudicators’ decisions are final.

Other Rules

At the end of each match, the table should nominate one player to inform an adjudicator of each player's placement, Spirit Lord, successful challenges and the match's banned Spirit Lords.

The discard pile is to be shuffled when there are two or fewer cards left in the deck. The top card of the discard pile should remain in the discard pile and should not be shuffled in.

If a player is challenged and would lose the challenge, they may declare they have lost the challenge and immediately place their lantern on the bottom of the lantern deck without revealing it, before losing their cards or life as usual.

Revealed lanterns must be placed on the bottom of the lantern deck.

Players may not ask what cards another player has before claiming the Shadow Lantern or using a Sake, but they may ask how many cards other players have.