> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.battlecode.cam/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How Matches Work

> How ladder matches, Elo ratings, and the 5-game format work.

## Match format

Every match consists of **5 games**. Each game is played on a different map with a different random seed. The team that wins more games wins the match.

### Win conditions per game

A game ends when:

| Condition              | Description                                                                                              |
| ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Core destroyed**     | One team's core reaches 0 HP                                                                             |
| **Resigned**           | A team called [`resign()`](/api/controller#healing--destruction) — their core is destroyed and they lose |
| **Axionite collected** | Tiebreaker 1: most total refined axionite delivered to the core                                          |
| **Titanium collected** | Tiebreaker 2: most total titanium delivered to the core                                                  |
| **Harvesters**         | Tiebreaker 3: most harvesters currently alive                                                            |
| **Axionite stored**    | Tiebreaker 4: most axionite currently stored                                                             |
| **Titanium stored**    | Tiebreaker 5: most titanium currently stored                                                             |
| **Coinflip**           | Tiebreaker 6: random coinflip if all above are tied                                                      |

If both cores survive 2000 rounds, the [tiebreaker sequence](/spec/overview#win-conditions) is evaluated in order. The match result shows exactly which condition decided the game.

## Ladder

The [ladder](https://game.battlecode.cam/ladder) ranks all teams by **Elo** rating. New teams start unrated and are seeded to 1500 when they upload their first ready submission.

### Scheduling

Every **10 minutes**, the scheduler:

1. Pairs each team with one similarly-rated opponent (greedy nearest-rating matching with small random jitter to avoid repetitive matchups)
2. Avoids rematches from the last hour
3. Submits matches to the runner infrastructure

With N teams, each cycle creates floor(N/2) matches — one match per team.

### Rating updates

Ratings are updated using **Elo** immediately after each match completes. Match outcomes use fractional scoring based on the game score (e.g., a 5-0 win counts more than a 3-2 win).

Each team has a single Elo rating that moves up or down after each match.

## Unrated matches

You can challenge any team to an unrated match that doesn't affect ratings:

```bash theme={"dark"}
cambc match unrated <opponent_team_id>
cambc match unrated <opponent_team_id> --map arena --map galaxy   # specific maps
```

Unrated matches use the same infrastructure and time limits as ladder matches but are prioritised for faster execution. You can optionally specify up to 5 maps — if omitted, 5 random maps are used.

## Test runs

Test runs let you upload two local bots and run them against each other on the same hardware as ladder matches:

```bash theme={"dark"}
cambc match test my_bot opponent
```

This is the best way to verify your bot works within the 2ms CPU time limit before submitting to the ladder.

<Warning>
  Rate limits: max 10 test/unrated matches per 10 minutes.
</Warning>