Overview
The ladder competition is a global leader-board which contains all non-bot clubs within the game. Your club can climb this ladder by challenging clubs that lie above them through issuing and winning challenges. If you win, you take your opponent’s place on the ladder and they drop down one step behind you. The ultimate goal is to get to the top of the ladder, proving you are currently the best club in the game. This is extremely hard to accomplish as other clubs will be continually trying to take your crown!.
There are also sub-ladders that can be viewed which filter clubs for a particular nation, division, or both.
It's All About the Challenger
This competition is designed to create a great experience for each club as the challenger, while removing burdens as the challengee. By default, you are not notified when you are challenged, and any fixtures in which you are the challengee will not appear in your general fixtures lists.
However, in the ladders section of the game you may turn on notifications, and you can view fixtures in which you are the challengee if you wish, though it is perfectly acceptable to ignore these aspects completely.
Ladder Challenges
Your club can challenge a club that is above them in the ladder, but no more than half way up the global ladder above (rounded up) e.g. if in 10th place on the ladder you could challenge clubs in ladder positions 9 to 5. This means to challenge the club at the top of the ladder you must first rise to second place in the ladder – reaching the top is not easy!!
If your club is in one of the top 5 positions of the global ladder, you may challenge a club below you in the ladder if the other club is in the top 10 of the ladder, so long as you do not own that other club. Whether you win or lose such a challenge it does not alter your current ladder position.
Once you have made a challenge there is a 10-minute delay before kick-off. This allows time for the managers to set-up for the match. Once a challenge has finished there is a 5 minute cool-down period before you can challenge another club. As matches are approximately 15 minutes long, this means that you can challenge about once every 30 minutes.
If there is another match already scheduled within 15 minutes of the intended kick-off for your club, then the challenge will be delayed until the next free time slot (this will be shown to you during challenge creation).
If the club you challenge has another match scheduled within 15 minutes of this kick-off time, then you won’t be able to challenge them until their match has finished.
You may only challenge the same club once per 24-hour period, nor may you challenge your own clubs. Outside of this you are free to make as many challenges a day as you like. However, if you have been challenged by that club during that 24 hour period you are allowed to request one rematch, even if this breaks the 24 hour rule.
Ladder challenges cannot end in draw. If the scores are tied at end of normal time, then extra time will be played., and if still tied at the end of this, then there is a penalty shootout to determine the winner.
Sub-Ladder Caveats
The sub-ladders are simply filters of the global ladder. They are not completely independent. This means you can only challenge someone in a sub-ladder as long as they are within half the ladder above you in the global ladder.
Match Tactic Cards
When you challenge another club to a ladder match you can play tactic cards as you would on any competitive match.
Set-and-Forget Match Tactic Cards
You can set up to three Match Tactics cards that will be used whenever your club is challenged by another club – they will not be used when you make a challenge yourself, only when your club is challenged. Cards set up in this way are never used up and will last forever, or until you choose to change them. As such, these cards are set-and-forget cards.
These cards must be chosen from cards that you have used before in any previous match, and do not include Foil cards. In addition, these cards will not have a focus for purposes of synergy, and so there are no synergy bonuses when cards are used in this set-and-forget system.
Over time you will amass a large array of cards you can play, but for each card type only the highest energy value card of that type will be available, though these cards do not cost energy to play. This will mean that when you challenge another club they will be loaded with good tactic cards, so beating teams above you is often going to be a hard task – no one ever said climbing the ladder was going to be easy!
Match Rewards
After each match as the challenger, you may receive a match reward. At first you only receive a reward if you win. However, once you have upgraded your Ladder Meds branch in the Medical Building tech-tree, you will receive rewards even after losses. These can include club cash, additional med-packs, cards, and even tokens every now and again.
Match Multiplier
If you use the multiplier slider, match rewards are also rolled multiple times and totalled up as if matches were run individually, complete with diminishing returns.
Player Rewards
Players on the field receive experience training from ladder matches, however this training diminishes between the 21st and 30th match each day.
In addition, the first ladder match of the day your club plays will provide leadership gains - see Mental Attribute Training for more details on leadership gains.
Top Of The Ladder
If your club manages to reach the top of the ladder then it will be awarded a badge for the Trophy case. A club can only gain one of these badges per season. (Note: this won’t be visible until the trophy case feature is added to the game).
In addition, the first time your club reaches the top of any ladder each season, including sub-ladders (nations and divisions), then you will receive 20 tokens and a deck of Med-packs. To qualify a sub-ladder must have at least three clubs. You can only get this reward once per season.
Note, to qualify for badges and rewards, any ladder must contain at least 3 clubs.
Injuries and Medpacks
All ladder matches are classified as competitive matches, and so will help provide experience to the players who participate. However, because these are competitive matches, players run the risk of injury when they play in them. To mitigate this injury chance, you can use a Ladder Medpack card on the match, which will prevent any injury obtained during the match from having any effects after the match i.e. after the match these injuries disappear. However, these injuries still have their impact during the match, and will see the player leave the field if they get injured.
There is a tech branch that provides Ladder Medpacks in the Medical Building, but you can buy more of them with tokens in the store or on-the-spot when creating a challenge. You may also receive them as rewards after each ladder challenge.
Ladder Records
Your club’s historic highest and lowest positions on any ladder are recorded (only after playing a ladder match) along with the date. (Note: these are part of club records, and will not be displayed until we add this feature to the game)