// THE DESK
Arena
The Arena is where you sit down at the desk and run policy. Everything competitive flows through here: posting and accepting battles, reviewing recent results, and stepping aside for solo practice.
The Arena is built around generated continuous runs. You are not picking a fixed card or designing the scenario. You are deciding how your controller and your reserves will handle the conditions the system puts in front of you.
How the Arena Is Laid Out
The Arena lobby leads with the thing that matters most: open challenges waiting for an opponent. From there, a small set of tabs and actions cover the rest.
| Section | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Arena (lobby) | The board of open ranked challenges. This is the focal point, and where you accept a battle. |
| My Challenges | The challenges you have posted, with the ability to cancel ones still waiting. |
| Battle History | Every settled battle across the season, with filters and replays. |
| Create Challenge | Post your own ranked battle for someone to accept. |
| Solo Practice | Run privately against generated conditions with no rating at stake. |
The Status Bar
Across the top of the Arena you always see your standing at a glance:
- Arena status tells you whether ranked and solo play are live.
- Season jackpot shows the current top-three payout pool.
- Your rating and record summarize your competitive standing.
- Spendable Gold is what you have available to wager and commit.
What Stays Hidden Before a Battle Settles
This is the heart of ranked play. When a battle is set up, neither side sees the other's controller settings or liquidity budget. The exact run conditions are not shown ahead of time either. Both of those are revealed only after the battle settles, in the replay and review.
That secrecy is the game. You are committing to a plan without knowing your opponent's, and trusting your read of the conditions over their read of theirs.
What to Watch During a Run
A freshly accepted battle plays as a live, real-time head-to-head: both controllers defend the same peg while their running scores climb, and the winner stays hidden until the run finishes. The charts tell the real story. The final number is the verdict, but the lines are the evidence.
- Market price and redemption price, and the gap between them
- Liquidity remaining as the run uses your reserves
- Redemption rate, the lever your controller is pulling
- Controller output, how hard you are pushing at each moment
- The market timeline, a play-by-play of named events as they fire, so you can tie a peg move to the thing that caused it
A clean run keeps the two prices close, spends reserves smoothly rather than in a panic, and never thrashes the controller. Learn to see that shape and your scores follow. Settled battles become replays anyone can rewatch, each with its own shareable link, so you can slow down the turning points later.
Open challenges, your own posts, and battle history all reflect the current season. Use Refresh if you want the freshest board before accepting.
Next: post your own battle in Create Challenge, or learn the full flow in Ranked Battles.