Ranked Queue Rules
How the native ranked queue works, the conduct rules everyone agrees to, and how the eligibility & trust gates affect you. Tap a section to expand it.
🎮 How to play
- Sign in with Steam, link your Discord, then pick a tier (Public / Premier / Challenger), your region (NA/EU), and one or more role cards, and press Play. You can stage roles across formats and submit them in a single Play.
- When the queue fills, you'll get a "Match found — ready up" prompt (with a sound). Click I'M HERE before the timer runs out. If anyone misses it, the match voids and your spot is returned.
- Vote on the teams instead of drafting them: Accept the auto-balanced split or Re-roll to reshuffle. Once enough players accept, the server boots.
- The server and password are assigned for you. Use the one-click Join on the match card; if it doesn't launch, copy the IP/password and join manually.
- Play it out. A referee, an admin, or the bot records the result afterward, so you don't submit a winner or MVP vote.
📋 Conduct rules
- Use a name that closely resembles your in-game name.
- Don't troll or throw, and don't sabotage your own team, including pulling your goalie while you're winning.
- Don't leave early. Wait until the game has ended, or is within about 5 seconds of ending. If you can't commit to a full match, don't queue.
- Ready up promptly, and don't queue another match while your game is still in progress.
- Deliberately dodging a match bans you from queueing for 30 minutes; repeated dodges/no-shows lower your Trust score and lengthen the ban.
🏆 Tiers & eligibility
- Public needs a minimum number of games played to queue. Once signed in, the Games meter shows the requirement and how close you are; under it, you can request early access on the Public tab.
- Premier and Challenger are tier-gated pools for established league players. You get access automatically from your PPHL roster history, or by request if you're not auto-detected.
- Premier players can also queue Challenger (play down), but not the reverse.
- Play the region closest to you so ping is fair for everyone: NA with NA, EU with EU.
ℹ️ Good to know
- These games count toward your Ponce Puck games played (an alternative to combines), though not toward PPHL Combine eligibility.