Krillion 1 vs 1: Ranked Matches, Elo, Divisions and Seasons Explained

1 vs 1 is the ranked mode of Krillion Unlimited. You and one opponent get the same seven prompts, one at a time, and whoever dives deeper over the seven wins. A rating rises and falls with every result, divisions name where you stand, and each season pays out depth tokens and avatars for the steps you reach. It takes place in the Colosseum, a sunken arena you reach from Play 1 vs 1 on the start screen.

This guide is the whole rulebook, with every number as the game uses it. If you have not played a solo dive yet, start with how to play Krillion Unlimited; 1 vs 1 uses the same six tiers, from Plankton at 10 points to One in a Krillion at 100.

Press Find a match and the game looks for an opponent near your rating. When it finds one, a VS screen shows you both, with what the match puts on the line: how many rating points a win would gain you and a loss would cost. Eight seconds later the first prompt counts in.

Each prompt then runs the same way:

1. Count-in, 3 seconds. The prompt is on screen; the clock has not started.
2. Answer, 15 seconds. Type and press Dive. A refused answer costs only time, so try again. Your first accepted answer ends the prompt for you. Pass takes the miss at once.
3. Reveal, 7 seconds. Both answers side by side, with their tiers.

The clock is 15 seconds, not the solo game's 25, and that is deliberate: it is short enough that an answer cannot be looked up. Anything still in the box when the clock runs out is sent for you, so a typed answer is never lost to the buzzer.

All seven prompts are played whatever the score, and the prompts in a match are reworded a little and cannot be copied off the screen. The rarity of an answer is judged exactly as it is solo: on how many people at large would give it. You can never lose an answer to your opponent by typing it second, and if you both find the same Deep Cut, you both score it.

A match has a chat for the two of you and an emote dock above the answer box. In 1 vs 1, unlike the rooms, emotes have sound.

The player with more points over the seven prompts wins. If points are level, the player who took less time over the answers that scored wins. If that is level too, the match is a draw.

Time matters only as that tiebreak. A fast Plankton never beats a slow Rare. But when points are level, the seconds you spent on your scoring answers settle it, so on a prompt where you are sure of a good answer, there is no reason to sit on it.

Ratings use the Elo system, the method chess has used for decades: before each match the game works out each side's expected chance of winning from the gap between your ratings, and after it, your rating moves by K times the difference between what happened and what was expected. In Krillion, K is 50.

What that means in practice:

• Two players on the same rating play for 25 points each way: the winner gains 25, the loser drops 25.
• Beat someone rated well above you and you gain more than 25, up to the full 50. Lose to someone rated far below you and you drop more.
• A draw between equal ratings moves nothing. A draw against a stronger player gains you a little.
• A decided match always moves both ratings by at least one point.

The VS screen shows the stakes for each match before it starts, so you always know what a win is worth.

Your rating places you in a division. Every division below Kraken has three steps, III, II and I, each 50 points wide, and you climb from III to I.

1. Driftwood, from 0
2. Barnacle, from 800
3. Seaglass, from 950
4. Doubloon, from 1,100
5. Pearl, from 1,250
6. Nautilus, from 1,400
7. Trident, from 1,550
8. Maelstrom, from 1,700
9. Abyss, from 1,850
10. Kraken, from 2,000, with no steps: it is the top of the sea.

Each division has its own crest, drawn as something out of the sea and grander the higher you go. From Trident up, the gems on the crests glint.

A season is four calendar months, counted in UTC from 1 October 2026. The first, The Sunken Games, runs until 1 February 2027. Everyone starts every season at a rating of 1,000, which is Seaglass II, and there are no placement matches: you are rated from your first match.

A match keeps the season it was made in, so a match in progress as a season turns over is rated in the old one.

Every step you reach in a season pays depth tokens, once per season. Your season's peak is what counts, so dropping back down never takes a reward away. The first step on the track, Seaglass III, pays out for finishing your first match, win or lose; since a single match can move you at most 50 points, even a first loss lands you there.

On top of the tokens, the floor of every division from Doubloon up gives a season avatar, one you cannot buy in the shop:

• Doubloon: Gladiator Krill
• Pearl: Centurion Krill
• Nautilus: Murmillo Krill
• Trident: Triton Krill
• Maelstrom: Champion Krill
• Abyss: Colossus Krill
• Kraken: Emperor Krill

Four steps between the floors give a season emote instead: Ave! at Seaglass I, Laurels at Pearl I, Not entertained? at Trident I and The verdict at Abyss I. A division's floor pays far more tokens than the steps between, and the whole first-season track comes to 175,000 tokens. The Rewards screen in the Colosseum shows the track, what you have claimed and how far you are from the next step.

Leaving is where 1 vs 1 is strictest, because a rating is at stake for the other player.

• Before the first count-in. Leaving calls the match off. Nobody's rating moves, and your opponent goes back into the queue in the place they had. You wait five seconds before you can queue again, which stops leave-and-requeue loops from holding someone in "match found". The VS screen's leave key works this way.
• After the count-in. Leaving is a forfeit, and the match goes to your opponent, rated as a loss. The heads-up's Leave key needs two presses for that reason.
• Going quiet. A side that is silent for 45 seconds once the match has begun has left it. If both sides drop within 15 seconds of each other, the game treats it as one lost connection and calls the match off with no ratings moved.
• Reloading. A reload picks the match back up where it was. Opening the game in a second tab offers to move the match there; one tab plays a match.

The tab rule from Pearl up

From a rating of 1,250, Pearl's floor, the game adds one more rule: leaving the tab while a match is on counts as a forfeit. That means switching tabs or apps, minimising the window or locking the screen. The first time the rule applies to you on a device, the game explains it and asks you to confirm; after that, the VS screen reminds you. Below 1,250 the rule does not apply.

Two players can play each other at most three rated matches in any 24 hours. Past that, the queue finds each of you someone else, and the lobby tells you so while it looks. Matches that were called off do not count; forfeits do.

The Leaderboard key opens this season's board, ranked by rating. Each row shows the player's name, their division's crest and their season record of wins, losses and draws. In the Colosseum itself, the season's top ten stand in the arches.

The Stats screen shows your last seven days: your rating at the end of each day, your high and low, your record, your best win, your average opponent, your longest win streak and your deepest dive.

Your rating belongs to the browser you play in until you sign in, and then to your account on every device.

The strategy is the solo game's with less time to think. On 15 seconds you cannot search a category from scratch, so decide your angle during the count-in: the specialist's example, the other country, the smallest true answer. Take the long shot first, since a refusal is cheap, and have a sure answer ready for when it is not accepted. Our guide on how to get better at Krillion covers the methods in depth. Then open Krillion Unlimited, press Play 1 vs 1 and play your first match: Seaglass III is waiting.