Match found and the map draft

When the matchmaker pairs you, a full-screen takeover opens wherever you are on the site. In one window you confirm you are here and ban maps. Then a roulette picks the map and you move straight on to meeting up in SC2.

The accept window#

• A short VERSUS intro plays first (click or press Enter to skip it; it is skipped automatically when time is short or reduced motion is on).
• Then the ban board appears with a READY UP countdown.
• You have 35 seconds from when the takeover opens on your screen (the intro counts toward it), and never more than 60 seconds from the moment the match was made, whichever ends first.

Anything you do on the board proves you are at the keyboard: casting a ban (even one that is refused), undoing a ban, or pressing READY. The floating match chip and the match arena show an ACCEPT button instead when the board is not open. Bans you saved from earlier games and that were pre-filled for you do not count on their own.

The window closes early only when both players are locked in: by pressing READY before banning anything, or by spending all four bans. Once you have made a ban, READY greys out, so two players who each ban one to three maps simply wait for the clock.

If someone misses it#

What happened	Result
Both players answered	The draft completes and the roulette runs
Only you answered	The match is voided. You go back into the queue automatically with your wait time kept.
Only your opponent answered	The match is voided and you can take a queue lockout (see below)
Neither answered	The match is voided. Nobody is penalized and nobody is requeued.

A one-sided miss only earns a strike when the site can tell you were actually connected: your screen had checked in after the match was made and recently. A player whose browser was closed or asleep is voided without a strike, because they never saw the prompt. Strikes start at a one-minute lockout and grow with repeats; playing a match clears them. See Fair play: voids, strikes, AFK and disputes.

The ban board#

Patch Clash uses a twelve-map pool and gives each player up to four bans.

• Bans are blind and simultaneous. You never see which maps your opponent banned while the window is open, only how many bans they have made. There is nothing to react to, so ban what you actually dislike.
• Bans are optional. READY with no bans is fine, and locks you in.
• Undo any ban while the window is open.
• Spending your fourth ban locks you in automatically.
• Both players can ban the same map. It simply counts once, so anywhere from four to twelve maps survive to the roulette.
• Remember my bans saves your picks per matchup (for example TvZ) and pre-fills them next time. Remember that pre-filled bans alone do not count as accepting.

When the window closes, the lobby chat lists the bans (when anyone banned) and the roulette spins.

Reading a map card#

Each map is a card. The frame colour comes from your own record on that map:

Frame	Meaning
Gold	You win here (60% or better)
Red	You lose here (under 40%)
Steel	Even, or too few games to say
New	You have never played it

The legend under the grid repeats this. A chip on each card shows your record (W-L, or NEW).

Each card can also show how often the ladder bans it, as a meter rounded to 5%. A map needs a large sample of past drafts before it gets a number (400 player seats that saw it in the pool); until then its card shows a dash, and if no map in the pool has that much history yet, no meters are shown at all. The rate only counts finished matches, so your live draft never feeds into it and it cannot give away what your opponent just did.

Two buttons on every card:

• The eye ("Take a closer look") opens the full-size map with BAN or UNBAN.
• The chart opens that map's stats sheet: games played, median game length, ban rate, your record, win rate by race (mirrors excluded) and by matchup, with a note when the sample is thin. It has its own countdown and a BAN THIS MAP button.

The header strip shows both players (crest, race, name, rating, record, and a HOST tag on whoever hosts), the countdown, the server, and the region to log into when it differs from the server name.

The map roulette#

When the window closes, a roulette picks one surviving map at random, and the lobby chat announces it. Every survivor has the same chance.

Normally there is no separate ready-up afterwards: both players ran the map phase, so the match goes straight to meeting up in SC2. (The one exception is the fallback draft below, when the clock banned for a player who has not proven they are present: then both players press READY.) See Hosting, playing and reporting the result.

The fallback draft#

Very occasionally a match uses the older turn-based draft instead: if one player's client cannot show the new ban board (an out-of-date browser tab or an old Companion add-in).

• Players alternate bans on a 30-second shot clock per ban.
• If the player on turn has never shown up since the match was made, the clock waits for them.
• The first time a turn's clock runs out it restarts once; the next time, the system bans a random map for that player.
• If all four of a player's bans were taken by the clock and they were not connected, the match is voided as AFK with a strike, and the present player is requeued with their wait kept. A player who is connected but slow keeps their auto-bans and plays.

Keeping your browser tab fresh and your Companion updated means you will rarely see this.

The current map pool#

In pool order:

#	Map	Type
1	At Eternity's Edge LE	Ladder map
2	Blackrock LE	Ladder map
3	Rainfall LE	Ladder map
4	Rorschach LE	Ladder map
5	Sanctuary III LE	Ladder map
6	Washout LE	Ladder map
7	Anomaly Found PCE	Patch Clash Edition
8	Moonwater PCE	Patch Clash Edition
9	Verdant Temple PCE	Patch Clash Edition
10	Heat Sink PCE	Patch Clash Edition
11	Lumen PCE	Patch Clash Edition
12	Sandwyrm PCE	Patch Clash Edition

PCE maps are the mod's own editions. When one is drafted, host that exact PCE map; a game on the similarly named ladder map fails the map check and is held for a moderator. The most recent rotation (September 2026) moved Fear and Faith, Lockdown and Old Sun Temple out and Heat Sink, Lumen and Sandwyrm PCE in.

For bios, art and per-map win rates, open the Map pool door. See Ladder stats, map pool and balance notes.

Related#

• Hosting, playing and reporting the result for what to do once the map is picked.
• Fair play: voids, strikes, AFK and disputes for strikes and lockouts.
• Ladder stats, map pool and balance notes for the ban-rate figures across the whole ladder.