How to play animeVS

animeVS is a team-building game. You assemble seven anime fighters, place each into one of seven roles, and your team is scored against an opponent: ten ladder teams in solo play, or a real person in Versus. It is free, needs no account and runs in your browser.

The goal

Every fighter has a rating, a tier, a handful of tags and often a special ability. Your team's score is built from all of those, plus how well each fighter suits the role you put them in. Higher score wins. The skill is in which seven you choose and where you put them, which is why a well-built team of lower-rated fighters can beat a team of stars.

The seven roles

Every team has the same seven slots. Each role "wants" certain tags. A fighter placed in a role that wants their tags gets a bonus, covered in How scoring works.

Spin mode

1. Press Spin. A reel runs and one random fighter lands.
2. Either place them into an empty role, or discard and reroll. You get one reroll per run, so use it carefully.
3. Repeat until all seven roles are filled, then climb the ladder.

Spin is pure luck of the draw softened by one choice: where to put each fighter. It is the best mode for learning how tags and roles interact.

Draft mode

1. You have a budget of 50 credits to build all seven fighters. Stronger fighters cost more (from 2 to 11 credits in the current roster).
2. Each draw shows five options. Pick one that fits your budget and an open role, or reroll the draw (two rerolls per run).
3. The game always keeps enough budget in reserve to finish your team. The most you can spend on a pick is your remaining budget minus the cheapest fighter's cost for every slot still empty after this one, so you can never get stuck.

Draft is harder than Spin because you cannot simply take the best fighter on offer every time. The budget forces trade-offs. See the budget strategy guide.

Versus: two live formats

Versus is for two players in a shared room. One creates a room and shares a six-character code or invite link, the other joins, and there are two formats.

Blind Draft

Both players spin and build their seven in private, using the same rules as Spin mode. Neither sees the other's picks. When both lock in, the two teams are revealed together and scored head to head.

Auction

Fighters come up for sale one at a time. A reel spins, a fighter appears, and both players bid against a clock. Each player starts with $50. Every bid resets a short countdown, and when it runs out the top bidder pays what they bid and takes the fighter. A fighter you win can never be your rival's, so every purchase also takes something away from the other side. Winners place each fighter into a role immediately, and $1 per empty slot is always held back so nobody ends up short of a full team. Auction tactics are in the budget strategy guide.

Daily puzzle

Each day has one mystery character, the same for everyone. You have seven guesses. After each guess you see how it compares to the answer across six clue columns (colour-coded green for a match, amber for close, grey for a miss, with arrows for higher or lower), so you can narrow it down. Your streak is saved in your browser.

The ladder

In Spin and Draft your finished team climbs a ladder of ten opponent teams, each built from one anime's strongest fighters and each tougher than the last. You keep climbing until you lose a fight or clear all ten. The full list, with what each opponent is weak to, is in the ladder guide.

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