Game guide

How the games work

The complete, plain-English rules for Last Man Standing and Score Predictor.

Pick one team each round. Protect your lives. Outlast the season.

The game — Last Man Standing is designed to run throughout the season. Each round, pick one team to win. A losing pick, a draw where a win was required, or a missed round costs one life.

Joining an LMS pool — New players can join until the pool's first round locks. Once the pool has started, it is closed to new entrants.

The deadline — The whole round locks at the kickoff of its first eligible fixture. You can create or change your pick until that exact time. At kickoff and afterwards, the whole round is locked. No valid pick by then means a missed round and one life lost.

Your lives — With 3 lives, you can survive two failures and the third eliminates you. With 2 lives, you can survive one failure and the second eliminates you. With 1 life, the first failure eliminates you. At 0 lives, you are eliminated and on the bench. Pools starting in Rounds 1–5 use 3 lives. Pools starting from Round 6 can use 1, 2 or 3 lives, with 3 as the default.

Choosing teams — Normally, you can use each team only once before using any team for a second time. Once you have worked through all the teams available to you, your choices reset and you can begin using them again. Matchroom tracks this automatically and only shows teams you can currently pick.

The bench — Reach 0 lives and you are eliminated and sent to the bench. You cannot make LMS picks, but you remain part of the pool unless the organiser separately removes your access. A later wipeout may bring eligible players on the bench back. Organiser-removed participants do not return in a wipeout.

Proving Ground — If exactly one active player remains before the final round, they enter the Proving Ground instead of winning immediately. They must keep picking and survive to the end of the season. A Matchroom winner outlasts both the other players and the season. If the Proving Ground player loses their final life, the resulting wipeout brings eligible players on the bench back.

Wipeouts — A wipeout happens when a fully settled round leaves no active player with at least one life. Eligible players who are still part of the pool and on the bench return with exactly 1 life, their team choices reset, and the game continues. A pool can have more than one wipeout.

Winning — LMS runs through the final competition round. One player remaining at the end is the sole winner. If several remain, they are joint winners. If the final round ends in a complete wipeout, the eligible players brought back by that wipeout are joint winners.

Postponed or cancelled picks — If Matchroom first records your selected match as postponed or cancelled at least 24 hours before the current round deadline, your pick becomes invalid and you must choose again. The team is not counted as used and Matchroom emails you. If you do not repick before lock, it is a missed round and costs one life. If Matchroom first records the change less than 24 hours before the deadline or after the round has locked, you receive a bye: no life is lost, no replacement pick is needed, and the team is not counted as used. Once Matchroom has decided how the pick is treated, a later reschedule does not bring the old pick back.

Rescheduled fixtures — A rescheduled match may move into a suitable later Matchroom round. Occasionally that gives one team two available fixtures in the same round: choose the specific fixture you want, but you still make only one LMS pick and either fixture counts as one use of that team. A fixture added after a round has locked does not reopen it.

💡 Matchroom tracks your lives and available teams automatically, so the pick screen always shows your current options.

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