Online Duel is where Pokémon Minigames turns competitive. Instead of playing a daily puzzle alone and comparing times afterwards, you are matched against another player in real time and both of you are working on the same board.

Two of the tables are ranked, each with its own ladder: Bids, an eight-lot auction for the strongest collection, and the grid duel, a head-to-head version of the Pokémon Tic Tac Toe board. A third mode, Higher or Lower, is playable unranked, and a Tap One duel is in development.

Pick a table and press Find match. You are queued against another player, and if nobody suitable turns up within about half a minute an opponent is seated automatically so you are never left waiting on an empty lobby.

You do not need an account: a temporary identity is created for you on the way in, and you can play the full match. Guests simply do not earn rank points, so signing in is what turns a good run into ladder progress.

You can also skip matchmaking entirely. Create a private room and you are given a four-character code to send to a friend, who joins straight into your table.

Bids is the shorter game and the better introduction. Eight lots, twenty seconds a turn, and one decision at a time — how much of a fixed budget a character is worth to you — so a match is over quickly and the skill is entirely in the budgeting.

The grid duel asks for knowledge instead. It uses the same rules-based board as the solo Tic Tac Toe game, but characters you spend are gone for both players, so denying your opponent an answer is as valuable as claiming a square.

The two ladders are separate, so climbing one costs nothing on the other. Rank points scale with your tier — a Bronze win is worth far more than a Diamond one, and a Diamond loss costs far more than a Bronze one — which keeps the ladder honest as you climb.