How to play Quick Draw: The Drop
Quick Draw is a duel decided by one tap. Two fighters face each other and wait. The first to strike after the signal wins. This page covers every rule, so you know exactly why a duel went the way it did.
The duel, step by step
- The standoff. You and your opponent face each other in silence. Keep your finger or cursor ready, but don't tap yet.
- The wait. The signal comes after a random delay of between 2 and 5 seconds. It is never earlier than 2 seconds, and the length changes every duel, so there's no rhythm to learn.
- The strike. A red strike dot appears somewhere on the screen. Tap it as fast as you can.
- The verdict. Your reaction time is measured in milliseconds from the moment the dot appears to the moment you tap it. If your time is equal to or faster than your opponent's, you win.
Fouls
A foul ends the duel straight away. It is never recorded as a time and never counts toward your best. There are three kinds.
| Foul | What happened |
|---|---|
| False start | You tapped during the standoff, before the dot appeared. |
| Miss | You tapped while the dot was up, but not on the dot. |
| Too fast | You hit the dot in under 100 milliseconds. Human reactions to a visual signal can't be that quick, so a time under 100ms means the tap was a guess that happened to land. |
One foul is a slip and costs you nothing but the duel. Two fouls in a row break your win streak. Any duel you finish cleanly in between clears the count, so a single false start never haunts you.
No draw
If the dot is up for 2 full seconds and you never tap, the duel is a loss marked NO DRAW. Leaving the game while the dot is showing counts the same way, so a duel you were about to lose can't be quietly walked away from.
Ties
A tie goes to you. If your time matches your opponent's to the millisecond, the result screen shows DEAD EVEN and you take the win.
Training duels
Your first three duels are training. The opponents are deliberately slow, so you can learn the rhythm of the standoff and win while you do it. They also give the game three real times to work out how sharp you are. When the third ends you'll see TRAINING COMPLETE with your three times and your record, and your first real duel is next.
| Training opponent | Reaction time |
|---|---|
| Sleepy Straw-Hat | 1100ms |
| Drunken Traveler | 1000ms |
| Village Footman | 900ms |
The ghost ladder
After training you face opponents matched to your skill. Matching looks at how consistent you are, not just your single best tap, so one lucky round doesn't throw you in against opponents far beyond you. When no real player near your level is available, you duel one of twelve ghosts. Each ghost has a typical speed, and like a real player it doesn't hit exactly the same time every duel.
| Ghost | Typical time |
|---|---|
| The Apprentice | 780ms |
| Shadow Ronin | 680ms |
| Lone Blade | 590ms |
| Crimson Ghost | 530ms |
| Storm Caller | 475ms |
| Zen Master | 445ms |
| The Unseen | 420ms |
| Kurosawa Spirit | 400ms |
| Iron Lotus | 375ms |
| Silent Thunder | 335ms |
| Hollow Shogun | 295ms |
| The Last Draw | 255ms |
Real opponents are other players' recorded duels. You face a time they actually set, drawn from their recent rounds, so you meet them at their real form. Sometimes that includes one of their best days.
Streaks, stats and achievements
- Win streak. Consecutive ranked wins. A loss resets it, and so do two fouls in a row. Your longest streak is kept forever.
- Personal best. Your fastest clean reaction time. It's the number the global leaderboard ranks you by.
- Average. Your running average reaction time, which is a better measure of real improvement than a single best.
- Achievements. Ten achievements, from your first win to sustained streaks. A few are hidden until you earn them.
A ranked win under 200 milliseconds earns a one-time NEW LEGEND moment.
Daily Duel
Once training is done, the Duel tab offers the Daily Duel. Everyone faces the same ghost, at the same time, all day. You get one attempt. It counts as soon as the standoff starts, so a false start, a missed strike or leaving the duel uses it. The day resets at midnight UTC, with a new ghost.
- Ranked. The Daily Duel is a ranked duel. It counts toward your stats, streaks, rank and achievements like any other.
- Top percent. A clean hit shows where you placed among everyone who played that day, like TOP 12% TODAY.
- Daily streak. Play on consecutive days to build it. Any attempt counts, win or lose. Miss a day and it starts again. Your best is kept on your profile.
Challenge a friend
After a duel, Challenge a Friend makes a link that carries your time. Whoever opens it duels against exactly that time. Lose, and they can try again with REMATCH. Win, and they can send their own time back with CHALLENGE BACK. Challenge links last 30 days. Friend duels are for bragging rights only. They're unranked, so they don't move your stats, streaks or leaderboard place.
The global leaderboard
Every player is ranked by their best clean reaction time. The board shows the top players and your own place, even when you're far from the top. Times are checked before they count. Fouls, impossible times and patterns that look like a script never reach the board.
Fair play on every screen
The strike dot appears in a random spot, so you can't park your cursor where it's going to be. In a browser window too small for that to stay fair, the game shows WINDOW TOO SMALL instead of letting you duel. Make the window bigger, or play on your phone.
Want to go faster? What is a good reaction time? explains what your milliseconds mean and how to cut them down.