From one ball/strike plate appearance to a comeback win—first understand the “swing / lay off” choice each at-bat. Core: the swing/lay-off duel + pitching gear + pitch types, rolling the hit die after contact, facing a two-option decision on the mystery face, plus the tactical game of six skills.

1. Ball/Strike Plate Appearances（Swing / Lay off）

At each at-bat you first choose “swing” or “lay off”, then the pitch die is rolled and resolved by pitch type. Each plate appearance works like this:

1. Choose “swing” or “lay off”. Swing succeeds on contact based on that pitch type's whiff rate (no whiff = contact); lay off is independent of the whiff rate and resolves by pitch family (calling a strike family wrong adds a strike / calling a ball family right adds a ball).
2. Roll the pitch die of the selected pitching gear (6 faces; the pitch-type distribution is set by the gear).
3. Resolution: strikes ≥ 3 → Strikeout; balls ≥ 4 → Walk (batter reaches base); contact → roll the “pitch type” hit die; incomplete → keep choosing “swing / lay off”.

2. Pitching Gears（bs / bb / bbb / ss / sss）

The five “pitcher styles” are each an independent 6-face die (codes: Mostly strikes sss · Strike-heavy ss · Balanced bs · Ball-heavy bb · Mostly balls bbb) — the further left, the more balls. In Duels the defense picks it before the defensive half-inning begins (once per half-inning; every batter in that half-inning uses it, and it is re-picked after the sides change); in single-player (Challenge) a gear is rolled at random each inning by weighted odds (Strike-heavy 30% · Balanced 50% · Ball-heavy 20%), using only the middle three gears.

Selection Panel & Time Limit

• Before each of your defensive half-innings a “Choose pitching strategy” panel pops up — pick once and every batter in that half-inning uses it; it is re-picked after the sides change. Before the game starts the home-team host first picks the “starting pitcher” gear.
• The five gears are five cards: one tap selects it (the old “drag slider + Confirm” flow is gone); tapping the empty area outside the cards takes the default, Balanced.
• Time limit: 5 seconds, except 10 seconds for the very first pick when facing an AI. If the countdown runs out with no action, Balanced starts automatically.
• The offense does not see the panel; during the wait it shows “The opponent is choosing a pitching strategy…” (vs AI: “AI is thinking about a pitching strategy…”, with roughly a 2-second pause).
• Below each ball/strike result a line is echoed: Opponent chose “swing/lay off” · Pitch face (dead-center ball / strike / nasty strike / ball / wide ball), visible to the defense and spectators.

3. Pitch Types（s0 / s1 / s2 / b1 / b2）

Each face of the pitch die is a pitch type (codes s0 dead-center ball · s1 strike · s2 nasty strike · b1 ball · b2 wide ball). A pitch type decides both the contact difficulty (whiff rate) and the quality of the hit die after contact.

4. The Hit Die after Contact

Choosing “swing” without whiffing means contact (choosing “lay off” never produces contact — it only adds a strike or a ball): you roll that pitch type's hit die (each pitch type has its own 6-face die; see the distributions above). The hit die has only four faces: OUT / FOUL Foul Ball / Single / Choose Mystery Face; a foul = one strike and back to “swing / lay off”. Doubles / triples / home runs are no longer produced directly by the hit die — they only come from Bat upgrading a single.
Plate-appearance outcomes (Balanced gear, all swing + take the 1B, solved exactly from the server dice faces): strikeout 20.1% / other outs 31.2% / hits 48.7% (about 18.1% of plate appearances reach the “Choose” face); under the weighted solo gears the hit rate is about 48.9%.

5. Two-Option Decisions

When the hit die rolls Choose, you pick one of two options:

Option A「Take the 1B」（Conservative）

• Get a single immediately and reach base safely (about a 48.7% hit rate in the Balanced gear; 48.9% with the solo weighted gears).

Option B「Swing for the fences」（Aggressive）

• Roll a second die and enter a high-risk, high-reward branch.

Effective odds: DP 16.7%, BB 16.7%, 2B 33.3%, 3B 16.7%, HR 16.7%.

6. Clearing & Failing

7. Skills System

Usage Rules

• At most 3 skills per inning; the same skill cannot be reused in the same inning.
• After “Cmd” succeeds, the half-inning skill usage count restores to 3 and all skills become usable again; once the allowance is full no skill can be sent at all (Cmd included).
• Bag limit: at most 20 of each skill, 120 in total.

8. How to Obtain Skills

9. Baseball Rule Essentials

• 3 outs = end of half-inning; strikeouts, double plays and failed sacrifices all add to the out count.
• Hits advance runners by bases; a HR sends all runners + the batter home to score.
• Double play: before 2 outs the batter + the runner closest to home are out; after 2 outs only the batter is out.
• Walk: the batter takes first and base runners each advance 1 base.
• Play stops once the score is surpassed; later runners running home no longer score (except on a HR).

Next Step

Once you've mastered the basics, see how to make optimal decisions—check out Strategy →