Elimination
Elimination is an annual competition where several teams compete to throw each other underneath in ranking. The lowest team is slowly eliminated until the last team is standing. The competition starts on September 5th at 12:00 TCT and the competition ends on the 18th of September, depending on that year's rules.
There's a pool of team names of which 12 are randomly selected for each year's competition.
This competition is similar to the old 'World War' competition, that is no longer in use.
Elimination was on a brief pause in 2024[1]. Event was reintroduced to the calendar on September 17, 2025, and is scheduled to run from 5th of December to 18th of December in 2025 and in September in 2026.[2]
How to Play
There are three phases to this game. Firstly, everyone must enter in the entry period. Afterward, the teams are locked and teams can attack each other in the attacking period to shuffle team tickets around. Finally, the elimination period starts happening in earnest, eliminating the team with the lowest tickets.
Entry Period
On September 5th, at 12:00 TCT, players can register for the Elimination competition as long as they qualify. To qualify, you must be at least 14 days old and attack 5 people of your choosing during the entry period. Entry closes on September 10th, at 12:00 TCT.
Players can not swap teams once they have joined one. Once in the team, they will have access to their own private Forum, and their own private Chat to communicate and strategize before the event starts. Each team starts with 1,000 tickets and 50 lives, ready for the attacking period.
New for 2026: 12 new teams, each with its own banner, sigil, typeface and colour scheme. Players are now assigned to teams on a balanced basis rather than at random, to help ensure the fairest Elimination possible.
Voting Period
The Voting Period runs from 12:00 TCT on the 7th of September for 24 hours.
Starting in 2026, only the player with the most votes will be elected Captain. Players must now nominate themselves as candidates for Captain. Once elected they may nominate five Vice-Captains to assist them in their duties. These nominations can be given to any player, regardless of how many votes they did or didn't get during the election.
Candidates in the voting dropdown are now ordered by vote count rather than when they joined the team. A live chart will track the leading candidates and show how their support changes throughout the voting period. Once voting closes, this will switch to a bar chart displaying the final results.
The chart plots the five candidates with the highest peak vote totals, although a candidate must receive at least ten votes to appear. As usual, each player gets only one vote. This vote can be withdrawn by selecting the same candidate again before making your new choice.
Captains
As noted earlier, the elected Captain may nominate five Vice-Captains. All six leaders can send team newsletters, place headlines on the team’s news ticker, and moderate the team forums. They will also receive appropriate branding on the team page and their respective profiles, in addition to profile badges which denote their lofty status as an Elimination leader.
Vice-Captains can be removed at any time, but new ones will NOT be able to be added once attacking starts.
Newsletters now display how many players will receive the message before being posted. They can be sent either to the entire team or only to players who were active within the past fifteen minutes. Team headlines will appear in an Elimination-specific colour, with an Elimination icon beside them to distinguish them from faction headlines. These tools are now named Team Newsletter and Team Headlines.
Attacking Period
On September 10th, at 12:00 TCT, teams are allowed to fight each other for tickets. This helps to shuffle the tickets around, and guide some newer participants in how the attacking system can work. No permanent consequence (the number of team lives are not affected) happens during this period, other than losing or gaining tickets. At this stage, players can opt out of the competition as well, if they do not wish to participate in the carnage. The option to leave will be shown in the top right corner of the Elimination page.
Each successful attack swaps one available ticket from the losing team to the winning team. Stalemates, escapes, or defends don't count. No tickets are swapped if there are no available tickets to be swapped.
New for 2026:
- Stealthed attacks count towards a player's attack total but no longer update their last attack time. A player who only attacks a team stealthily will not appear on that team's revenge list.
- Live updating: Team pages, the revenge list and recent attacks update as events happen rather than only when the page is refreshed, so member status and online indicators stay current.
Elimination Period
On September 11th, at 12:00 TCT, every 15 minutes, the team with the lowest number of tickets loses a life. Upon reaching 0 lives, the team is eliminated. Any tickets owned by that team is removed from the circulation. The competition ends with one team left standing, and all other teams have been eliminated.
If two or more teams are tied on the number of tickets when determining life loss, the team that is designated as the loser is determined by applying the following criteria in sequential order until the tie is broken: team with fewest tickets, then the fewest wins, then the most losses and then the team with the fewest lives.
No new tickets can be created throughout the event. Only tickets will be removed.
Leaving Elimination
If you wish to leave Elimination, then the Attacking Period is also the earliest moment you may decide to quit. Anyone wishing to leave will find a leave button in the top right corner of the Elimination page. You can click it at any time between the 10th and the end of Elimination.
Early Discharge
An addendum has been placed on the definition of an "Outside Hit", a type of hit that allows users to utilise the Early Discharge mechanic, regarding Elimination. All Elimination hits will be considered "Inside Hits", and thus will not qualify a user for Early Discharge.
Teams
Each team is given their own team chat and team forum for members to coordinate.
Participants are randomly assigned to the following teams for 2026:
- 1. Brain Surgeons
- 2. Conspiracy Theorists
- 3. Inanimate Objects
- 4. Gold Dust
- 5. Reptilians
- 6. Rocket Scientists
- 7. Sticks and Stones
- 8. Apex
- 9. Touching Grass
- 10. Nine Lives
- 11. High Voltage
- 12. Loose Cannons
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Previous Winners
| Year | Winners |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Murder Hornets source |
| 2023 | Religious Extremists source |
| 2022 | Jean Therapy source |
| 2021 | Illuminati source |
| 2020 | Sea Men source |
| 2019 | Lumberjacks source |
| 2018 | Team Cupcake source |
| 2017 | Pink Power source |
| 2016 | Mountain Men source |
Honors and prizes
There are four obtainable honor bars. Note: Elimination honors are credited at the end of the competition.
| Merit | Banner |
|---|---|
| Finish the competition with your team in 1st place | 
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| Finish the competition with your team 1st, 2nd or 3rd. | 
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| Make 50 attacks against any active enemy team members. | 
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| Finish the competition within the top 5% of attacks in your team* | 
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Profile badges launched in 2025 and return this year. New additions for 2026 are Captain and Vice Captain indicators, and Top Hitter and Low Hitter badges.
- 5% is only based on number of people who are in the team at the end of the competition. 0 hitters are also counted.[3]
Historical notes
Elimination used to run from 5th of September to 25th of September in 2023.
- Elimination 2019 - Eliminations reopened with the following changes:
- Twelve brand new teams are available.
- Pot luck team selection option added, which joins the player to any random team even if it's full.
- Statistics page added which shows graphs of Tickets & Lives, and a list of recent lives lost.
- Teams will now be eliminated when they reach 0 lives (not the tick after 0 lives).
- Leave option has been added which becomes available after the entry period.
- Teams now start on 30 lives (instead of 25 lives).
- Warmup period is now 24 hours (instead of 72 hours).
- Tie-breaker changed to lowest total attacks (instead of lowest number of lives).
- Team lists now have an option to filter unavailable targets.
- previous versions of Elimination followed a points system as follows
- Points listed as: your team/target team
- Leaving on the street: +3/0
- Mugging: +1/-1
- Hospitalizing: +0/-3
- (Note: leaving on the street was previously +2/0, but was changed 9/11/2017)
Patch History
- Added 14 new teams (12 of which have been selected 2020).
- Added attacks qualifier system to help prevent people from joining who have little interest.
- Added attack wins / losses graphs.
- Increased team lives from 30 to 100.
- Increased loss of lives tick rate from 60 minutes to 15 minutes.
- Changed potluck system to add the user to one of the six least populated teams.
- Changed the lives lost log to condense multiple losses by the same team in a row.
- Elimination is back - with some pretty big changes coming into play this year.
- A team must lose all of their 25 lives before they can be eliminated.
- Once the elimination period starts, one life is lost by the team at the bottom of the list (least tickets) every hour.
- Teams start with 1,000 tickets. Each attack moves one ticket from the victim's team to the attacker's team.
- Spectating improved, indications of attacks and score changes will be visible live on the Elimination page.
- Added elimination score cap of 5,000.
- Changed elimination scoring mechanics (Leave: +3, Mug: +1 / -1, Hosp: -3).
References
- ↑ Elimination on pause
- ↑ Elimination in September 2026
- ↑ [https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&t=16057071&to= 26752561 Bogie confirming how 5% merit works] (15/12/25)