Drag-Ball is a popular sport and a type of competition played within Dragon City. The game involves two teams facing off, with two team members for each team, where the aim of the game is to get the ball into the goal chute for your team. The arena is quite a small space, with large pillars scattered around inside. There is little room to run away from opponents and racers must manoeuvre carefully on their dragons around the different pillars to reach their goal chutes.
The game begins with "the toss"- the ball is placed in the center of the arena, with the two teams surrounding it, all at equal distance from the ball. The bell rings and ball is shot high into the air, signalling the start of the game. Scoring and the moving of the ball can be done in various ways- a rider may hit the ball with their blocking staff, throw or kick it, as well as mag off their dragon and run with the ball. While dragons themselves cannot mag the ball directly, they can also "tail kick" the ball into the goal.
The two members of a team usually take on one of two roles- the shooter or the blocker. The shooter is the one who mag-jumps for the ball and makes the shots into the goal chute, as well as moving around to dodge other players to make it to their goal post. This is the 'skill' aspect of the game, and requires clever thinking and good speed. The blocker is the player who goes after the other players and tries to disable their movements in order to allow their other team member to get away and shoot a goal. The blocker usually uses Brown Entrenching gear to achieve this- they pin either one or both of the opposing team members against a wall or pillar, then use the gear to secure themselves firmly into the ground so that the opposing players cannot escape and are pinned firmly against the wall or pillar. This is the 'strength' aspect of the game, as the blocker must hold off one or even two players at a time and prevent them from escaping and chasing after their shooter.
While this is the general play-style that is followed, it is not set as the rules of the game. We see a variety of tactics introduced to the game in Episode 39: Damaged Goods, where Artha Penn and Shane do a mag-switch of their dragons mid-game and even bring in new gear types for different effects.
The game goes through rounds, with each round ending when a team scores a point. The ending of the game can vary- sometimes it is the best two out of three, meaning the team who wins either gets 2-0 or 3-1 and the game ends with that. Sometimes a time limit is imposed and the game will go on with indefinite rounds until this time limit is reached, and the winner is the team with the most scores by the end of the time limit. If a tie is reached in this type of game, the game goes into overtime; one final round is added in, and the winner of that round is the winner overall.
Kawake is the 20-time Drag-Ball champion and is currently retired from the game. He had been undefeated in the game until the events of Episode 12: Misjudged. His younger brother Shane now takes his place as being the star player in this competition type.
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