Roster lock
From the Polandball Go Wiki
The roster lock is the moment your alliance war lineup is fixed for the week. It falls when sign-up closes, at Friday 00:00 UTC. Whatever you held at that moment is what you fight with until the war ends, for both defense and attack.
1 When it happens#
Like every change of war phase, the lock falls at 00:00 UTC:
- US Eastern, summer time: Thursday at 8 PM.
- US Eastern, after daylight saving ends on November 1, 2026: Thursday at 7 PM.
- UTC: the stroke of midnight between Thursday and Friday.
Sign-up runs all of Thursday, UTC. Pressing the button early doesn't lock anything sooner. The game keeps no record of when each player signed up. What matters is the close.
Matchmaking runs at the same moment. That is when the game records each side's war power and how many members joined.
2 What gets frozen#
For every ball you own, the game freezes:
- its CP,
- its upgrade tiers, the orb tracks,
- its typing, including which type is its primary typing,
- its equipped item.
Anything that happens to your roster after the lock waits for next week. A ball you pull on Friday can't defend. A level-up, a new star or a prestige on Friday or Saturday leaves the war version of that ball at its Thursday strength. An item you equip after the lock does nothing for this war.
3 Why it matters on setup and attack day#
Setup day and attack day both work from the frozen copy. When you place a squad on Friday, the defenders carry their locked CP and items. When you attack on Saturday, your attackers do too. The roster screen may show a stronger ball than the one fighting, if you upgraded it after the lock.
This also means war planning has a hard deadline. Which balls to grow, which item goes on which ball and whether to make a trade that redraws a ball's primary typing all have to be settled before Thursday evening, US time.
4 Preparing for the lock#
- Spend upgrades before the close. Influence, orbs and stars you were saving for the war need to be on the balls by Thursday 8 PM Eastern (7 PM in winter).
- Equip items first. Taking an item off a ball costs Aether Dust, so settle the war items before the lock.
- Mind trades. A trade draws a new primary typing for both balls and drops both to the lower level and prestige. A trade made Thursday afternoon goes into the war at the new typing and level.
- Check the whole roster, not just the top five. A squad holds five balls, and a large board needs many squads, so the balls below your best team matter too.
- Remember the split. A ball placed on defense never attacks. The lock fixes the balls you have; setup day decides how to divide them.
5 War Council's own lock#
War Council, polbielytics' fantasy game, has a lock of its own. Fantasy lineups lock later, when attacks open on Saturday at 00:00 UTC (Friday 8 PM Eastern in summer). That is a separate rule for the fantasy game. It does not change when the game itself freezes your war lineup.
6 On polbielytics#
The game doesn't publish the frozen lineup. polbielytics keeps its own copy of each player's strongest balls and items as they stood at the lock, and the war pages use that copy, not the live roster, so a war's figures match what actually fought.
See also Alliance wars and War attacks and team duels.