How to Play 82-0: Rules, Draft, and Simulation Explained

82-0’s rules fit on one page, and the game is genuinely that simple to explain — which is part of why it spread so fast. Here’s the exact flow.

Step 1: Pick a mode

Classic shows full player stats while you draft. Hoop IQ hides them — you’re drafting on memory alone. 1v1 has you draft a full lineup and then face off against a rival roster rather than just chasing a solo record.

Step 2: Spin for a team and decade

Each of the five rounds opens with a “slot machine” that randomly assigns you one specific NBA team and one specific decade — not a free choice across all of basketball history. Land on, say, the 1980s Trail Blazers, and your candidate pool for that round is every player who actually played for that team in that decade.

Step 3: Draft the best available player from that pool

In Classic mode you can browse the full roster with real per-game stats (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks) and sort or filter by position. Pick one player, and move to the next round.

Step 4: Use your skips wisely

You get one team skip and one decade skip per game — separate resources, spendable independently. If the wheel lands you on a genuinely weak team-era combination for your build, this is the moment to burn one rather than settling for a below-replacement pick.

Step 5: Repeat for all five rounds

82-0’s roster is five players — no bench, no coach. Once all five picks are locked in, the simulation runs automatically.

Step 6: How the record gets calculated

The engine sums five raw stat categories — points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game — across your five players into a single “Strength Rating.” That number runs through a non-linear win-projection curve: each additional win gets harder to earn as your total strength climbs, and era-adjusted benchmarks make sure a big scoring number from a fast, high-possession decade isn’t weighted the same as an equally big number from a slower one. You get a projected win-loss record, a letter grade, your best pick, and your roster’s single biggest weakness.

What the rules don’t reward — on purpose, by their own admission

82-0’s own published rules state plainly that there are no positional restrictions and no synergy penalties — the stated optimal strategy is just maximizing raw stat totals in each round, regardless of whether you end up with five guards or a genuinely balanced lineup. If that’s the part of the format you find thin, our 82-0 strategy guide covers how to think about roster construction anyway, and 82-0 is our own take on this same draft-and-simulate premise, built specifically to score real positional fit and lineup chemistry rather than leave it out.