Clam Blitz

"Fill the enemy's clam basket!"

Clam Blitz is one of the four Ranked Battle modes in Splatoon 2, alongside Splat Zones, Rainmaker, and Tower Control. Clam Blitz is the only ranked mode introduced in Splatoon 2 that was not in Splatoon.

History
Clam Blitz was announced on 2017-11-21 when Nintendo released a video showing the updates for the coming weeks.

On 2017-12-13 at July 27, 2024, the game update made Clam Blitz playable.

Gameplay
The objective of Clam Blitz is to pick up clams, which are scattered around the stage, and deposit them into the goal near the opposing team's base. Once a player picks up ten clams, it transforms into a Power Clam, which is used to destroy the barrier around the other team's goal when thrown towards it.

Holding and Throwing Clams
At the beginning of the match, thirty clams are scattered all around the center of the stage and towards the teams' bases. New clams in groups of four appear at set intervals at certain locations in the stage. They can be picked up by going close enough to them. A Power Clam is formed by picking up ten clams. After picking up clams, they start to trail along behind the player in humanoid form and disappear when swimming. When standing still in humanoid form, the clams form a pyramid shape. Clams and Power Clams can be thrown by pressing or. If a thrown clam or Power Clam hits another player, they get it as if they picked it up. However, a Power Clam can only be picked up by players of the same team. A Power Clam, when thrown to the ground, inks the ground. Picking up a Power Clam fumble while holding clams will force the player to drop all of them.

A player can only hold one Power Clam at a time and cannot pick up additional clams while holding one. A player that gets splatted while holding clams drops up to four of them. It is possible to Super Jump to a teammate or a and keep all held clams intact, but returning to the spawn point immediately breaks whatever clams the player was holding. Throwing clams at the spawn also breaks them. After using the or, the player drops all the clams they were holding.

Any clams dropped open up and break after a short while if not picked up. A Power Clam similarly starts flashing and disappears after ten seconds if not picked up by a player of the same team. After a Power Clam disappears or enough clams have despawned, new clams appear in the stage in selected locations at groups of four clams.



Clams on the player's team ink color appear as pulsating circular markers on-screen (even through walls) and as dots surrounded by pulsating circles on the map. Both these markers are shown in the neutral color for the current match.

All players can see the position of both teams' Power Clams at all times on both the screen and the map, shown as a Ranked Battle symbol in white over their appropriate color. Once a player holds a Power Clam, it follows the player and can be seen even when swimming. A dropped Power Clam (or the one that spawns when the barrier regenerates) is similarly shown on all players' maps and screens in inverted colors (team color logo on white background). If the player is holding a Power Clam, or if the opponent's goal is open and the player is holding any clams, a marker shaped like a Power Clam in the opponent's color appears on-screen, showing the location of the opponent's goal.

Any friendly players holding clams have a numbered marker showing how many they are holding above their name. In addition, the scoreboard on the top of the screen shows the total number of clams currently held by each team, with Power Clams counted as ten clams.

Scoring
Breaking the opponent's barrier with a Power Clam awards twenty points and lifts the team's barrier up, preventing the enemy team to score points. If several Power Clams hit the closed basket simultaneously, these points are awarded for each one. When clams are thrown in the opposing team's open basket, three points are earned for each clam, while a Power Clam is worth twenty. If a team's barrier closes with the exact same point total as the opposing team, the last team to score loses one point, a feature which is done to avoid tied scores.

The barrier stays open for ten seconds, and throwing a clam into it extends the timer by three seconds, but cannot make the remaining time go over ten seconds. Throwing a Power Clam into an open basket resets the timer to ten seconds. When the barrier timer runs out, the enemy team's basket lifts up to regenerate the barrier for ten seconds, while the team's barrier drops immediately, making it easier for a counter-attack. When the player's barrier is open, it is impossible to open the enemy's barrier, as any Power Clam thrown at the goal goes back into the end zone as if the player had dropped it.

If the barrier goes back up before the scoring team gets to 100 points, a penalty of half the points scored, rounded down, is imposed on the team, similar to the penalty for ceding control to the other team in Splat Zones. The total for this calculation includes the twenty points for breaking the barrier, as well as any points that made up for previous penalties. If a point was deducted for the barrier closing with a tied score, the penalty does not change (e.g. if the team only ended up scoring nineteen points, the penalty is still +10). In addition, a Power Clam for the team whose barrier got broken spawns by their goal, and does not time out until picked up. No additional Power Clams spawn if the previous one was not picked up and the barrier got broken and returned again.



Several stages have a bump near the basket with the logo on marked on them. The bump makes it easier to score and measure the distance needed to score a Power Clam.

Overtime
When time runs out and at least one team has scored, overtime begins when either:


 * The losing team has a Power Clam in their possession or on the field.
 * The winning team's barrier is open.
 * The losing team's barrier is open but they were winning when it was opened.

Overtime ends when:


 * The winning team scores.
 * The winning team's barrier closes.
 * The losing team loses all of their Power Clams before opening the winning team's barrier.
 * The losing team fails to open the winning team's barrier within twenty seconds.
 * The losing team takes the lead.

If time runs out and neither team has scored, special overtime begins. In this case, overtime ends when either:


 * One team manages to score.
 * Three minutes of overtime pass.

Trivia

 * The Power Clam resembles an American football. It also has clams inside of it.
 * The scenario where both teams have broken the opponent's barrier once and have scored no further clams (and the last team to score loses one point) is the only situation where a non-zero score can be less than twenty points.
 * The maximum number of clams that can be on the field while not held by players is fifty.
 * At some time early in development, it appeared that spatting an opponent would have dropped all of their clams, not just a maximum of four. This can be seen during the Version update trailer, at the 1:05 mark, where the green Inkling is seen dropping six clams.