untitled tag game Tagpads

Tagpads are a map tool, not a joke emote. _create added them on 1 April 2026 with the April Fools 2026 ship, after a Discord teaser clip on 23 March 2026 showed the launch at the end of the video. Flipping and scribbled vote cards left when the week ended. Pads stayed. If you still treat Craigville like a flat street map, you are fighting people who can steal a roof in one click.

A tagpad is usually a 3x3 stud block plus a wedge that points the launch direction. No wedge means the pad pushes you away instead of sending you along a readable arrow. Every pad carries the Tag Effects icon, which is how you tell a launch block from a crate. Sphere-weld pads (added later in August 2026) can float: a sphere with a cone instead of a floor wedge. They are not platforms. You cannot stand on them to camp. You tag them.

Use pads the way you already use ziplines and rails: to change height fast. Binds stay on Controls — there is no extra pad key. Tag is left mouse on PC, tap on mobile if no gear is equipped. Full chase notes live on Movement. Layout notes live on Maps. Patch context lives on the Updates Hub.

How a launch actually works

Walk onto the block (or into the sphere) and tag the pad. You launch along the wedge or cone. Distance scales with your velocity at the click. Momentum you already have usually carries through unless the pad fires you the opposite way. That is why a roll into a pad throws farther than a standing click. A dead stop on the block is a weak launch and a free tag for anyone behind you.

Read the wedge before you need it. In a chase you do not have time to discover that this particular 3x3 dumps you into a wall. Round one on a pad map is scouting: stand off-angle, click a quiet pad, watch where you land, then name two pads you will actually use in round two.

Chain pads only if your role’s tag cooldown allows it. Survivors and Classic bodies can often slap two pads in a row. Slashers and some combat kits cannot chain as easily because their tag cooldown is slower — take the stairs or a zip instead of forcing a second pad you will miss. Missing a pad in a chase is worse than never trying it. You stop, you whiff the click, and the hunter arrives on a body that is no longer moving.

Craigville, Bloxburg, and the later spread

Craigville is the classroom. It shipped with a dense pad set (on the order of a dozen individual pads). Learn the facing of each wedge the same way you learned Crossroads bars: one quiet round, then a chase round. A runner who ignores pads on Craigville is already cut. A tagger who takes a pad to the roof the runner wanted is playing the map.

Bloxburg has fewer pads (a pair on the live tile, copied onto Chinatown and Climate Change variants). They still matter because Bloxburg already rewards rails, interiors, and smashable alleys. A pad that puts you on a roof you used to ladder is a new exit. Do not railfling off the map just because a pad felt fast.

August 2026 quietly put pads on Glass Houses, 4-Way and Walled Glass Houses, and related tiles, added the Tag Effects icon so you can see them, and later made the boost more consistent. Test Ground keeps a lab set. If a June-style revert yanked a toy, look at the floor: a 3x3 with a wedge and a Tag Effects icon is still a pad. Discord #updates remains the first-party note; this wiki’s Updates Hub is the reading order.

When to take a pad (and when not to)

Take it when you need height in one click. Crown peasants steal from below with a pad. Infected runners use a pad as an eject when the horde takes the only stairs. Freeze runners pad off a freezer who already committed to a hallway. FFA players pad out of a pile instead of swinging in a crowd. Competitive lives are too expensive to spend on a ground 1v1 when a pad exists.

Skip it when the hunter is already on the same block. A shared pad is a 1v1 with a predictable launch. Skip it when the wedge points into lava, a cannon line, or a dead interior. Skip it when you just tagged a player and No Tag Back is ticking — the pad is for leaving, but the launch heading has to be away from the victim, not back through them.

No Tag Back still applies after player tags. Clicking a pad does not erase the shield you just earned on a runner. Since 30 August 2026 the NTB icon shows a timer. Use that timer to reach a pad, then launch. Do not pad into the person you tagged. Do not wait on the pad for the timer to end so you can farm them again. Repeat tags pay less anyway.

Pad combat, not pad tourism

Pads are height machines. They are not sightseeing. A crown who pads onto a lip with no second exit is still a camper. An infected runner who pads into a closet is still cornered. Treat the landing like a zipline dump: roll it, then change heading. Slide cancel after you land if you need a juke. Vault the next lip so the pad was a setup, not the whole play.

Taggers should not chase the launch silhouette. Pre-aim the landing. If the wedge points at a roof, stand on that roof. If it points at a plaza, cut the plaza stairs. Following the same pad one second late is a parade, the same mistake as following a zipline cable.

Mobile players: the tag button and the joystick fight for the same thumb. Approach the pad already aimed, tap tag, then get off the button. Console players: test which face button is tag versus jump before you lab Craigville in a public Crown round.

Round-one pad scouting

Maps last two rounds. On a pad map, round one has a fourth checklist item after roof, bar, and zip: name two pads and their facings. Say them. “Blue roof pad goes north. Alley pad pushes away, no wedge.” Round two, play your role with those two. Classic runners spend No Tag Back getting to a pad. Bombers pass, then pad. Infected runners keep a pad as an eject. Crown holders only stay on a pad landing if they can leave it.

That habit is why Craigville climbed as a chase map after April 2026. The streets did not get smarter. The players who learned the 3x3 blocks did. Pair this page with Movement so the launch is timed, Maps so you know which tiles even have pads, and Controls so you are not hunting a mythical pad key. Pads are a click. Height is the point.