untitled tag game How to play Tagger

Tagger is the orange job. You exist to apply a tag with left click (or a tap on mobile, no gear equipped). In Classic that tag swaps you with a runner. In other modes you might convert, freeze, infect, or eliminate — the special roles page covers those kits. This page is about the chase craft that all of them share: cutting, predicting, and not throwing a streak.

Read movement so your body can actually arrive. Read maps so you know which stairs are lies. Read gamemodes so you know whether the tag swaps, converts, or eliminates. Read getting started if you still miss the NTB shield.

What a good tag looks like

A good tag happens on a route the runner already committed to, not on a straight-line sprint. You do not outrun a roll; you meet the landing. You do not follow a zipline; you stand where it dumps. You do not climb the same ladder; you take the second stairs and appear above them.

Coins and XP come from tags (about 10 coins and 5 XP on a clean hit, with diminishing returns on the same victim). Achievements care about streaks: hot streak at 10, blazing trail at 25, inferno blitz at 50, scorched earth at 100. Private servers do not award those. Public Classic on an S-tier map is the farm.

Cut, do not chase

Chasing means matching the runner’s path one second late. Cutting means picking the exit and arriving first.

• Crossroads: if they enter Thieves’ Den, do not follow the cave. Take the mountain lip and wait at the bridge. If they bounce the playground trampoline, wait on the wooden bridge, not under the pad.
• Glass Houses: if they take the outpost zipline, ride the other zip or hold the house they are flying toward. Following the same cable is a parade.
• Rocket Arena: if they pad up, pad to a different platform that still sees their landing. Same-pad 1v1s are coin flips.
• Bloxburg: cut the alley they have not reached. Rails are for you only if you can grind ahead, not behind.
• Craigville: use tagpads to steal height. A runner who ignores pads is already cut.

Wallruns and vault chains are cuts when they skip a staircase. They are chases when you copy the runner’s wall one stud behind.

Predict the three S-tier tools

The tier list hub ranks roll timing, fall swing, and slide boost as S-tier movement. Taggers who ignore that list swing at ghosts.

Roll: runners press C before they land. The burst is largest on long falls. If you see them leave a Rocket Arena pad, aim the landing, not the silhouette in the air. Swing after they roll so NTB does not eat a second hit they never needed.

Fall swing: a runner dropping onto a bar will fling horizontally. Do not stand under the bar. Stand on the launch heading (usually the direction they were already facing). Miss that and they are in another quadrant.

Slide boost: double-tap C, jump on the get-up, steal height. If a runner does this on a Glass Houses hill, they will clear a lip you thought was a wall. Pre-aim the lip.

Vault chains, ziplines, and wallruns are A-tier: punish the commit. A zipline rider is a sitting tag if you beat them to the end. A wallrun ends when the wall ends — wait there.

Do not waste the streak

Streaks die to three habits.

1. Tagging NTB. After a swap, both bodies are shielded. The icon (and since late August 2026, the timer) is not decoration. Swing at a third player. Drive-by (tag while sliding) is a real achievement; drive-by on a shield is a clown clip.
2. Tunneling the same runner. Repeat tags pay less and teach nothing. After a swap, you are the runner’s problem for someone else. Pick a new target in a different lane.
3. Swinging in a crowd. FFA and TDM want this. Classic does not. A missed swing in a pile tags a teammate’s timing and blows your heading. Isolate, then tag.

If you are a dying tagger in Competitive (health chunked, need another hit or you drop), that is the one time you may break rule 2. Otherwise, play the map, not the vendetta.

Mode flavors of the same job

Classic — swap. After the hit you are a runner. Immediately apply runner habits: leave the lane, do not reverse-chase.

Infected / Team Swap — convert. You keep the job. This is where streaks actually live. Cut mid, force runners off S-tier loops into hallways, and never chase a single survivor across all four Crossroads quadrants while six others sit in the park.

Bomb — you are the fuse. The tag is a pass. Standing still to “aim” is how you explode. Move like a runner who happens to be radioactive.

Freeze — you keep freezer (or chiller). Tag to freeze, then guard the body or go get another. A freezer who freeze-and-forgets loses to a thaw train. Extra tags on a frozen body deal chip and refresh pressure.

Crown — you are a peasant. The tag steals. Cut the crown’s exit, do not follow the crown’s screenshot. Once you have it, you are no longer a tagger; you are a keepaway player. Switch brains.

FFA / TDM / Slasher / Juggernaut — elimination or chip. Still cut. The gamemode tier list ranks these B because the identity is a brawl, but a cut still beats a sprint.

Lobby sense

Look at outlines and highlights. Many modes show you legal victims. If a runner is highlighted through a wall, take the short geometry, not the scenic vault. If two taggers already sit on the castle, you take the den. Duplicate coverage is how survivors live.

Vote S-tier modes on S-tier maps when you want streak practice. Vote Chaos when you want to practise reading a prompt. Redeem codes after you bank a hot streak, not in the middle of a cut.