PK Duel
PK Duel is a host-vs-host gift-scoring game for 2–4 hosts/sides at once. Once you pick this game, you first choose how to play it:
- Play with official Match: the score is shown by TikTok's own official Match — TStar doesn't draw a score bar, and the overlay only adds effects like Lightning Strike and Buzzer Beater.
- Play with Stickers: TStar draws its own score bar, and viewers send a bound "dedicated gift" to add points to a side.
The mode is saved together with the config slot — you can keep one config slot for Official Match and another for Stickers, then switch between them from the Home page while live.
Pick a Mode: Official Match or Stickers
Pick 'PK Duel'
Go to the "Scoring Games" page and pick "PK Duel" in step 1.
Pick a mode
A mode switch appears below: "Official Match" and "Stickers". Whichever you pick changes everything that follows — see the two sections below.
Play with Official Match
Good for streaming TikTok's own built-in Match format — TStar only adds effects, it doesn't draw a second score bar on top.
What viewers see
The score on screen comes from official Match. TStar's overlay doesn't show a score bar here; only the Lightning Strike and Buzzer Beater effects layer on top (see "Effects" below).
Set up before you go live
Check host order
Official Match uses the first two hosts in today’s roster as A and B automatically. Add or reorder hosts in Manage roster, then check the read-only A/B summary in PK settings.
Set the side count and round time
Use the "1 min / 3 min / 5 min" quick buttons under "Round Time", or set a custom time with the separate minute and second fields.
Save to Home
Click "Save to Home" — it saves into a config slot and pins itself to the Home page automatically. "Save to Home" only pins this card to Home and does not change what viewers see; to show it to viewers, go to Home and tap this card.
Running it live
Click "Start" on the TStar Home page at the same moment you start official Match, so both countdowns line up. When the round ends it still goes into the reports the same way: the guild dashboard's round archive, Host Rankings, and Top Donors all show this round.
Play with Stickers
Good for drawing your own score bar, picking a skin, and binding your own dedicated gifts.
What viewers see
The score bars show each side’s host name, avatar and representative sticker. The three visibility switches affect appearance only. Scores update from gifts; after settlement the final score remains visible.
A representative gift chooses its side first. For other gifts, a platform-selected recipient takes priority, followed by the viewer’s remembered sticker choice. Without any matching choice, the gift does not score.
Set up before you go live
Pick the number of sides
Sticker mode supports 2–4 hosts/sides at once — pick how many for this round on the "Scoring Games" page.
Choose hosts and representative gifts
Choose each host on its side’s card, then select a representative gift. A gift can belong to only one side; the picker shows its diamond price so you can distinguish gifts with the same name.
Bind a dedicated gift
A representative gift chooses its side first. For other gifts, a platform-selected recipient takes priority, followed by the viewer’s remembered sticker choice. Without any matching choice, the gift does not score.
Set the round time
Use the "1 min / 3 min / 5 min" quick buttons under "Round Time", or set a custom time with the separate minute and second fields.
Save to Home
Click "Save to Home" — it saves into a config slot and pins itself to the Home page automatically; you'll run the round from Home. "Save to Home" only pins this card to Home and does not change what viewers see; to show it to viewers, go to Home and tap this card. Each card's representative stickers are separate, so two PK cards can bind different stickers.
Running it live
Back on the Home page's live console, click "Start (N min)" to kick things off — the countdown only starts once you press it. You can "Pause"/"Resume" any time mid-round. When the round ends it goes into the reports the same way: the guild dashboard's round archive, Host Rankings, and Top Donors all show this round.
Where the score comes from
Scores only count the diamond value TikTok actually reports. Combo gifts are settled once, when the combo ends — they don't get counted repeatedly just because someone kept sending small gifts in a row.
The Home page console
Whichever mode you picked, the Home page gives you the same console: the top row is a summary of this card's settings (number of people, how it is played, round length), followed by one row per team showing the host, the representative sticker (sticker mode) and the live score, with the leading team outlined; below that are the status, the countdown and the winner, and when someone is frozen "Force thaw" is on that row too. Home provides Start / Pause / Resume / Reset. To change the round length, open Edit settings and adjust it on the settings page. To change the number of people, the game, representative stickers or effects, click "Edit settings" in the title bar. Next to it, the "Live Data" panel has three tabs — Host Rankings, Top Donors, and Last Round — you can switch between them any time while live.
Effects
Effects only appear in 2-player PK. 3- and 4-player PK has no Lightning Strike, Buzzer Beater or Freeze, and the Scoring Games page hides those settings; switch back to 2 players and they return, with your earlier styles and thresholds still in place.
PK effects come in three groups: "Lightning Strike", "Buzzer Beater" and "Freeze", and their settings are saved with the config slot. Lightning Strike offers styles such as Lightning, Frostbite, Charred and Blaze, plus a single-gift threshold; when a gift reaches it, the effect plays on the opponent's side. Buzzer Beater offers styles such as Comeback and Supernova, plus a detection window in seconds and a single-gift threshold; it only plays when, inside that final window, the trailing side overtakes with a single gift that meets the threshold, and it plays at most once per round. Below the preview on the left are two buttons, "Preview Lightning Strike" and "Preview Buzzer Beater"; they only play in the console preview and are never sent to what viewers see.
Common questions
Q: In Official Match mode, do I still need to set up scoring myself? A: No scoring rules to set up. TStar tracks who's ahead in the background based on which host receives gifts, purely to decide when effects should fire; the score you see on screen comes from official Match itself.
Q: Can I switch modes mid-stream? A: The mode is saved with the config slot — keep one config slot for Official Match and another for Stickers, then switch between them from the Home page while you're live.
Q: In Sticker mode, do unbound gifts add to anyone's score? A representative gift chooses its side first. For other gifts, a platform-selected recipient takes priority, followed by the viewer’s remembered sticker choice. Without any matching choice, the gift does not score.
Q: Can one gift be bound to two sides at once? A: No, a gift only ever belongs to one side. You don't need to unbind it first — just pick the same gift for a different side and it moves over automatically.
Q: If someone spams the same dedicated gift, does the score blow up? A: No. Combo gifts are only settled once when the combo ends, and the score still only counts the diamonds TikTok actually reports — spamming doesn't multiply anything.
Q: How many sides can PK against each other in Sticker mode? A: Choose 2–4 sides from the dropdown on the Scoring Games page. Official Match mode follows the format of that TikTok Match.
Still stuck after that, there's a real person to reach at the bottom of the page.