Vanilla Hand/Brain Lockout Tournament 2026
The 2026 vanilla hand/brain tournament began in late March and is currently ongoing! The top 8 teams at the end of the Swiss stage will progress to a double-elimination bracket. Matches are restreamed on the HollowKnightCommunity Twitch channel.
Lockout is a bingo format where only one player or team can mark each goal, with the other one being "locked out" of it after it's been marked. Unlike in randomizer, vanilla bingo lockout is won by obtaining five goals in a row, column, or diagonal, called a "line". If all lines are blocked, the first team to obtain 13 goals wins!
Hand/brain is a way of playing bingo that adds a twist to this: one player on a team is playing the game and is not allowed to look at the bingo board, while the other player can see the bingo board and does all of the routing for the hand. Goals are marked for the "hand" by an automarking mod, so they won't necessarily know what they've marked until the end. Teammates are allowed to swap roles between matches, i.e. no one is required to play as hand or brain for the entire tournament.