Lab and stadium: production and income
What your lab level actually changes on a research, what a research costs, how the stadium pays you passively, and the upgrade order that unblocks both.
- A research must always be running
- Upgrading the laboratory pushes production upward
- Mythic never comes out of it, at any level
Two structures, two jobs, 40 levels each. Your lab produces new players and new items. Your stadium produces gold, continuously, even while you are not playing. They do not level up independently of each other: they climb in alternation, and that single rule blocks more players than anything else in the game. We get to it below.
What your lab produces
The lab manufactures through research. You start a player research or an item research, you pay in gold, and a fresh one lands in your collection. It is the main source of players in Kickdom.
Its level does not change what it produces, it changes the quality of what it produces. The higher it goes, the better your odds of pulling a high rarity. What each of the 6 rarities is actually worth is on the players page.
What a research costs
Back-to-back researches get more expensive. The counter climbs with each successive research:
| Research | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | 100 gold | 200 gold | 300 gold | 400 gold | 500 gold |
| Item | 50 gold | 100 gold | 150 gold | 200 gold | 250 gold |
An item research costs exactly half a player research at every step. Where the gold to feed all of this comes from is covered in the economy guide.
The timer, and the ad that shortens it
A timer sits between two researches. You cannot chain them back to back with no wait. Watching an ad cuts that delay down: it is the lab's free lever, and the only one that speeds up your output without spending a single gold.
What your lab level actually changes
Your lab climbs from level 1 to level 40. Every level you gain does not unlock a new rarity, it redistributes the ground between the rarities that already exist. It is a continuous slope, not a series of doors opening one after another.
The common share shrinks as you climb. At level 1 the overwhelming majority of your researches come back common. The higher the lab goes, the smaller that share gets, and the ground it gives up goes to the rarities above. This is the main movement in the system, and the one that genuinely changes your day: a high level lab stops drowning you in duplicate commons.
Uncommon, rare and epic take the ground common leaves behind. Uncommon becomes your ordinary result. Rare stops being a small event. Epic moves from occasional highlight to regular income. That is exactly the raw material fusion runs on: it eats mid-rarity volume, not isolated miracles.
Legendary stays rare at every level. It does get more reachable as the lab climbs, clearly more than at the start, but it never becomes common. Even at level 40, pulling a legendary is still a moment you tell your clan about. If you are chasing the ten legendaries a mythic run needs, do not count on research alone to supply them.
Mythic stays at zero on every level. This is not a low setting that some upgrade eventually lifts, it is an absolute rule of the game. No level opens it, and level 40 is no exception. A mythic player is never drawn, it is crafted by fusing 5 mythic runes. The full route is in the mythic guide.
What that changes in how you play. Early on, with a low level lab, your stock is common: you recycle a lot, you fuse little, and every rune is paid for in patience. As the lab climbs, the ratio flips. You recycle less out of resignation and fuse more by choice, and your rune stock fills up while you play, without you having to chase one particular draw.
Here is the whole reading in one line. Upgrading your lab does not buy you high rarities, it buys you useful volume: fewer commons to recycle, far more uncommons, rares and epics to feed into fusion. That flow is what carries you to legendary, then to mythic, far more reliably than waiting on an exceptional draw. It is a background investment: you never see it on one research, you see it across a hundred.
Which item comes out when a research gives an item
When a research produces an item, its family is drawn on fixed weights, independent of your lab level:
| Item | Odds |
|---|---|
| SHIELD | 20% |
| BAT | 20% |
| BOMB | 15% |
| SWAP | 15% |
| DISORIENTATION | 15% |
| HOOK | 15% |
SHIELD and BAT therefore show up a third more often than the other four. What each one does on the pitch, and how many matches it survives, is on the items page.
Your stadium: gold while you are away
The stadium generates gold passively. It pays an hourly income, with a daily cap that rises every level. You upgrade it by spending gold, and its output goes up.
It is the only income in the game that asks for no ticket, no match and no ad. It runs while you sleep, provided you invested first.
What 40 levels cost
| Structure | Level 1 | Level 40 |
|---|---|---|
| Stadium | 100 gold | 200,000 gold |
| Lab | 50 gold | 50,000 gold |
Look at the gap at the top of the ladder. A level 40 stadium costs four times a level 40 lab. That tracks: the stadium is the structure funding everything else, the lab included. Upgrades also take time, and time can be cut short with gems or gold.
The alternation requirement, settled once
This is the rule that stops most players, and it fits in two lines.
- To take your lab to level N, you need a stadium at level N.
- To take your stadium to level N, you need a lab at level N-1.
Stadium level 1 is the starting point. It has no requirement at all, and everything begins there.
In plain terms: the stadium always stays one step ahead, and the two structures climb like a staircase. Here is the concrete order for the first levels.
| Step | Upgrade | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stadium level 1 | None |
| 2 | Lab level 1 | Stadium level 1 |
| 3 | Stadium level 2 | Lab level 1 |
| 4 | Lab level 2 | Stadium level 2 |
| 5 | Stadium level 3 | Lab level 2 |
| 6 | Lab level 3 | Stadium level 3 |
And so on, all the way to level 40. Stadium, lab, stadium, lab. If your lab upgrade is greyed out, the answer is nearly always the same one: your stadium is sitting at the same level and needs to move first.
Where to start
Three principles for your first hours.
Never let the stadium lag. It gates the lab and it pays for research. A stadium behind schedule means a locked lab and an empty research budget at the same time.
Do not burn yourself out chaining researches. The fifth player research costs 500 gold, five times the first. Watching an ad to shorten the timer costs less than paying the next step up.
Do not count on research to hand you a legendary. Even with the lab maxed, it stays rare. What the lab gives you is mid-rarity volume, and that volume is what feeds your fusions. High rarity is manufactured, not drawn.
Production values as of 14 July 2026, tunable by the team.