Codenames Team Tournament in Barcelona: The first KLEFF edition
On July 16, 2026, at L'Estació – Espai Gastronòmic, KLEFF organized its first Codenames team tournament in Barcelona, a team tournament based on the game Codenames and its variant Codenames: Pictures, played over three rounds. This first edition saw 14 teams, a total of 28 players, across three rounds of play, with a very close final decided in the last match. Here's the full story: how it was played, who won, and what's next.
Codenames: Pictures with improvised tokens
A tournament designed for spy teams
Codenames is one of the most popular word deduction games in the world, and at KLEFF, we had been wanting to bring it to a tournament format for some time. For this first edition, the challenge was twofold: find the perfect clue for your teammate to guess the correct words, and do it faster than the other teams in play.
The event was held at the facilities of L'Estació – Espai Gastronòmic, the usual venue for KLEFF's activities in Barcelona and where we organize our weekly meetups and special events.
Tournament prizes
How the three rounds were played
The tournament format consisted of three rounds:
First round – Codenames: the classic word version, where each team faced another, trying to guess their terms before the rival team.
Second round – Codenames: Pictures: the visual variant of the game, with illustrated cards instead of words.
Third round – Free choice: each team could choose between the word version or the pictures version. One of the groups opted for an original approach: mixing both games, alternating word and picture cards in the same game.
A fun fact from the night: when organizing a tournament of this magnitude, we ran short of spymaster tokens. The solution was to improvise with pieces from other games in our games library to mark the team colors (red, blue, and neutral).
Codenames game
The grand finale: three teams tied and one undefeated team
By the last round, three teams were tied with two victories each, which made the tournament's outcome a truly nail-biting finish. Finally, the winning team was Team 1, formed by Silvia and Mario, who won the tournament undefeated, without losing a single game.
At the end of the tournament, we awarded prizes to the winners and raffled several board games among the participants. All raffle games were purchased at Mathom, a specialized store for board games, role-playing, cards, and miniatures, and a regular collaborator in our events.
Will there be a next edition of the tournament?
The answer is yes. At KLEFF, we are already eager to organize a new edition, and it looks like it will happen between September and October 2026 (date yet to be confirmed), this time with teams of three people instead of pairs.
Ready to take a seat at the table?
Making adult friends doesn't require magic, it requires a place to return to and something to do together. A shared hobby is that place, and board games are one of the easiest entry points.
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Codenames tournament participants