The Complexity of Symmetric Equilibria in Min-Max Optimization and Team Zero-Sum Games

Ioannis Anagnostides, Ioannis Panageas, Tuomas Sandholm, Jingming Yan

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 38 (NeurIPS 2025) Main Conference Track

We consider the problem of computing stationary points in min-max optimization, with a focus on the special case of Nash equilibria in (two-)team zero-sum games. We first show that computing $\epsilon$-Nash equilibria in $3$-player $\text{\emph{adversarial}}$ team games---wherein a team of $2$ players competes against a $\text{\emph{single}}$ adversary---is $\textsf{CLS}$-complete, resolving the complexity of Nash equilibria in such settings. Our proof proceeds by reducing from $\text{\emph{symmetric}}$ $\epsilon$-Nash equilibria in $\text{\emph{symmetric}}$, identical-payoff, two-player games, by suitably leveraging the adversarial player so as to enforce symmetry---without disturbing the structure of the game. In particular, the class of instances we construct comprises solely polymatrix games, thereby also settling a question left open by Hollender, Maystre, and Nagarajan (2024). Moreover, we establish that computing $\text{\emph{symmetric}}$ (first-order) equilibria in $\text{\emph{symmetric}}$ min-max optimization is $\textsf{PPAD}$-complete, even for quadratic functions. Building on this reduction, we show that computing symmetric $\epsilon$-Nash equilibria in symmetric, $6$-player ($3$ vs. $3$) team zero-sum games is also $\textsf{PPAD}$-complete, even for $\epsilon = \text{poly}(1/n)$. As a corollary, this precludes the existence of symmetric dynamics---which includes many of the algorithms considered in the literature---converging to stationary points. Finally, we prove that computing a $\text{\emph{non-symmetric}}$ $\text{poly}(1/n)$-equilibrium in symmetric min-max optimization is $\textsf{FNP}$-hard.