Day 1 and 2

Players will be seeded into 6 pools of 8 players each as shown:

Each player in the pool will secretly choose any chart rated between 15-18 and submit it to the tournament organizer. Once all charts are selected, they will be revealed to all players. The order of those songs will be randomized, and all players will play those 8 songs in that order.

Pools

Players will be randomly paired together for pool play. Pairs will receive 1 game to warmup on any songs of their choosing other than the 8 pool songs. Players may take as many break periods as they wish during their qualifying period, but they must begin their final game no more than 40 minutes after starting their first warmup song, and must finish playing the final song within 50 minutes. Players may only make one attempt at each song.

Players may change their pairs if they wish, and if all impacted players agree (example: A and B are paired together, and C and D are paired together. If A, B, C, and D agree, they may change their pairs however they wish). Players may not change the order that songs must be played.

Scoring

All pools will use EX score. Players will receive points based on their score on each individual song:

• 1st: 16
• 2nd: 13
• 3rd: 11
• 4th: 9
• 5th: 7
• 6th: 5
• 7th: 3
• 8th: 1

Points will be totaled up for all players after the end of the final pair. The player with the most points will move on to the final bracket on Saturday. The players finishing in 2nd and 3rd will move on to the Last Chance Pools on Friday. Players finishing 4th or lower will be eliminated.

In the event of any ties for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, whichever player earned the most points on the songs chosen by the tied players is the winner. If there is still a tie, whichever player seeded higher during the qualifying period is the winner.

Day 3

Players finishing 2nd and 3rd in the first 6 pools will be seeded into two additional pools as follows:

Rules will be the same for these pools as they were in days 1 and 2 except as follows:

• Only 6 songs will be played
• Players must begin their final game no more than 35 minutes after starting their first warmup song, and must finish playing the final song within 45 minutes.
• The player with the most points will move on to the final bracket on Saturday. All other players will be eliminated.

• Points are as follows:

  • 1st: 12
  • 2nd: 9
  • 3rd: 7
  • 4th: 5
  • 5th: 3
  • 6th: 1

Day 4

The 8 finalists will be seeded into an 8 person double-elimination bracket based on their original qualifier scores. All rounds will be played under the following rules:

• 5 songs will be randomly drawn using the card draw program available at ddr.tools. The lower seed will choose one of those 5 songs that they wish to play (protect), followed by the higher seed.
• All matches will have a warmup set available. If neither player wishes to use the warmup, they may opt to skip it. Players may decide which pad they wish to play on; if they cannot agree, a coinflip will be used.
If either player wins both of the first 2 songs, the match is over. If neither player does, the players will return to the remaining 3 songs from their random selection. Starting with the high seed this time, each player will eliminate a song. The 1 song that remains will be played as a tie-breaker. If, after this song, no player has won 2 songs, 3 additional songs will be drawn and this step will repeat, this time with the low seed eliminating first. This will continue until a player has won 2 songs.
• OVERRIDE: Once in the tournament, after the songs have been randomly chosen but before either player has selected a song, a player may choose to remove a chart from the pool and replace it with another chart of the same difficulty rating. The player will be forced to choose to play that song.

Difficulties will be weighted with the following percentages:

• 15 - 10%
• 16 - 25%
• 17 - 35%
• 18 - 25%
• 19 - 5%

Banned songs:

• Any songs not available in all regions
• Any songs only available on 20th Anniversary models
• Any songs only available from DDR Grand Prix
• Any songs that are time-restricted unlocks (Challenge Carnival, Floor Infection, etc)

FINALS

Grand finals will be a best of 5 instead of a best of 3. All rules are the same as above, except the match ends when a player wins 3 songs. The player from the loser's bracket must win twice to become the champion.

Prizes:

• 1st: $4000
• 2nd: $2400
• 3rd: $1200
• 4th: $800
• 5th/6th: $500 each
• 7th/8th: $300 each