Last updated: March 15, 2025
Qualifying Tournaments! As this is the Fifth tournament, there will be Five opportunities for you to qualify to the final. One player will secure their place in the Finals Tournament each night, being joined by three Wildcards based on their performance across the entire tournament.
The Warmup! We’re going to start each Qualifying Tournament with a mini “Warmup” Duel Royale. Don’t rest on your laurels, though - this decides who gets to go for that qualifying place!
Final Eight! We’re returning to the classic single-elimination knockout for the final stage of the tournament.
Duel Score Balance! Duel Score has been rebalanced based on player feedback. Thanks for all your help!
Every player starts with a stack of 10 chips and 3 minutes on their personal clock. In addition to this the center-stage players will have 2 accelerators to play with.
For all remaining players that still have chips to play with and have not been eliminated due to not covering the correct answer, the next question will be revealed and read out, and then the 4 possible answers are revealed, at which point all player clocks are started and user input can be accepted.
Players must then select the answers they wish to cover, followed by the ‘Lock’ button to confirm the answers they have covered. If their personal clock runs down to zero, or an accelerator’s time pressure has finished, then the game will automatically lock-in what is placed on the “table”.
An accelerator forces players that have yet to lock in their chips to do so within 7 seconds from the activation time of the accelerator. Once the 7 seconds have passed, all remaining players will be locked in automatically by the game.
A center-stage player can elect to play an accelerator, but can only do so after locking in. There will not be a penalty this time if a player (accidentally or otherwise) plays an accelerator at the wrong time; instead, the game will just not trigger the accelerator timer unless the correct conditions are met.
If both center-stage players have locked their chips down and an accelerator has not been played by a center-stage player, then an automatic accelerator is played by the game against all remaining audience players that have yet to lock in; this automatic accelerator is functionally the same as a normal accelerator.
If an accelerator is already in play either by a center-stage player or automatically by the game, then a center-stage player will not be penalised if they attempt to play an accelerator.
Once all players are locked in, either manually by the player or automatically due to clock timeout or accelerator time pressure, then the chips played by the center-stage players are revealed publicly on the in-game table, and then the question is resolved by revealing which is the correct answer.
Players are eliminated from the Duel if they fail to cover the correct answer.
For audience players, if they are eliminated before the center-stage Duel finishes, then they will be granted a token chip to play on all remaining questions in the Duel until completion. Their finishing position in the Duel will already have been determined, but answering correctly while eliminated will still grant potential ranking points in the tournament (see Scoring & Ranking System).
If both center-stage players covered the correct answer, then the game will continue onto a new question. For all players that are still in play, any chips played on incorrect answers are removed from play, chips played on correct answers return to the player’s stack, and if the player’s clock is below the top-up threshold of 20 seconds, then it will be topped back up to this amount.
If only one center-stage player covered the correct answer, then the game is declared as finished and the player covering the correct answer is declared the winner of the center Duel.
For all matches in this tournament, a winner must be declared, so an extra question or questions will be asked in Sudden Death if neither center-stage player covers the correct answer.
The audience game will be declared as finished at the same time as the center-stage game is declared finished. That is to say, there may be multiple people in the audience still in play at the end of the center-stage duel.
Both players in a Sudden Death Duel start with 4 chips and 1 minute on their personal clock. No accelerators are granted, and any accelerators that may have remained in the main Duel are removed.
The flow of the game in a Sudden Death Duel is much the same except for the resolution on each question.
If neither center-stage player covers the correct answer, then the Sudden Death is reset.
If just one center-stage player covers the correct answer, then they are deemed the winner of the Duel.
If both players cover the correct answer, then:
In the extraordinary circumstance that both players used the same number of chips & same amount of time, then Sudden Death is reset (and everyone loses their collective marbles).
DVEL’s tournament structure will be comprised of five Mini-Tournament events, and an 8-person knockout tournament.
At the start of each stream, there will be a five question Warmup. This qualifying contest will work, in essence, as a Limited Questions variant of Duel Royale. All players will start with five chips, and one minute on the clock.
All players will be ranked as follows:
From this ranking, the top four players who meet the following criteria will be invited to participate in that night’s Mini-Tournament:
Further to these conditions, players who have not made it on stage in a previous event will be prioritised over players who have.
Players don’t have to declare entry into the tournament to play the Duels in the audience, but the only way to earn ranking and to potentially win a prize in the tournament is through declaration of entry and the satisfying of the above criteria.
The night’s Qualifying Tournament will then begin, with the top four players from the Warmup participating in three standard Duels. The Duels will be played as follows:
The winner of the Qualification Final will advance directly to the Finals Tournament.
All Duels played out in each Qualifier will be scored (Duel Score, DS) based on a set of actions that a player can reasonably achieve.
For all players, the scoring is as follows:
These scores will be logged for each match each player plays. For overall ranking, the player will take through their best 5 match DS, plus any permanent DS earned from Warmups.
If tie-breaks are required after their best 5 scores, then it will go to the total of their best 6 match scores, then total of their best 7, then 8, etc. In the case of insufficient number of match scores to total up, the remainder of matches to total up will be of value 0 (e.g. if totalling best 5, and a player only has 4 matches on record, then the total will be their 4 matches + 0 for the “5th match”).
The Finals tournament will be an 8-way single elimination tournament between the five winners of the Qualification Tournaments, and three Duel Score Wildcards. The Duel Score Wildcards will be the three players who scored the highest Duel Score as calculated above who satisfy the standard eligibility criteria outlined in the Warmup rules.
They must promptly accept the invitation in order to join the finals. If a response is not received in a timely manner, or they willingly turn down the invitation, then they will forfeit their invitation.
The Finals Tournament will be seeded based on each participant’s Duel Score after all qualification events.
In the case of a player not being able to attend a Duel at the time that they had agreed to as part of the finals invitation, then that duel will be considered forfeit.
All players who initially qualify to the Final Tournament - that is, the winner of each Qualifying Tournament (with the sole exception being cases of Unfair Play) and the three initial Duel Score Wildcards - will win a £5 prize.
Further to this, players who participate in the Final Tournament - be they one of these additional qualifiers or some form of substitute - will earn an additional prize as follows:
Prizes can be awarded either through PayPal, Amazon gift cards, or in Steam gift vouchers. In the case of PayPal, the player must declare to be at least 18 years old in their user profile. For Steam gift vouchers, the player must declare to be at least 13 years old. Players receiving winnings in Steam Vouchers acknowledge that the final prize will be the greatest amount possible purchasable in vouchers less than or equal to their final total prize.
DVEL will take place across 7 streams during Season 17 of Quiz Night, generally alternating Wednesday and Friday nights. The first 5 streams will be Qualifier episodes. The last 2 streams are the Finals episodes. The scheduled dates are as follows:
It is expected that all players in the tournament are playing honestly and genuinely and in good grace at all times. This generally means (but is not limited to):
If it is discovered that a player has been cheating, or otherwise playing unfairly or continuously failing to play in a sporting manner, then they will be disqualified from the tournament, their records within the tournament will be erased, and they will be banned from playing within the Quiz Night community for future games and tournaments and any other communities aligned with the ‘C5’ channel umbrella.
In the event that a player who has qualified from to the Final Tournament is impacted by the above, their place will be ceded to the Runner-Up from their qualifying event. If for any reason this is not possible, an additional Duel Score Wildcard will be invited. Their prize for qualifying will be awarded in a similar manner.
If a player is disqualified from the tournament during or after the final tournament, at the Tournament Organisers’ discretion, one or both of the following will happen:
Any scoring that other players may have earned in Duels encompassing a disqualified player will remain as they were and will not be recalculated or replayed.
A reasonable amount of time will be allowed for center-stage players to fix technical issues should they occur, but cannot delay a Duel indefinitely. If a player cannot reasonably fix technical issues that are within their control in a timely manner, then their participation in the Duel will be marked down as a loss and the player(s) against them will be deemed winners.
Due to the sheer number of audience players that might be playing simultaneously to the center-stage Duel, we cannot delay a match for any audience players having technical issues.
If for some reason an audience player signs up to play a Duel but fails to make any sort of action on the first 3 questions of the Duel, either due to inactivity or other technical problems, then they will be kicked from the Duel and any scoring that other players may have received based on that player’s elimination will be discarded.
In the case of a technical issue from the tournament running or game hosting side, we will endeavour to rectify the Duel back to a working state. If for some reason this is not possible, then a decision from the Tournament Directors will be made based on the situation presented. If early enough, a Duel restart will likely be a sensible and balanced approach. If late enough, Tournament Directors may decide to have to play out an emergency short game (4 questions, 4 chips, all against the accelerator) to decide the result, depending on if the tournament software can manage running another game or not.
In this tournament, all questions appearing will be reproofed for factual validity and question veracity and then will be further re-read when stacked into predetermined question stacks for each Duel. The stacks will be produced ahead of time without prior knowledge of who is participating in each Duel.
All questions and answers presented by the game are absolutely final and cannot be reversed, unless a technical issue of the system has caused a wrong answer to be displayed by the game.
The question stackers will be doing the absolute best they can with regards to question and answer verification, but in the extremely unlikely event that a question or answer presented is invalid (e.g. the question has multiple or zero correct answers), and the question system or game presentation is not at fault, then the result of that question will be final and cannot be disputed.
Throughout the tournament, decisions on contentious or technical issues will be made by the Tournament Directors and their decision will be final and irreversible. The Tournament Directors will always aim to make the fairest decisions possible given the constraints of the tournament schedule and structure.
Although this document attempts to outline all foreseeable scenarios and outcomes, there may be situations that arise that are completely unexpected and will require a resolution without first setting a codified precedent. The Tournament Directors reserve the right to make adjustments to the rules of the game and tournament as necessary throughout the tournament’s running in order to resolve these unforeseen circumstances.
If you have concerns with any of the points mentioned in this document or a concern with the tournament in general please discuss this privately with a Tournament Director as promptly as possible. Tournament Directors are listed in the Staffing section of this document.