Format

September 14 to October 25

Conference Play

Twenty programs split into two ten-team conferences, Northern and Southern. Each team plays one best-of-5 match against every other team in its conference: nine rounds over six weeks.

Matches default to Wednesdays at 7:00 PM CT. Weeks 1, 3 and 5 add a second round at 8:00 PM CT. Teams can agree to move a match within the same week through the MCC Discord.

The top 2 in each conference claim seeds 1 and 2 and go straight to the LAN. Ranks 3 to 6 go to the Play-In, and the rest are eliminated.

Wednesday, October 28

Play-In

Best-of-7 matches decide seeds 3 and 4 in each conference.

Rank 3 plays rank 4, and the winner takes seed 3. Rank 5 plays rank 6, and that winner plays the 3 v 4 loser for seed 4.

The Northern prelims start at 7:00 PM CT and the Southern prelims at 8:00 PM CT. The deciders follow at 9:00 and 10:00 PM CT.

Saturday, November 14, at the LAN

Group Stage

The 8 qualified teams meet in person in Lincoln, Nebraska, and every player competes on site.

Two groups of four mix the conferences. Group A has Northern seeds 1 and 3 with Southern seeds 2 and 4; Group B is the mirror image. Each team plays a best-of-5 against everyone in its group, and all eight teams advance.

Sunday, November 15, at the LAN

Championship

A best-of-7 bracket. In the quarterfinals, group winners play the other group's fourth-place team, and second-place teams play the other group's third. Quarterfinal losers finish 5th to 8th.

The semifinal winners play the Grand Final, and the semifinal losers play for third place.