Queendom Puzzle

**Queendom Puzzle** was a 2023 reality television program on Mnet, hosted by Taeyeon.

It premiered on June 13, 2023 and is airing for 10 episodes, ending on August 15, 2023.

It featured 28 already-debuted idols competing against each other in order to earn a spot in the 7-membered project group, EL7Z UP.

## About the Show

On January 26, 2023, it was announced that the *Queendom* series would have a third season, but would be different from the previous two seasons.

The show will focus on forming a powerful global project girl group by taking members from currently promoting girl groups as well as solo female artists and putting them together like a puzzle. It will take on a completely new format from the pre-existing "*Queendom*" series, with individual competitions taking place rather than team ones.

Out of the initial 28 contestants, they will compete with performances to finally become a supergroup of seven members of a project girl group.

## Contestants

**Bora****Chaerin****Dohwa****Elly****Fye****Haein****Hwiseo****Jihan****Jiwon****Jiwoo****JooE****Juri****Kei****Lee Chaeyeon****Miru****Nana****Riina****Sangah****Seoyeon****Soeun****Soojin****Suyun****Wooyeon****Yeeun****Yeonhee****Yeoreum****Yuki****Zoa**

## Rounds

The final group will be decided based on votes through the Mnet Plus application, where each voter choose 7 of the 26 contestants to vote as an ideal final group.

**First Voting Period**

* The voting period for every week began from the start of the episode, to 2 hours before the airing of the following episode. The entire voting period started from June 13, 2023, during the broadcast of Episode 1, and had concluded on July 25, 2023, 23:00 (KST).
* One new vote would be provided at the start of each episode, for 7 weeks. Hence, each voter would have a maximum of 7 votes throughout the show.
* All votes cast to each contestant would be accumulated throughout the voting period and will be reflected in the final results. The final voting results would be based on 50% for Korea and 50% for all other global regions.

**Second Voting Period**

* The votes in the first voting period would not be carried over to the second voting period.
* The voting period would begin from after Episode 7, to during the broadcast of the Episode 9.
* Voters can vote once every day. However, on August 8, which is the live broadcast for episode 9, voters can vote twice on this day: once before 20:00 (KST), and once during the broadcast of the episode.
* All votes cast to each contestant would be accumulated throughout the voting period and will be reflected in the final results. The final voting results would be based on 50% for Korea and 50% for all other global regions.

**Final Voting Period**

* The votes in the second voting period would not be carried over to the final voting period.
* The voting period would begin from after Episode 9, to during the broadcast of the Episode 10.
* Voters can vote once every day. However, on August 15, which is the live broadcast for Episode 10, voters can vote twice on this day: once before 20:00 (KST), and once during the broadcast of the episode.
* All votes cast to each contestant would be accumulated throughout the voting period and will be reflected in the eventual ranking after this voting period. The voting results would be based on 50% for Korea and 50% for all other global regions.

### 1st Round: "**Up Down Battle**"

Rules
Each contestant will be placed into 1 of 4 tiers, with Tier 1 being the highest and Tier 4 being the lowest, based on the following (data taken as of April 24, 2023):

* Total number of No. 1 rankings in music shows (50%)
* Highest number of albums sold in a music release (50%)

Each contestant would then have a solo performance, and the remaining 27 contestants would each vote for the contestant. "Up" would be pressed if the voters each think that the performing contestant has performed better than the voter, and if otherwise "Down" would be pressed. After the performances, the contestants would be rearranged into their new tiers based on the results of the performances.

**Tier 1**

"**My Sea**" (orig. IU)
Bora"**As You Wish + Mmmh**" (orig. WJSN + Kai)
Yeoreum"**Gotta Go**" (orig. Chungha)
Jiwon"**Rose Blossom + Tomboy**" (orig. H1-KEY + (G)I-DLE)
Hwiseo"**Toc Toc Toc**" (orig. Lee Hyori)
Lee Chaeyeon"**Move**" (orig. Taemin)
Nana"**Cherry Coke**"
Yeeun

**Tier 2**

"**Destiny**" (orig. Lovelyz)
Kei"**POP!**" (orig. Nayeon)
Jihan"**After School + Rum Pum Pum Pum**" (orig. Weeekly + f(x))
Zoa"**Hype Boy + Gone Gurl**" (orig. NewJeans + Fye)
Fye"**28 Reasons**" (orig. Seulgi)
Soeun"**Flower**" (orig. Jisoo)
Soojin"**WH0 Cares? (Queen's Prelude)**"
Yuki

**Tier 3**

"**Advice**" (orig. Taemin)
Suyun"**Dumb Dumb**" (orig. Jeon Somi)
Yeonhee"**Black Dress + Tomboy**" (orig. CLC + (G)I-DLE)
Sangah"**Elvis + Bingle Bangle + Come To See Me**" (orig. AOA)
Dohwa"**Rose Blossom + POP!**" (orig. H1-KEY + Nayeon)
Riina"**Heart Burn**" (orig. Sunmi)
Juri"**Rising**" (orig. tripleS)
Jiwoo

**Tier 4**

"**24 Hours**" (orig. Sunmi)
JooE"**Shine Bright**"
Miru"**Journey To Atlantis + Between Us**" (orig. LABOUM)
Haein"**Sonata of Temptation**" (orig. Ivy)
Elly"**INVU**" (orig. Taeyeon)
Wooyeon"**Bicycle**" (orig. Chungha)
Chaerin"**Cherry Talk**" (orig. tripleS)
Seoyeon

### 2nd Round: "**7 vs 7 Team Battle**"

Rules
For this round, each contestant would choose one of the 2 signal songs, "Charismatic" and "Snap", in order of the number of Ups received from the Up-Down Battle, and there would be 14 contestants per song. In the event when there are already 14 contestants in one of the songs, the remaining contestants that have not chosen would be automatically allocated to the other song. After choosing, in the Puzzle Room, contestant Jiwon would form the 2 teams for "Charismatic", while contestant Bora would form the 2 teams for "Snap". Each song would consist of 2 teams: "Pick" and "Drop". The formed teams would practice and then record performance videos for the songs.

* A panel of 13 expert judges (BTOB (Seo Eun-kwang, Lee Min-hyuk), Hyolyn, dance group LA-CHICA (Gabee, Rian, Simeez), choreographer Choi Young-jun, music producer Ryan S. Jhun, film director Kim Do-yeon, music video director Lee Gi-seok, journalist Park Hee-a, and music critic Kim Yoon-ha) would watch the performance videos and evaluate them.
* In addition, the 14 contestants of "Snap" would evaluate both teams of "Charismatic", and vice versa.
* The scores would be added up (to a total of 27 votes), and the winning team for each song would be decided. The contestants under the winning team of each song would get a benefit of 10,000 votes.
* There would be 1 MVP for the winning team of each song, based on the selection of the expert panel. The 2 MVPs selected would have the right to form for the next round.

"**Charismatic**"
PICK on the top
Won"**SNAP**"
Athena
Won"**Charismatic**"
DROP The Beat
Lost"**SNAP**"
PICK-CAT
Lost

### 3rd Round: "**Re-mix Battle**"

Rules
The contestants would form new teams and recreate top K-pop songs by various K-pop acts.

* The MVPs of the previous round, Nana and Hwiseo, have the right to form all 6 teams, with both of them having the right to choose the song they want to re-create first. After that, the contestants of the winning teams would be distributed, then followed by the contestants of the losing teams. After the puzzling, only the contestants of the winning teams of the previous round can raise objections, and Nana and Hwiseo can decide whether to make the change or not.
* After each performance, the audience would evaluate it, and the score would be revealed immediately after voting ended. From the second performance onwards, the current first place team's score and the current performing team's score would be revealed simultaneously, to show whether the current performing team would replace the current first place team.
* The members of the winning team would each get a benefit of 20,000 votes.

"**Nxde**" (orig. (G)I-DLE)
Shh! Yes I'm a queen
1st Place"**Fighting**" (orig. BSS feat. Lee Young-ji)
Biceps
2nd Place"**Don't Call Me**" (orig. SHINee)
Beauty Fox
3rd Place"**Only One**" (orig. BoA)
Soulmate
4th Place"**Dance The Night Away**" (orig. TWICE)
Under the C
5th Place"**Shut Down**" (orig. BLACKPINK)
RED QUEEN
6th Place

### 4th Round: "**All-Rounder Battle**"

Rules
The contestants would be split into Team Queendom and Team Puzzle immediately after the Remix Battle performances, starting from contestant Yeonhee being picked into Team Queendom and contestant Kei being picked into Team Puzzle, with the rest of the contestants choosing Team Queendom or Team Puzzle afterwards. As part of winning the Remix Battle, contestants Jihan, Dohwa, Nana and Suyun can bring contestant(s) from one team to another. Lastly, if one team does not have 13 contestants, through voting among the team with more than 13 contestants, contestant(s) would move to the team without 13 contestants.

* For this round, each team would perform 3 rounds of vocal-rap songs, and 2 rounds of dance songs.
* For the vocal-rap songs, 3-4 songs would be shown, and each team will pick one song on a first come, first serve basis.
* For the dance songs, they would be newly produced songs, and the selection of the songs would be through a dance battle between the two teams.
* For each round, the audience would vote for the better performance of the 2 (Fellow group members and family members of the contestants would also attend the recording of the battle as audience, but they are not allowed to vote for the entire battle.), and the winning team would be revealed immediately to only both teams after voting ended. The team that wins more rounds out of 5 would take the battle, and the members of the winning team would each get a benefit of 20,000 votes.

#### Vocal-Rap Round

"**Rush Hour**" (orig. Crush feat. j-hope)
Puzzle Team
Won"**If We Ever Meet Again**" (orig. Lim Young Woong)
Puzzle Team
Won"**Wannabe**" (orig. ITZY)
Puzzle Team
Won"**Weekend**" (orig. Taeyeon)
Queendom Team
Lost"**Hopeless Romantic**" (orig. Big Naughty feat. Lee Su Hyun)
Queendom Team
Lost"**Time of Our Life**" (orig. DAY6)
Queendom Team
Lost

#### Dance Round

"**Bad Blood**"
Puzzle Team
Won"**Web**"
Puzzle Team
Won"**Overwater**"
Queendom Team
Lost"**Glow-up**"
Queendom Team
Lost

**1st Elimination**

### Semifinal Round

Rules
The Semi-Final voting assembly-choice voting began from July 4 to 7, 23:59 (KST), via the Mnet Plus application, where voters listen to snippets of three newly produced songs and for each song, they pick 7 contestants they want to put in. The three teams would then be formed based on the votes. The teams would then subsequently record parts for the songs. Subsequently, elimination of 5 contestants would be conducted on Episode 7 (special live broadcast), such that each song would only have 7 contestants. The eventual performances of the three songs would be held in the Semi-Final, which is Episode 9 (live broadcast).
The members of the winning team would each get a benefit of 30,000 votes. Subsequently, 7 contestants would be eliminated.

"**i DGA (I Dont Give A)**"
Won"**PUZZLIN'**"
Lost"**I Do**"
Lost

Points Summary
 2
 3

**2nd Elimination**

### Final Round

Rules
The remaining 14 contestants would be split into 2 teams of 7, and each team would perform a newly produced song.

"**Billionaire**"
"**Last Piece**"

Points Summary
 2

**Final Elimination**

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Names are sorted in alphabetical order.