Best Of

To answer your initial question in more detail @Spaded :

Yes, the number of blues that can be collected per episode is fairly constant throughout the game and ranges from about 1500 to 2500. There is a slight variation depending on which level range you are at but this is not dependent on player strategy but on the level algorithms. What matters in the first three rounds (qualifier, 1st knockout and 2nd knockout) is how many levels and episodes we crush through. Ignoring tokens this means that those players who crush the most levels during the time period will go through to the next round. The tokens may alter this of course, but basically that is how to get to the final knockout rounds: Crush a lot, invest a lot of time crushing.

Once the second half of the competitions is reached, for the three final knockout rounds, this changes. Each year a lot of players get caught out by the sudden change in the event at stage 4, so it is important to realise how hugely competitive the event becomes in the final knockout stages.

From stage 4 onwards what matters is your crushing speed because you will need to be faster than all other players on your leaderboard in the sprint finish. I have found that the top crushing speed is also written into the game by the app. This speed takes into account the animations in between levels and the speed at which the game finishes each level using jelly fish and cascades. If players skip through all animations as quickly as possible the top number of blues that can be collected per minute ranges from 95-140 blues. Some clever strategists can achieve a little more perhaps with certain levels, especially at the higher level ranges. But I think this averages out over time, so a high scoring episode will be followed by lower scoring ones. (I'm working on this at the moment to assess my own top speed)

So in order to test out if you could stand a chance to compete in the three knockout rounds I would recommend you time your play for one episode and calculate how many blues you scored: To do this set a timer to find out exactly how long you take to play the episode. Note down your leaderboard score before starting the episode and at the end so you can calculate the score for that episode. Divide that score by the minutes taken to play the episode. That number is your personal score per minute. If you played for an entire hour over several episodes a score of around 6500 would allow you to compete with the top players.

To answer your second question: If you fail to reach one of the qualifying positions the game tells you that you were eliminated but that you might get another chance in one of the second chance rounds yet to be played.

There are millions of leaderboards being played simultaneously in these early rounds. So overall leaderboard scoring in impossible. The sheer size of the competition is kept secret by King because players are meant to believe they stand a chance of winning.

This is the truth: In previous All Stars competitions we saw 1 million players enter the first of the three final knockout rounds. The event concluded with 500 players in the last of the three final knockout rounds which decided the 10 winners. King do not publish a list of ranking even for that final round, but someone here in the community did kindly calculate the top scores from leaderboards we posted here last year. This can only be done once the mass of contestants has been reduced to a few hundred.

Hi @ronetta5 , welcome!

I would advise you to keep going to see if you can reach the first of the three final knockout rounds. That would be a fine achievement for any new player. Candy Crush is meant to be played for fun, so if you enjoy the game and the challenge of All Stars just play to see how far you can get.

Unfortunately you certainly do not stand any chance of winning the prize money or the trip to London. If this was a lottery you'd stand a small chance (like one in a million) but that's why this game is so cruel and misleading to players: All Stars is not a lottery anyone can win by pure chance.

The three final knockout rounds will be very, very different from the first three rounds. With or without tokens the competition gets so much tougher at that stage: The number of players on each leaderboard will be much bigger and only one player on each board will get through to the next round.

Enjoy your game, see how far you can get, but don't spend any money on it.