Revised 22nd March 2026:
The first three stages are already almost over so this thread should soon be replaced, but for now my advice remains the same:
Here is my view on what players need to do to stand a chance to actually win the ticket to London:
- You will have to save all your multiplier tokens for the final knockout rounds . Anyone using any of their tokens in the first three rounds stands no chance of winning*
- You will have to be able to crush at a speed of three to four episodes per hour during the final knockout rounds
- You will have to be able to crush non-stop for 24 hours from 7th-8th April
- You will also need a lot of luck
Here is why even if you are fast enough and clever enough you will need a lot of luck:
There are probably 10 million or more participants.
There are only 10 places at the live finals.
This means that 9,999,990 players will fail to win any money at all.
So please bear this in mind before you spend any money!
My tips for new players:
First three Qualifier rounds ( Qualifier, Knockout 1 and Knockout 2)
- Play your normal best game in the first three rounds
- Do not play to get first place: It wastes gold, boosters and efforts. Just do enough to get one of the qualifying places.
- Do not spend any money. If you need to spend money to get through the first three rounds you stand no chance of winning the big prize.
- Hang onto all your multiplier tokens as you will need them during the three final knockout rounds.
- If you do find you need to use your tokens in the first three rounds, that's fine if you just want to enjoy the event and see how far you can get. In that case: Enjoy the challenge, but please accept that you won't be able to win any big money. So don't spend any money thinking you might!
Final Knockout rounds 1, 2 and 3
If you make it to the final knockout rounds: Well done!
- Note that you will have to get first place in each one of these rounds, one after the other. This is a huge step up of difficulty from the first three rounds.
- Set a spending budget and stick to it. Don't spend any money during the round itself: If your budget wasn't enough you cannot win!
- Be aware that around a million players reach the first final knockout round every year. You are not "almost there" at this point
Please make sure you read the Terms and Conditions and understand them.
If you are not sure of anything in the Terms and Conditions: Come here and ask us.
Good luck everyone!
Enjoy the event!
Notes for advanced players:
(Edited 22nd March 2026): The first three rounds were manipulated by the app with bespoke opponents which meant that either we had to burn tokens or play a specific number or episodes per day of the round. This means that: Late entry strategies may be more of a risk than in previous competitions. I have found that I had to catch up by playing the previous day's episodes as well. In second knockout round 2 this seems to be three episodes per day for most players, though new accounts seem to be getting easier leaderboards.
If you are waiting for the last second chance round to enter the competition be warned: The first set of second chance rounds was brutal (requiring a score of 68,000 in 24 hours to qualify) and the last second chance round is likely to be the same or worse.
Here what I wrote earlier:
The main skill in the first three rounds this year seems to be to keep hold of all your multiplier tokens and avoid hitting the flashing 10x tab by mistake.
According to my recent tests all episodes of Candy Crush I have played at score roughly the same number of blues, about 2000 on average over a range of several episodes. The earlier levels seem to give up fewer blues per episode compared to levels 5000 upwards, but they generally play faster. This may be an effort by King to make the event winnable for all players, but the mid range of levels with more human written levels is still better scoring in my experience despite all of King's efforts to slow us down. Experience still seems to matter.
The limit per level is just 1000 blue candies.
King have streamlined the number of blues that can be crushed per minute: So I have found that if you draw out a level, play to finish it quickly or spend gold on extra moves, the number of blues crushed per minute is roughly the same, so all these strategies will achieve a similar outcome. Anyone finding the few relic levels which can still be exploited might find it no longer worthwhile with the new algorithms (fewer cascades and jelly fish finishing levels). King know exactly how many blues you should have been able to score for the number of levels you passed and the time you spent crushing, because all of this is now tightly controlled by the game and easy for the computers to calculate from player data. I therefore expect that any outliers will either get automatically eliminated during the event or at final vetting.
Good luck everyone!
*Obviously as the multiplier tokens are a new feature none of us have experienced them in All Stars, so it is my best guess.
