The DrMC (Dr. Mario Championship) is extremely happy to return to the Midwest Gaming Classic for the DrMC Midwest Regional. The Dr. Mario competitive scene is in its tenth year, and we are extremely proud to host a regional tournament at one of the premiere retro gaming conventions in the country.
Competitive Dr. Mario is played on the NES/Famicom edition of the game. Early rounds will be played at Level 11/MED speed, and later rounds will be played at Level 14/HI speed. The tournament format will be a double elimination bracket. However, due to the possibility of single DrM matches lasting over thirty minutes, to ensure the tournament can be completed within our time constraints, this format will be modified.
Registration for the tournament is $10 and will be open between 10am and 11am on Sunday, April 26th. The tournament will begin at noon. Veteran DrM players will be seeded in this regional bracket based on their final place result at the 2025 DrMC Championship. Players new to the DrM competitive scene will be played randomly in the remaining slots.
In the “winner’s” bracket, players will compete in a traditional best-3-games-out-of-five match. To keep terminology consistent, the term “crown” will be used to substitute game, as Dr. Mario displays crowns to display the win count in the game display. Winning players in the “winner’s” bracket will advance in the bracket, losing players will be moved to the “loser’s” bracket.
In the interest of saving time, the loser’s bracket will consist of a sudden-death single crown match played at the same Level and Speed used by the current settings in the “winner’s” bracket. Both brackets will continue to advance in a traditional style until the winners of both brackets will play each other in the Grand Finals.
In a traditional Grand Finals, the winner of the “loser’s” bracket must win a full match to produce a Bracket Reset, and force a true final match. Due to time constraints, the disadvantage of the “loser’s” bracket finalist will be modified. The Grand Finals will only be a single match, but rather than a traditional DrM best-of-five-crown match, the “loser’s” bracket Grand Finalist will need to win four crowns before the “winner’s” bracket winner reaches three crowns.
The winner of the DrMC Midwest regional will get free admission to the 2026 DrMC Grand Championship, a slot in the 2026 DrMC Immunity Qualifying pool, and a cash prize.
The DrMC will provide NES controllers for players who do not have their own controller. Players may only use non-modified original NES controllers or reasonable non-modified clones. In the event of an unforeseen circumstance, DrMC tournament organizers reserve the right to make reasonable changes to any of these rules the day of the event.
