RTK2 | moonbounce

road to kingdom

Road to Kingdom is a spin-off from MNet's successful series Queendom, which gave the winner (Mamamoo) a big comeback concert (still to happen).

On RTK smaller groups (that didn't get their first win, are still rookies or are underrated) will be given the chance to compete for a spot on the Kingdom series that is going happen later on this year, featuring more famous names (none of them are confirmed yet).

The show consists of four rounds, each round will have different themes and the winners will receive more points.

In contrast to Queendom, where the competition progressed in a friendly environment, this time Mnet is pushing the teams to compete fiercely, as two teams will be eliminated while the show progresses.

Unlike Queendom, where international fans had no chance to vote, Road To Kingdom will allow international fans to help as well, as all Youtube and Naver views count.

The team with the highest views combined will be receiving 15.000 points.

The main rules of the show are explained in this video.

And, this time, the show also has an elimination system: the two teams placing last on the votings for the second and third rounds will be automatically out of the competition.

The remaining five teams will be able to perform on the next round without being eliminated regardless of the placement.

As expected, the final round will consist of the performances for the original songs, released as digital singles, that are specifically for the show.

There are TWO chances of gaining a place on Kingdom: Ranking No.1 overall with points AND if the winner in points is not the same group placing No.1 on votes for the last performance that can allow the winner of the best stage performance to also go to Kingdom.

Episodes progress:

Episode 0 (or Episode 1 as Mnet does not decide on how to call it properly) was aired on April 20, 2020.

The episode consists of the teams' entrance and a '90 seconds' performance intro, where they aimed to show their team's color to the other contestants and the show's audience.

The winner of the first round, The Boyz, was chosen by the other teams: they had to cast votes for performances, from 1st to 6th, excluding their team.

The Boyz, as the winning team, had the chance to choose Round 1's order of performers.

Round 1's theme is "Song of King", where each team has the chance to choose one song that represents what they think of/about the "King", in a sense of who they think is the "King" or what they aim to be as a team.

The first batch of performances aired on May 07, 2020.

Teams performing in the first half of Round 1 were:

Oneus, covering H.O.T's "Warrior's Descendant".
TOO, covering TVXQ's "Rising Sun".
VeriVery, covering Seventeen's "Mansae".
Golden Child, covering Shinhwa's "T.O.P".
ONF, covering SHINee's "Everybody".

The second half of performances for Round 1 (The Boyz and Pentagon) aired on May 14, 2020. Plus, the first performance for Round 2 by Pentagon (which also was their last stage with Jinho and made everyone emotive).

The Boyz, covering Taemin's "Danger".
Pentagon, covering Block B's "Very Good".

For Round 2 the theme was "My Song", where they had the chance to make new versions of a song that they chose as the song that represents them better.

Round 2 performance on that episode:

Pentagon "Shine + Spring Snow".

Out of Pentagon, all other performances aired on May 21, 2020.

ONF "The We Must Love" ("We Must Love + Moscow, Moscow")
Golden Child "Wannabe Sampling Version (Paganini 24 Caprices No. 24 In A Minor Op.1).
The Boyz "Reveal (Catching Fire)".
Oneus "LIT".
Verivery "Photo".
TOO "Magnolia".

On May 28, 2020, they revealed the ranking for the previous round and the first eliminated group was Golden Child. And introduced Round 3: a collaboration stage between two groups (resulting in 3 collaboration performances) and they would cover a song previously chosen by their teammate group.

In that same episode, the first collaboration performance was shown: Verivery X TOO's "On".

All other performances aired on June 4, 2020. List of songs:

Verivery X TOO, covered BTS' "On", Verivery performed Mamamoo's "GogoBebe" and TOO performed GOT7's "Hard Carry".
Pentagon X ONF, covered Black Pink's "Kill This Love", Pentagon performed Monsta X's "Follow" and ONF performed Rain's "It's Raining".
Oneus X The Boyz, covered Sunmi's "Heroine", Oneus performed Infinite's "Be Mine" and The Boyz performed VIXX's "Shangri-la".

The ranking for the previous round and the second group eliminated were revealed on the episode airing on June 11, 2020. The eliminated group was TOO.

The next and final round will be the release of the Original Digital Song for a "comeback" when all groups release a new song simultaneously.

Songs: