University War (Korean: 대학전쟁; RR: Daehakjeonjaeng) also known as Elite League is a South Korean reality game show where students from prestigious universities in South Korea and abroad battle to solve brain quizzes. The first season premiered on November 3, 2023 on Coupang Play. The second season scheduled to air in the second half of 2024.

Concept

The main concept of this television series features student representatives from several universities in South Korea. This event will test participants' abilities in mathematics, deduction and memorization which are packaged in the form of challenges. The participants perform missions of unprecedented difficulty, including mental arithmetic and arithmetic, reasoning and games, and superhuman memorization, and fight against each other without politics, betrayal, alliances, or deception, using only their brains and risking everything.

There are 5 teams with 4 students each representing various university. They will compete against each other in various rounds and questions to test their intelligence. The players are selected from among students at Seoul National University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Yonsei University, and Korea University through a rigorous pre-test. In the second round after a team got eliminated, Korean or American-Korean students from Harvard University joined the show. In other words, there are actually a total of 6 participating teams and 24 participants.

The full rules of the game are not announced in advance. In other words, after the first round, participants can know the full rules. This reality show applies the concept of elimination for any team that cannot complete the challenge and provide the correct answer. The introductory image of the eliminated team is shredded just before exit.

One round of college wars consists of an ace selection match, an ace match, a main match, and a death match.

• Ace selection competition: Players from all surviving teams participate, and one person per team is selected as the ace (representative) on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Ace Match: The top player in the selection match nominates one of the other team's aces to play a 1:1 game. The winning team will receive main match benefits. Benefit information is revealed after the explanation of the main match rules.
• Main Match: Players from all surviving teams participate, and all teams except the bottom two survive and advance to the next round.
• Death Match: The bottom two teams in the main match play.

The winning team advances to the next round, and the losing team becomes the final eliminated team of that round. The finals will consist of a total of three main matches, and the team that wins two rounds first will be the winner. The final winning university team will be provided with a scholarship of 10 million won per person, for a total of 40 million won.

Contestant

Episodes

Episode List

Game Summary

Elimination Chart

Brain Games

Ace Selection

Day 1: Electronic Brain

Day 2: Perfect Number

Day 3: Birth Date

Day 4: Trail of Dice

Ace Match

Day 1: Primary Number Check

Day 2: Balance Game

Day 3: Blind Omok

Day 4: Relay Match

Main Matches

Day 1: 300

Day 2: Investigation Signal

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Game Result

Day 3: Silent Human Chess

Day 4: Find Me

Day 5: Final

Round 1: Formula Safe

Round 2: Exit Strategy

Progress Result

Round 3: Find Hidden Patterns

Progress Result

Death Match

Day 1: Formula Archery

Day 2: Pixel Number

Day 3: Match & Mix

Day 4: Rotation! Rock Paper Scissors

Progress Result

Game Progress

Notes

References

External links

• University War on Coupang Play
• University War on YouTube