In the preview episode, the viewers were introduced to all the contestants and were also presented with a ranking system. As soon as the contestants entered the show stage, they were already allocated to different tiers, which were ranked based on music show wins and album performance results.
The scoring for each female idol was structured so that two equal factors influenced it. Specifically, 50% of their score derived from the number of times they achieved a number 1 ranking on a music program. Simultaneously, the remaining 50% of the score was based on their total first-week album sales.
Korean netizens were baffled after the preview episode aired because the girls were placed in four different tiers during public broadcasting even before the official competition began.
Netizens commented,
"This is too much"
"Tiers? This is crossing the line"
"This is so unfair"
"I never thought they would rank them in tiers"
"This is so crazy"
"How can they bring in tiers?"
"Hul~"
"Is Mnet crazy?"
"That makes no sense that they would rank them that way"
"Need to boycott Mnet for sure"
"Mnet shows always have controversy"
"The standard they ranked them is weird too"
"This broadcast is so good at causing drama"
'It seems meaningless to rank them this way"
