2025 National YoYo Contest Freestyle Qualification
1A Division Qualification:
The 2025 National Yo-Yo Contest is open to all competitors. There is a three round qualifying structure to make it to finals for 1A, and two round qualifying structure for 2A-5A. The top eligible competitor from 2025 National Yo-Yo League Contests (PNWR, NER, MWR) and the 2024 National Champions earn a seed directly into the finals.
All other players interested in competing for the title of National Champion must be US Citizens, or full-time residents of the United States. Depending on their placement at the 2025 National Yo-Yo League Contests, they will start in either the preliminary or semi-final round, and work their way through the rounds below.
Non-US citizens are welcome to compete but will be scored separately in an International Open division.
Below is a quick summary of how to advance to the finals, for greater details, please see the Round Structure page.
Round 1 – Preliminaries: 60 seconds
- Open to all competitors.
Round 2 – Semi-finals: 90 seconds
- Anyone who has placed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th at a major qualifying event (PNWR, NER, and MWR) is automatically entered into this division. In the case of an international player taking a top 5 placement the next eligible placement will be taken.
- Top 20 players from preliminaries advance to the semi-finals.
Round 3 – Finals: 3 minutes
- Finals will consist of 15 players in total.
- The following players below will be seeded into the finals. The remaining finalists will be determined by the semi-finals until there are 15 players in total competing.
2025 1A seeds by event:
- 2024 National YoYo Champion – Justin Dauer
- Pacific Northwest Regional Contest Champion – Hunter Feuerstein
- Northeast Regional Contest Champion – James Heder
- Midwest Regional Contest Champion – TBD
*Champions of the events are determined by placement of all residents in the USA. The highest placing USA resident in each major qualifier (regional) event receives the seed. Multiple seeds can be won by the same player.
X Division Qualification (2A, 3A, 4A, 5A):
The 2025 National Yo-Yo Contest is open to all competitors. There is a two round qualifying structure to make it to finals. The top eligible X-Division competitor from 2025 National Yo-Yo League Contests (PNWR, NER, MWR) and the 2024 National Champions earn a seed directly into the finals.
Everyone else – 1 minute prelim
Round 1 – Preliminaries: 60 seconds
- Open to all competitors.
Round 2 – Finals: 3 minutes
- Finals will consist of 6 players in total per division.
- Players must have a minimum of 40 points in the prelim round in 2A, 3A, 4A, or 5A to qualify to the finals.
2025 X Division Seeds by event:
- 2024 National YoYo Champions
- 2A – Matt Szeto
- 3A – Alex Hattori
- 4A – Philip White
- 5A – John Wolfe
- Pacific Northwest Regional Contest Champion – Matt Szeto (2A)
- Northeast Regional Contest Champion – Drew Buscemi (4A)
- Midwest Regional Contest Champion – TBD
*Champions of the events are determined by placement of all residents in the USA. The highest placing USA resident in each major qualifier (regional) event receives the seed. Multiple seeds can be won by the same player.