Tournament Format

• Double Elimination
• All Matches : Bo3 (Best of 3)
• Top 4 Cut Matches : Bo5 (Best of 5)

Character Select Rules

!PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK YOUR CONTROLS BEFORE PLAYING!

• No Pick and Ban rulings = players are allowed to select the same character.
• Round 1: Both players may either opt for a quick blind character pick or choose to RPS(Rock Paper Scissors) for character order pick, RPS loser would have to pick a character first. Stage can be declared by the winner of the RPS or opt to a gentleman's agreement by both players to any stage.
• Rounds 2 and up : Winner of the previous round has to pick their character first, loser then is able to pick their character next. Stage can be declared by the loser or opt to a gentleman's agreement by both players to any stage.

General/Universal Tournament Rules

Controllers and Accessories

• ALL events will be BYOC(Bring your own Controller). Specifics on bringing keyboards below.
• ALL controllers must be connected via USB(or a personal USB adapter) for tournament play.
• Wireless Controller players are encouraged to use their own adapters as we will not be supporting connecting wireless controllers via Bluetooth on PC stations. We are not responsible for any wireless interference the game hall has on your adapter/controllers.
• Various setups will have Lossless Adapters by Input Integrity and Mayflash Gamecube Controller adapters hooked up to them for use with the Touhou Rivals Workshop bracket and the Touhou Fractured Transience bracket. The Mayflash adapters will be set to be overclocked on these PCs.
• Lending Controllers/Adapters : If players do not have a controller available or don't have an adapter compatible with their controller on hand, we have various available lend controllers and Magic-NS adapters on site. We will require a form of valid government ID to temporarily possess while the controller/adapter is lent to the attendee/player.

Ruling on Keyboards - 2026 Edition

• For TouhouFest 2026, we're approaching Keyboard play a similarly to 2025, but with a specific twist to keyboard vs keyboard. Native Keyboard controls will be allowed. In the event of a Keyboard vs Keyboard scenario, there will, AS OF 2026, be a preset VMware virtual machine setup shortcut within the MiniPC setups to allow for dedicating a second keyboard to said virtual machine, and players will be asked to launch the game they are going to play against one another in said virtual machine to allow for LAN play between both players. Instructions for making Netplay function between the two instances of the game will be printed on paper for tournament use. The tl;dr instructions are: launch virtual machine shortcut, set a usb keyboard to VM, load game in VM, launch game in main miniPC host, connect netplay on both game instances, adjust visuals so that the main host game is present on screen for both players, start playing! If both players don't have their own keyboard, a supplementary one will be provided if not already present.
• Limited Keyboard Event Support : Only select games are supported for this LAN setup. We will not be able to support keyboard use for a couple of games on our lineup due to software limitations + lack of LAN features. Players found disregarding this rule for the 2 non-supported games will be advised to swap to controllers as we will not moderate who gets Keyboard priority.
  • List of supported LAN Keyboard VS Keyboard Events
    • Touhou 9 PoFV
    • Touhou 12.3 Hisoutensoku (Soku2)
    • Touhou 15.5 AoCF
    • Touhou 19 UDoALG
  • List of Events without Keyboard VS Keyboard support
    • Touhou Rivals
    • Touhou Fractured Transience
• We encourage players who still wish to use keyboard on non supported games to look for 3rd party adapters of their choosing available on the market as a workaround so that the Keyboard would be detected as a controller with their prefered control scheme -> keybinds.
• Additionally, we also have these mini box style controllers with keys as buttons as well to lend out as an option https://haute42.com/haute-board-mini/. We are looking into having Keyboard to Controller adapters onsite as well but keybinds may be limited to default controls for the 2 non supported games.

Controller/Adapter Legality

• Controllers and or adapters that feature turbo functionality and micro recorded inputs will not be allowed to make use of said features. If a player is caught maliciously using either of these features, they will be disqualified from either the game, set, or event at a TO’s notice. Players are allowed to use the controllers with caution of not using said features.
• Other controller/adapter features like button remapping and JD switching are allowed. Analogue to digital functionality on triggers and joysticks are also allowed.