Ladder League is a tournament format designed for consistent, high octane matches. Each week, all rungs of the ladder will play 1 match. In rung 1, the winner will qualify for Top 8 with their respective Seed (Seed 1 for Week 1's winner). Second place in this match will remain in the rung, and the loser will move down to the lower rung. In the bottom rung, only the winner will move on, while the two losers will be eliminated. In every other rung, the top two finishers will move up while the loser moves down.
Ladder League will begin by seeding the top 15 runners into the top 5 rungs of the bracket in Week 1. The remaining competitors with times under 2:45 will take part in 2 Last Chance Qualifier races, or "LCQs." The top 3 finishers of the first LCQ will qualify to Rung 6, and the top 3 finishers of the second to Rung 7. From there, the ladder will begin.
The Ladder stage will qualify 7 of the 8 playoff participants. The 8th seed will be decided through a wildcard match between the non-qualified runner with the fastest single run in the ladder stage and the non-qualified runner with the best average time across the entire ladder stage. The winner of this match earns the 8th seed in playoffs. If one runner has both the best single time and best average of the remaining runners, the runner with the second best average will join them in the wildcard match.
To reward first place finishes in the middle rungs and enable more mobility for runners in the ladder, the leapfrog mechanic allows any runner below rung 2 to move up 2 rungs at once. If the winner of a rung has a time faster than that of the second place finisher in the rung above them, they will move up 2 rungs, while the runner above will remain in their rung.
The final Top 8 bracket will be a single-elimination playoffs bracket hosted in person. The matchups will use typical seeding: Seed 1 vs Seed 8, Seed 2 vs Seed 7, and so on. The final day will consist of a third place match followed by the Grand Finals, where the Ladder League Season 3 champion will be crowned.