Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2017

Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2017, titled the Puzzleball Championships, was the first iteration of the Galactic Puzzle Hunt, run by ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈. Unlike later hunts in the series, puzzles were released in batches of five every day, rather than unlocked through team-specific progression. This format was inspired by earlier online hunts at the time, namely the MUMS Puzzle Hunt, SUMS Puzzle Hunt, and CiSRA Puzzle Hunt. Teams that solved each puzzle within 24 hours would not have any tiebreaker penalty. As such, the winning team Duck Soup was the fastest team to complete the hunt among this group, although Test Solution, Please Ignore solved the final metapuzzle earlier at 4:17PM Pacific.

Plot
The hunt is themed after the Puzzleball Championships (which are loosely inspired by the or March Madness, which also began on March 14 that year), where the goal is to be able to fill out the final bracket. Each of the puzzles in the first five days represents a team and their secret strategies. On the sixth day, it is revealed that the 25 teams have organized themselves into three different conferences, and 9 of the 25 teams were disqualified for some reason. By solving the metapuzzles released on the sixth day, hunt teams are able to determine this information and fill out the final bracket.