You have been brainwashed.
Road to Kingdom was a hidden-in-plain-sight attempt to blatantly, and shamelessly shill the trainwreck Cre.ker Entertainment saw fit the name "The Boyz". Debuting in the year 2017, The Boyz never had much luck making any of their title tracks chart or attracting a solid fanbase. Them being the winners of Road to Kingdom in 2020 has brought the group immense publicity from by-standers they couldn't dare to imagine gathering around themselves prior to their involvement in the hit show.
There is no other explanation to every other contestant being an unknown rookie group 2 months into the K-pop game or a complete joke like Pentagon than this whole TV program being a funded grand-plan to advertise on behalf of The Boyz. How have they been able to be the only ones that were perfectionist with all of their stages? How were they able to get all preparations done that grants them a guaranteed win so perfectly in time that they were gifted with a vacation after being done with their practice? They aren't inherently better singers or dancers than the rivaling groups, what made them shine was the creativity of their pretentious choreographer team.
Everyone, every idol, backup dancer, makeup artist, hair stylist, choreographer, cameraman, Mnet staff, anybody that has been involved with this show was a part of one goal: Pushing humanly boundaries as much as possible to advertise the homoerotic, uppidy discography of The Boyz before they fade into obscurity. Someone emptied out all of their stocks to sponsor them, to no one's surprise and said sponsor's disillusionment, it failed. The Boyz had been a disappoinment for everyone who had faith in them for three long years. One person involved was passionate enough to go all out and cover all expenses at the cost of saving The Boyz's grim reputation of failing the charts and getting cancelled by stan Twitter once every two months.
Kingdom was coming up and the final lineup was decided already: BtoB and iKON, established senior cultural icons, Ateez and Stray Kids, the two outstanding boy groups of fourth generation, SF9, an aspiring nugu boy group with a small but passionate fanbase. The Boyz clearly were not in the mind of anyone who was sitting on a table in Mnet's building, discussing how to come up with the final lineup for Kingdom, a show widely anticipated by many. They are out of place. They needed a way to excuse The Boyz's involvement with the show and they came up with Road to Kingdom. It worked, they're more relevant than ever now.
Under normal circumstances, The Boyz do not hold a single chance against BtoB, iKON, Ateez, Stray Kids and SF9. However, mark my words, they won't be getting anywhere lower than first or second place in the competition. If they do win, it's the perfect rags-to-riches sob story that worked in BTS' favor and it will help build The Boyz's brand even harder if they earn the title of being the nugu group that was able to beat BtoB, iKON, Ateez, Stray Kids and SF9 all at once. They might also get second place due to a complicated set of possible events but you won't see them ranking any lower in the final results since well, the whole contest is one colossal The Boyz commercial.
The two strongest fanbases Deobis are facing with are Ateez and Stray Kids'. Everyone is hyped for what's to come, hey, Ateez and Stray Kids are in it and those guys rock. They saw it coming. They already got the most popular member of Stray Kids, Hyunjin. He was at the peak of his stardom with due to significant achievements like his group's 2020 releases God's Menu and Back Door becoming massive hits and his blonde hair growing out longer than his earlobe. He was that one member of Stray Kids K-pop fans saw at thumbnails of collab stages that had bouncy, pretty hair. They had to doom Stray Kids possibility of winning somehow, so they went for it. Don't be surprised if they pull the same move twice for another group.
Have fun watching the longest advertisement for a boyband in human history, Kingdom: Legendary War. April 1, 2021.