> I got really busy this past weekend and didn't play for two whole rounds (Prelim. Rounds 6 and 7), and still, entering ER1, am on the better half of the curve (64 was the cutoff, higher ranking than 32).
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> I also noticed that there are some people who have 0 wins and still survived the Qualifying round into ER1. Is this unusual, or have I not just being paying attention.

It's a function of how many people registered. With only 72 people, the cut to the next power of two only eliminates 8 people. If you have a field of say, 100, most of the winless players would be in the 36 players that would be cut. With only 72 this time, a lot of the winless players stay in.

Also, with such a small field, you can miss a few days and not fall but so far. There's that cushion of people that don't update their teams, or just don't know what's going on to fall back on.